suppose I thought the B type of prayer68 higher because of the portentous promises attached to it and because it seems the type used by Elijah when he calls down fire on the altar69 or the Apostles when they heal the sick and raise the dead. But I think we are both coming to the right practical conclusion: not struggling, but always saying, as the disciples did, ‘Lord, teach us how to pray.’70
That’s all modern pseudo-democratic nonsense, isn’t it, about obedience being ‘weak’. One doesn’t think nurses, sailors, & soldiers weak: and when we believe spiritual things to be as important as operations, storms at sea, and ‘last stands’ we shall see obedience as a strong thing there too. Surely one of the marks of the disobedient child is that it is feebler than the obedient, and can’t do dozens of things that the other can?
I’m not qualified to comment on the Goelz move to California. Unless a doctor ordered it I shd. never, myself, think of choosing my home primarily for the sake of the climate. I wd. if I were a vegetable: being a human I think the first thing about a place to live in is the people one meets, and the second thing is the beauty of the landscape. But of course others think differently. They are so lucky to be able to make the choice at all (999 out of a 1000 have no choice about where they’ll live) that I don’t expect it will matter much which they do–bless ‘em! I hope for your sake they’ll stay put.
Bitter cold here to-night. But we need it: it will kill the slugs in my garden which, thanks to the unusually mild autumn, have now pretty nearly qualified for the Old Age Pension. Five years, is it? Well, God bless you.
Yours
C. S. Lewis
TO MARY WILLIS SHELBURNE (W):
Magdalen College,
Oxford. 26/i/54
Dear Mrs. Shelburne
Thanks for yours of the 23rd and for copy of my verses, which I had almost totally forgotten. ‘Pon my word, they’re not so bad as I feared. I’m very sorry about your cold. We mustn’t let these modern doctors get us down by calling a cold a virus and a sore throat a streptococcus, you know! (Do you ever read Montaigne? He says ‘The peasants make everything easier by the names they use. To them a consumption is only a cough and a cancer only a stomach ache’).71 You shd. have stayed tucked up in a warm bed all that day instead of trying to write and walking up and down the room.
We wouldn’t call Alfred and Egbert and all those the ‘British’ line. They are the ‘English’ line, the Angles, who come from Angel in South Denmark. By the British line, we’d mean the Celtic line that goes back through the Tudors to Cadwallader and thence to Arthur, Uther, Cassibelan, Lear, Lud, Brut, Aeneas, Jupiter. The present royal family can claim descent from both the British and the English lines. So, I suppose, can most of us: for since one has 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 16 great grandparents, and so on, one is presumably descended from nearly everyone who was alive in this island in the year 600 A.D. In the long run one is related to everyone on the planet: in that quite literal sense we are all ‘one flesh’.72
Of course I don’t mean to ignore (in fact I find it nice) the distinction between a peasant’s grandson like myself and those of noble blood. I only observe that the nobility lies not in the ancient descent (wh. is common to us all) but in having been for so many generations illustrious that more of the steps are recorded. I do hope you’ll be better by the time this reaches you.
Yours
C. S. Lewis
TO PAUL PIEHLER(W): 73
Magdalen College,
Oxford. 28/i/54
Dear Piehler
Blurb enclosed. Never again throw out the old water before you’ve got new on tap! Good hunting.
Yours
C. S. Lewis
*
Magdalen College,
Oxford.
I have much pleasure in recommending my friend and former pupil Mr. P. Piehler. Mr. Piehler is a sound and sensitive scholar whose interest in his subject is widening and deepening as he grows and from whom we may reasonably expect valuable contributions. He has the clarity of voice and language which a lecturer requires. His manners and personality are attractive; he was generally liked here and bore a thoroughly good character. I should be very glad to have him as a colleague in any English Faculty of which I was a member myself. I understand that he already knows Swedish.
C. S. Lewis
Fellow & Tutor
Jan 28th 1954
TO DOM BEDE GRIFFITHS OSB (W):
Magdalen College,
Oxford. 30/i/54
Dear Dom Bede
Yes, I’d certainly rule out Little Emily and Little Nell and all the ‘littles’. The Marchioness is the real thing.74
The trouble with Thackeray, is that he can hardly envisage goodness except as a kind of
Yours
C. S. Lewis
TO HILA NEWMAN (W):
Magdalen College,
Oxford. Jan 30/54
Dear Hila
Upon my word, a statue of Reepicheep.77 He stares at me from my mantelpiece with just the right mixture of courtesy and readiness to fight. Thank you very much.
It is very cold here now–not so cold as in N.Y, I expect, but then we have no central heating in College, so my fingers are hardly able to write. I am so glad you liked the Chair. With all good wishes.
Yours ever
C. S. Lewis
TO KATHARINE FARRER(BOD):
Magdalen College,
Oxford. Feb 3/54
Dear Mrs Farrer
Sternly suppressing my conscience (in George Herbert’s style, you know ‘Peace, prattler, do not lour’)78 I have allowed no duties to interfere with my reading The Cretan Counterfeit.79 I admire very much the thick-woven texture: it doesn’t easily come apart. Janet and Shrubsole are very well done and Janet wins my heart. Two scenes that especially engaged me were that where Richard is hunting