Collected Letters Volume Three: Narnia, Cambridge and Joy 1950–1963

Name: Collected Letters Volume Three: Narnia, Cambridge and Joy 1950–1963
Rating: 5 (3 reviews)
Author: Клайв Стейплз Льюис

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Клайв Стейплз Льюис

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Биографии и мемуары

Год написания книги

2018

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Oxford

May 30th 1953

Dear Mrs. Shelburne

Thank you for your letter of the 26th. I am particularly glad to hear that you had a ‘fairly pleasant’ talk with your daughter

Yes, we are always told that the present wide-spread apostasy must be the fault of the clergy, not of the laity. If I were a parson I shd. always try to dwell on the faults of the clergy: being a layman, I think it more wholesome to concentrate on those of the laity. I am rather sick of the modern assumption that, for all events, ‘WE’, the people, are never responsible: it is always our rulers, or ancestors, or parents, or education, or anybody but precious ‘US’, WE are apparently perfect & blameless. Don’t you believe it. Nor do I think the Ch. of England holds out many attractions to the worldly. There is more real poverty, even actual want, in English vicarages than there is in the homes of casual labourers.

I look forward to Martin’s

(#ulink_f6aa7977-9083-58cc-b83a-7d613874a91c) ‘appreciations’. Yes, we have the word ‘dither’-and the thing too. And our offices are in a dither too. This is so common that I suspect there must be something in the very structure of a modern office which creates Dither. Otherwise why does our ‘College Office’ find full time work for a crowd of people in doing what the President of the College, 100 years ago, did in his spare time without a secretary and without a typewriter? (The more noise, heat, & smell a machine produces the more power is being wasted!)

I’d rather like to see one of your hail storms: our climate is in comparison, v. tame. Have you read S. V. Benét’s Western Stan

(#ulink_fa8d7f51-79e1-51d5-88d9-ecb3d41d0d46) Excellent, I think.

Yours sincerely

C. S. Lewis

The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II took place in Westminster Abbey on 2 June 1953.

TO HELEN D. CALKINS (W):

(#ulink_070daf59-05a1-5e11-bfbf-bf95f6131e58)

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

June 3rd 1953

Dear Miss Calkins

Your yesterday’s cable was a gracious and cheering surprise. I can only reply, God bless Miss Calkin: God bless California! The weather was not what one wd. have wished for a Coronation, but it was lovely getting the news about Everest on the same day.

(#ulink_6b568086-8484-5e16-b231-5958e7b96fd8) With heartiest good wishes.

Yours most sincerely

C. S. Lewis

TO HILA NEWMAN (W):

(#ulink_f3bb7939-d2d8-5015-8481-2987ee35e368)

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

June 3rd 1953

Dear Hida (is that right) Newman

Thank you so much for your lovely letter and pictures. I realised at once that the coloured one was not a particular scene but a sort of line-up like what you would have at the very end if it was a play instead of stories. The Dawn Treader is not to be the last: There are to be 4 more, 7 in all. Didn’t you notice that Asian said nothing about Eustace not going back? I thought the best of your pictures was the one of Mr. Tumnus at the bottom of the letter.

As to Asian’s other name, well I want you to guess. Has there never been anyone in this world who (1.) Arrived at the same time as Father Christmas. (2.) Said he was the son of the Great Emperor. (3.) Gave himself up for someone else’s fault to be jeered at and killed by wicked people. (4.) Came to life again. (5.) Is sometimes spoken of as a Lamb (see the end of the Dawn Treader). Don’t you really know His name in this world. Think it over and let me know your answer!

Reepicheep in your coloured picture has just the right perky, cheeky expression. I love real mice. There are lots in my rooms in College but I have never set a trap. When I sit up late working they poke their heads out from behind the curtains just as if they were saying, ‘Hi! Time for you to go to bed. We want to come out and play’

All good wishes,

Yours ever

C. S. Lewis

TO MARY VAN DEUSEN (W):

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

June 8th 1953

Dear Mrs Van Deusen

Yes, I think your position is the right one. If one is asked for advice, then, and then only, one has to have an opinion about the exact rule of life which wd. suit some other Christian. Otherwise, I think the rule is to mind one’s own business.

St. Paul goes further than this: it may even be proper at times to adopt practices which you yourself think unnecessary, and which are unnecessary to you, if your difference on such points is a stumbling-block to the Christians you find yourself among. Hence, you see, other Christians’ practices concern us, when at all, as a ground for concessions on our part, not for interference or complacent assertion that our way is best. This is in Romans chap XIV:

(#ulink_911f76e0-4c4c-5688-a684-af0904fad2b9) read the chapter and meditate on it. I am very glad you have seen the real point.

My ‘troubles’, thanks, are in abeyance, except that I am suffering from Sinusitis: but that too is better than it was.

Don’t doubt that you and Genia are in my daily prayers. Hasn’t what you are kind enough to say about our Coronation a wider relevance?—that nothing stirs us if it has the sole purpose of stirring us: i.e. the stirring must be a by-product.

God bless you.

Yours

C. S. Lewis

TO ROGER LANCELYN GREEN (BOD): TS

REF.162.53.

Magdalen College,