Kicking LJ Analog - C.S. Lewis's Letters to an American Lady
Magdalen College,
Oxford
Nov. 10th 1952
Dear Mrs. _________
It is a little difficult to explain how I feel that tho’ you have taken a way which is not for me* I nevertheless can congratulate you - I suppose because your faith and joy are so obviously increased. Naturally, I do not draw from that the same conclusions as you - but there is no need for us to start a controversial correspondence!
…
Yours most sincerely
C.S. Lewis
*She had left the Episcopal Church to become a Roman Catholic
-------------------------------------
I love that - "There is no need for us to start a controversial correspondence!" Imagine! Despite the fact that we begin with a Religious Difference, which has both the same and yet different connotation now, we can still conduct a correspondence which is not controversial. We reach out and we connect, there is no need for controversy.
Please note all correspondence comes from the subject volume. Any errors or typos are my own. I have left the delightful vagaries of date format intact in order to precisely identify which letter each excerpt comes from (preposition proudly at the end of this sentence, acceptable per CSL).
This post is actually a prime example of ‘preaching to the choir’, because you guys all know already how encouraging and pleasurable it can be to have a pen pal. Still, I wanted to follow through on this idea as I took a great deal of pleasure in reading this collection of letters, and I was really astonished by the extraordinarily close parallels I was able to draw between Lewis’s letters and actual LJ conversations I’ve participated in. When I first had the idea of writing up this post, I had no idea I would actually be able to cite almost identical communications.
Another view which changed very definitely as I read was my perspective on the fact that the reader gets only Lewis’s side of this ongoing conversation. At first I was annoyed. Surely a letter or two from the other side had to have survived? But then I realized that what I was getting from the fact that this is completely one-sided is Lewis’s view of his correspondent rather than her view of herself. I’d have to term it amused tolerance for the most part. He was a very charitable man, and he genuinely was sorry for the woman’s financial woes; he even arranged for her to be paid a stipend from his own pocket. There are times, though, when it’s pretty clear he considers her a bit of dingbat.
So before I (attempt to) get all intellectual about it, I want to point out that virtually every single letter contains Lewis commiserating on some sort of illness, money trouble, diet, moving house, job hunting, and/or just plain people who are annoying. So straight off the bat, I’m sure you all recognize those as topics which perpetually crop up on LJ. And so, I give you my second journal entry ever:
Good morning?
Mar. 12th, 2012 at 8:49 AM
I just recently set up this journal, and I only posted my first entry yesterday, but I’ve already been overcome this morning with an overwhelming urge to come on here and whine to everyone who isn’t reading this. Now, granted, I have a cold and today is time change Monday which means - added to the absence of a coworker - I had to get out of bed at what is actually 0530, and I consider these conditions to be worthy of complaint. But still - given even an imaginarily-public forum this is my first instinct? I even came up with a couple of good tags for this on the drive to work. Ahem - here they are: Just having a bit of a whinge, thanks. And: Wishing there was a shot of whisk(e)y in my coffee this morning. So apparently I plan to do this a lot if I’m going to need a tag. Not only this, but these clever tags don’t accurately describe anything at all. I’m not allowed to say ‘whinge’ as I’m american, and I no longer drink coffee in the morning on a regular basis.
So instead of writing an entry which just complains, I turned it into an entry which complains about my wanting to complain. Clever again, no? Why, I’m practically Ten; the difference being, I bet he has a cure for the common cold. Oh, and he can say ‘whinge’ if he likes.
Complaining to an audience of 1 since 3/12/12. Tks, litlover12!
litlover12 (74.96.182.94) wrote:
Mar. 12th, 2012 11:38 am (local)
Glad to oblige! :-) Isn't "whinge" a cool word?
--------
So to answer my own question, yes, this is what we do. We complain and commiserate.
We are also not the first to seek out a BritPick, or just express confusion over an unfamiliar term. Lewis also recs a fic - erm - a book, rather.
Magdalen College,
Oxford
May 30th, 1953
…
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, and 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, very tame. Have you read S.V. Benet’s Western Star? Excellent, I think.
Yours sincerely
C.S. Lewis
Magdalen College
Oxford
May 27th 1954
Dear Mary
Thanks for yours of the 24th. I am glad to hear you have moved into pleasanter quarters and hope there will be a great blessing both upon them and on the new job. The saving of time and money on bus travel is a great point: or rather, if your experience is at all like mine, the time spent not in travelling but in waiting at ‘bus stops, often in very cold or very hot weather. I’ve no idea what a “pent-house apartment” may be!
…
Yours ever
Jack
The Kilns,
Headington Quarry,
Oxford
18 Oct 59
Dear Mary
Well, thank goodness your move is now over. A “bed-sitter”, as we call them over here, has certainly its drawbacks. In England, where most houses have no central heating, it has one compensation - that of going to bed and getting up in a warm room.
…
Yours
Jack
I’m not sure if this one is a BritPick or he’s just quarreling in a teasing manner about her grammar.
Magdalene College,
Cambridge
26 Oct 62
…
And what is a “wall can opener”? It suggests either opening a tin by means of a wall or opening a wall by means of a tin, and both sound very strange operations.
Well, now to the other letters. Always, prayers.
Yours
Jack
Then there are the beta requests.
Magdalen College
Oxford, England
4/iii/53
Dear Mrs. ___________
Thank you for yoru letter of Feb. 26 which arrived today...Eldila is the true plural: but you can Anglicise it as eldils*!
…
Yours most sincerely
C.S. Lewis
*Eldils are beings in Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra and That Hideous Strength.
The Kilns etc.
19/12/55
Dear Mary
Thanks for your letter of Dec. 15. I don’t see anything wrong with the way in which you tell your story...wrong in the stylistic way, I mean. You have made it sound at one point as if Episcopalians didn’t think suicide a sin! But no doubt that is unintentional. I think the narrative good.
…
Yours
Jack Lewis
And now the really fun part.
Magdalen College,
Oxford
26/1/54
Dear Mrs. ________
Thanks for yours of the 23d and for copy of my verses, which I had almost totally forgotten. ‘Pon my word, they’re not so bad as I feared.
...
Yours
C.S. Lewis
From: impulsereader
2012-06-28 12:17 pm (local)
Rivalries
Don't think about Delirium too much, indeed. One can lose oneself so easily that way...
All four of these vignettes are simply gorgeous. I'm with Death in remaining rather stubbornly in denial, I'm afraid; or perhaps it is still in mourning years after having read the series for the first time.
Wonderful, truly wonderful!
New comment "Re: Rivalries" by irisbleufic on an entry in irisbleufic.
Thank you so much :) I had actually forgot about writing this one, so thank you, too, for dragging me back into territory that I haven't thought about in quite some time!
June 6th [1958]
Dear Mary
Perhaps you won’t mind a letter from me this time, instead of Jack? He is having his first go at examining for the Cambridge tripos, and is fairly drowning in examination papers - apparently very silly ones! He comes up for air now and then, blows a few pathetic bubbles, then submerges again.
…
Blessings,
Yours,
Joy Lewis
Just taking a short break from the marking to catch up
Jul. 15th, 2012 at 3:40 PM mizz_history
I'm well on target for today's total so thought I would pop in for a mo.
I have hit the Marking Wall of Despair (TM), the point where you realise you still have loads to do and the deadline is drawing close. I've really had enough... and I've got about 60 papers on Bend It Like Beckham still to mark. My heart sinks whenever a centre picks that film.
As from Magdalen College,
Cambridge
20/2/55
…
Thanks for the review of Griffiths’ book which I have of course read and enjoyed already. And I’m so pleased about the Abolition of Man, for it is almost my favourite among my books but in general has been almost totally ignored by the public.
…
Yours
Jack
impulsereader (24.148.29.17) wrote:
Jul. 7th, 2012 06:07 pm (local)
Oh, it's good to hear you liked it. I was having a really hard time getting some love for that story. I didn't realize how much I actually liked it until I posted it and it was like dropping a lead balloon.
…
It's still not doing well in the kudos to hits ratio, but I'm glad at least some people like it.
The Kilns,
Headington Quarry,
Oxford
3/8/56
…
I read Don Camillo some years ago, but can’t imagine how it could be made into a film. I suppose they drag some love story into it? (But then I’m, as you know, rather allergic to the films).
…
Yours
Jack
litlover12
"E! is developing a new a 'modern-day "Mr. Smith",' by which we presume they mean 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,' as a scripted drama series. . . . Gerken’s modern-day 'Mr. Smith,' E! said Monday, is about 'a self-made billionaire with a penchant for hooking up with lobbyists in the nation’s capital.'"
E! Network, you get your grubby little paws off my classics RIGHT NOW. I mean it.
Mood: angry
Tags: mr. smith goes to washington
myrna_nora wrote:
May. 1st, 2012 01:17 pm (local)
Ugh!! That is horrible!!!
On a similar note, Mr & Mrs Smith (Brad and Angelina movie) was on TV, and grandma asked if they were living in Washingtion DC, yet. I said I hadn't noticed where it was supposed to take place. A little while later she says, "This isn't what I was expecting." We finally figured out she thought it was going to be a remake of Jimmy's film.
impulsereader wrote:
May. 1st, 2012 07:34 pm (local)
Oh my goodness. Hilarious, but even better - a sequel rather than a remake!
myrna_nora wrote:
May. 1st, 2012 10:07 pm (local)
Her mix-up made me imagine a film where James Stewart and Jean Arthur try to kill each other. Now that would have been unusual and highly amusing!
litlover12 wrote:
May. 1st, 2012 10:10 pm (local)
That would be a VERY dark comedy indeed! :-) (If not an outright tragedy!)
impulsereader wrote:
May. 1st, 2012 10:15 pm (local)
lol - Yes, that would have been the ultimate mix up of those two stories. But would they have gone out and bought guns or quietly waged war with arsenic and such?
myrna_nora wrote:
May. 1st, 2012 10:36 pm (local)
In the era that James and Jean made films, the audience would never have accepted them as the "heroes" of the film if they went all out with guns and blew up their house. But I think more subtle plotting and scheming would pass for a dark comedy.
litlover12 wrote:
May. 1st, 2012 10:46 pm (local)
They could get an "Arsenic and Old Lace" kind of thing going. (And of course it's all a big misunderstanding and they fall into each other's arms at the end. ;-) )
myrna_nora wrote:
May. 1st, 2012 11:27 pm (local)
It be like Rex Harrison trying to kill Linda Darnell in "Unfaithfully Yours."
impulsereader wrote:
May. 1st, 2012 11:54 pm (local)
oh - completely granted. I'm picturing a smash up of Arsenic & Old Lace, Mr. Smith goes to Washington, and Mr. & Mrs. Smith. In this equation B&W outweighs Color and there is some odd blend which definitely doesn't involve explosions. Unfortunately I tend to be distinctly unimaginative in regards to specific plot points. Maybe Teddy buries all the guns right off the bat? Those are definitely bound for Panama, surely?
litlover12 wrote:
May. 2nd, 2012 12:04 pm (local)
You guys, I think we've really got something here! Now all we need is Jimmy and Jean to come back from the dead to star in our little project. :-) If only . .
Then there are the typos, grammar, rhyming, questionable spellings, and misunderstandings both trivial and grave.
Magdalen College
Oxford
March 31st 54
…
P.S. - You speak of the “cult of the OBSTUSE”. Do you mean ABSTRUSE, OBTUSE or OBSCURE?
The Kilns, etc
8/5/55
…
Between ourselves, as one rhymester to another, it’s a great pity that world, such a good important word and often so emphatically demanding to come at the end of a line, has so few rhymes in English. Furled, hurled, curled - none of them very serviceable - and what else is there. Let’s invent a verb to churl (behave churlishly).
…
Yours
Jack
Magdalene College,
Cambridge
24 Nov 1960
…
I wasn’t trying to lecture. Rather, to compare notes about temptation we all have to contend with.
There, by the way, is a sentence ending with a preposition. The silly “rule” against it was invented by Dryden. I think he disliked it only because you can’t do it in either French or Latin which he thought more “polite” languages than English.
…
All blessings,
Yours
Jack
The Kilns, etc
30/6/55
Dear Mary
In great haste. It wasn’t a battle I had; only a bathe - my bad writing again.
…
Yours
Jack
The Kilns,
Headington Quarry,
Oxford
20/3/56
Dear Mary
I don’t know what “high-hatting” means, but it is in this country a safe bet that 999 out of a 1000 people have no use for Scott; and the more high-brow they are, the safer. He is despised by everyone (except a few old fogies like myself) in England. I didn’t say “great plays”, I said GREEK plays (this is the trouble about my handwriting). It is not offensive to assume that a lady doesn’t read Greek - not even in a University town! And I have no “cultural activities”. I like the Bacchae because it’s exciting, not because it is - loathsome word! - “cultured”. In fact, you misunderstood my letter.
All the best.
Yours
Jack
She's worried he’s going to defriend her at this point, you know she is.
Things never really change
Magdalene College,
Cambridge
26/10/55
…
The only reason I’m not sick of all the stuff about ______ is that I don’t read it. I never read the papers. Why does anyone? They’re nearly all lies, and one has to wade thru’ such reams of verbiage and “write up” to find out even what they’re saying.
Yours
Jack
The Kilns etc.
19/12/55
…
I seem to have been writing Christmas letters most of this day! I’m afraid I hate the weeks just before Christmas, and so much of the (very commercialised and vulgarised) fuss has nothing to do with the Nativity at all. I wish we didn’t live in a world where buying and selling things (especially selling) seems to have become almost more important than either producing or using them.
All blessings. “Beneath are the everlasting arms” even when it doesn’t feel at all like it.
Yours
Jack Lewis
The Kilns
Headington Quarry,
Oxford
June 7th 1959
…
Your elderly neighbor would be comic if the matters at issue were not so serious. She has an odd idea of how to cheer people up! Like having a visit from a ghoul. People in real life are often so preposterous that one would not dare to put them in a novel.
…
Yours
Jack
Magdalene College,
Cambridge
24 Nov 1960
Dear Mary
Thanks for your letter of the 20th. About forgetting things. Dr. Johnson said “If, on leaving the company, a young man cannot remember where he has left his hat, it is nothing. But when and old man forgets, everyone says, Ah, his memory is going”. So with ourselves. We have always been forgetting things: but now, when we do so, we attribute it to our age. Why, it was years ago that, on finishing my work before lunch, I stopped myself only just in time from putting my cigarette-end into my spectacle case and throwing my spectacles into the fire!
…
All blessings,
Yours
Jack
Everyone likes to talk about their pets.
Magdalene College,
Cambridge.
14/1/58
…
I am sorry you have been having trouble with your cat. We [have] had a rather “animallic” time for our old bitch (we thought she knew better) made us an unexpected Christmas present of 10 puppies! We are tired of hearing neighbours say “Oh, thank you - we’d love a puppy, but -”
…
Yours sincerely
C.S. Lewis
As from Magdalene College
Cambridge
2/2/58
…
We kept one of the puppies, and call him Guppy (out of Bleak House) and he is a lively youngster. I notice, as I have done before in similar circumstances, the common age is a bond stronger than common species; i.e. Guppy is friends with the kitten and Guppy’s mother is friends with the old cat - a huge Tom called Ginger.
…
Yours
Jack
June 6th [1958]
…
Is your pet a cat or dog? I’ve found that cats stand these changes and separations pretty well - one of mine, when I was ill, took possession of a new home and mistress and had them completely under his thumb in a week. (If one can speak of a cat’s thumb?)
…
Blessings,
Yours,
Joy Lewis
Magdalene College,
Cambridge
6/5/59
…
We also have a Siamese cat. In my heart of hearts I really prefer the great, grey bullet-headed native cat, but the Siamese are delicate and fascinating creatures. Ours adores me because I life her up by her tail - an operation which I can’t imagine I should like if I were a cat, but she comes back for more and more, purring all the time.
…
Yours
Jack
The Kilns,
Headington Quarry,
Oxford
May 19th 1959
…
We are now told by the learned that Siamese are not royal cats at all, but the common jungle cat of those parts and quite “without honour” in their own country! Another disillusion!
In haste - all blessings.
Yours
Jack
The Kilns,
Headington Quarry,
Oxford
3/7/62
…
Joy’s Siamese - my “stepcat” as I call her - is the most terribly conversational animal I ever knew. She talks all the time and wants doors and windows to be opened for her 1000 times an hour.
…
Yours
Jack
Magdalene College,
Cambridge
31/7/62
Dear Mary
Yes, it is strange that anyone should dislike cats. But cats themselves are the worst offenders in this respect. They very seldom seem to like one another.
…
Yours
Jack
Simply priceless - and all things for which I think I could probably find close equivalents on LJ if I looked.
Magdalen College,
Oxford
26/1/54
…
We wouldn’t call Alfred and Egbert and all those the “British” line. They are the “English” line, the Angles, who come from Angel in South Denmark. By the British line we’d mean the Celtic line that goes back through the Tudors to Cadwallader and thence to Arthur, Uther, Cassibelan, Lear, Lud, Brut, Aeneas, Jupiter. The present royal family can claim descent from both the British and the English lines. So, I suppose, can most of us: for since one has 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 16 great-grandparents, and so on, one is presumably descended from nearly everyone who was alive in this island in the year 600 A.D. In the long run one is related to everyone on the planet: in that quite literal sense we are all “one flesh”.
…
Yours
C.S. Lewis
Magdalen
Nov 1st 54
…
(People so often ask me how to get a book, and it seems an odd question. Are they equally puzzled how to order a cwt. of coals or a bottle of gin?)
…
Did I tell you I’ve been made a professor at Cambridge? I take up my duties on Jan. 1st at Magdalene College, Cambridge (Eng.). Note the difference in spelling. It means rather less work for rather more pay. And I think I shall liked Magdalene better than Magdalen. It’s a tiny college (a perfect cameo architecturally) and they’re all so old fashioned, and pious, and gentle and conservative - unlike this leftist, atheist, cynical, hard-boiled, huge Magdalen. Perhaps from being the fogey and “old woman” here I shall become the enfant terrible there. It is nice to be still under the care of St. Mary Magdalene: she must by now understand my constitution better than a stranger would, don’t you think.
...
Yours
Jack
The Kilns etc
21 Sept [1959]
…
If I got a crocodile skin I’d sell it!
Blessings.
Yours
Jack
Magdalene College,
Cambridge.
24 Feb. 1961
…
I hope your vet is not a charlatan? Psychological diagnoses even about human patients seem to me pretty phoney. They must be even phonier when applied to animals. You can’t put a cat on a couch and make it tell you its dreams or produce words by “free association”. Also - I have a great respect for cats - they are very shrewd people and would probably see through the analyst a good deal better than he’d see through them.
…
Yours
Jack
Magdalene College,
Cambridge
4 May 62
…
I was charmed with your two Chinese children. It reminded me of an adventure Joy and I had in Crete, when Joy gave a few drachmae to a very starved looking little girl (She wasn’t begging - justs looking at us with a child’s open-eyed curiosity). The girl instantly rushed into a neighbouring thicket and returned with her hands full of fruit for us. (It was a nice fruit which we’d never seen before, but all our efforts to find out its name elicited only the word karpos, which simply means “fruit”!).
Yours
Jack
The Kilns,
Headington Quarry,
Oxford
19 March 63
…
Is this part of the demarché (it’s in all our papers) which a body of American women are making to the President to get animals properly clothed “in the interests of decency”? Can it be true? If so, not only what insanity, but also (as in all super-refinements) what fundamental foulmindedness! But also, what fun! The elephant looks as if he wore trousers already, but terribly baggy ones. What he needs is braces. The Rhino seems to wear a suit much too big for him: can it be “taken in”? What sort of collars will giraffes wear? Will seals and otters have ordinary clothes or bathing suits? The hedgehog will wear his shirts out terribly quickly, I should think.
…
Blessings and prayers.
Yours
Jack
---------------
How completely adorable is that last? I love it.
Oxford
Nov. 10th 1952
Dear Mrs. _________
It is a little difficult to explain how I feel that tho’ you have taken a way which is not for me* I nevertheless can congratulate you - I suppose because your faith and joy are so obviously increased. Naturally, I do not draw from that the same conclusions as you - but there is no need for us to start a controversial correspondence!
…
Yours most sincerely
C.S. Lewis
*She had left the Episcopal Church to become a Roman Catholic
-------------------------------------
I love that - "There is no need for us to start a controversial correspondence!" Imagine! Despite the fact that we begin with a Religious Difference, which has both the same and yet different connotation now, we can still conduct a correspondence which is not controversial. We reach out and we connect, there is no need for controversy.
Please note all correspondence comes from the subject volume. Any errors or typos are my own. I have left the delightful vagaries of date format intact in order to precisely identify which letter each excerpt comes from (preposition proudly at the end of this sentence, acceptable per CSL).
This post is actually a prime example of ‘preaching to the choir’, because you guys all know already how encouraging and pleasurable it can be to have a pen pal. Still, I wanted to follow through on this idea as I took a great deal of pleasure in reading this collection of letters, and I was really astonished by the extraordinarily close parallels I was able to draw between Lewis’s letters and actual LJ conversations I’ve participated in. When I first had the idea of writing up this post, I had no idea I would actually be able to cite almost identical communications.
Another view which changed very definitely as I read was my perspective on the fact that the reader gets only Lewis’s side of this ongoing conversation. At first I was annoyed. Surely a letter or two from the other side had to have survived? But then I realized that what I was getting from the fact that this is completely one-sided is Lewis’s view of his correspondent rather than her view of herself. I’d have to term it amused tolerance for the most part. He was a very charitable man, and he genuinely was sorry for the woman’s financial woes; he even arranged for her to be paid a stipend from his own pocket. There are times, though, when it’s pretty clear he considers her a bit of dingbat.
So before I (attempt to) get all intellectual about it, I want to point out that virtually every single letter contains Lewis commiserating on some sort of illness, money trouble, diet, moving house, job hunting, and/or just plain people who are annoying. So straight off the bat, I’m sure you all recognize those as topics which perpetually crop up on LJ. And so, I give you my second journal entry ever:
Good morning?
Mar. 12th, 2012 at 8:49 AM
I just recently set up this journal, and I only posted my first entry yesterday, but I’ve already been overcome this morning with an overwhelming urge to come on here and whine to everyone who isn’t reading this. Now, granted, I have a cold and today is time change Monday which means - added to the absence of a coworker - I had to get out of bed at what is actually 0530, and I consider these conditions to be worthy of complaint. But still - given even an imaginarily-public forum this is my first instinct? I even came up with a couple of good tags for this on the drive to work. Ahem - here they are: Just having a bit of a whinge, thanks. And: Wishing there was a shot of whisk(e)y in my coffee this morning. So apparently I plan to do this a lot if I’m going to need a tag. Not only this, but these clever tags don’t accurately describe anything at all. I’m not allowed to say ‘whinge’ as I’m american, and I no longer drink coffee in the morning on a regular basis.
So instead of writing an entry which just complains, I turned it into an entry which complains about my wanting to complain. Clever again, no? Why, I’m practically Ten; the difference being, I bet he has a cure for the common cold. Oh, and he can say ‘whinge’ if he likes.
Complaining to an audience of 1 since 3/12/12. Tks, litlover12!
litlover12 (74.96.182.94) wrote:
Mar. 12th, 2012 11:38 am (local)
Glad to oblige! :-) Isn't "whinge" a cool word?
--------
So to answer my own question, yes, this is what we do. We complain and commiserate.
We are also not the first to seek out a BritPick, or just express confusion over an unfamiliar term. Lewis also recs a fic - erm - a book, rather.
Magdalen College,
Oxford
May 30th, 1953
…
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, and 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, very tame. Have you read S.V. Benet’s Western Star? Excellent, I think.
Yours sincerely
C.S. Lewis
Magdalen College
Oxford
May 27th 1954
Dear Mary
Thanks for yours of the 24th. I am glad to hear you have moved into pleasanter quarters and hope there will be a great blessing both upon them and on the new job. The saving of time and money on bus travel is a great point: or rather, if your experience is at all like mine, the time spent not in travelling but in waiting at ‘bus stops, often in very cold or very hot weather. I’ve no idea what a “pent-house apartment” may be!
…
Yours ever
Jack
The Kilns,
Headington Quarry,
Oxford
18 Oct 59
Dear Mary
Well, thank goodness your move is now over. A “bed-sitter”, as we call them over here, has certainly its drawbacks. In England, where most houses have no central heating, it has one compensation - that of going to bed and getting up in a warm room.
…
Yours
Jack
I’m not sure if this one is a BritPick or he’s just quarreling in a teasing manner about her grammar.
Magdalene College,
Cambridge
26 Oct 62
…
And what is a “wall can opener”? It suggests either opening a tin by means of a wall or opening a wall by means of a tin, and both sound very strange operations.
Well, now to the other letters. Always, prayers.
Yours
Jack
Then there are the beta requests.
Magdalen College
Oxford, England
4/iii/53
Dear Mrs. ___________
Thank you for yoru letter of Feb. 26 which arrived today...Eldila is the true plural: but you can Anglicise it as eldils*!
…
Yours most sincerely
C.S. Lewis
*Eldils are beings in Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra and That Hideous Strength.
The Kilns etc.
19/12/55
Dear Mary
Thanks for your letter of Dec. 15. I don’t see anything wrong with the way in which you tell your story...wrong in the stylistic way, I mean. You have made it sound at one point as if Episcopalians didn’t think suicide a sin! But no doubt that is unintentional. I think the narrative good.
…
Yours
Jack Lewis
And now the really fun part.
Magdalen College,
Oxford
26/1/54
Dear Mrs. ________
Thanks for yours of the 23d and for copy of my verses, which I had almost totally forgotten. ‘Pon my word, they’re not so bad as I feared.
...
Yours
C.S. Lewis
From: impulsereader
2012-06-28 12:17 pm (local)
Rivalries
Don't think about Delirium too much, indeed. One can lose oneself so easily that way...
All four of these vignettes are simply gorgeous. I'm with Death in remaining rather stubbornly in denial, I'm afraid; or perhaps it is still in mourning years after having read the series for the first time.
Wonderful, truly wonderful!
New comment "Re: Rivalries" by irisbleufic on an entry in irisbleufic.
Thank you so much :) I had actually forgot about writing this one, so thank you, too, for dragging me back into territory that I haven't thought about in quite some time!
June 6th [1958]
Dear Mary
Perhaps you won’t mind a letter from me this time, instead of Jack? He is having his first go at examining for the Cambridge tripos, and is fairly drowning in examination papers - apparently very silly ones! He comes up for air now and then, blows a few pathetic bubbles, then submerges again.
…
Blessings,
Yours,
Joy Lewis
Just taking a short break from the marking to catch up
Jul. 15th, 2012 at 3:40 PM mizz_history
I'm well on target for today's total so thought I would pop in for a mo.
I have hit the Marking Wall of Despair (TM), the point where you realise you still have loads to do and the deadline is drawing close. I've really had enough... and I've got about 60 papers on Bend It Like Beckham still to mark. My heart sinks whenever a centre picks that film.
As from Magdalen College,
Cambridge
20/2/55
…
Thanks for the review of Griffiths’ book which I have of course read and enjoyed already. And I’m so pleased about the Abolition of Man, for it is almost my favourite among my books but in general has been almost totally ignored by the public.
…
Yours
Jack
impulsereader (24.148.29.17) wrote:
Jul. 7th, 2012 06:07 pm (local)
Oh, it's good to hear you liked it. I was having a really hard time getting some love for that story. I didn't realize how much I actually liked it until I posted it and it was like dropping a lead balloon.
…
It's still not doing well in the kudos to hits ratio, but I'm glad at least some people like it.
The Kilns,
Headington Quarry,
Oxford
3/8/56
…
I read Don Camillo some years ago, but can’t imagine how it could be made into a film. I suppose they drag some love story into it? (But then I’m, as you know, rather allergic to the films).
…
Yours
Jack
litlover12
"E! is developing a new a 'modern-day "Mr. Smith",' by which we presume they mean 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,' as a scripted drama series. . . . Gerken’s modern-day 'Mr. Smith,' E! said Monday, is about 'a self-made billionaire with a penchant for hooking up with lobbyists in the nation’s capital.'"
E! Network, you get your grubby little paws off my classics RIGHT NOW. I mean it.
Mood: angry
Tags: mr. smith goes to washington
myrna_nora wrote:
May. 1st, 2012 01:17 pm (local)
Ugh!! That is horrible!!!
On a similar note, Mr & Mrs Smith (Brad and Angelina movie) was on TV, and grandma asked if they were living in Washingtion DC, yet. I said I hadn't noticed where it was supposed to take place. A little while later she says, "This isn't what I was expecting." We finally figured out she thought it was going to be a remake of Jimmy's film.
impulsereader wrote:
May. 1st, 2012 07:34 pm (local)
Oh my goodness. Hilarious, but even better - a sequel rather than a remake!
myrna_nora wrote:
May. 1st, 2012 10:07 pm (local)
Her mix-up made me imagine a film where James Stewart and Jean Arthur try to kill each other. Now that would have been unusual and highly amusing!
litlover12 wrote:
May. 1st, 2012 10:10 pm (local)
That would be a VERY dark comedy indeed! :-) (If not an outright tragedy!)
impulsereader wrote:
May. 1st, 2012 10:15 pm (local)
lol - Yes, that would have been the ultimate mix up of those two stories. But would they have gone out and bought guns or quietly waged war with arsenic and such?
myrna_nora wrote:
May. 1st, 2012 10:36 pm (local)
In the era that James and Jean made films, the audience would never have accepted them as the "heroes" of the film if they went all out with guns and blew up their house. But I think more subtle plotting and scheming would pass for a dark comedy.
litlover12 wrote:
May. 1st, 2012 10:46 pm (local)
They could get an "Arsenic and Old Lace" kind of thing going. (And of course it's all a big misunderstanding and they fall into each other's arms at the end. ;-) )
myrna_nora wrote:
May. 1st, 2012 11:27 pm (local)
It be like Rex Harrison trying to kill Linda Darnell in "Unfaithfully Yours."
impulsereader wrote:
May. 1st, 2012 11:54 pm (local)
oh - completely granted. I'm picturing a smash up of Arsenic & Old Lace, Mr. Smith goes to Washington, and Mr. & Mrs. Smith. In this equation B&W outweighs Color and there is some odd blend which definitely doesn't involve explosions. Unfortunately I tend to be distinctly unimaginative in regards to specific plot points. Maybe Teddy buries all the guns right off the bat? Those are definitely bound for Panama, surely?
litlover12 wrote:
May. 2nd, 2012 12:04 pm (local)
You guys, I think we've really got something here! Now all we need is Jimmy and Jean to come back from the dead to star in our little project. :-) If only . .
Then there are the typos, grammar, rhyming, questionable spellings, and misunderstandings both trivial and grave.
Magdalen College
Oxford
March 31st 54
…
P.S. - You speak of the “cult of the OBSTUSE”. Do you mean ABSTRUSE, OBTUSE or OBSCURE?
The Kilns, etc
8/5/55
…
Between ourselves, as one rhymester to another, it’s a great pity that world, such a good important word and often so emphatically demanding to come at the end of a line, has so few rhymes in English. Furled, hurled, curled - none of them very serviceable - and what else is there. Let’s invent a verb to churl (behave churlishly).
…
Yours
Jack
Magdalene College,
Cambridge
24 Nov 1960
…
I wasn’t trying to lecture. Rather, to compare notes about temptation we all have to contend with.
There, by the way, is a sentence ending with a preposition. The silly “rule” against it was invented by Dryden. I think he disliked it only because you can’t do it in either French or Latin which he thought more “polite” languages than English.
…
All blessings,
Yours
Jack
The Kilns, etc
30/6/55
Dear Mary
In great haste. It wasn’t a battle I had; only a bathe - my bad writing again.
…
Yours
Jack
The Kilns,
Headington Quarry,
Oxford
20/3/56
Dear Mary
I don’t know what “high-hatting” means, but it is in this country a safe bet that 999 out of a 1000 people have no use for Scott; and the more high-brow they are, the safer. He is despised by everyone (except a few old fogies like myself) in England. I didn’t say “great plays”, I said GREEK plays (this is the trouble about my handwriting). It is not offensive to assume that a lady doesn’t read Greek - not even in a University town! And I have no “cultural activities”. I like the Bacchae because it’s exciting, not because it is - loathsome word! - “cultured”. In fact, you misunderstood my letter.
All the best.
Yours
Jack
She's worried he’s going to defriend her at this point, you know she is.
Things never really change
Magdalene College,
Cambridge
26/10/55
…
The only reason I’m not sick of all the stuff about ______ is that I don’t read it. I never read the papers. Why does anyone? They’re nearly all lies, and one has to wade thru’ such reams of verbiage and “write up” to find out even what they’re saying.
Yours
Jack
The Kilns etc.
19/12/55
…
I seem to have been writing Christmas letters most of this day! I’m afraid I hate the weeks just before Christmas, and so much of the (very commercialised and vulgarised) fuss has nothing to do with the Nativity at all. I wish we didn’t live in a world where buying and selling things (especially selling) seems to have become almost more important than either producing or using them.
All blessings. “Beneath are the everlasting arms” even when it doesn’t feel at all like it.
Yours
Jack Lewis
The Kilns
Headington Quarry,
Oxford
June 7th 1959
…
Your elderly neighbor would be comic if the matters at issue were not so serious. She has an odd idea of how to cheer people up! Like having a visit from a ghoul. People in real life are often so preposterous that one would not dare to put them in a novel.
…
Yours
Jack
Magdalene College,
Cambridge
24 Nov 1960
Dear Mary
Thanks for your letter of the 20th. About forgetting things. Dr. Johnson said “If, on leaving the company, a young man cannot remember where he has left his hat, it is nothing. But when and old man forgets, everyone says, Ah, his memory is going”. So with ourselves. We have always been forgetting things: but now, when we do so, we attribute it to our age. Why, it was years ago that, on finishing my work before lunch, I stopped myself only just in time from putting my cigarette-end into my spectacle case and throwing my spectacles into the fire!
…
All blessings,
Yours
Jack
Everyone likes to talk about their pets.
Magdalene College,
Cambridge.
14/1/58
…
I am sorry you have been having trouble with your cat. We [have] had a rather “animallic” time for our old bitch (we thought she knew better) made us an unexpected Christmas present of 10 puppies! We are tired of hearing neighbours say “Oh, thank you - we’d love a puppy, but -”
…
Yours sincerely
C.S. Lewis
As from Magdalene College
Cambridge
2/2/58
…
We kept one of the puppies, and call him Guppy (out of Bleak House) and he is a lively youngster. I notice, as I have done before in similar circumstances, the common age is a bond stronger than common species; i.e. Guppy is friends with the kitten and Guppy’s mother is friends with the old cat - a huge Tom called Ginger.
…
Yours
Jack
June 6th [1958]
…
Is your pet a cat or dog? I’ve found that cats stand these changes and separations pretty well - one of mine, when I was ill, took possession of a new home and mistress and had them completely under his thumb in a week. (If one can speak of a cat’s thumb?)
…
Blessings,
Yours,
Joy Lewis
Magdalene College,
Cambridge
6/5/59
…
We also have a Siamese cat. In my heart of hearts I really prefer the great, grey bullet-headed native cat, but the Siamese are delicate and fascinating creatures. Ours adores me because I life her up by her tail - an operation which I can’t imagine I should like if I were a cat, but she comes back for more and more, purring all the time.
…
Yours
Jack
The Kilns,
Headington Quarry,
Oxford
May 19th 1959
…
We are now told by the learned that Siamese are not royal cats at all, but the common jungle cat of those parts and quite “without honour” in their own country! Another disillusion!
In haste - all blessings.
Yours
Jack
The Kilns,
Headington Quarry,
Oxford
3/7/62
…
Joy’s Siamese - my “stepcat” as I call her - is the most terribly conversational animal I ever knew. She talks all the time and wants doors and windows to be opened for her 1000 times an hour.
…
Yours
Jack
Magdalene College,
Cambridge
31/7/62
Dear Mary
Yes, it is strange that anyone should dislike cats. But cats themselves are the worst offenders in this respect. They very seldom seem to like one another.
…
Yours
Jack
Simply priceless - and all things for which I think I could probably find close equivalents on LJ if I looked.
Magdalen College,
Oxford
26/1/54
…
We wouldn’t call Alfred and Egbert and all those the “British” line. They are the “English” line, the Angles, who come from Angel in South Denmark. By the British line we’d mean the Celtic line that goes back through the Tudors to Cadwallader and thence to Arthur, Uther, Cassibelan, Lear, Lud, Brut, Aeneas, Jupiter. The present royal family can claim descent from both the British and the English lines. So, I suppose, can most of us: for since one has 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 16 great-grandparents, and so on, one is presumably descended from nearly everyone who was alive in this island in the year 600 A.D. In the long run one is related to everyone on the planet: in that quite literal sense we are all “one flesh”.
…
Yours
C.S. Lewis
Magdalen
Nov 1st 54
…
(People so often ask me how to get a book, and it seems an odd question. Are they equally puzzled how to order a cwt. of coals or a bottle of gin?)
…
Did I tell you I’ve been made a professor at Cambridge? I take up my duties on Jan. 1st at Magdalene College, Cambridge (Eng.). Note the difference in spelling. It means rather less work for rather more pay. And I think I shall liked Magdalene better than Magdalen. It’s a tiny college (a perfect cameo architecturally) and they’re all so old fashioned, and pious, and gentle and conservative - unlike this leftist, atheist, cynical, hard-boiled, huge Magdalen. Perhaps from being the fogey and “old woman” here I shall become the enfant terrible there. It is nice to be still under the care of St. Mary Magdalene: she must by now understand my constitution better than a stranger would, don’t you think.
...
Yours
Jack
The Kilns etc
21 Sept [1959]
…
If I got a crocodile skin I’d sell it!
Blessings.
Yours
Jack
Magdalene College,
Cambridge.
24 Feb. 1961
…
I hope your vet is not a charlatan? Psychological diagnoses even about human patients seem to me pretty phoney. They must be even phonier when applied to animals. You can’t put a cat on a couch and make it tell you its dreams or produce words by “free association”. Also - I have a great respect for cats - they are very shrewd people and would probably see through the analyst a good deal better than he’d see through them.
…
Yours
Jack
Magdalene College,
Cambridge
4 May 62
…
I was charmed with your two Chinese children. It reminded me of an adventure Joy and I had in Crete, when Joy gave a few drachmae to a very starved looking little girl (She wasn’t begging - justs looking at us with a child’s open-eyed curiosity). The girl instantly rushed into a neighbouring thicket and returned with her hands full of fruit for us. (It was a nice fruit which we’d never seen before, but all our efforts to find out its name elicited only the word karpos, which simply means “fruit”!).
Yours
Jack
The Kilns,
Headington Quarry,
Oxford
19 March 63
…
Is this part of the demarché (it’s in all our papers) which a body of American women are making to the President to get animals properly clothed “in the interests of decency”? Can it be true? If so, not only what insanity, but also (as in all super-refinements) what fundamental foulmindedness! But also, what fun! The elephant looks as if he wore trousers already, but terribly baggy ones. What he needs is braces. The Rhino seems to wear a suit much too big for him: can it be “taken in”? What sort of collars will giraffes wear? Will seals and otters have ordinary clothes or bathing suits? The hedgehog will wear his shirts out terribly quickly, I should think.
…
Blessings and prayers.
Yours
Jack
---------------
How completely adorable is that last? I love it.