persecution of the Jews, or the absurdity of his theoretical position. Did you see that he said ‘The Jews have made no contribution to human culture and in crushing them I am doing the will of the Lord.’ Now as the whole idea of the ‘Will of the Lord’ is precisely what the world owes to the Jews, the blaspheming tyrant has just fixed his absurdity for all to see in a single sentence, and shown that he is as contemptible for his stupidity as he is detestable for his cruelty. For the German people as a whole we ought to have charity: but for dictators, ‘Nordic’ tyrants and so on—well, read the chapter about Mr Savage in the Regress65 and you have my views.
I wish you didn’t always choose summer for your visits here. The place is to day at its best: the pond a smooth almost black sheet, sprinkled, or rather paved with bright leaves: the little birch wood flaming on the far side, and the hill and fir wood beyond fading into mist. Yes—the weather is alright now and I am getting all those fine feelings of revival—beginning to take longer walks again, remembering how much mere branch and sky and hedge ought to mean to one, and noticing suddenly for how long one has been only half awake.
Write again soon. Love to Mrs Greeves.
Yours,
Jack
TO DAPHNE HARWOOD (BOD):
Magdalen College,
Oxford.
Dec 28th 1933
Dear Mrs Harwood
I don’t know when I have been so rude to anyone as I have been to you after my long silence since I stayed with you. The truth is that if Cecil had not lent me Popelbaum’s book,66 I should have behaved better. I followed the ignis fatuus67 of postponing my letter until I could include some remarks on reading the book—then the time for reading the book did’nt come as soon as I expected—and so here we are.
I have now read it and am very much impressed. A good deal of it, of course, is difficult to one so ignorant of science as I am, but it is all interesting and, I expect, deserves most serious consideration. Has any notice been taken of it in ‘orthodox’ scientific circles? What particularly stuck in my mind—more as a tragedy than as a theorem—is the illustrated ‘rake’s progress’ of the Chimpanzee. What a subject for a poem! By the bye I have met a young philosophical tutor at New College (Crossland)68 who seems—which is rare at Oxford—to be well informed about Anthroposophy, and sympathetic tho’ not converted. I think that is really more important for you than an out and out convert would be: it is a great point gained when a movement begins to be treated with respect by those who are not members of it. Incidentally, he is in several ways the most intelligent new acquaintance I have made for several years.
I hope you have not misinterpreted my long silence. I have the most grateful memories of my last week end with you and value the novel honour of my God-sibbe69 very much. How is my godson? I hope his laughing all through the service does not mean that he is going to grow up an esprit fort: but as soon as he is old enough I shall try to collaborate with you in preventing this.
How is Stein?—a man I would like to meet again. And how is yourself and the guideman70 and the children? We are all pretty well, though Mrs. Moore is almost worn out with the Christmas charities, which ‘an autumn ’twas that grew the more by reaping.’71 We would all very much like to see you at the Kilns again when you can manage it. I have been disgustingly busy for a long long time: each year jobs seem to increase on one—as no doubt you find. Please give Cecil my love and accept all our best wishes for the new year.
Yours (penitent)
C. S. Lewis
1 See Guy Noel Pocock in the Biographical Appendix. Pocock was the editor for J. M. Dent of The Pilgrim’s Regress.
2 Bodleian Library, MS. Facs. d. 297, fol. 27.
3 ibid., fol. 28. Lewis’s original title, which appeared on the proofs, was The Pilgrim’s Regress, or Pseudo-Bunyan’s Periplus: An Allegorical Apology for Christianity, Reason and Romanticism.
4 In Charles Lamb, Essays of Elia (1823). ‘Elia’ was a name Lamb adopted for himself.
5 This was J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit: or There and Back Again, parts of which were probably rewritten before it was published in 1937.
6 Mary McQueen McEldowney, ‘The Fairy Tales and Fantasies of George MacDonald’ (1934). A copy is in the Bodleian Library, MSS B. Litt. d. 257.
7 The title was shortened to The Pilgrim’s Regress: An Allegorical Apology for Christianity, Reason and Romanticism.
8 James Adams McNeill (1853–1907), who had been Lewis’s mother’s leather at the Methodist College, Belfast, was Headmaster of Campbell College, 1890–1907. He and his wife, Margaret Cunningham McNeill, lived in Strandtown with their daughter Jane (‘Tchainie’) McNeill, a close friend of Lewis and Arthur Greeves.
9 Lewis is referring to the book eventually published as The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition (1936).
10 See Nevill Coghill (1899–1980) in the Biographical Appendix to CL I. Coghill, a member of the Inklings, was Fellow of English at Exeter College, Oxford, 1924–57, and Merton Professor of English Literature, 1957–66.
11 John Norman Bryson (1896–1976) was born in Portadown, Co. Armagh, and educated at the Queen’s University, Belfast, and at Merton College, Oxford, taking his BA from Oxford in 1922. He was a lecturer in English at Balliol, Merton and Oriel College, 1923–1940, and Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Balliol College, 1940–63.
12 Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers (1844).
13 Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Princess (1847), part 4, song (added 1850): ‘The horns of elfland faintly blowing!’
14 John Buchan, The Three Hostages [1924].
15 Arthur Alan Hanbury-Sparrow, The Land-Locked Lake [1932].
16 He is imagining a comment his father might make.