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

Dec 1st 1951

Dear Miss Tunnicliff

(1.) Oddly enough I have more than once thought of writing on the Problem of Pleasure. As for the title and subject of my actual book

(#ulink_d67ade36-fdff-504e-ba3e-c4cf1e3276ae) [they] were not of my own independent choice: I had been asked to deal with that subject for a series.

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(2.) ‘Rough male taste’

(#ulink_b8a69a79-4c16-525b-81e6-53ac8509e448) is, of course, a metaphor. It still seems to me the right one—but of course all metaphors are touch-and-go and don’t appeal equally to all imaginations.

(3.) I did try so to write as to make people less angry. To say that they might be angry was part of the attempt.

(4.) You think I don’t go far enough about animals: others think I go too far. If I had gone as far as you wd. like I shd. have raised more incredulity. Yes—my treatment of freedom was crude & hasty.

(5.) No, I don’t think I can frame every sentence for reading aloud in mixed company. I think books on such subjects are best read in solitude.

With all good wishes.

Yours sincerely

C. S. Lewis

In his unpublished biography of his brother, most of which became Letters of C. S. Lewis (1966), Warnie Lewis wrote: ‘On 3rd December 1951 Jack received a letter from the Prime Minister [Winston Churchill] offering to recommend him for a C.B.E. in the New Year Honour’s List. Here is his reply:’

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TO THE PRIME MINISTER’S SECRETARY (P):

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

[4 December] 1951

I feel greatly obliged to the Prime Minister, and so far as my personal feelings are concerned this honour would be highly agreeable. There are always however knaves who say, and fools who believe, that my religious writings are all covert anti-Leftist propaganda, and my appearance in the Honours List would of course strengthen their hands. It is therefore better that I should not appear there. I am sure the Prime Minister will understand my reason, and that my gratitude is and will be none the less cordial.

TO EDWARD A. ALLEN (W): TS

REF.25/51.

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

6th December 1951.

My dear Mr. Allen,

As I entered my rooms this morning I was cheered by the sight of a parcel, so admirably packed, that I did’nt have to look at the label to see who was the kind friend who had sent it. How do you do it? I’ve been trying for years to learn how to make up a package, and still have’nt progressed sufficiently in the art to produce one that I would trust to cross the street. I need hardly say how grateful I am to you for it, coming as it does at a moment when the new government—very rightly by the way—has refused to woo the electors by playing Father Christmas with a food bonus.

It appears from information given in Parliament that Labour’s food gifts to the country in December were really only available by cutting the rations in other months, and this Churchill does’nt propose to do. But what a mess the world is in, is’nt it? In some respects you must feel it even worse than we do; you are of course better off materially, but we at least have’nt a full-scale war on our hands. And one to which I can’t see any end, for I take it that if peace is made in Korea—which does’nt look very likely—it will merely be the prelude to an attack on France in Indo-China or ourselves in Malaya. But we can’t do anything about it except pray, so there is no use in grumbling.

After the wettest November on record, with floods all down the Thames valley, we have settled down into a crisp December, and are enjoying it. There is of course the usual coal shortage, but that does’nt worry us much, for we have a good deal of timber about the place, and my brother and I do our own coal mining with axe and saw. So do the neighbours, drat ‘em, but its impossible to patrol the place day and night; but as King Louis XV used to say, ‘things as they are will last out my time’.

With all best wishes to you and your mother for a happy Christmas from both of us, and with very many thanks,

yours sincerely,

C. S. Lewis

TO VERA MATHEWS (W): TS

RER64/51.

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

12th December 1951.

Dear Miss Mathews,

Many thanks for your letter of the 8th:–

Texas certainly does’nt sound attractive, but you seem to have got some enjoyment out of it; my brother says he has an idea that this is the one which calls itself the Lone Star State, and that its inhabitants–like the Scots and the Jews—are always making up good stories against themselves, e.g. that when America entered the war, Texas wired the President ‘Texas joins with U.S.A. in fight for freedom’.

Yes, we have been exceedingly lucky (in more senses than one) over your parcels, and the customs took no notice of the things you mention; I think with all articles they take the view that as long as you are not making a business of it, a little of this that or the other thing may now be passed. But this is only a guess, I really don’t know.

Of course I’ll try my hand at commenting on a short story, but don’t attach much importance to what I say. I’ve never had any professional (i.e. academical) connection with modern literature, and the short story is a genre I’m particularly bad on. That is, I accept the job, not because I can do it, but because you have such high claim to anything we can even try to do.

With all best wishes from us both to you both for a happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year,

yours sincerely,

C. S. Lewis

P.S. My brother asks me to add that he too looks forward to seeing the story, and that unfortunately he does’nt know India at all; he was once under orders to go there for five years, but with his usual ingenuity, managed to persuade the War Office to send him to West Africa for twelve months instead.

TO WARHELD M. FIROR(BOD):

Magdalen College,

Oxford Dec.

20th 1951