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
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9780007332663
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me!

      I have been progressing all this lent through the first volume of a v. nice edition of St Augustine’s City of God only to find that the other volume has been so wrongly bound that it begins and ends in the middle of sentences. What a tragedy this would once have been!

      We have got (vice Mr. Papworth, now gathered to his fathers) a golden retriever puppy who is about the size of a calf and as strong as a horse: has the appetite of a lion, the manners of a hurricane, the morals of a gangster, and an over salivated mouth.

      Please give my love to your mother, and remember me to Reid. I saw Bryson about a fortnight ago and I think he said he was going home this Vac. Will you be able to have me this summer? It is a very bright spot in the year, but don’t hesitate to say if it is inconvenient.

      Yours

      Jack

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford.

      May 5th 1937

      Dear Neylan,

      I am sorry your wife has been ill—give her my sympathy. Your offer is attractive to the hot-gospeller in me, but after a lot of thought I feel I must refuse. I have no notion how to handle such an audience nor what to say to them: but many thanks.

      I am in the middle of a scholarship exam, or I shd. write more.

      Yours

      C. S. Lewis

      TO JOAN BENNETT (WHL):

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford.

      May 7th 1937.

      Dear Mrs Bennett

      About the imaginary chronology (by which I mean the sorting out of the love poems into cynical and idealistic periods), I find it nearly so embedded in everyone’s mind that I am haunted by the fear that there may be some real evidence for it which I don’t know; my jibe was made in the hope of eliciting this.

      All I meant about the book was that it is not nearly so exciting as a book by you ought to be. Of course I disagree with the phonetic criticism, but very respectable people agree with you…

      TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W):

      Magdalen College.

      Oxford.

      June 10th 1937

      My dear Arthur,

      In my diary I have down ‘cross to Arthur’ for July 12th not July 5th and as I have arranged everything on this basis I trust it will be alright.

      Yours

      Jack

      TO CECIL HARWOOD (BOD):

      Magdalen College

      Oxford

      June 19th 1937

      My dear Harwood

      I had a quite unexpected windfall the other day as a result of which I am able to make Lawrence a present. My idea is that you should lodge it in a deposit account and let the trifle of interest accumulate, the whole to be used for or by him when he reaches the costly age (18–20). But you probably understand such matters better than I—at least a professional Bursar ought to—so dispose it for Godson’s future use as you think best. Is there any chance of seeing you this summer? Give my love to Daphne.

      Yours

      C. S. Lewis

      TO DOM BEDE GRIFFITHS (W):

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford.

      [27] June 1937

      Dear Griffiths

      Your reply about the body leaves all my questions unanswered. I’d better tell you how it arose. I was talking the other day to an intelligent infidel who said that he pinned all his hopes for any significance in the universe on the chance that the human race by adapting itself to changed conditions and first planet jumping, then star jumping, finally nebula jumping, could really last forever and subject matter wholly to mind.

      When I said that it was overwhelmingly improbable, he said Yes, but one had to believe even in the 1000th chance or life was mockery. I of course asked why, feeling like that, he did not prefer to believe in the other and traditional ‘chance’ of a spiritual immortality. To that he replied—obviously not for effect but producing something that had long been in his mind—‘Oh I never can believe that: for if that were true our having a physical existence wd. be so pointless.’ He’s a nice, honest chap, and I have no doubt at all that this is one of the things standing between him and Christianity.

      As to the rest of your letter—the question of Divine Presence was introduced rather for example: but, of course, I have no wish to discuss with you anything you don’t want to discuss with me. I received your statement that you do not think I am acting ‘in bad faith’ with some puzzlement: as if, in a conversation that had no apparent connection with money, you suddenly remarked ‘I am not saying you are bribed’. One is of course glad to be acquitted: but quite in the dark as to how one came to be on trial.

      I also am doing a lot of rustic work at present but more with a scythe than a spade.

      Yours

      C. S. Lewis

      TO OWEN BARFIELD (W):

      The Kilns,

      Headington Quarry,

      Oxford.

      Sept 2nd 1937

      Instrument approved with the exception of ‘were reduced to’ which hardly seems the right style

      Malory—Morris—are you preparing a chapter on Quellen for a book about me.