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

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My book with Professor Tolkien—any book in collaboration with that great but dilatory and unmethodical man—is dated, I fear, to appear on the Greek Kalends!²⁴

      I don’t quite know about those American veterans. Nearly all the books we shd. want to send are published in U.S.A. and there is a bad book famine in England.

      Term begins on Sat. and there is a cruel mail today, so I am suffering incessant temptation to uncharitable thoughts at present: one of those black moods in which nearly all one’s friends seem to be selfish or even false. And how terrible that there shd. be even a kind of pleasure in thinking evil. A ‘mixed pleasure’ as Plato wd. say, like scratching?

      Yours sincerely

      C. S. Lewis

      

      Britain had been so weakened by the effects of the Second World War (1939-1945) that, despite American assistance, rationing was still in effect when Queen Elizabeth II came to the throne in 1952. Clothes rationing ended in 1949, but food continued to be rationed until 1954. For this reason many of Lewis’s friends in the United States, such as Edward A. Allen, were still sending him food parcels.

TO EDWARD A. ALLEN (W):²⁵ TS

      REF.50/19.

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. 24th January 1950.

      My dear Mr. Allen,

This is something like a New Year’s greeting! And I am most grateful to you for it. I had to look closely at the label to make sure that the gift was from you, for we are so bemused at the moment with high pressure election literature that I thought it might be from our own Mr. Strachey.²⁶ I don’t know whether it has appeared in your Press, but he has opened the government campaign here by saying how grateful he is to the public for their thanks for the ‘best Christmas in living memory’. The odd thing is that I can’t find anyone who told him that this was how we felt about the extra ounce of bacon or whatever it was that he gave us!

      I hope your mother keeps well, and you also. Thanks to the photos you sent me. I picture you both always on a sea beach. But presumably you are now travelling on snow shoes.

      With all best wishes and thanks

      Yours sincerely,

      C. S. Lewis

      

TO VERA MATHEWS (W):²⁷ TS

      RER50/81.

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. 30th January 1950.

      Dear Miss Mathews,

      I was very sorry to hear about the miserable fiasco of your New York holiday. ‘Flu itself I don’t mind so much, especially in its later stages when the temperature has gone down, but the getting back to normality afterwards is beastly. I hope that by this time you are over the ‘wet rag’ stage, and feeling yourself once more.

      Need I say how much we look forward to the parcel which you so kindly promise? It sounds most exciting, and will be very welcome: because, whether it blows fair and warm politically or not, it is anything but fair and warm in the literal sense. I suspect that in California you are exempt from such a day as we are having here—frost, followed by rain, followed by frost—every side walk converted by delighted small boys into an improvised skating rink—splendid opportunities of giving the passers by a good laugh every time you venture out!

      With all best wishes for your health, and many thanks,

      Yours sincerely,

      C. S. Lewis

      

TO EDWARD T. DELL (P):²⁸ TS

      REF.50/79

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. 30th January 1950.

      Dear Mr. Dell,

I think we mean very nearly the same.²⁹ Evil is certainly not a ‘Thing’. But many states of affairs, or relations between things, are regrettable, ought not to have occurred, and ought to be removed. And ‘Evil’ is an elliptical symbol for this fact.

      Yours sincerely,

      C. S. Lewis

      

TO SISTER MARYROSE (L): ³⁰

      [January 1950]

      I am sorry if I misunderstood your letter: and I think that you misunderstood mine. What I meant was that if I replied to your original question (why I am not a member of the Roman Church) I shd. have to write a v. long letter. It would of course be answerable: and your answer would be answerable by me…and so on. The resulting correspondence would certainly not, of course, be in excess of the importance of the subject: but haven’t you and I both probably more pressing duties? For a real correspondence on such a subject wd. be nearly a wholetime job. I thought we cd. both discuss the matter more usefully with people nearer at hand. Even the two letters which we have exchanged have already revealed the pitfalls of argument by letter. With all good wishes.

      

TO NICOLAS ZERNOV(BOD): ³¹

      [Magdalen College]

      3/2/50

      Dear Zernov

Your news is a great shock to me. I will write to Spalding.³² It was a great pleasure to meet your wife the other night and altogether a splendid evening, as yours always are. Cd. you come & dine with me on Thurs. March 9? Do.

      Yours

      C.S.L.

      

TO MRS FRANK L. JONES (W):³³ TS

      REE 50/18.

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. 7th February 1950.

      My dear Mrs. Jones,

      Many СКАЧАТЬ