Collected Letters Volume Three: Narnia, Cambridge and Joy 1950–1963. Walter Hooper

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СКАЧАТЬ don’t wonder that you got fogged in Pilgrim’s Regress. It was my first religious book and I didn’t then know how to make things easy. I was not even trying to very much, because in those days I never dreamed I would become a ‘popular’ author and hoped for no readers outside a small ‘highbrow’ circle. Don’t waste your time over it any more. The poetry is my own…We all feel ashamed of receiving so much from you and are not even sure-now-whether our scarcities are any worse than your high prices. Don’t you think you ought to stop?…

       TO MARG’RIETTE MONTGOMERY (W): TS

      REF.65/53.

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. 21st January 1953

      Dear Miss Montgomery,

This is a splendid poem of Edna Millay’s and the last two lines put the whole of one’s experience in a nut-shell.²¹ You were right not to send me the R.S.²² books: I have several Anthroposophical friends here who would readily supply me with all his works. And by the way, the point about a musician is surely her music, not her advice about reading! Keep your independence.

      All good wishes.

      Yours sincerely,

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO NELL BERKERS’PRICE (W): TS

      REE67/53.

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. 21st January 1953.

      Dear Nell,

      Your letter is tantalisingly cryptic, but as I have to go to Holloway next Sunday, no doubt I shall see for myself!

      Love to all.

      Yours,

      Jack

      

       TO CHAD WALSH (W): TS

      RER73/53.

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. 24th January 1953.

      Dear Chad,

I wonder if I may trouble you to do me a service? You will already guess what it is when you have read the enclosed note, which was an answer to Revd. Iones B. Shannon,²³ who kindly invited me to lecture at his College. The only address he gave was:–

      St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church,

       State College, Pennsylvania

      and the U.S. mail has returned the letter, stamped ‘No Post Office named’. You presumably have his full address, and I would take it kindly if you would send my note to him. Thank you.

Joy Gresham left here on the first of the month for New York; and I think really enjoyed her English adventures. She visited Oxford twice, and I saw quite a lot of her. She certainly got well off the beaten tourist track, her adventures including attendance at a wedding in the East End of London, where she and the other guests were invited to spend the night on the kitchen floor. It was pleasant news that she is about to join the church, and will shortly be confirmed.²⁴

      How goes it with you? We got a little news of you from Joy, but would have liked more.

      With all blessings,

      yours, lack Lewis

       TO SARAH NEYIAN (T): PC

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. Ian 26/53

Thanks for most interesting letter and congratulations on the good time you seem to be having. lust as you are going back to old experiences in liking parties again, so I am by pulling out one of my teeth with fingers the other day, wh. I can’t have done for many a year!*

I liked Mrs. Masham’s Repose²⁵ far the best of White’s books myself. Our Christmas was conditioned by having a visitor for nearly 3 weeks: very nice one but one can’t feel quite free. Love to all.

      Yours

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO MARY VAN DEUSEN (W):

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. Jan. 26th 1953

      Dear Mrs. Van Deusen

Thank you for your letter of the 17th and the wholly delightful photographs. I am glad things are still Fine. I’ve never thought of becoming an Associate of anything myself and feel difficulty about advising. You mention externals–what Associates have to do and that they have asked you to become one–but say nothing about the motives in your own mind either for or against it.²⁶ They are the real point, aren’t they? I don’t think one ought to join an Order, however much one might like it or however nice the people who have asked you-unless one thinks that God especially presses one to do so as the only, or the best, way of doing some good to others or receiving some good oneself. And if one does think that, then I suppose one must join however much one disliked it & however nasty the particular inviters were! It is not as if it were a club! Why not try living according to their Rule for a bit without joining them and seeing what it is like for a person such as you in circumstances such as yours?

      Confession, of course, you can have without joining anything. I think it is a good thing for most of us and use it myself.

      That is v. good news about really good people beginning to go into government jobs, and at a sacrifice. I have always thought of how that the greatest of all dangers to your country is the fear that politics were not in the hands of your best types and that this, in the long run, might prove ruinous. A change in that, the beginning of what might be called a volunteer aristocracy, might have incalculable effects. More power to your myriad elbows!

M. James is wrong.²⁷ It is my brother, not I, who is or was a vestryman.²⁸

      With love to all.

      Yours sincerely

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO EDWARD A. ALLEN (W): TS

      REF.53/53.

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. СКАЧАТЬ