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

See Ruth Pitter in the Biographical Appendix to CL II, pp. 1060-4.

* But fan mail from children is delightful. They don’t gas. They want to know whether Asian repaired Tumnus’s furniture for him. They take no interest in oneself and all in the story. Lovely

183 The Case for Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1943) was the American edition of Broadcast Talks.

184 Beyond Personality (London: Bles, 1944; New York: Macmillan, 1945).

185 J. B. Phillips, Letters to Young Churches: A Translation of the New Testament Epistles (1947). See Lewis’s letter to Phillips of 3 August 1943 (CL II, pp. 585-6).

186 Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876); The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884).

187 William Shakespeare, King Henry V (1600), IV, iii, 55.

188 Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24.

189 John 6:53.

190 i.e., in the Book of Common Prayer.

191 1 Corinthians 12:12: ‘For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.’

192 Mark 16:17-18: ‘These signs shall follow them that believe; In my name…they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.’

193 See Sheldon Vanauken in the Biographical Appendix. Vanauken’s ‘Notes on the Letters’ are in the Bodleian Library (MS. Eng. lett. c. 220/2, fols. 152b-c).

194 Sheldon Vanauken, A Severe Mercy (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1977), ch. 2, p. 38.

195 ibid., ch. 4, pp. 87-8.

196 G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man (1925).

197 Lewis uses the Chinese word ‘Tao’ in The Abolition of Man to mean natural law or morality.

198 The Rev. R. B. Gribbon, a relative of Arthur Greeves, was writing from Ballinderry Road, Easton, Maryland, USA.

199 i.e., The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

200 Rudyard Kipling, The Seven Seas (1896), ‘McAndrew’s Hymn’, II, 17-18: ‘Hail, snow an’ ice that praise the Lord: I’ve met them at their work,/An’ wished we had anither route or they anither kirk.’

201 In his second letter to Lewis, Vanauken said: ‘My fundamental dilemma is this: I can’t believe in Christ unless I have faith, but I can’t have faith unless I believe in Christ…Everyone seems to say: “You must have faith to believe.” Where do I get it? Or will you tell me something different? Is there a proof? Can Reason carry me over the gulf…without faith? Why does God expect so much of us?…If He made it clear that He is—as clear as a sunrise or a rock or a baby’s cry—wouldn’t we be right joyous to choose Him and His Law?’ (Vanauken, A Severe Mercy, ch. 4, pp. 90-1)

202 The Eleatic school of philosophers was founded by the Greek poet Xenophanes (born c. 570 BC), whose main teaching was that the universe is singular, eternal and unchanging. According to this view, as developed by later members of the Eleatic school, the appearances of multiplicity, change and motion are mere illusions.

203 William Shakespeare, Othello, The Moor of Venice (1622).

204 William Shakespeare, King Lear (1608).

205 Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1711), II, 2.

206 Luke 10:7.

207 This note was added in Lewis’s hand.

208 ‘Let us pray for one another’.

209 ‘the beard of corn’.

210 Abul Kasim Mansur Firdausi (c. 950-1020), Persian poet, is the author of Shah-natneh. Considered the greatest national epic in world literature, the poem consists of 60,000 couplets. When the work was presented to the Sultan, he rewarded Firdausi with a pitiful amount of money. The disappointed Firdausi gave the money to a bath attendant and left for Afghanistan. Lewis regretted he could not read Persian, but in his poem ‘The Prodigality of Firdausi’, published in Punch, 215 (1 December 1948), p. 510, and reprinted in Poems and CP, he extols ‘Firdausi the strong Lion among poets’ and tells how handsomely he behaved at the hands of the Sultan.

211 Dorothy Wellesley, Duchess of Wellington (1889-1956), whose collected poems were published as Early Light (1955).

212 Sayer had asked if Pauline Baynes should illustrate all the Narnian stories. See Pauline Diana Baynes in the Biographical Appendix to CL II, pp. 1018-22.

213 Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici (1643), II, x: ‘Great virtues and vices no less great’.

       1951

       TO MARY VAN DEUSEN (W):

      Magdalen College

      Oxford Jan 5/51

      Dear Mrs. Van Deusen

Whether any individual Christian who attempts Faith Healing is prompted