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

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      TO VERA GEBBERT (W): TS 52/103.

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. 28th October 1952.

      Dear Gebberts,

      Yes indeed, the whole parcel arrived intact, and I’m sorry that I did not make it clear that we had got your beautiful scarves (and the cigarettes) as well as the whiskey; and when the two latter gifts are, alas, nothing but a fragrant memory, we shall still be enjoying the scarves–which can be used with comfort for about nine months in the English year, as you can well imagine, after your disastrous experience. It is very welcome news that you are through your troubles, and are enjoying yourselves in Munich; it must be a great treat for Mr. Gebbert to have such a reunion after so many years. What you have to say about the re-building is very interesting: but I hope there is not going to be a political rebuild. Our papers are carrying an unpleasant story of a get together party of old concentration guards, anti-allied speeches, shouts of ‘Swinehound Eisenhower’ etc.

      I’m sorry to say our Vera–may I say our other Vera?–so far from being better, has developed pneumonia, and is now in a nursing home; she is going along satisfactorily, but we are still not without anxiety about her. Largely her own fault, for she has since confessed that she had been feeling ill for at least a week before she took to her bed. Like all people who normally have perfect health, she is not a good patient, which I fear will retard her recovery.

      We shall think of you next week on your way back to your own land, with, I hope, happy memories of the trip: and taking with you our hopes that you will repeat it in the not too distant future.

      All good luck.

      Yours sincerely,

      W. H. Lewis

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO PHOEBE HESKETH (W):

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford Oct 29th 1952

      Dear Mrs. Hesketh

Surely I didn’t say that ‘really good’ poetry was not painful (which wd. make Lear not really good), but that the very best and certainly rarest kind of all was not painful?²³⁶

      I hope very much you will come and see me when you are in Oxford. I have just given The Quenchless Flame a first reading. I predict it will grow either shorter or longer before it reaches its final form, but it is full of good things. The leaf escaping from the bondage of the tree at the v. beginning wins one’s good will for the whole poem. The six lines beginning ‘Consider beauty’ are particularly good.

      Yours sincerely

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO MARG-RIETTE MONTGOMERY (W): TS

      REF.52/248.

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. 1st November 1952.

      Dear Miss Montgomery,

      It would be a bit hard to believe in Our Lord without believing in the Father, seeing that Our Lord spent most of his time talking about the Father. Also God.

      Yours sincerely,

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO JOHN ROWLAND (TEX): TS

      52/213.

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. 6th November 1952.

      My dear Rowland,

      There was no need at all to write, but it was nice of you to do so. I don’t forsee being in Brighton, but will certainly look you up if I am. No addresses to Literary Groups though!

      Yours,

      C. S. Lewis

      

TO MRS JOHNSON (W):²³⁷

      Magdalen etc,

      Oxford. Nov. 8 1952

      Dear Mrs. Johnson

      I am returning your letter with the questions in it numbered so that you’ll know wh. I am answering.

(1.)²³⁸ Some call me Mr. and some Dr. and I not only don’t care but usually don’t know which.

(2.)²³⁹ Distinguish (A) A second chance in the strict sense, i.e. a new earthly life in which you cd. attempt afresh all the problems you failed at in the present one (as in religions of Re-Incarnation). (B) Purgatory: a process by which the work of redemption continues, and first perhaps begins to be noticeable after death. I think Charles Williams depicts B, not A.

(3.)²⁴⁰ We are never given any knowledge of ‘What would have happened if…’

(4.)²⁴¹ I think that every prayer which is sincerely made even to a false god or to a v. imperfectly conceived true God, is accepted by the true God and that Christ saves many who do not think they know Him. For He is (dimly) present in the good side of the inferior teachers they follow.

      In the parable of the Sheep & Goats (Matt. XXV. 31 and following) those who are saved do not seem to know that they have served Christ. But of course our anxiety about unbelievers is most usefully employed when it leads us not to speculation but to earnest prayer for them and the attempt to be in our own lives such good advertisements for Christianity as will make it attractive.

(5.)²⁴² It is Christ Himself, not the Bible, who is the true word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers will bring us to Him. When it becomes really necessary (i.e. for our spiritual life, not for controversy or curiosity) to know whether a particular passage is rightly translated or is Myth (but of course Myth specially chosen by God from among countless Myths to carry a spiritual truth) or history, we shall no doubt be guided to the right answer. But we must not use the Bible (our fathers too often did) as a sort of Encyclopedia out of which texts (isolated from their context and not read without attention²⁴³ to the whole nature & purport of the books in which they occur) can be taken for use as weapons.

(6.) Kill means murder. I don’t know Hebrew: but when Our Lord quotes this commandment he uses Gk phoneuseis (murder)²⁴⁴ not apokteinein (kill)СКАЧАТЬ