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

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СКАЧАТЬ was published by Geoffrey Bles of London on 16 October 1950.

TO HARRY BLAMIRES (BOD):¹⁶⁹ TS

      REF.50/362.

      Magdalen College

      Oxford. 18th October 1950.

      Dear Blamires,

I wanted nothing altered except the things I noted: certainly I did not want what I should call a ‘re-writing’.¹⁷⁰ But that is such a vague word, and we can only guess what it covers in Bles’s mind. I should advise you (if you are going to pursue the Bles avenue instead of trying another publisher) to make exactly the corrections you think proper–no more and no less—and then re-submit it. He will probably (entr nous)¹⁷¹ not remember the original text well enough to know how drastic the changes are! I can’t advise about other publishers: you’d know better than I. I hope it will find a home: I thought it a useful book.

      In haste, with all good wishes,

      yours,

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO CHAD WALSH (W):

      Magdalen College

      Oxford 20/10/50

      Dear Walsh

      Of course they feel passion about politics but no passion enough for poetry: especially passions that have no commerce with the senses. Sexual passion, you see, has a concrete object before it, and is linked with fundamental impulses.

      The real parallel to much modern political poetry is not religious poetry concerned with God or the Passion or Heaven but merely pious poetry concerned with (ugh!) ‘religion’. The religion of politics is a religion without sacraments: for the human sacrifices wh. it practices are mere murder, not even ritual murder. Wordsworth compensated for the (poetically) ghost-like nature of politics by using a strict form, the sonnet. But that matter, with vers libre as the form, is to me quite unpardonable: a noisy vacuity.

My brother is now quite well, thanks. I’ll note the B.P.J.¹⁷² If you get some verse from me you’ve brought it on yourself: wéan ahsode¹⁷³ All the best.

Yours¹⁷⁴

TO MARY WILLIS SHELBURNE (W): ¹⁷⁵

      Magdalen College

      Oxford 26/10/50

      Dear Mrs. Shelburne–

      Thank you for your most kind and encouraging letter. I should need to be either of angelic humility or diabolical pride not to be pleased at all the things you say about my books. (I think, by the way, you have all the ones that wd. matter to you). May I assure you of my deep sympathy in all the very grievous troubles that you have had. May God continue to support you: that He has done so till now, is apparent from the fact that you are not warped or embittered. I will have you in my prayers. With all good wishes.

      Yours sincerely

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO MARY VAN DEUSEN (W): TS

      REF.50/250.

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. 2nd November 1950.

      Dear Mrs. Van Deusen,

      Many thanks for the post card. What a perfectly lovely place, and how I envy you the enjoyment of it! You may be sure that when (and if) it is ever my good fortune to visit the United States, I shall include the Smoky Mountains in my itinerary: preferably at a time when you are in residence.

      With all good wishes,

      yours sincerely,

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO BELLE ALLEN (WHL):

      Magdalen etc.

      2nd November 1950.

      Dear Mrs. Allen,

…I was deeply interested in your sketch of your life, which certainly did not begin easily. Ours was very different; for there was always plenty of money, on the modest scale of provincial comfort in those far-off days; but we really hadn’t anyone to raise us, and ran wild; like Topsy, we just growed¹⁷⁶…

       TO VERA MATHEWS (W): TS

      REF.50/81

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. 8th November 1950.

      Dear Miss Mathews,

      I think ‘gracious’ is the word I want. There is a graciousness about your continued kindness which quite floors me: the immediate reference being to the excellent parcel posted on 16th. October, which has just arrived, and whose contents will be stored against the literal and metaphorical rainy day which is rapidly drawing nearer. Very many thanks.

      We are all a good deal depressed—and doubtless you are much more so—over the very unpleasant news from Korea. It is horrible to think of the distress of wives and mothers who had thought the fighting over, only to discover that what is virtually a new war has to be faced. And how is it going to end? Of the ultimate end there can of course be no doubt, but I fear there is very little chance now of a decision being reached before the northern winter clamps down on the country. We can but hope and pray for some speedy success.

      Here, we have just recovered from the periodical nuisance of a by-election for parliament: our sitting member having been elevated to the House of Lords, much to the poor man’s disgust, for he is a keen party politician. The Socialist vote is down by three thousand on a poll of some 69,000, and the Conservative was returned with a majority of nearly double that polled by his Conservative predecessor at the General Election. It does not do to take by-elections too seriously, but there is a certain significance about this one, since we are now largely an industrial constituency.

      Winter is beginning with grey sky and north east winds, and I find myself envying you in comfortable California, where I suppose you are still in summer clothes? You should buy yourself an enormous fur coat, fill the pockets with brandy and aspirin, and come over here and see how the poor live, on the fringes of civilization!

      Again many thanks,

      yours sincerely,

      C. S. Lewis

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