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

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ many thanks and all the best wishes to you and your mother for 1951,

      yours sincerely,

      C. S. Lewis

      

Janie King Moore died at the Restholme Nursing Home, Oxford, on 12 January 1951. She was buried in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry, in the same grave as her friend Alice Hamilton Moore. ¹⁷

       TO SARAH NEYIAN (W): TS

      RER60/51.

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. 26th January 1951.

      My dear Sarah

I am 100% with you about Rider Haggard. You know he wrote a sequel to She told by Holly, and called Ayesha; She and Alan, told by A. Quartermain: and Wisdom’s Daughter told by She herself.¹⁸ What comes out from reading all four is that She was (as Job assumed) a dreadful liar. A. Quartermain was the only man who wasn’t taken in by her. She is the best story of the four, though not the best written. A missionary told me that he had seen a little ruined Kxaal where the natives told him a white witch used to live who was called She-who-must-be-obeyed. Rider Haggard had no doubt heard this too, and that is the kernel of the story.

      I also have just had ‘flu or I’d write more. Love to all.

      Your affectionate Godfather,

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO ARTHUR GREEVES (BOD):

      Magdalen etc

      31/1/51

      My dear Arthur

      Minto died a fortnight ago. Please pray for her soul.

Wd. it suit you if I arrived at your local inn on Sat. March 31st and left on Mon. April 16th? Can you let me know by return? And also if the inn cd. have me?¹⁹ If they’re fed up with my choppings & changings you can truly tell them that my circumstances are wholly changed. God bless you.

      Yours

      Jack

      

TO ROGER LANCELYN GREEN (BOD): ²⁰

      Magdalen College

      Oxford 31/1/51

      My dear Roger

      What two nights can you come to me? I prefer not a week end if you can possibly manage it. I suggest Feb 28 & 29th. (Feb 13, 20 & March 2nd no good). I miss you v. much. Love & duty to all of you.

      Yours

      Jack

      

       TO MRS HALMBACHER(WHL):

      Magdalen College,

      January 1951

      Dear Mrs Halmbacher

      How very kind of you. This is absolutely the present I wanted, for the nuisance and waste of time of finding that one has’nt got an envelope at a critical moment is serious…

We are all chuckling over a certain West of England resort which is I’m told circulating the American tourist agencies to this effect–‘When you come to England come straight to—. We guarantee that we are taking absolutely no part in the Festival of Britain.’²¹

       TO MARY VAN DEUSEN (W):

      Magdalen College

      Oxford 7/2/51

      Dear Mrs. Van Deusen

First, I must apologise for not having acknowledged Woodbridge on Nature.²² It arrived safely: many thanks. I have not read it yet but it is on the waiting list. (You will understand that I am never in the position of looking for a book to read, but nearly always looking for time in which to read books!)

      If ‘planning’ is taken in the literal sense of thinking before one acts and acting on what one has thought out to the best of one’s ability, then of course planning is simply the traditional virtue of Prudence and not only compatible with, but demanded by, Christian ethics. But if the word is used (as I think you use it) to mean some particular politico-social programme, such as that of the present British Govt, then one cd. only say after examining that programme in detail. I don’t think I have studied it enough to do that. As for the ‘planning’ involved in your social work I am of course even less qualified.

      It is certainly not wrong to try to remove the natural consequences of sin provided the means by which you remove them are not in themselves another sin. (E.g. it is merciful and Christian to remove the natural consequences of fornication by giving the girl a bed in a maternity ward and providing for the child’s keep and education, but wrong to remove them by abortion or infanticide). Perhaps the enclosed article (I don’t want it back) will make the point clearer.

      Where benevolent planning, armed with political or economic power, can become wicked is when it tramples on people’s rights for the sake of their good.

      Your letter gave me great pleasure: you are apparently on the right road. With all blessings.

      Yours sincerely

      C. S. Lewis

      

On 8 February 1951 there was a vote for the Professor of Poetry by the MAs of Oxford University. C. S. Lewis was running against Cecil Day-Lewis.²³ Warnie Lewis wrote in his diary that evening: ‘While we were waiting to dine at the Royal Oxford…came the bad news that [Jack] had been defeated by C. Day Lewis for the Poetry Chair, by 194 votes to 173.J took it astonishingly well, much better than his backers.’²⁴

TO SEYMOUR SPENCER (P): ²⁵

      Magdalen etc.

      28/2/51

      Dear Doctor Spencer

Thanks v. much for the bit from Fromm.²⁶

I enclose an offprint (I don’t want it back) СКАЧАТЬ