on my way back from Ireland, for this year. It is becoming clear that I shan’t finish the proofs and horrible bibliography of my OHEL volume before we sail on Aug. 11th. That being so, every day between our return and the beginning of Michaelmas term becomes precious as gold: for if the job once drags on into another term, I don’t know what will become of me. Anyway, the jus trium liberorum158 will be keeping you pretty busy. Do you know why liberi means both ‘freemen’ & ‘children’? Think it over and see if your historical imagination can solve the problem.
Yours
Jack
TO GEORGE SAYER(W):
Magdalen College,
Oxford. July 17/53
My dear George
It is I who shd. be shamed for I wrote asking you both to come & see Comus at Ludlow: but as I sent the letter to an address in U.S.A. you naturally never answered!
Thanks, George, for your prayers: I never doubted that I had them, as you both have mine. The catarrh phase of the sinus is quite gone: the pain remains, but never at night (which is a great mercy) and for a decreasing number of hours daily. And thanks also for the invitation. But we’ll be in Ireland in Aug. We were hoping you’d come to us for some days after Sept 15. Can this be managed: any time between then and your term?
I’m damned with doing Bibliographies for my OHEL vol. How goes The Isle of the Undead?159 All love.
Yours ever
Jack
TO MRS JOHNSON (W):
Magdalen College,
Oxford. July 17/53
Dear Mrs. Johnson
There are many interesting points in your letter of June 8. I’m v. glad you’ve seen that Christianity is as hard as nails: i.e. hard and tender at the same time. It’s the blend that does it: neither quality wd. be any good without the other. You needn’t worry about not feeling brave. Our Lord didn’t–see the scene in Gethsemane.
How thankful I am that when God became Man He did not choose to become a man of iron nerves: that wd. not have helped weaklings like you and me nearly so much. Especially don’t worry (you may of course pray) about being brave over merely possible evils in the future. In the old battles it was usually the reserve, who had to watch the carnage, not the troops who were in it, whose nerve broke first. Similarly I think you in America feel much more anxiety about atomic bombs than we do: because you are further from the danger. If and when a horror turns up, you will then be given Grace to help you. I don’t think one is usually given it in advance. ‘Give us our daily bread’160 (not an annuity for life) applies to spiritual gifts too: the little daily support for the daily trial. Life has to be taken day by day & hour by hour.
The writer you quote (‘in all those turning lights’) was very good at the stage at wh. you met him: now, as is plain, you’ve got beyond him. Poor boob!-he thought his mind was his own! Never his own until he makes it Christ’s: up till then merely a result of heredity, environment, and the state of his digestion. I become my own only when I give myself to Another.
‘Does God seem real to me?’ It varies: just as lots of other things I firmly believe in (my own death, the solar system) feel more or less real at different times. I have dreamed dreams but not seen visions:161 but don’t think all that matters a hoot. And the saints say that visions are unimportant.162 If Our Lord did seem to appear to you at your prayer (bodily) what, after all, could you do but go on with your prayers? How cd. you know that it was not an hallucination?
You’ve got the Coronation right too: especially a sacrificial, even a tragic rite. And a symbol: for we (Man) have had laid on us the heavy crown of being lords of this planet, and the same contract between the frail, tiny person–the huge ritual goes for us all.
Did England, collectively, spend much on it? I shd. have thought most of the money was spent in England, transferred from one pocket to another. (Never forget that these personifications ‘England does this’ ‘America does that’ are only figures of speech: one has to figure out what they really mean).
No, no, I’m not committed to a real belief in Arthur, Merlin etc: all that comes in a story.163 I haven’t the faintest idea whether there was a real Grail or not. Of course I believe that people are still healed by faith: whether this has happened in any particular case, one can’t of course say without getting a real-Doctor-who-is-also-a-real-Christian to go through the whole case-history.
All you say about your little girl is delightful. Bless her and all of you.
Yours
C. S. Lewis
TO MRS FRANK JONES (W): TS
REF.18/53.
Magdalen College,
Oxford. 17th July 1953.
My dear Mrs. Jones,
Many thanks for your interesting letter. To us, the high light naturally is the news that you plan to visit this benighted country; and you shall indeed have two words with my brother and myself–and a lot more than two I hope; indeed we are optimistic enough to imagine that you might come and stay with us for a day or two in our suburban residence, and see how bachelors live. It would make a little break from the routine of hotels, and especially of English hotels. We shall be interested to hear your plans when the time draws nearer.
Oddly enough, we too have been seeing a college reunion, and mainly American at that, here in Oxford. The University had the bright idea of celebrating the Cecil Rhodes centenary by inviting all old Rhodes Scholars to visit Oxford, live in their old College rooms, and attend sundry dinner parties and so forth; there was a large gathering, and they all seemed to enjoy it.164
I am glad the film interested you; my brother saw the actual coronation on the television, and was very much impressed with it: especially with the real devout piety shown by the Queen, who obviously took her vows very seriously. Like you, we have’nt got a set, and don’t propose to get one; it is I think a very bad habit to develop. People who have sets seem to do nothing but go into a huddle over them every evening of their lives, instead of being out walking, or in their gardens. And of course, like all things which begin as luxuries, they end up by being necessities; an unofficial cost of living survey was recently held in our midland manufacturing districts, and quite a large percentage of the working class interviewed complained that if prices did’nt come down, or wages go up, they would not be able to maintain their payments on their television sets–which have now become part of the worker’s basic standard of living. Just think of men drawing perhaps $40 a week, considering an article costing–cash down–perhaps $250, a necessity!
I wish next time you send me a parcel, you would fill it with some of your summer weather; here for the past week and more, it has been just like April–patches of sunshine between heavy showers, and the morning temperature 54-58. No sign of any improvement today, and I have to go up to town this afternoon for a garden party. You would think I would have more sense at my time of life, would’nt you?
With all best wishes to you both, and to Freiherr von und zu Brock von Grabenbruch,