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

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СКАЧАТЬ MARY VAN DEUSEN (W):

      Magdalen College

      Oxford 14/9/53

      Dear Mrs. Van Deusen

      I am just back from Donegal (wh. was heavenly) and find as usual a ghastly pile of unanswered letters, so I must be brief. The important idea of a Christian sanatorium is worth a whole letter, but I want to use this one for another subject. I hope you won’t be angry at what I’m going to say–

      I think that idea of Genia’s job being to concentrate on ‘bringing out the best of Eddie’ is really rather dangerous. Wouldn’t you yourself think it sounded–well, to put it bluntly, a bit priggish, if applied to any other couple? It sounds as if the poor chap were somehow infinitely inferior.

      Are you giving full weight to the very raw deal he has had in marrying a girl who has nearly always been ill? Men haven’t got your maternal instinct, you know. To find a patient where one hoped for a helpmeet is much more frustrating for the husband than for the wife. And by all I hear he has come through the test v. well. But if just as she is ceasing to be a patient she were to become the self-appointed Governess or Improver–well, wd. any camel’s back stand that last straw? I don’t think Genia is at present inclined (or not much) to start ‘educating’ her husband. I am sure you will take care not to influence her in that direction. Because, really, you know, it wd. be so easy, without in the least intending it, to glide into the rôle (I shudder to write it) of the traditional home-breaking mother-in-law. All those old jokes have something behind them.

      I do hope I haven’t made you an enemy for life. If I have taken too great a liberty, you have rather lured me into it. And I did feel signs of danger. And don’t you think in general that a girl who has a faithful, kind, sober husband (there are so many of the other kind) whom she has promised to love, honour, & obey, had better just get on with the job? Do forgive me if I misunderstand and put the point too crudely. At any rate, my prayers will not cease.

      Yours

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO PHYLLIDA (W):

      Magdalen College

      Oxford 14th Sept 1953

      Dear Phyllida

      Although your letter was written a month ago I only got it today, for I have been away in Donegal (which is glorious). Thanks v. much: it is so interesting to hear exactly what people do like and don’t like, which is just what grown-up readers never really tell.

Now about Kids. I also hate the word. But if you mean the place in P. Caspian chap 8, the point is that Edmund hated it too.¹⁸² He was using the rottenest word just because it was the rottenest word, running himself down as much as possible, because he was making a fool of the Dwarf–as you might say ‘Of course I can only strum when you really knew you could play the piano quite as well as the other person. But if I have used Kids anywhere else (I hope I haven’t) then I’m sorry: you are quite right in objecting to it. And you are also right about the party turned into stone in the woods. I thought people would take it for granted that Asian would put it all right. But I see now I should have said so.

      By the way, do you think the Dark Island is too frightening for small children? Did it give your brother the horrors? I was nervous about that, but I left it in because I thought one can never be sure what will or will not frighten people.

There are to be 7 Narnian stories altogether. I am sorry they are so dear: it is the publisher, not me, who fixes the price. Here is the new one.¹⁸³

      As I say, I think you are right about the other points but I feel sure I’m right to make them grow up in Narnia. Of course they will grow up in this world too. You’ll see. You see, I don’t think age matters so much as people think. Parts of me are still 12 and I think other parts were already 50 when I was 12: so I don’t feel it v. odd that they grow up in Narnia while they are children in England.

      Yours sincerely

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO RHONA BODLE (BOD):

      Magdalen College

      Oxford 14/9/53

      Dear Miss Boddle

      I have had ‘Miss Boddle’s colleague’ in my daily prayers for a long time now: is that the same young man you mention in your letter of July 3rd, or do I now say ‘colleagues’? Yes: don’t bother him with my books if an aunt (it somehow would be an aunt-tho’ I must add that most of my aunts were delightful) has been ramming them down his throat.

You know, P. Progress is not, I find (to my surprise) everyone’s book. I know several people who are both Christians and lovers of literature who can’t bear it. I doubt if they were made to read it as children. Indeed, I rather wonder whether that ‘being made to read it’ has spoiled so many books as is supposed. I suspect that all the people who tell me they were ‘put off Scott by having Ivanhoe¹⁸⁴ as a holiday task are people who wd. never have liked Scott anyway.

I don’t believe anything will keep the right reader & the right book apart. But our literary loves are as diverse as our human! You couldn’t make me like Henry James or dislike Jane Austen whatever you did. By the bye did Chesterton’s Everlasting Man (I’m sure I advised you to read it) succeed or fail with you?¹⁸⁵ And how wd. it be likely to succeed with D. Dale?

      All blessings.

      Yours sincerely

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO ROGER LANCELYN GREEN (BOD):

      Magdalen College

      Oxford 15/9/53

Just back from Donegal (wh. was as near heaven as you can get in Thulcandra)¹⁸⁶ and of course piles of letters to plough through. Thanks v. much indeed for the revised T. of T¹⁸⁷ and the nice things you say about me.

      Here’s the latest Narnian book. Love to all.

      J.

      

       TO DON GIOVANNI CALABRIA (V):

      Magdalen College

      Oxford XV. Sept. MCMLIII

      Pater dilectissime

      Gratias ago pro epístola tua, data iii Sept., necnon pro exemplari libri cui nomen Instaurare Omnia in Christo.

      De statu morali nostri temporis (cum me jusseris garrire) haec sentio. Seniores, ut nos ambo sumus, СКАЧАТЬ