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

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СКАЧАТЬ TO NELL BERNERS-PRICE (W): TS

      REF.52/206.

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. 3rd December 1952.

      Dear Nell,

      Despite your kindness I can’t promise myself any definite date for coming down: there are so few ‘odd times’ in my life. I sometimes have to go into Sussex, and when that happens I’ll try to run over to Courtstairs.

      I say—I suppose the Baron and the Countess are O.K. are they? I’m afraid if I’d had your experience I’d suspect every guest!

      Greetings to all.

      Yours,

      Jack

      

       TO I. O. EVANS (W): TS

      REF.52/38.

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. 6th December 1952.

      Dear Evans,

      Your discourse on Nauthorship is a most interesting document, and tells us at least as much about writing as many theoretical high-brow articles. How right you are about getting the ‘wave-length’.

What I object to most in Wells is his everlasting Gallicism ‘figure to yourself’. ²⁸²

      All the best.

      Yours,

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO VERA GEBBERT (W): TS

      REF.52/103.

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. 9th December 1952.

      Dear Mrs. Gebbert,

      Many thanks for your letter of the 4th. The more I think of it the more I regret that our intercourse should have been that of heavenly bodies rather than human beings: that your orbit should have swung within thirty miles of ours without our making contact. And now you are back in your normal track, five thousand or more miles from Oxford. And, what is worse, the tone of your letter suggests that it will be a very long time before you risk the European adventure again. But take courage. One can visit London without getting influenza, and one can travel by Pan-American Airways without the agonies of sea-sickness. (Incidentally, why does everyone regard this frightful illness as a joke? With us, and I suppose with you too, it is like drunkenness or mothers-in-law, sure of getting what the actors call ‘a hand’ in any radio or stage performance.

      I was surprised and impressed by what you had to say about Paris; I did’nt know that at this time of the day one could still hear the tumbrils rolling along to the place of the guillotine. Nor did I realize the shabbiness of present day Paris. The business and travel advertisements still hold up Paris to us as a little oasis of gaiety in a drab world. I’m very much afraid that the answer is that France is an extinct volcano; and can one wonder? For the last four hundred years France has been losing the best stuff in the nation in war after war, and no people can stand up to that indefinitely. Portugal, Spain, Holland, England, we’ve all had our innings: and now it is up to your country to go in and bat. If one looks far enough ahead, I’m inclined to think that—after our time thank goodness—China is going to come out on top: for she has unlimited manpower, unlimited grit, and a capacity for hard work on nothing a year paid quarterly which none of the white peoples possess.

      I’m sorry to say that ‘the other Vera’ is not picking up as we had hoped. Of course she is a very bad patient, as are all these women who have been as strong as horses until they get into the ‘fifties, and then have a serious illness. The real trouble is that nothing will persuade her that she does’nt know better than the doctors; she has had specialists, X rays, and what have you, all assuring her that there is no organic defect, but she knows that they are just leading her up the garden path. What can one do with such a patient. However, she is out of the nursing home, and in a week or so we hope that she will be well enough to travel to Ireland, where we trust her own family will fatten her up and restore her to us in real good health.

      I was interested in your account of Germany. Under the last government, things were much the same here—acute shortage of building materials, but plenty available for children’s swimming pools, community centres etc. It is I think part of the modern totalitarian pattern of life—neglect the home, but let the community be luxurious.

      I envy Mr. Gebbert his garden, which contains luxuries unknown to us. ‘Winter peas’ indeed! We look forward to the arrival of the book.

      With love to both of you from both of us,

      yours ever,

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO BELLE ALLEN (W): TS

      REF.52/28.

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. 9th December 1952.

      Dear Mrs. Allen,

How very nice it is to hear from you again, and I indeed have a sense of ‘pleasing satisfaction’ at hearing that in Westfield at any rate, my books are being read and enjoyed. Especially do I purr at the story of the minister withdrawing Xtian Behaviour²⁸³ from the sale. But this is the sin of pride, and must be suppressed.

      I am so sorry to hear about Ed’s cold, and can sympathize with him, for I am a chronic sufferer from colds myself; though so far this winter I have been very lucky. Snow indeed! You should have been in Oxford for the last ten days, where we have had what is for us, very severe weather: and of course the usual fuel shortage. All very unexpected (except the fuel shortage), for we generally don’t get our cold weather until well after Christmas. Like you, we have our roads and footwalks practically impassible, and very annoying it is. As my brother says, ‘I hate having to go out when you have no chance of thinking, but must concentrate all your attention on the art of walking.’

At the moment, after a fortnight of it, we are having a thaw, but there is of course the chance of its freezing tonight, and ‘the last state of that road will be worse than the first’,²⁸⁴ to paraphrase the Bible. I used to run a car, but gave it up before the war; first, because our roads are now so crowded that there is no longer any pleasure motoring, and secondly because I find it much cheaper and just as convenient to use the bus service.

As you say, we shall no doubt have large numbers of Americans in England for the Coronation, and some of them may not be a good advertisement for your country; but it is an odd thing that I have noticed, that since the war, the type of American visitor we have had is much nicer on the whole than that which came to us between the wars. I suppose it is that, owing to the drop in sterling, we are now getting the Americans of modest means. And it has been my experience that the rich of any country are usually the least attractive specimens of the nation.^*

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