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

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ in relating shape to weight quite so directly as is commonly done.

      Screwtape as a ‘stunt’ idea (like Swift’s Lilliput and Brobdingnag) is only good for a short use. I never showed more discretion, I believe, than in cutting that book short and never writing a sequel. The very fact that people ask for more proves it was the right length.

      As to the reward for printed work (apart from money) one’s first good reviews are v. sweet-perhaps dangerously so–and fame has one really solid good about it in so far as it makes some strangers approach you with a friendliness they would not have felt otherwise. It may even win you their prayers (as I hope I have yours: you certainly have mine). The rest is all in the order of those things wh. it is painful to miss but not really v. nice to get. (It is painful not to be able to scratch a place in the middle of one’s back, yet scratching doesn’t rank v. high among our pleasures).

      We are both well, thanks and go to Ireland in August. It is on the whole a cold and wet summer here. This last week it has been more like what we usually get in April: alternate sun and showers with high winds. As the man rightly said, ‘All weathers have their own beauty: if only people wd. enjoy that instead of always comparing it with some other weather.’ I hope Charles (and the play) will grow in goodness, intelligence, wit, and kindness.

      All blessings. Love from both.

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO ROGER LANCELYN GREEN (BOD):

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. July 16/53

      My dear Roger

Hail to the young Richard.¹⁵⁷ Give June my warmest love and congratulations.

Look: I think I must abandon the idea of an expedition on my way back from Ireland, for this year. It is becoming clear that I shan’t finish the proofs and horrible bibliography of my OHEL volume before we sail on Aug. 11th. That being so, every day between our return and the beginning of Michaelmas term becomes precious as gold: for if the job once drags on into another term, I don’t know what will become of me. Anyway, the jus trium liberorum¹⁵⁸ will be keeping you pretty busy. Do you know why liberi means both ‘freemen’ & ‘children’? Think it over and see if your historical imagination can solve the problem.

      Yours

      Jack

      

       TO GEORGE SAYER(W):

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. July 17/53

      My dear George

      It is I who shd. be shamed for I wrote asking you both to come & see Comus at Ludlow: but as I sent the letter to an address in U.S.A. you naturally never answered!

      Thanks, George, for your prayers: I never doubted that I had them, as you both have mine. The catarrh phase of the sinus is quite gone: the pain remains, but never at night (which is a great mercy) and for a decreasing number of hours daily. And thanks also for the invitation. But we’ll be in Ireland in Aug. We were hoping you’d come to us for some days after Sept 15. Can this be managed: any time between then and your term?

I’m damned with doing Bibliographies for my OHEL vol. How goes The Isle of the Undead?¹⁵⁹ All love.

      Yours ever

      Jack

      

       TO MRS JOHNSON (W):

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. July 17/53

      Dear Mrs. Johnson

      There are many interesting points in your letter of June 8. I’m v. glad you’ve seen that Christianity is as hard as nails: i.e. hard and tender at the same time. It’s the blend that does it: neither quality wd. be any good without the other. You needn’t worry about not feeling brave. Our Lord didn’t–see the scene in Gethsemane.

How thankful I am that when God became Man He did not choose to become a man of iron nerves: that wd. not have helped weaklings like you and me nearly so much. Especially don’t worry (you may of course pray) about being brave over merely possible evils in the future. In the old battles it was usually the reserve, who had to watch the carnage, not the troops who were in it, whose nerve broke first. Similarly I think you in America feel much more anxiety about atomic bombs than we do: because you are further from the danger. If and when a horror turns up, you will then be given Grace to help you. I don’t think one is usually given it in advance. ‘Give us our daily bread’¹⁶⁰ (not an annuity for life) applies to spiritual gifts too: the little daily support for the daily trial. Life has to be taken day by day & hour by hour.

      The writer you quote (‘in all those turning lights’) was very good at the stage at wh. you met him: now, as is plain, you’ve got beyond him. Poor boob!-he thought his mind was his own! Never his own until he makes it Christ’s: up till then merely a result of heredity, environment, and the state of his digestion. I become my own only when I give myself to Another.

‘Does God seem real to me?’ It varies: just as lots of other things I firmly believe in (my own death, the solar system) feel more or less real at different times. I have dreamed dreams but not seen visions:¹⁶¹ but don’t think all that matters a hoot. And the saints say that visions are unimportant.¹⁶² If Our Lord did seem to appear to you at your prayer (bodily) what, after all, could you do but go on with your prayers? How cd. you know that it was not an hallucination?

      You’ve got the Coronation right too: especially a sacrificial, even a tragic rite. And a symbol: for we (Man) have had laid on us the heavy crown of being lords of this planet, and the same contract between the frail, tiny person–the huge ritual goes for us all.

      Did England, collectively, spend much on it? I shd. have thought most of the money was spent in England, transferred from one pocket to another. (Never forget that these personifications ‘England does this’ ‘America does that’ are only figures of speech: one has to figure out what they really mean).

No, no, I’m not committed to a real belief in Arthur, Merlin etc: all that comes in a story.¹⁶³ I haven’t the faintest idea whether there was a real Grail or not. Of course I believe that people are still healed by faith: whether this has happened in any particular case, one can’t of course say without getting a real-Doctor-who-is-also-a-real-Christian to go through the whole case-history.

      All you say about your little girl is delightful. Bless her and all of you.

      Yours

      C. S. Lewis

       СКАЧАТЬ