Collected Letters Volume Two: Books, Broadcasts and War, 1931–1949. Walter Hooper

William Douglas Robson-Scott (1900–80) was at University College, Oxford, at the same time as Lewis. He took his BA in 1923, and went on to teach German Language and Literature at Birkbeck College, University of London. Lewis mentions his malapropisms ¦n his letter to Warnie of 18 April 1927 (CL I, p. 694).

59 John 10:16.

60 Indian Civil Service.

61 (Sir) Eric Beckett (1896–1966), who sometimes walked with Lewis and the others, was a particular friend of Barfield. He was educated at Wadham College, where he took a First in Jurisprudence in 1921. He was a Fellow of All Souls., Oxford, 1921–8. He was called to the Bar in 1922 and was Assistant Legal Adviser to the Foreign Office, 1925–45, and Legal Adviser, 1955–8.

62 Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, 1783, vol. IV, p. 197: ‘I shall never forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat…I recollect him one day scrambling up Dr. Johnson’s breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, saying, “why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this;” and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, “but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.”’

63 Charles and Mary Lamb, Letters 1796–1820, vol. I (1912), letter from Charles Lamb to Samuel T. Coleridge of 13 February 1797: ‘1 have had thoughts of turning Quaker…Unluckily I went to [a meeting] and saw a man under all tile agitations and workings of a fanatic, who believed himself under the influence of some “inevitable presence.” This cured me of Quakerism…I detest the vanity of a man thinking he speaks by the Spirit, when what he says an ordinary man might say without all that quaking and trembling’ (p. 97).

64 Arundel Castle, the chief seat of the Duke of Norfolk.

65 Hillsboro-not ‘Hillsborough’—is the house at 14 Holyoake Road, Headington, where Lewis and the Moores lived most of [he time from April 1923 until they moved into The Kilns in October 1930.

66 Sir Edward Burnett Tylor, Anthropology: An Introduction to the Study of Man and Civilization (1881; Thinker’s Library. 1930).

67 See W. T. Kirkpatrick (1848–1921) in the Biographical Appendix to CL I. Kirkpatrick, ‘the Great Knock’, was a friend of the Lewis family and prepared Jack for Oxford. He is the subject of SBJ, ch. 9.

68 Molière, Comedies, trans. Henry Baker and J. Miller, with an introduction by Frederick C. Green, Everyman’s Library (1929).

69 The Reverend Frank Edward Brightman FBA (1856–1932), who died on 31 March 1932, was a distinguished liturgiologist and a Fellow of Magdalen College since 1902. His publications include The English Rite, 2 vols. (1915). For more on Brightman see note 5 to the letter of 5 January 1926 (CL I, p. 658).

70 In SBJ, ch. 5, Lewis recalls the moment he came across a reference to Richard Wagner’s Ring des Nibelungen. Lewis came to love the entire Ring cycle on gramophone records, but it was not until this occasion (Monday 16 May 1932) that he saw Siegfried performed on stage.

71 This is the only surviving portion of the autobiographical poem Lewis wrote.

72 In the end Lewis went to Siegfried alone on 16 May 1932. The cast included Lauritz Melchior as Siegfried, Eduard Habich as Alberich, Frida Leider as Brunhild and Friedrich Schorr as Wotan. An account of the performance was given in The Times (17 May 1932) p. 8.

73 When students were taking their final examinations or ‘Schools’ in the Examination Schools building in the High Street, dons took turns ‘invigilating’, that is, keeping watch over the students.

74 This was Lewis’s nickname for Percy Simpson (1865–1962) who with his wife, Evelyn M. Simpson, and C. H. Herford, edited the eleven volumes of Ben Jonson’s Works (1925–52). He was the librarian of the new English faculty library, and a lecturer on textual criticism.

75 William Makepeace Thackeray, Pendennis (1848–50).

76 Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), The Divine Comedy (comprising Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso).

77 Lewis was remembering the visit he and Warnie took to Whipsnade Zoo in Warnie’s motorbike and sidecar on 28 September 1931. The part that visit played in Lewis’s conversion is recounted in the last chapter of SBJ. See CL I, p. 972.

78 Charles Lamb, Letters, ed. William Macdonald, with notes and illustrations. Introduction by Ernest Rhys (Everyman’s Library, 1909).

79 Lewis was planning a trip to Ireland in August, and he hoped to visit the village of Ardglass in Co. Down known for its interesting lighthouse.

80 A berth on a cross-channel boat. As planned, Lewis crossed over to Ireland on 15 August and was there as Arthur’s guest al Bernagh, Circular Road, Belfast, until 29 August.

81 This letter is undated, but if Lewis’s mention of ‘Thursday Sept. 1st’ is correct it was almost certainly written in 1932. Lewis and the Moores normally had a holiday together in Ireland, and Lewis probably met Mrs Moore, Maureen and their friend Dorothea ‘Dotty’ Vaughan (a close friend of the family who had been at Headington School with Maureen Moore) for a few days in Kilkeel before returning to England.

82 For some time Lewis had been trying to write the story of his conversion, and especially of the part ‘Joy’ played in it. While he probably had no intention of attempting this on his holiday, The Pilgrim’s Regress: Art Allegorical Apology for Christianity, Reason and Romanticism (1933) came quite unexpectedly and was written during the fortnight spent at Bernagh. The manuscript had been sent to Arthur for criticism. For details of his earlier attempts to tell the story of his conversion see the treatment of The Pilgrim’s Regress in CG.

83 i.e. The Pilgrim’s Regress.

84 Lockhart, Memoirs of the Life of Scott,