Yours
C. S. Lewis
P. S. I suppose there’ll be no difficulty about changing the title of the new one in galley. I want to call it Night Under Narnia
TO VERA GEBBERT (W):
Magdalen College,
Oxford. 20/9/52
Dear Mrs. Gebbert,
This is indeed most joyous news and as unexpected as if a favourite character out of history or fiction came to England in the flesh! Now look. Shall we book for you at a hotel or will you come and stay with us? It is only fair to tell you that (tho’ we have an excellent hot water system) we have so little coal that there are no hot baths in our house, only hot water in jugs (This doesn’t mean that we never have baths: but then we bath in College, where ladies can’t). Otherwise, we hope the hardships wd. not be too great.
Now don’t start asking yourselves the Question which (I confess) this letter invites: viz ‘Does this mean that they’ll be hurt if we go to a hotel or that they’ll be bothered if we go to them? Which do they want?’. Because in fact it doesn’t mean either. We do really want you to do whichever you’ll like but: and we have enough imagination to understand either point of view–(A.) Oh, for the Lord’s sake, let’s be free and on our own in a hotel, or (B.) We shall have enough of hotels before we’re done, do let’s get a chance of an ordinary house.
The usual oriental formula ‘Everything in our house is yours’ acquires a new sense: so many things in our house in these last (how many years?) have been literally yours! It is outrageous generosity about the liquor and the mufflers. What can I say, except murmur ‘whiskey’! If we fight about the mufflers you shall look on and be the ‘store of ladies whose bright eyes rain influence and (once more literally) award the prize.’179 Send us a wire with your decision. We are so excited.
TO ARTHUR G REEVE S (W):
Magdalen
20/9/52
My dear Arthur
No, please don’t send H.J.’s Letters.180 The idea of your returning a present was applicable only on the assumption that it was useless to you. And anyway, if they’re not much about the books, they wd. be useless to me.
A retired naval captain whom you may have sometimes heard of in the papers (Bernard Acworth) tells me he was at Derryherk181 shortly before us and says the fishing was just as bad as the food. I wonder what the Magic Major is really up to.
I’ve got a 100 Horsepower cold but feel mentally & spiritually much the better from our holiday. It—and you—have done me lots of good. All blessings.
Yours
Jack
TO JONATHAN FRANCIS ‘FRANK GOODRIDGE (P): 182
Coll. Magd.
22/9/52
My dear Goodridge
I’m going to give those lectures next term and cd. hardly separate myself from the notes at the moment.183 But for the moment:–the trichotomy is not Hesperian, Aerial, or Celestial, but Terrestrial (Men), Aerial (Aerial Genii or daemons), Aetherial (Angels). At death Man goes from 1 to 2: from which, if they make the grade, they go on to 3, but if ploughed relapse into 1. 1 and 2 are mortal, 3 immortal. It’s at one’s second death (or an Aerial) that one either goes up or falls back.
Hence 11. 459-472184 really mean (I believe) ‘Chastity carries us safely from terrestrial thro’ aerial up to aetherial, but sensuality draws us back to terrestrial. Ghosts are “ploughed” aerial longing to get back to their terrestrial state.’
The Attendant Spirit185 is an aerial (i.e. a native aerial not an ex-human who has been promoted). For he lives not in the highest heaven but only ‘before’ its ‘threshold’ (l.)186 among ‘aerial spirits’ (3.)187 in ‘serene air’ (4.)188 is called ‘daemon’ in Trinity MS., & returns to ‘suck the liquid air’ (980)189 wh. Aerials live on, in a region still subject to mutability where Venus mourns Adonis (999-1002) and it is ‘far above’ (1003) his realm that Celestial Love consummates His marriage with human soul (1004-1011). That ought to keep them going for a bit! I am so glad you have a happy job.
Yours
C. S. Lewis
TO MARGARET SACKVILLE HAMILTON (BOD):190
Magdalen College,
Oxford 23/9/52
Dear Mrs. Hamilton
The ancient books which put this view best are Plato’s Timaeus and Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, Book V. (The Loeb Library edition of the latter has a nice 17th century English translation on the right hand pages).191 There is, however, no need to go back to the original sources. Modern statements will be found in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: (in the part called ‘Transcendental Aesthetic’)192 and in Von Hügel’s Eternal Life193– the latter, I think, far easier. From the scientific angle try Eddington’s Nature of the Physical Universe.194, There are what maybe regarded as evidences for the theory in Dunne’s Experiment with Time,195 tho’ he (wrongly I believe) treats them as evidence for a different and unnecessarily complicated theory of what he calls Serialism.196
The nearest we get to scriptural support is II. Peter 8-9 where St. Peter transforms the simple Old Testament saying that 1000 years are only one day to God (which in itself might mean only that God is permanent in time) by adding the new and important point that to God one day is like 1000 years.197
Yours sincerely
C. S. Lewis
Joy Gresham at this time was a 37-year-old New Yorker who had begun a correspondence with Lewis in 1950.198 Her marriage to the novelist, William Lindsay Gresham, was under strain, and in August