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

But he displayed a perversity and disingenuousness in argument and a cold blooded brutality—religious brutality is the worst kind-which quite revolted us. To expound his position wd. carry us too far: but you would be getting near it if you imagined a Calvinist Jesuit with strong leanings to the doctrine that the elect cannot sin, who had borrowed from metaphysics the view that ‘love’ cannot be predicated of God, and from economics the doctrine that it is no real charity to give anything to the poor. In fact if you mix together all the harshest aspects of every form of religion and irreligion which you know and imagine them delivered with the dryness of a scientist and the intolerance of a verminous monk of the fourth century, you have the recipe. Barfield and I slept in one room and consoled ourselves with chaff and chat in our old manner, recalling happier walking tours. We were very footsore.

      The next day made amends. We had good weather all day long. Griffiths improved surprisingly. In fact we have all forgiven him, and shall ask him again. His exhibition of the previous day was really, I believe, only the reaction of a solitary on finding himself suddenly at bay among people all older than himself and all disagreeing with him. We refused to let conversation become serious. We laughed away his monstrous positions. Before lunchtime we had him laughing himself and making jokes, even bawdy jokes.

      We were in quite a different kind of country today: still the Sussex downs, but not like any ‘downs’ you or I have known, being heavily wooded. It is very pleasant to combine the damp, mysterious delights of a forest walk with the hill-feeling which is called up every now and then by a few open fields revealing the real contours.

We got to Arundel for tea, where Beckett left us by train. Coddling ourselves after the hardships of the previous day, we went no further. Arundel impressed me as much as any place I have ever seen. The castle⁶⁴ has been greatly added to in the XIXth century so that the original Norman kernel is hardly visible: but, provided a castle is big enough and set high enough above the town, it can hardly help being impressive. But it is the surroundings that are the chief beauty, and specially the park. The Magdalen stags are dwarfs compared with the Arundel stags. It contains some of the finest beeches I have ever seen, and hill and dale for miles, and a sheet of water echoing with exotic birds. (There were also some swans to remind me that ‘the rich have their own troubles’) We passed a very pleasant evening here, a great contrast to the night before. Next day we walked to Midhurst, and having slept there, broke up the party after breakfast.

      I find that the account I have written gives quite an exaggerated idea of the less pleasant aspects of this jaunt (Memo: to read all collections of letters in the light of the fact that a letter writer tends to pick out what is piquant, or unusual. He may tell no lies: but his life is never as odd, either for good or ill, as it sounds in the letters.) We had at least some of the rare fine days of this spring while walking. As you know, I do not hold with the undue importance now attached to weather: but I confess that spring—‘being a thing so comfortable and necessary’ can still disappoint me when day after day is ushered in with driving rain or black east winds, and the primroses are battered into the mud as soon as they show their faces. There are signs of budding on all (I think) the new trees, but of course one cannot say what they will come to.

      About Miracle Plays—I agree with you. Is it not all part of the perverse modern attempt to behave as if we were younger, simpler, and more ignorant than we really are? It was natural for the populace in the middle ages to accept a man in a gilt mask appearing as God the Father—who sends Gabriel to the Virgin, who tells her to hurry up and agree to the scheme ‘For they (i.e. the Trinity) think long till I come again.’ It is equally natural, I think, for us, reading the old plays, to find this naiveté touching and delightful—as a grown man likes to watch, or to remember childhood. But a grown man getting into pinafores and going off to play red Indians in the shrubbery is intolerable. Nor will he in that way really recover the pleasures of childhood half so well as he can by reminiscence: nor is there any way in which he can be more utterly unlike a real child. For a child surely wants to be as grown up and sophisticated as it can manage: the enjoyment of naiveté for its own sake is the most hopelessly adult enjoyment there is. I suppose the don reading Edgar Wallace, and the civilised man dancing negro dances, are examples of the same thing. I have read very little but middle english texts since I last wrote: specially the Owl and the Nightingale which you must read in Tolkien’s translation some day.

I asked old Mr. Taylor (the aged deaf man who once played croquet with us at Hillsborough)⁶⁵ up to supper one night, and went there in return. This, you know, I reckon almost among charities, as he is old, poor, friendless, and surrounded by a beastly family. I mention him here in order to record a super P’daitism, when after an hour or so of talk about life on the other planets, education, Einstein, and other oddments, he suddenly explained ‘Ah, I see you know all about this universe business.’ Further than that one can’t possibly go in that particular kind of P’daitism.

I have been reading Tylor’s Anthropology⁶⁶ over my morning tea lately having bought it to read in the train. Kirk’s⁶⁷ old friends the Rationalist Press Association are bringing out a series at a 1/-each of works which they conceive to be anti-religious, and which are to be found on every station bookstall. One has no sympathy with the design—nor does one like to read books in an edition called The Thinker’s Library with a picture on the jacket of a male nude sitting thinking. (The whole thing reminds me of Butler’s remark that a priest is a man who disseminates little lies in defence of a great truth, and a scientist is a man who disseminates little truths in defence of a great lie.) Still it is rather nice to be able to pick up on a railway journey a real classic of medium-popular science. I find I am enjoying the Tylor very much: the chapters on Language and Writing particularly. Still no news of the Henry instalment from Condlin. I confess I am worried about it. Isn’t the Everyman Molière⁶⁸ one of the very small print Everyman’s?

      Yours

      J.

P.S. Old Brightman is dead—a great loss.⁶⁹ When shall we see such a figure again?

      This reminds me of a conversation I had lately when a very courtly old man was condoling with a certain professor on the death of his brother ‘A charming man your poor brother was—such a dear modest fellow—no speech making or anything of that kind about him—in fact I never remember his saying anything.’ A beautiful epitaph. HIC JACET/N OR M/WHO NEVER SAID ANYTHING./I SAID I WILL TAKE HEED TO MY TONGUE/.

      Just to fill up the page I add J.A.’s latest;–

       To all the fowls that wing the air The Goose is much preferred; There is so much of nourishment On that sagacious bird.

       TO OWEN BARFIELD (W):

      [The Kilns]

      May 6 1932

      My dear Barfield

      ‘Very facetious to be sure.’ I have not answered your previous letter (I know of only one) because I have been very busy. I didn’t know I had been asked to stay with you until I got this one-not very long ago: and beyond a single night for the opera I can’t manage it very well. Can’t you come for a night to me?

As to operas I should like May 16th (Siegfried).⁷⁰ Monday and Saturday are the only days possible, which rules out the Rheingold. Would this suit you? What wd. be best of all wd. be if you could get off work on Tuesday 17th and we could come back here together during the morning and be here Tuesday night. Do try.

      I am very sorry (seriously) if I have been rude: but getting the term started immediately after