Walter Hooper

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


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to see that there was no overlapping of periods. The American scholar, Douglas Bush,1 agreed to write to ‘The Early Seventeenth Century, From c. 1600 to c. 1660’ and in January 1938 Wilson informed Lewis of this, asking if he wanted to include William Dunbar and Gavin Douglas in his sixteenth-century volume.

      TO FRANK PERCY WILSON (OUP):

      Magdalen College

      Oxford

      Jan 25th 1938

      My dear Wilson

      Mind you, I’d sooner have Dunbar than Donne: sooner, in general, come early on the scene than linger late. Let the others choose.

      I hoped we should all meet at the Aldwych and set out to find it with Tillyard who proved to know no more about London than I do. We got to a thing called Bush House in the end where we lunched in a barber’s shop, served by tailors, off sponges. I was sorry not to see you again.

      Do you think there’s any chance of the world ending before the O HELL appears?

      Yours, in deep depression,

      C. S. Lewis

      TO OWEN BARFIELD (W):

      [The Kilns]

      March 28th 1938

      My dear Barfield–

      Yours

      C.S.L

      TO JANET SPENS (BOD):

      The Kilns,

      Headington Quarry,

      Oxford.

      April 18th 1938

      Dear Miss Spens

      Thanks for your kind and interesting letter. You are right of course about the silliness of dragging in Mason: that was merely (as sillinesses so often are) the intrusion of a favourite hobby horse of mine in a place where it was not wanted—my belief, namely, that the continuity between the Romantics and the XVIIIth c. needs to be stressed more than it usually is.

      Yes, the Dynasts is very queer: the invention of a whole pantheon to symbolise the non existence of God. I think it is not uncommon to find atheists perpetually angry with God for not being there. Perhaps it is a laudable trait!

      With many thanks.

      Yours sincerely

      C. S. Lewis

      TO DOM BEDE GRIFFITHS (W):

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford.

      29th April 1938

      Dear Griffiths