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

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СКАЧАТЬ Miss Bodle

Your letter written on Good Friday reached me today. I was a little shocked at first to hear of a child who found The Pilgrims Progress boring:¹³² but then I remembered that the dialogue, of which there is a good deal, does interrupt the story with matter no child cd. be expected to enjoy.

The restraints imposed on you by ‘secular education’ are, no doubt, very galling.¹³³ But I wonder whether secular education will do us all the harm the secularists hope. Secular teachers will. But Christian teachers in secular schools may, I sometimes think, do more good precisely because they are not allowed to give religious instruction in class. At least I think that, as a child, I shd. have been very allured and impressed by the discovery–which must be made when questions are asked–that the teacher believed firmly in a whole mass of things he wasn’t allowed to teach! Let them give us the charm of mystery if they please.

      It was v. nice to hear from you again. All blessings on you and your work.

      Yours sincerely

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO ROGER LANCELYN GREEN (BOD):

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. May 21st 1953

      Dear Roger

A good many disturbances made me postpone reading the new story¹³⁴ and then (for much longer) writing about it. I enjoyed it thoroughly. It is best after they have left the Castle–the night in the cave is the high light of the whole story–but all enjoyable. My brother read it with such gusto that he was moved to go back & read The Luck of the Lynns and then the Lewis Carroll, all with great satisfaction.

      It is a very odd fact that I enjoy a story no more, and perhaps even a little less, for having been at the scene of operations. It certainly isn’t your fault, for I have had the same experience with other authors: but certainly the memory of the real Beaumaris did not help me. I thought the way in which the malapropisms were slightly toned down in this book–appropriately, as the malapropist gets older–was v. skilful.

      I’m not in the best of health at present but perhaps better than I was. The last Narnian story is complete & shall go to you when typed: my present leisure, such as it is, goes mainly on proofs and bibliography for the OHEL volume.

      Love to all of you and many thanks for the book.

      Yours

      Jack

      

       TO MARY WILLIS SHELBURNE (W):

      Magdalen College

      Oxford May 30th 1953

      Dear Mrs. Shelburne

      Thank you for your letter of the 26th. I am particularly glad to hear that you had a ‘fairly pleasant’ talk with your daughter

      Yes, we are always told that the present wide-spread apostasy must be the fault of the clergy, not of the laity. If I were a parson I shd. always try to dwell on the faults of the clergy: being a layman, I think it more wholesome to concentrate on those of the laity. I am rather sick of the modern assumption that, for all events, ‘WE’, the people, are never responsible: it is always our rulers, or ancestors, or parents, or education, or anybody but precious ‘US’, WE are apparently perfect & blameless. Don’t you believe it. Nor do I think the Ch. of England holds out many attractions to the worldly. There is more real poverty, even actual want, in English vicarages than there is in the homes of casual labourers.

I look forward to Martin’s¹³⁵ ‘appreciations’. Yes, we have the word ‘dither’-and the thing too. And our offices are in a dither too. This is so common that I suspect there must be something in the very structure of a modern office which creates Dither. Otherwise why does our ‘College Office’ find full time work for a crowd of people in doing what the President of the College, 100 years ago, did in his spare time without a secretary and without a typewriter? (The more noise, heat, & smell a machine produces the more power is being wasted!)

I’d rather like to see one of your hail storms: our climate is in comparison, v. tame. Have you read S. V. Benét’s Western Stan¹³⁶ Excellent, I think.

      Yours sincerely

      C. S. Lewis

      The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II took place in Westminster Abbey on 2 June 1953.

TO HELEN D. CALKINS (W):¹³⁷

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. June 3rd 1953

      Dear Miss Calkins

Your yesterday’s cable was a gracious and cheering surprise. I can only reply, God bless Miss Calkin: God bless California! The weather was not what one wd. have wished for a Coronation, but it was lovely getting the news about Everest on the same day.¹³⁸ With heartiest good wishes.

      Yours most sincerely

      C. S. Lewis

      

TO HILA NEWMAN (W): ¹³⁹

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. June 3rd 1953

      Dear Hida (is that right) Newman

      Thank you so much for your lovely letter and pictures. I realised at once that the coloured one was not a particular scene but a sort of line-up like what you would have at the very end if it was a play instead of stories. The Dawn Treader is not to be the last: There are to be 4 more, 7 in all. Didn’t you notice that Asian said nothing about Eustace not going back? I thought the best of your pictures was the one of Mr. Tumnus at the bottom of the letter.

      As to Asian’s other name, well I want you to guess. Has there never been anyone in this world who (1.) Arrived at the same time as Father Christmas. (2.) Said he was the son of the Great Emperor. (3.) Gave himself up for someone else’s fault to be jeered at and killed by wicked people. (4.) Came to life again. (5.) Is sometimes spoken of as a Lamb (see the end of the Dawn Treader). Don’t you really know His name in this world. Think it over and let me know your answer!

      Reepicheep in your coloured picture has just the right perky, cheeky expression. I love real mice. There are lots in my rooms in College but I have never set a trap. When I sit up late working they poke their heads out from behind the curtains just as if they were saying, ‘Hi! Time for you to go to bed. We want to come out and play’

      All good wishes,

      Yours СКАЧАТЬ