TO ARTHUR GREEVES (BOD):
Magdalen College,
Oxford. Nov 18/52
My dear Arthur
Thanks v. much for the 2nd vol. of HJ. which arrived in good order a few days ago. It is really most generous of you. The Letters, even if they had no other interest, wd. be useful as an anthology of all the possible ways of apologising for not having written before—it sometimes goes on for 2 whole pages!
I really feel much as you do about big formal functions, and though I attend many more of them than you, I skip all I can. As I get older I become more impatient of being kept sitting on or hanging about after the meal is over.
I shan’t begin the Letters for a few days for I am at present re-reading Montaigne. Sharp frost here this morning: I wish we could have a walk to enjoy it together.
Love to both of you.
Yours
Jack
TO MARY VAN DEUSEN (W):
Magdalen College,
Oxford. 25. xi. 1952
Dear Mrs. Van Deusen
No, by wordless prayer I didn’t mean the practice of the Presence of God. I meant the same mental act as in verbal prayer only without the words. The Practice of the Presence is a much higher activity. I don’t think it matters much whether an absolutely uninterrupted recollection of God’s presence for a whole lifetime is possible or not. A much more frequent & prolonged recollection than we have yet reached certainly is possible. Isn’t that enough to work on? A child learning to walk doesn’t need to know whether it will ever be able to walk 40 miles in a day: the important thing is that it can walk tomorrow a little further and more steadily than it did today.
I don’t think we are likely to give too much love and care to those we love. We might put in active care in the form of assistance when it wd. be better for them to act on their own: i.e. we might be busybodies. Or we might have too much ‘care’ for them in the sense of anxiety. But we never love anyone too much: the trouble is always that we love God, or perhaps some other created being, too little.
As to the ‘state of the world’ if we have time to hope and fear about it, we certainly have time to pray. I agree it is v. hard to keep one’s eyes on God amid all the daily claims & problems. I think it wise, if possible, to move one’s main prayers from the last-thing-at-night position to some earlier time: give them a better chance to infiltrate one’s other thoughts.
Thanks v. much for the stationery. I’m afraid I can’t find a W. Chambers book.271 It’s better not to send the book. They all get lost in the pile on my table.
Yours sincerely, with love to all,
C. S. Lewis
TO HARRY BLAMIRES (BOD):
Magdalen College,
Oxford. 26 xi 52
Dear Blamires
Yes, I did of course write to Edinburgh and did my best.272 I was much hampered by the fact that my questioner laid great stress on practical ability as a teacher, and of course I could not pretend to have any first hand evidence to give on that. I am sorry the Philistines have won: but am sure you will not allow yourself to be too set down about it. All good wishes,
Yours
C. S. Lewis
TO GEOFFREY BLES (BOD):
Magdalen College,
Oxford. 26. xi. 1952
My dear Bles
Thanks for American M.C.273 and for reviews of D.T.274 No, I shan’t need any more copies of the former, so pray dispose of them as you think fit. No one, not even the artist, liked the Church Times picture.275 The Torso is not at all imminent:276 I’m very busy with ordinary work these days. All greetings.
Yours
C. S. Lewis
TO WILLIAM BORST (P):
Magdalen College,
Oxford 28.xi.52
Dear Borst–
The copy has not yet come to hand but I have your letter of the 19th and I’m afraid the position is this. You can have a little more headnote (but not a statement what each passage ‘illustrates’–it is 50 bad for the students) and as many more glosses as you like: but you can’t have from me any drastic revision of the Selections. For one thing I have not now the leisure: but for another, I can’t have what is really Mr. Harrison’s Selections going under my name.
If you press for such a revision then I will make what seems to me a handsome offer. I will be content with 500 dollars for my introduction and for giving you my selections & glosses as a basis for someone else’s work. You will save money, for you needn’t get an expensive man to do you the kind of Selections you now want. It is work for any intelligent student. For my Selections were quite a different thing. With labour of which you have no conception I quarried a little F.Q. out of the great F.Q.: reproducing its real characteristics. Of course this involved omitting (within individual selections) stanzas that could be spared: and leaving the first appearances of characters as unprepared as S. leaves them: and being ‘tantalising’ as S. is tantalising: and omitting some (v. few) of the dear old Show-pieces. You have almost sensed what I was at: I don’t think Mr. Harrison has. And the result on you is v. significant. You now want more Spenser than you allowed me at first. Why? if not that the thing is acting on you as I hoped it wd. act on the students? If I’d simply chucked all the dear old favourites together in the old way you’d have taken them without a murmur and never asked for more.
As I say, you are quite free to get someone else (and, between ourselves, you need get only a hack). Yet I can’t help hoping you’ll keep my Selections: not for my sake (I shd. not be piqued and I can manage without the other 500 dollars) but for Spenser’s. Arrogant tho’ it may sound I can’t help saying ‘Borst, you know not what you do: let well alone. You’ve got here a new thing, a thing which will whet the students’ appetite as it whets yours. Think twice before throwing it away in favour of one more “specimens of Spenser” such as everyone has done, and no one enjoyed.’
Mr. Harrison is mistaken in thinking that Serena was a foundling of noble birth.277 S. does (emphatically) identify RCK278 and St George (I x. lxi.).279
Yours
C. S. Lewis
TO I. O. EVANS (W):
Magdalen College
Oxford 28. xi. 52
Dear Evans
Thank you for The Space Serpent