Collected Letters Volume Two: Books, Broadcasts and War, 1931–1949. Walter Hooper. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Walter Hooper
Издательство: HarperCollins
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Жанр произведения: Биографии и Мемуары
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isbn: 9780007332663
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there only because good is there for it to spoil and confuse.

      I expect I have said all these things before: if so, I hope they have not wasted a letter. Alas! they are so (comparatively) easy to say: so hard, so all but impossible to go on feeling when the strain comes.

      When I suggested that you had changed, I didn’t mean that you had changed towards me. I meant that I thought the centre of your interests might have shifted more than mine. This leads on to what you say about being a mere mirror for other people on which each friend can cast his reflection in turn. That certainly is what you might become, just as a hardened bigot shouting every one down till he had no friends left is what I am in danger of becoming. In other words sympathy is your strong point, as stability is mine—if I have a strong point at all, which is doubtful: or weakness is your danger, as Pride is mine. (You have no idea how much of my time I spend just hating people whom I disagree with—tho’ I know them only from their books—and inventing conversations in which I score off them.) In other words, we all have our own burdens, and must do the best we can. I do not know which is the worse, nor do we need to: if each of us could imitate the other.

      The woods are just beginning to turn here—the drive was exquisite this afternoon. Love from all.

      Yours,

      Jack

       TO GUY POCOCK (W):

      The Kilns,

      Headington Quarry,

      Oxford

      Sept. 18th 1933.

      Dear Pocock

      Would you kindly tell the right department to send a copy of the Regress to A. Griffiths, Prinknash Priory, Gloucester, and debit me accordingly,

      Yours

      C. S. Lewis

       TO J. M. DENT PUBLISHERS (W):

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford.

      Oct. 16th 1933

      Dear Sir

      Please forward a copy of my Pilgrim’s Regress to Miss Whitty, 7 Cherlsey Rd, Bristol 6. I enclose cheque for 8/2 to cover this and previous copies.

      Yours faithfully

      C. S. Lewis

       TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W):

      [The Kilns]

      Nov 5th 1933

      My dear Arthur,

      I was glad to see your hand again. In spite of the remarks at the beginning of your letter, which tempt me to further discussion I must try to prevent this also from becoming an essay in amateur Theology.

      To answer the next point in your letter, MacFarlane is back at work again and seems alright: but that perhaps does not count for much as he seemed alright to me up to the moment when he went sick. I have no eye for health. ‘How much better he is looking’—‘How ill he is looking’ people say to me as a visitor leaves the room, and I have never noticed any difference. I hope mere selfishness is not the cause.

      The news of your learning to ride was surprising, amusing (as you foresaw!) and on the whole good. Perhaps you will be a ‘huntin’ man’ when I next meet you, slapping your leggings with a crop, and drinking whiskies with the county families’ fast daughters and hard-riding sons. What a fine sight it would be to see Bob, Janie, and you, altogether and all in full hunting kit (Janie wd. look fine in a tall hat and breeches) taking a fence together. What would attract me most about riding, viz. the unity of man and beast, is, I suppose, largely spoiled by having to use hired horses. But if you find you like it I suppose you could easily afford a horse of your own, if Lea knows anything about the care of a horse. Certainly I should enjoy very much strolling round with you to visit it in its stable.