C. S. Lewis: A Biography

(#ulink_b43d2d55-fc5c-5ebe-ae63-4bbe3b1842d6) The lines, slightly misquoted, were in fact from a poem by Lang himself, inspired by a prose passage from Baudelaire, which he quotes in his History of English Literature (1912).

Religion was also discussed occasionally, though only Arthur, who was a Christian, raised the subject. It bothered Jack’s conscience in later years that he had allowed himself to be confirmed in St Mark’s on 6 December 1914 merely to please his father and to avoid argument. But at the moment Jack was still a determined atheist, and when challenged took up his stand in the anthropological field, citing ‘dying gods’ and ‘fertility rites’ from Lang’s Myth, Ritual and Religion (1899) and Frazer’s The Golden Bough (1890–1915). ‘All religions, that is all mythologies, to give them their proper name, are merely man’s own invention – Christ as much as Loki’, he wrote to Arthur on 12 October 1916.

(#ulink_a66819f7-4e59-58f7-b846-ab64e426ef64) When Arthur complained, Jack distinguished between Jesus and Christ, as he wrote on 18 October:

When I say ‘Christ’, of course I mean the historical being into whom he was afterwards converted by popular imagination … That the man Yeshua or Jesus did actually exist, is as certain as that the Buddha did actually exist … But all the tomfoolery about virgin birth, magic healings, apparitions and so forth is on exactly the same footing as any other mythology … As to the immortality of the soul, though it is a fascinating theme for day-dreaming, I neither believe nor disbelieve: I simply don’t know anything at all, there is no evidence either way.

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This agnosticism was enshrined in a poem written in 1917 which ends:

I think, if it be truth, as some have taught

That these frail seeds of being are not caught

And blown upon the cosmic winds in vain

After our death, but bound in one again

Somewhere, we know not how, they live and thrive

Forever, and the proud gods will not give

The comfortable doom of quiet sleep,

Then doubt not but that from the starry deep

And utmost spaces lit by suns unknown

We should return again whence we were flown,

Leaving the bauble of a sainted crown,

To walk and talk upon the hills of Down.

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(#ulink_725ca7c0-0982-5d30-81b2-a2bc0c1da569) In later years they talked of their ‘Pigiebotie’ philosophy. ‘A pigiebotie,’ Jack wrote to Warnie on 2 August 1928, ‘must be conscious of idling and approve of it. He must not merely like to sit still, but he must also like to think of himself sitting still, or even like to think of himself liking to sit still … He is the only true “Quietist”. He sitteth down like a giant and rejoiceth not to run his course. He eateth all things, neglecteth all things, moveth not himself, is not waked up.’ (FL, p. 776)

(#ulink_7be629a5-7e04-57fe-b186-df0f1d3bfaa2) Robert Capron (‘Oldy’ or ‘Oldie’) (1851–1911) was born in Brampton, Devon, and received a BA and a BSc from the University of London in 1873 and 1875 respectively. In 1878 he was ordained as curate of Wordsley, Staffordshire, and in 1881 he founded Wynyard School at what is now 99 Langley Road, Watford. In 1882 he married Ellen Barnes (1849–1909) and they had three daughters, Nora, Dorothy, and Eva, as well as one son, John Wynyard, all of whom helped with the teaching while Jack and Warnie Lewis were there. Capron was very successful in teaching the classics in the beginning. However, his increasing mental instability and eventual insanity resulted in his becoming very cruel. Reduced to a handful of students, the school closed in April 1910. Capron died in the Camberwell House Asylum, Peckham, Kent, on 18 November 1911. See his biography in CG.

(#ulink_517b5ee2-9364-51cf-b185-cc69d2514b87) Sir William Quartus Ewart (1844–1919), the head of a remarkable family, was the director of the family business, Wm Ewart & Son Ltd., Flax Spinners and Linen Manufacturers. In 1876 he married Mary Heard (1849–1929), who was the niece of C.S. Lewis’s maternal grandmother. Lady Ewart was, then, Flora Lewis’s first cousin. The Ewarts had five children: (1) Robert Heard Ewart (1879–1939) who succeeded to the baronetcy; (2) Charles Gordon Ewart (1885–1936) who married Lily Greeves, sister of Arthur Greeves; (3) Hope Ewart (1882–1934) who in 1911 married George Harding and moved to Dublin; (4) Kelso ‘Kelsie’ Ewart (1886–1966), who lived near Glenmachan; and (5) Gundreda ‘Gunny’ Ewart (1888–1978) who married John Forrest. See The Ewart Family in the Biographical Appendix of FL.

(#ulink_0aa74198-09f1-59fc-a229-59304bee5b82) Dr Richard Whytock Leslie (1862–1931) was the Lewis family doctor.

(#ulink_aa351711-9a14-5d0b-8fca-5956ac84f4c5) Arthur Clement Allen (1868–1957), the headmaster of Cherbourg School, read Classics at New College, Oxford. He founded Cherbourg in 1907, and in 1925 he moved it to Woodnorton, Evesham. It closed when he retired in 1931.

(#ulink_604105db-2c3e-5a63-b055-af509e059e8a) This was Charicles, or Illustrations of the Private Life of the Ancient Greeks (1840) by the German archaeologist Wilhelm Becker (1769–1846), written in fictional form, with a scholarly ‘excursus’ following each chapter and footnotes citing his original Greek authorities. The passage in question was probably the scene in Corinth with accompanying excursus on the Heterae.

(#ulink_604105db-2c3e-5a63-b055-af509e059e8a) Gundreda Ewart, one of the daughters of Sir William and Lady Ewart. See The Ewart Family in the Biographical Appendix to FL.

(#ulink_f4a9816e-030f-57dc-9f8c-ad820282ad3c) The Rev. Canon Sydney Rhodes James (1855–1934) was headmaster of Malvern College from 1897 until 1914. See his autobiography, Seventy Years: Random Reminiscences and Reflections (1926).

(#ulink_f145a238-c8f1-5814-aec6-3d6fb7ccaf46) Sir Donald Hardman (1899–1982) was Jack’s study-mate in School House. On leaving Malvern he went to Hertford College, Oxford, after which he became a professional serviceman. Edward Anderson (1898–1928) was a member of School House, 1913–17. He served in the war as a 2nd lieutenant. He later moved to Rhodesia. Kenneth Ernest Lodge (1899–?) was a member of School House, 1913–17, after which he served with the Duke of Lancaster’s Own Yeomanry. He remained in the Army.

(#ulink_95fa6688-4c49-5013-8f4e-8c8ccf1724b9) William Eyre Hamilton Quennell (1898–?) entered School House the same term as Jack. From Malvern he went to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, and in 1917 he was gazetted into the 7th Dragoon Guards. After the war he trained as a doctor at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. During the Second World War he was a medical officer with the Essex Yeomanry.

‘The James’ was Canon James, the headmaster. The ‘Old Boy’ was George Gordon Fraser (1870–1958), the headmaster’s assistant in the management of School House. He was a pupil at Malvern College, 1879–85. He was appointed an assistant master at Malvern in 1901, and in 1917 he became house master of No. 9 House, a position he held until 1927.

(#ulink_ab3d27dd-a607-5d70-a07c-843e3257cc22) Austin Farrer (1904–68), distinguished philosopher and theologian, was born in London and went up to Balliol College, Oxford in 1923. He took Firsts in Classical Honour Moderations, Literae Humaniores, and Theology. On being ordained a priest of the Church of England in 1929 he served his title in Dewsbury. He returned to Oxford in 1931 as Chaplain and Fellow of St Edmund Hall where he remained until 1935. He was afterwards Chaplain and Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, from 1935 until 1960 when he became Warden of Keble College. His books include Finite and Infinite (1943) and The Revelation of St John the Divine (1964). He came to know Lewis through the Socratic Club, and he and his wife, Katharine Farrer, became close friends of Lewis’s wife, Joy Davidman. See his biography in CG.

(#ulink_adc72183-2309-5eb0-ae6a-ded2406b9c3a) Alfred Cecil Harwood (1898–1975), who was to become a lifelong friend, was born in London and attended Highgate School. After serving during the war with the Royal Warwickshires, he went up to Christ Church, Oxford in 1919, taking his BA in 1921. In 1923 he became a member of the Anthroposophical Movement founded by Rudolf Steiner, and in 1923 he and his fiancée, Daphne Olivier, became teachers in Michael Hall School, the first Anthroposophical school in Britain. He married in 1925 and devoted the rest of his life to teaching, lecturing and writing. See his biography in CG.

(#ulink_adc72183-2309-5eb0-ae6a-ded2406b9c3a) >Arthur Owen Barfield (1898–1997), a lifelong friend and a member of the Inklings, was born in London and attended Highgate School where he became friends with Cecil Harwood. He served with the Royal Corps of Signals during the First World War, after which he went up to Wadham College, Oxford on a Classical scholarship. He met Lewis during his first year at Wadham. After taking a BA in English in 1921 he wrote a B.Litt. thesis on ‘Poetic Diction’ which became the basis of his book of that title. He became a follower of Rudolf Steiner in 1923 and was a devoted member of the Anthroposophical Society all his life. He married Maud Douie on 11 April 1923, and settled down to a life of literature. However, in 1929 he gave it up to help in the family law firm, Barfield & Barfield, in London. His many influential books include Poetic Diction (1928), History in English Words (1926), Saving the Appearances (1957) and Worlds Apart (1963). His writings about Lewis are collected in Owen Barfield on C.S. Lewis, ed. G.B. Tennyson (1990). See his biography in CG.

NOTES

(#ulink_43655149-cf69-58e5-975f-0027dff1e754) ‘C.S. Lewis: 1898–1963’, ch. 1, p. 1. In 1964 Warren Lewis began writing a biography of his brother, to be based on the old notion of a ‘Life and Letters’. However, on discovering that, of the 230,000 words which made up the book, only 23,300 words were narrative, the publishers hired a copy-editor to revise it. The greater part of the narrative was brought together as a ‘Memoir’ and the book was published as Letters of C.S. Lewis, edited, with a Memoir, by W.H. Lewis (1966). Unfortunately, much of Warren’s original narrative was omitted from the ‘Memoir’ and when we began writing our biography he gave us use of his original book, ‘C.S. Lewis: 1898–1963’; that is what is quoted above. There are two typescripts of the original book, one in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and the other in the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.

(#ulink_1b5c9965-3cff-5fc4-985b-039b82399486) Ibid., pp. 3–4.

(#ulink_725ca7c0-0982-5d30-81b2-a2bc0c1da569)SBJ, ch. 1, p. 13.

(#ulink_725ca7c0-0982-5d30-81b2-a2bc0c1da569)FL, p. 776.

(#ulink_1c332748-a599-5b7c-b94a-216a4b0b8b7d) ‘C.S. Lewis: 1898–1963’, p. 11.

(#ulink_ea1a2ea9-961d-5582-b6a2-1575e601a29b) Ibid.

(#ulink_ea1a2ea9-961d-5582-b6a2-1575e601a29b)SBJ, ch. 1, p. 6.

(#ulink_78c2b7c0-dbde-5034-9f6a-e30140c14815) Ibid., p. 7.

(#ulink_78c2b7c0-dbde-5034-9f6a-e30140c14815) Ibid., p. 2.

(#ulink_639ff3eb-442f-50e6-bd70-2fe214e11fa7)An Experiment in Criticism (1961), ch. 3, p. 14.

(#ulink_85a9a0f5-2319-5ce0-b14b-c46ae6845740) William Shakespeare, The Tempest (1611), I.ii.50.

(#ulink_85a9a0f5-2319-5ce0-b14b-c46ae6845740)SBJ, ch. 1, p. 10.

(#ulink_d30f8013-b4c0-5e91-8149-0b903a5969a4) Ibid., pp. 8–9.

(#ulink_e4255060-8c46-5129-930d-2a5cf3ea2296) Ibid, p. 11, n. 1.

(#ulink_e4255060-8c46-5129-930d-2a5cf3ea2296) Ibid., pp. 10–11.

(#ulink_6a78323a-13c4-5695-b737-5dd97434677d) Ibid., p. 9.