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

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       TO ARTHUR G REEVE S (W):

      Magdalen

      20/9/52

      My dear Arthur

No, please don’t send H.J.’s Letters.¹⁸⁰ The idea of your returning a present was applicable only on the assumption that it was useless to you. And anyway, if they’re not much about the books, they wd. be useless to me.

A retired naval captain whom you may have sometimes heard of in the papers (Bernard Acworth) tells me he was at Derryherk¹⁸¹ shortly before us and says the fishing was just as bad as the food. I wonder what the Magic Major is really up to.

      I’ve got a 100 Horsepower cold but feel mentally & spiritually much the better from our holiday. It—and you—have done me lots of good. All blessings.

      Yours

      Jack

TO JONATHAN FRANCIS ‘FRANK GOODRIDGE (P): ¹⁸²

      Coll. Magd.

      22/9/52

      My dear Goodridge

I’m going to give those lectures next term and cd. hardly separate myself from the notes at the moment.¹⁸³ But for the moment:–the trichotomy is not Hesperian, Aerial, or Celestial, but Terrestrial (Men), Aerial (Aerial Genii or daemons), Aetherial (Angels). At death Man goes from 1 to 2: from which, if they make the grade, they go on to 3, but if ploughed relapse into 1. 1 and 2 are mortal, 3 immortal. It’s at one’s second death (or an Aerial) that one either goes up or falls back.

Hence 11. 459-472¹⁸⁴ really mean (I believe) ‘Chastity carries us safely from terrestrial thro’ aerial up to aetherial, but sensuality draws us back to terrestrial. Ghosts are “ploughed” aerial longing to get back to their terrestrial state.’

The Attendant Spirit¹⁸⁵ is an aerial (i.e. a native aerial not an ex-human who has been promoted). For he lives not in the highest heaven but only ‘before’ its ‘threshold’ (l.)¹⁸⁶ among ‘aerial spirits’ (3.)¹⁸⁷ in ‘serene air’ (4.)¹⁸⁸ is called ‘daemon’ in Trinity MS., & returns to ‘suck the liquid air’ (980)¹⁸⁹ wh. Aerials live on, in a region still subject to mutability where Venus mourns Adonis (999-1002) and it is ‘far above’ (1003) his realm that Celestial Love consummates His marriage with human soul (1004-1011). That ought to keep them going for a bit! I am so glad you have a happy job.

      Yours

      C. S. Lewis

TO MARGARET SACKVILLE HAMILTON (BOD):¹⁹⁰

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford 23/9/52

      Dear Mrs. Hamilton

The ancient books which put this view best are Plato’s Timaeus and Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, Book V. (The Loeb Library edition of the latter has a nice 17th century English translation on the right hand pages).¹⁹¹ There is, however, no need to go back to the original sources. Modern statements will be found in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: (in the part called ‘Transcendental Aesthetic’)¹⁹² and in Von Hügel’s Eternal Life¹⁹³– the latter, I think, far easier. From the scientific angle try Eddington’s Nature of the Physical Universe.¹⁹⁴, There are what maybe regarded as evidences for the theory in Dunne’s Experiment with Time,¹⁹⁵ tho’ he (wrongly I believe) treats them as evidence for a different and unnecessarily complicated theory of what he calls Serialism.¹⁹⁶

The nearest we get to scriptural support is II. Peter 8-9 where St. Peter transforms the simple Old Testament saying that 1000 years are only one day to God (which in itself might mean only that God is permanent in time) by adding the new and important point that to God one day is like 1000 years.¹⁹⁷

      Yours sincerely

      C. S. Lewis

Joy Gresham at this time was a 37-year-old New Yorker who had begun a correspondence with Lewis in 1950.¹⁹⁸ Her marriage to the novelist, William СКАЧАТЬ