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

Magdalen College

Oxford

14th Sept 1953

Dear Phyllida

Although your letter was written a month ago I only got it today, for I have been away in Donegal (which is glorious). Thanks v. much: it is so interesting to hear exactly what people do like and don’t like, which is just what grown-up readers never really tell.

Now about Kids. I also hate the word. But if you mean the place in P. Caspian chap 8, the point is that Edmund hated it too.

(#ulink_a274b0f3-4b09-59d0-93b5-30adf22ee0aa) He was using the rottenest word just because it was the rottenest word, running himself down as much as possible, because he was making a fool of the Dwarf–as you might say ‘Of course I can only strum when you really knew you could play the piano quite as well as the other person. But if I have used Kids anywhere else (I hope I haven’t) then I’m sorry: you are quite right in objecting to it. And you are also right about the party turned into stone in the woods. I thought people would take it for granted that Asian would put it all right. But I see now I should have said so.

By the way, do you think the Dark Island is too frightening for small children? Did it give your brother the horrors? I was nervous about that, but I left it in because I thought one can never be sure what will or will not frighten people.

There are to be 7 Narnian stories altogether. I am sorry they are so dear: it is the publisher, not me, who fixes the price. Here is the new one.

(#ulink_89196fd1-c181-57c2-aaef-389383c7540d)

As I say, I think you are right about the other points but I feel sure I’m right to make them grow up in Narnia. Of course they will grow up in this world too. You’ll see. You see, I don’t think age matters so much as people think. Parts of me are still 12 and I think other parts were already 50 when I was 12: so I don’t feel it v. odd that they grow up in Narnia while they are children in England.

Yours sincerely

C. S. Lewis

TO RHONA BODLE (BOD):

Magdalen College

Oxford

14/9/53

Dear Miss Boddle

I have had ‘Miss Boddle’s colleague’ in my daily prayers for a long time now: is that the same young man you mention in your letter of July 3rd, or do I now say ‘colleagues’? Yes: don’t bother him with my books if an aunt (it somehow would be an aunt-tho’ I must add that most of my aunts were delightful) has been ramming them down his throat.

You know, P. Progress is not, I find (to my surprise) everyone’s book. I know several people who are both Christians and lovers of literature who can’t bear it. I doubt if they were made to read it as children. Indeed, I rather wonder whether that ‘being made to read it’ has spoiled so many books as is supposed. I suspect that all the people who tell me they were ‘put off Scott by having Ivanhoe

(#ulink_9c4f5d53-e7b5-5941-8528-ee36617a41cf) as a holiday task are people who wd. never have liked Scott anyway.

I don’t believe anything will keep the right reader & the right book apart. But our literary loves are as diverse as our human! You couldn’t make me like Henry James or dislike Jane Austen whatever you did. By the bye did Chesterton’s Everlasting Man (I’m sure I advised you to read it) succeed or fail with you?

(#ulink_f28f61af-ecc1-5542-ba6d-d890f6cfb7a5) And how wd. it be likely to succeed with D. Dale?

All blessings.

Yours sincerely

C. S. Lewis

TO ROGER LANCELYN GREEN (BOD):

Magdalen College

Oxford

15/9/53

Just back from Donegal (wh. was as near heaven as you can get in Thulcandra)

(#ulink_43db6b9d-8901-56eb-b5e5-3489e8703418) and of course piles of letters to plough through. Thanks v. much indeed for the revised T. of T

(#ulink_7b075899-2b0f-548f-9e74-627abdc34989) and the nice things you say about me.

Here’s the latest Narnian book. Love to all.

J.

TO DON GIOVANNI CALABRIA (V):

Magdalen College

Oxford

XV. Sept. MCMLIII

Pater dilectissime

Gratias ago pro epístola tua, data iii Sept., necnon pro exemplari libri cui nomen Instaurare Omnia in Christo.

De statu morali nostri temporis (cum me jusseris garrire) haec sentio. Seniores, ut nos ambo sumus, semper sunt laudatores temporis acti, semper cogitant mundum pejorem esse quam fuerit in suis juvenilibus annis. Ergo cavendum est ne fallamur. Hôc tamen proposito, certe sentio gravissima pericula nobis incumbere. Haec eveniunt quia maxima pars Europae apostasiam fecit de fide Christiana. Hinc status pejor quam illum statum quem habuimus ante fidem receptam. Nemo enim ex Christianismo redit in statum quem habuit ante Christianismum, sed in pejorem: tantum distat inter paganum et apostatam quantum innuptam et adulteram. Nam fides perficit naturam sed fides amissa corrumpit naturam. Ergo plerique homines nostri temporis amiserunt non modo lumen supernaturale sed etiam lumen illud naturale quod pagani habuerunt. Sed Deus qui Deus misericordiarum est etiam nunc non omnino demisit genus humanum. In junioribus licet videamus multam crudelitatem et libidinem, nonne simul videmus plurimas virtutum scintillas quibus fortasse nostra generatio caruit. Quantam fortitudinem, quantam curam de pauperibus aspicimus! Non desperandum. Et haud spernendus numerus (apud nos) iam redeunt in fidem.

Haec de statu praesenti: de remediis difficilior quaestio. Equidem credo laborandum esse non modo in evangelizando (hoc certe) sed etiam in quâdam praeparatione evangelica. Necesse est multos ad legem naturalem revocare antequam de Deo loquamur. Christus enim promittit remissionem peccatorum: sed quid hoc ad eos qui, quum legem naturalem ignorent, nesciunt se peccavisse. Quis medicamentum accipiet nisi se morbo teneri sciât? Relativismus moralis hostis est quem debemus vincere antequam Atheismum aggrediamur. Fere auserim dicere ‘Primo faciamus juniores bonos Paganos et postea faciamus Christianos’. Deliramenta haec? Sed habes quod petisti. Semper et tu et congregatio tua in orationibus meis.

Vale,

C. S. Lewis

*

Magdalen College

Oxford

15 September 1953

Dearest Father