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

(#ulink_c7994a55-dbee-55ef-ac99-c17abf80a794) and we maybe sure He doesn’t do Himself what He forbade us to do. Your present prayers for yr. husband are still part of the married life.

Then as for your own shock in discovering that you hadn’t got nearly as far as you thought towards loving the God who made your husband & gave him to you more than the gift. Well, no. One keeps on thinking one has crossed that bridge before one has. And God knows that it has to be crossed sooner or later, in this life or in another. And the first step is to discover that one has not crossed it yet. I wonder could He have really shown you this in any other way? Or even if we can’t answer that, can’t we trust Him to know when and how best the terrible operation can be done? Of course it is easy (I know) for the person who isn’t feeling the pain to say all these things. You yourself wd. have been able to say them of anyone else’s loss. Whatever rational grounds there are for doubt, you knew them all before: can it be rational (of course, it is natural) to weight them so differently simply because, this time, oneself is the sufferer? Doesn’t that make it obvious that the doubts come not from the reason but from the shrinking nerves? At any rate, don’t try to argue with them: not now, while you are crippled. Ignore them: go on. Be regular in all your religious duties. Remember it is not being loved but loving wh. is the high & holy thing. You are now practising the second without the full comfort of the first. It was certain from the beginning that you wd. some day have to do this, for no human love passes onto the eternal level in any other way. God knows, many wives have had to learn it by a path harder than even bereavement: having to love unfaithful, drunken, or childish husbands. And have succeeded too: as God succeeds in loving us. May He help you.

Yours

C. S. Lewis

TO VERA GEBBERT (W): TS

192/53.

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

23rd December 1953.

Dear Mrs. Gebbert,

‘Thank heavens’ said my brother, knee deep in Christmas cards and packing paper, ‘here’s something like a real present at last!’ And of course, he was right, though we have so far merely got down to the package: for, like good little boys, we would not for worlds open the box until the morning of the 25th. Thank you very much for your kindness in remembering us. Though the calendar says it is Christmas week, there is nothing about the weather to indicate the fact: still mild, indeed at times warm, and no signs of snow; and I gather that conditions are just the same in eastern America.

My brother was much interested in your recommendation of the Panama Canal route in your last letter, and has often told me of it: he having come by cargo boat from Shanghai to Boston in his army days. He adds that if you ever take a vacation in the Eastern States, you would find it great fun to join the ship at San Pedro, Cal, and go via Panama and the West Indies.

We have not much news here; the chief event has been that last week we entertained a lady from New York for four days, with her boys, aged nine and seven respectively. Can you imagine two crusted old batchelors in such a situation? It however went swimmingly, though it was very, very exhausting; the energy of the American small boy is astonishing. This pair thought nothing of a four mile hike across broken country as an incident in a day of ceaseless activity, and when we took them up Magdalen tower, they said as soon as they got back to the ground, ‘Let’s do it again!’ Without being in the least priggish, they struck us as being amazingly adult by our standards and one could talk to them as one would to ‘grown-ups’–though the next moment they would be wrestling like puppies on the sitting room floor. The highlights of England for them are (a), open coal fires, especially if they can get hold of the bellows and blow it up, and (b), English policemen for whom they keep a smart look-out. The latter they seemed to find even more thrilling than what they call the ‘toy soldiers’, i.e. the Guards in scarlet outside Buckingham Palace. But I am forgetting that to you there is nothing exotic about American small boys, and no doubt at present your interest is concentrated on one American small boy–who I hope is in the best of health and spirits.

Do you know the admirable French word Tohu-bohu? In Scots, a ‘kerfuffle’? Meaning a domestic upsidedownedness which overtakes us all at this season? When it has subsided, I plan to go down to Malvern for a couple of days to prepare myself for the ordeal of the oncoming term with a few walks over the hills.

With all best wishes to you and both the Mr. Gebberts for a happy and a prosperous 1954,

yours sincerely,

C. S. Lewis

TO NELL BERNERS-PRICE (W):

Magdalen College

Oxford

Dec 26. 53

Dear Nell

What a lovely card! Please give Penelope my very great thanks. Indeed ‘card’ is the wrong word. You, or she, also included a piece of blotting paper: is this a subtle way of suggesting that some previous letter of mine looked as if I were rather short of that commodity-? Well, anyway, I usually am, and welcome a new piece. I am delighted to hear that Peter is doing so well at school: how proud you must be of him.

My brother and I have just had the experience (a v. rum one for two hardened old bachelors) of an American lady to stay with us accompanied by her two sons, aged 91/2 and 8. Whew! Lovely creatures-couldn’t meet nicer children–but the pace! I realise I have never respected you married people enough and never dreamed of the Sabbath calm wh. descends on the house when the little cyclones have gone to bed and all the grown-ups fling themselves into chairs and the silence of exhaustion.

Christmas is now catching me up too: so far as I can see I have several thousands of letters to answer. Please give my love to all, and best wishes for a good 1954.

Yours

Jack Lewis

TO RHONA BODLE (BOD):

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Magdalen College

Oxford

Dec 26/53

Dear Miss Bodle

Thanks for yr. most interesting letter. I am delighted to hear of your success in getting some Christian knowledge across to these children. It is wicked that they shd. be so deprived. Even an agnostic who does not believe the stories to be true ought to see that they are, at the very least, part of our common heritage, like Homer and the Arthurian stories.

About re-reading books: I find like you that those read in my earlier ‘teens often have no appeal, but this is not nearly so often true of those read in earlier childhood. Girls may develop differently, but for me, looking back, it seems that the glories of childhood and the glories of adolescence are separated by a howling desert during which one was simply a greedy, cruel, spiteful little animal and imagination, in all but the lowest form, was asleep.

I hope your new house will be very blessed. It was Charles Williams from whom I got the words ‘holy luck’. And now for piles of Christmas letters: many of them, unlike yours, from people I don’t want to write to at all. Every blessing.

Yours

C. S. Lewis

TO NATHAN COMFORT STARR (W): PC, TS

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

26th December 1953.

Dear Starr,

Yes, Hori did call: an interesting man. Glad you’re home again, and no doubt so are you.

All good wishes from us both for a happy and prosperous New Year.

Yours,

C. S. Lewis

TO MARY VAN DEUSEN (W):

Magdalen College

Oxford