Collected Letters Volume Two: Books, Broadcasts and War, 1931–1949. Walter Hooper

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СКАЧАТЬ to time. I forget whether I told you last time that all of us here were very concerned to hear of your illness and Mrs. Moore particularly. But you’d have guessed that.

      Yours

      C. S. Lewis

       TO ALEC VIDLER (BOD):

      Magdalen College

      Oxford

      Feb 1st 1939

      Dear Mr Vidler

      I enclose MS.²² It has in the end worked out to less than 4000 words but I dare say you will be glad of the extra room. If not Williams or Mr. Eliot might give you a poem of the right length. In the unlikely event of your being stuck, I cd. let you have about 1500 words on Christianity and War in continuation of the discussion begun in the last number. I thought it all good—except perhaps Mr. Roberts on poetry.²³

      Yours

      C. S. Lewis

       TO OWEN BARFIELD (W):

      [The Kilns]

      Feb 8th [1939]

      My dear Barfield–

      I am recovering (at least they tell me I am recovering) from an unusually bad attack of flu’. Two weekends of Feb. fall in term: the 5th-8th and the 12–15th. If you choose the former you will be able to hear Tillyard and me finishing our controversy viva voce, ²⁴ but as I have to give him a bed perhaps the 12th wd. be better. No doubt I shall be defeated in the controversy.²⁵

      I don’t know if Plato did write the Phaedo: the canon of those ancient writers, under the surface, is still quite chaotic. It is also a very corrupt text. Bring it along by all means, but don’t pitch your hopes too high. We are both getting so rusty that we shall make very little of it—and my distrust of all lexicons and translations is increasing. Also of Plato—and of the human mind. I suppose for the sake of the others we must do something about arranging a walk. Those maps are so unreliable by now that it is rather a farce—but still ‘Try lad, try! No harm in trying.’²⁶ Of course hardly any districts in England are unspoiled enough to make walking worth while: and with two new members—I have very little doubt it will be a ghastly failure. I haven’t seen C.W.’s play: it is not likely to be at all good.²⁷ As for Orpheus—again it’s no harm trying. If you can’t write it console yourself by reflecting that if you did you wd. have been v. unlikely to get a publisher.²⁸ I am more and more convinced that there is no future for poetry. Nearly everyone has been ill here: I try to prevent them all croaking and grumbling but it is hard being the only optimist. Let me know which week end: whichever you choose something will doubtless prevent it. I hear the income-tax is going up again. The weather is bad and looks like getting worse. I suppose war is certain now. I don’t believe language is a perpetual Orphic song. The Cheedle reader is dead, I suppose you saw.²⁹

      Yours

      C.S.L.

      P.S. Even my braces are in a frightful condition. ‘Damn braces’ said Blake.³⁰

       TO CHARLES WILLIAMS (W):

      (as from) Magdalen

      Feb 22nd 1939.

      Dear Williams,

      I don’t press my criticisms. I thought we’d done with dummies and when they turned up (I was in bed with flu’) and I found I’d got to send one back and one to Tillyard, I took the line ‘If they insist on having opinions, opinions by gum (blessed be he) they shall have!’ I still think that

      Re

      habilitations³¹

      wd. be tolerable, but I’m not making a stand: so whatever happens don’t send me any more dummies but fire ahead and get the book out. (You see, in this house one is never allowed to buy large envelopes because ‘There are lots in that drawer’: so that returning a dummy means a domestic crisis and the dinner is spoiled and the cats’ tails are trodden and charity is imperilled).

      I’ve finished the review.³² My opinion of the poem, except for The Coming of Galahad wh. I think mannered, went up and up. A great work, full of glory. I also re-read the Place of the Lion and Many D. while I was ill, with undiminished enjoyment. But hurry up and write another for I shall soon know them all too well. I also tried to read Don Quixote³³ and failed: it seems to me a wretched affair. I suppose I must be wrong.

      Yours

      C. S. Lewis

       TO THE EDITOR OF THEOLOGY(EC): ³⁴

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford.

      February 27, 1939.

      Sir,

      In your January number Mr Mascall mentions six conditions for a just war which have been laid down by ‘theologians.’ I have one question to ask, and a number of problems to raise, about those rules.

      The question is merely historical. Who are these theologians, and what kind or degree of authority can they claim over members of the Church of England?

      The problems are more difficult. Condition 4 lays down that ‘it must be morally certain that the losses, to the belligerents, the world, and religion, will not outweigh the advantages of winning’; and 6, that ‘there must be a considerable probability of winning.’ It is plain that equally sincere people can differ to any extent and argue for ever as to whether a proposed war fulfils these conditions or not. The practical question, therefore, which faces us is one of authority. Who has the duty of deciding when the conditions are fulfilled, and the right of enforcing his decision? Modern discussions tend to assume without argument that the answer is ‘The private conscience of the individual,’ and that any other answer is immoral and totalitarian.

      Now it is certain, in some sense, that ‘no duty of obedience can justify a sin,’ as Mr Mascall says. Granted that capital punishment is compatible with Christianity, a Christian may lawfully be a hangman; but he must not hang a man whom he knows to be innocent. But will anyone interpret this to mean that the hangman has the same duty of investigating the prisoner’s guilt which the judge has? If so, no executive can work and no Christian state is possible; which is absurd. I conclude that the hangman has done his duty if he has done his share of the general duty, resting upon ail citizens alike, to ensure, so far as in him lies, that we have an honest judicial system; if, in spite of this, and unknowingly, he hangs an innocent man, then a sin has been committed, but not by СКАЧАТЬ