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.
I am glad to hear that Tchainie
(#ulink_51cbfb8c-bc85-5088-ba90-2c763f83f84c) is once more sufficiently my friend to ask about my mediaeval book.
(#ulink_f4f81d4c-7cb9-5700-ab9d-03c591fa735e) You can tell her that it is not finished yet, though it might have been if I had not been made English Examiner which has devoured a good deal of my last two long Vacs. As one holds the job only for two years I am now free again and hope to get on with it. By the way has she read the Regress— I don’t mean ‘Ask her if she has read the Regress’!
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.
I haven’t read the new De La Mare,
(#ulink_c460bb30-c78e-502f-be5e-cf304bdd7d53) but probably shall. Galsworthy, though I fully acknowledge his merits, I somehow never feel any desire to return to. Warnie feels quite differently and the original Saga
(#ulink_907c00c9-837b-58ad-9276-446c8acc8365) is one of his old favourites which he can always read again. I forget whether I mentioned to you Collier’s Poor Tom’s A-cold
(#ulink_407f5093-eb60-588a-b6c3-680eb8231aff) as the new book I have enjoyed most for a long time.
Did I (also) tell you that Warnie has complete sets of all the Beethoven symphonies, and that we have a whole symphony each Sunday evening? This is one of the best hours of the week. Maureen who is (to be frank) the difficult one of the household has by then returned to Monmouth from her week end at home: the rush and crowd of visitors and continual flurry of the week end subsides and after a quiet supper Minto, Warnie, Mr Papworth and myself sit down in the study and have our music. In this way we have worked through the first Seven, and it was my recollections of the Seventh (last Sunday) which made me mention the matter—just to let you know that I had once more been enjoying what I still think the best slow movement there is, and, of course, enjoying it all the more because of the associations. I don’t however think the Seventh quite satisfactory as a whole: the final movement is by no means one of the best, and still less is it fit to follow the other. So far I think the Fifth quite easily the best, thus agreeing with the orthodox view: tho’ I differ from it in finding the Eroica the poorest of the lot.
(#ulink_9fbcb4e0-7d89-517e-a7ee-9a78848f1875) The Eroica (the connection is Napoleon) leads me to what you say about Germany.
I might agree that the Allies are partly to blame, but nothing can fully excuse the iniquity of Hitler’s persecution of the Jews, or the absurdity of his theoretical position. Did you see that he said ‘The Jews have made no contribution to human culture and in crushing them I am doing the will of the Lord.’ Now as the whole idea of the ‘Will of the Lord’ is precisely what the world owes to the Jews, the blaspheming tyrant has just fixed his absurdity for all to see in a single sentence, and shown that he is as contemptible for his stupidity as he is detestable for his cruelty. For the German people as a whole we ought to have charity: but for dictators, ‘Nordic’ tyrants and so on—well, read the chapter about Mr Savage in the Regress
(#ulink_981920fe-531c-5853-b35a-e165c7be27db) and you have my views.
I wish you didn’t always choose summer for your visits here. The place is to day at its best: the pond a smooth almost black sheet, sprinkled, or rather paved with bright leaves: the little birch wood flaming on the far side, and the hill and fir wood beyond fading into mist. Yes—the weather is alright now and I am getting all those fine feelings of revival—beginning to take longer walks again, remembering how much mere branch and sky and hedge ought to mean to one, and noticing suddenly for how long one has been only half awake.
Write again soon. Love to Mrs Greeves.
Yours,
Jack
TO DAPHNE HARWOOD (BOD):
Magdalen College,
Oxford.
Dec 28th 1933
Dear Mrs Harwood
I don’t know when I have been so rude to anyone as I have been to you after my long silence since I stayed with you. The truth is that if Cecil had not lent me Popelbaum’s book,
(#ulink_fdb9a46e-3d06-57b7-bd3a-d7fbf9c591a7) I should have behaved better. I followed the ignis fatuus
(#ulink_b0ecd6ec-e14b-5c73-b6ca-3cc9fedf0179) of postponing my letter until I could include some remarks on reading the book—then the time for reading the book did’nt come as soon as I expected—and so here we are.
I have now read it and am very much impressed. A good deal of it, of course, is difficult to one so ignorant of science as I am, but it is all interesting and, I expect, deserves most serious consideration. Has any notice been taken of it in ‘orthodox’ scientific circles? What particularly stuck in my mind—more as a tragedy than as a theorem—is the illustrated ‘rake’s progress’ of the Chimpanzee. What a subject for a poem! By the bye I have met a young philosophical tutor at New College (Crossland)
(#ulink_62c5e3cd-1029-5272-b6e2-6fda24cfa91f) who seems—which is rare at Oxford—to be well informed about Anthroposophy, and sympathetic tho’ not converted. I think that is really more important for you than an out and out convert would be: it is a great point gained when a movement begins to be treated with respect by those who are not members of it. Incidentally, he is in several ways the most intelligent new acquaintance I have made for several years.
I hope you have not misinterpreted my long silence. I have the most grateful memories of my last week end with you and value the novel honour of my God-sibbe
(#ulink_4c746efb-aa40-524d-84e3-c20f6a19bc44) very much. How is my godson? I hope his laughing all through the service does not mean that he is going to grow up an esprit fort: but as soon as he is old enough I shall try to collaborate with you in preventing this.
How is Stein?—a man I would like to meet again. And how is yourself and the guideman
(#ulink_63523b0b-fe93-5800-bcde-1fa058176af1) and the children? We are all pretty well, though Mrs. Moore is almost worn out with the Christmas charities, which ‘an autumn ’twas that grew the more by reaping.’
