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

had enough of it on the opposite flank lately, having fallen among—a new type to me—bigoted & proselytising Quakers! I really think that in our days it is the ‘undogmatic’ & ‘liberal’ people who call themselves Christians that are most arrogant & intolerant. I expect justice & even courtesy from many Atheists and, much more, from your people: from Modernists, I have come to take bitterness and rancour as a matter of course.

      I might get down to see you some time this year. No chance of your visiting Oxford?

      Yours always

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO WARHELD M. FIROR(BOD):

      Magdalen etc.

      23/4/51

      Dear Firor

      I guessed what response my news would elicit from your friendly heart and awaited it with mixed pleasure and pain: pleasure because your amazing good will (I am still puzzled as to how I acquired it) is always as cheering as a bright fire on a winter day, pain because I cannot respond as you wd. wish. I have seized my new freedom to get that infernal book on the XVIth Century done, or as nearly done as I can. The College is giving me a year off to do it, but the work can be done only in England, and much less ambitious holidays than a jaunt to America will serve my turn.

I am not naturally mobile. But you are. Is there no chance of seeing you in England? (Not, of course, in connection with this idiotic ‘Festival’⁸¹ of which I and some others are heartily ashamed—such untimely nonsense!)

      And now to business…I feel twice the man I have been for the last ten years. God bless you.

      Yours

      C. S. Lewis

      

TO COLIN HARDIE (P): ⁸²

      24/4/51

      Dear Colin—

This is even more exciting than Oedipus.⁸³ The excessive length comes from the intrusion of matter relevant & interesting for the history of Greek religion but not, or not so much, for the Christian interpretation of reviving Gk. Myths. Unfortunately you are so concatenated & sagacious that v. few of the bits I want removed come away quite clean. Amputation, especially in another man’s work, is v. dangerous, so the following lists of delenda must be treated as tentative, and if you accept all or any of them you must then go carefully through what is left to remove ‘fossils’. They are

Dele⁸⁴ on p3 from It is the presupposition to Trojans raw from At this point (5a) to types of character (5e) from who formed a guild (9) to and unity (10) from Groups of three (11) to or under earth (12) from Professor Rose, thinking (12) to human history (15) from We have seen (16) to of sacrifice (17) from To the Aegean peoples to where they could (19) Then go to ‘The Greeks, unlike the Aegean peoples, allowed the idea’ etc. from The Greek idea (2) to always disbelieved (21) from In popular theology (24) to from matter (25)

Most, if not all, of these I shall be sorry to lose. But, as Ridley sagely remarks, the business of a cutter is to cut.⁸⁵ You cd. expect from me only one of three things: a refusal to cut, a recommendation to cut passages because they were bad, or a recommendation to cut passages although they were good. You’ve got the third wh. is presumably what you’d prefer.

I do long to see all this out in book form where you have elbow room, for I really think it is some of the most important work that is being done in our time. I think I told you before of the advice wh. old Macan⁸⁶ gave me long ago ‘Don’t put off writing until you know everything or you’ll be too old to write decently’

      It must be fun being you.

      Yours

      Jack

      

       TO MARY VAN DEUSEN (W):

      Magdalen College

      Oxford 30/4/51

      Dear Mrs. Van Deusen—

      No, the ‘different trouble’ is not an illness, or not an illness of mine. I could hardly tell you of it without a breach of confidence.

      My holiday was only in a hotel, but in my old country & near the house of an old friend.

      My prayer for Genia (an interesting name, by the way) cd. not naturally take the form you suggest. A little too schematic for my habits: and, to tell you the truth, a little bit like giving God a lecture on Theology!

      As to MacArthur, I don’t feel in a position to have clear opinions about anyone I know only from newspapers. You see, whenever they deal with anyone (or anything) I know myself, I find they’re always a mass of lies & misunderstandings: so I conclude they’re no better in the places where I don’t know.

      Nations being ‘friends’ is only a metaphor: they’re not people, and their co-operation depends, alas, on professional politicians & journalists whom you & I can’t control.

      In fact, as you see, I’m a terrible sceptic about all public affairs. I am inclined to think that your Mac A and our Montgomery are specimens of a new, dangerous, & useful type thrown up by the modern situation–but it’s only a guess.

      In haste. God bless you all.

      Yours

      C. S. Lewis

      

TO THE EDITOR OF ESSAYS IN CRITICISM ⁸⁷

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford, May 3rd, 1951.

      Dear Sir,

I have read Mr. Watt’s essay on Robinson Crusoe⁸⁸ with great interest and almost complete agreement. But what does he mean when he says that the myths of Midas and the Rheingold are ‘inspired by the prospect of never having to work again’ (p. 104)? Surely the point of the first story is that Midas’s golden touch brought starvation: and the point of the second that the gold carried a curse. If the gold in either story has an economic signification at all (which might be questioned) the meaning must be less banal than Mr. Watt suggests.⁸⁹

      Yours truly,

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO GEORGE SAYER(W):

      Magdalen College

      Oxford 5/5/51

      I had no notion of all this oriental background to you–barbaric pearl & gold.

      Glad to hear the illness was not serious. Any chance of a night or week-end later? I needn’t say how welcome you’d be.

      J.

      Love to both from both.

      

       TO AN ANONYMOUS GENTLEMAN (P): TS

      REF.236/51

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford.