by C. S. Lewis
Tang-Tang there goes eleven o’clock ‘Tis almost faery time’. Don’t you simply love going to bed. To curl up warmly in a nice warm bed, in the lovely darkness, that is so restful & then gradually drift away into sleep . . . I’m turning out the gas. Bon soir!
TO ARTHUR GREEVES: from Great Bookham
[1 November 1916]
I can’t let it pass unchallenged that you should put ‘Beowulf’ and ‘Malory’ together as if they belonged to the same class. One is a mediaeval, English prose romance and the other an Anglo-Saxon epic poem: one is Christian, the other heathen: one we read just as it was actually written, the other in a translation. So you can like one without the other, and anyway you must like or dislike them both for different reasons. It is always very difficult of course to explain to another person the good points of a book he doesn’t like.
TO HIS FATHER: from I Mansfield Road, Oxford (a scholarship candidate’s first impressions of Oxford)
[7 December 1916]
This is Thursday and our last papers are on Saturday morning: so I will cross on Monday night if you will kindly make the arrangements. We have so far had General Paper, Latin Prose, Greek and Latin unseen, and English essay. The subject for the latter was Johnson’s ‘People confound liberty of thinking with liberty of talking’1—rather suggestive, tho’ to judge by faces, some did not find it so. I don’t know exactly how I am doing, because my most dangerous things—the two proses—are things you can’t judge for yourself . . . The place has surpassed my wildest dreams: I never saw anything so beautiful, especially on these frosty moonlight nights: tho’ in the Hall of Oriel where we do our papers it is fearfully cold at about four o’clock on these afternoons. We have most of us tried with varying success to write in our gloves. I will see you then on Tuesday morning.
TO HIS BROTHER: from Belfast
Postmark: 8 January 1917
Many thanks indeed for the letter, and the most acceptable enclosure, which arrived, thank goodness, while P[apy] was out, and so was saved from going the same road as my poor legacy. For you know I got £21 (is that the amount?) the same as you, but of course I have never seen a penny of it: my humble suggestion that I might have a pound or two was greeted with the traditional ‘Ah, such nonsense.’
Congers on being made a real Lieut., which of course I suppose is far more important than the temporary Captaincy. Is there any chance of your being made a real Captain when this war is over—which I hope to God will be before my valuable person gets anywhere near it . . .
Oxford is absolutely topping, I am awfully bucked with it and longing to go up, tho’ apparently I am not to do this until next October . . .
TO HIS FATHER: from Great Bookham
[28 January 1917]
At about half past 11 on the Saturday morning I went to Univ. and was led across two quads, one behind the other, to a house in a beautiful old walled garden. This was the ogre’s castle. He was a clean shaven, white haired, jolly old man, and was very nice indeed.2 He treated me to about half an hour’s ‘Oxford Manner’, and then came gradually round to my own business. Since writing last, he had made enquiries, and it seems that if I pass Responsions in March I could ‘come up’ in the following term and join the O.T.C. [Officers’ Training Corps]. This plan he thinks the best, because I should have far more chance of a commission from the Oxford O.T.C. than from anything else of the sort . . . After that he made me stay to lunch with his wife and niece and ‘so to the station’. I am very pleased with my ogre after all . . .
TO HIS FATHER: from University College (on first taking up residence in wartime Oxford)
Postmark: 28 April 1917
The effect of the war here is much more startling than I could have expected, and everything is very homely and out of order. The College at present numbers six men, of whom four are freshmen! Others are coming all the time, but I do not think we shall be more than eleven all told. Last night we had dinner not in Hall but in a small lecture room, and none of the dons appeared. Hall is in possession of the blue-coated wounded, who occupy the whole of one quad . . . The first thing that strikes you is the enormous size of the rooms. I imagined a ‘sitter’ something smaller than the little end room. The first one they showed me was rather larger than our drawing room and full of most beautiful oak. I wasn’t left there however, and am now in a much humbler, and very nice set, on the other side of the quad. It is a pity in a way that all the furniture and pictures really belong to a man who may be coming back after the war—it saves me expenses, but it prevents me from having what I want.3
I have been to see the Dean, who turns out to be a beardless boy of about twenty-five, and also my tutor, who is also the bursar.4 They don’t appear to suggest any real reading while I am in the Corps, but the Bursar has promised to find me a coach for elementary mathematics, if possible.5 Corps does not begin till Monday evening for which respite I am very thankful. I think it will be quite cheap living in this ‘vast solitude’: the only serious expenses so far have been £2.10.0 for uniform (which seems very reasonable), and £1.9.0 for cap and gown (which does not) . . .
TO HIS FATHER: from University College
Postmark: 17 May 1917
Our ‘military duties’ are as light as they well could be. We have a morning parade from 7 till 7.45, and another from 2 till 4, with occasional evening lectures on map reading and such like subjects . . . The early morning parade of course makes it impossible for us to go to chapel, except to the Celebration on Sundays. I am afraid that I usually find the place in possession of us freshers and the dons. As to St Mary’s, I have not been yet. The last two Sundays were so fine that having been to the early service, I felt justified in going off to bathe after ‘brekker’. I have however found out enough about it to realize that it is rather different from what we imagine. There are only a few prayers, and a very long sermon, usually more of a philosophical and political than of a religious nature: in fact it is more a Sunday lecture room than a church in the true sense. The best place to go for a fine service is the Cathedral at ‘The House’ as Christ Church is called: it is typical of the House that it should have the Cathedral of the diocese for its chapel!
TO HIS FATHER: from University College
[3? June 1917]
I am glad to find that my money ‘pans out’ quite sufficiently, and is indeed just about the average. I mean the amount of pocket money is about the same as that of other people, though of course many have an allowance out of which they pay all their own bills—in which case the actual pocket money will vary with the ups and downs of their Battels. To give you some idea of the latter, I enclose mine as supplied so far . . . The first week was necessarily expensive chiefly through ignorance, ‘in which accomplishment’, as De Quincey says, ‘I excel’.
My scout is a very fatherly old man who has been here for forty-six years, and is really exceedingly good about keeping my expenses down: he once even told me to change my socks when they were wet!!!6 His only failing is an impentrible (or-able) deafness which causes many conversations of the ‘It’s a fine day’—‘No, not much to pay’ type.
I am afraid you must not build anything on the idea of my rowing, as I have almost given it up in favour of canoeing. You see a row boat can be used only on the big river, where you run into all the real rowing men, as the Cherwell (much prettier and more interesting) soon gets too narrow for rowers to pass each other. Besides, there is to me something very attractive about one of these little canoes—so very light and so all-to-yourself. Perhaps when we all come back again from the war, and there is no O.T.C., I will take up rowing again.
The O.T.C. gets more interesting as we go on. We spend a good deal of our time in ‘the trenches’—a complete model system with dug outs, shell holes and—graves. This last touch of realistic scenery seems rather superfluous . . .
I have nearly finished Renan, whom I find delightful.7 He seems to have written a good many other books on different subjects. I am going to borrow Wells’s new book8 from a m
an in College called Edwards, who is thinking of becoming a Catholic. He is an ardent Newmanite, and we have some talk on literary subjects.9 Someone pointed me out our present poet-laureate, Bridges (1), on the river last Wednesday. (1) Its just occurred to me that you might have known the name anyway. Apologies!—J.
[Keble College, Oxford, had been used since 1 January 1915 for the training of officers. Jack was one of the many from Oxford and other places who arrived there on 7 June 1917. He shared a room with Edward Francis Courtenay (‘Paddy’) Moore, who came into the Oxford O.T.C. from Clifton College, Bristol. In their Introduction to the Oxford University Roll of Service (Oxford, 1920), the editors, E. S. Craig and W. M. Gibson, said this about the colleges which made up Oxford University: ‘By the end of the year 1917 there were only three hundred and fifteen students in residence. Of these some fifty were Oriental students, twenty-five were refugees, chiefly Serbians, some thirty were medical students, and about a hundred and twenty were members of the Officers’ Training Corps, waiting till their age should qualify them for admission to a Cadet Battalion. The military history of Oxford, during the latter years of the War, is to be read among the records of the battle fronts, from Flanders to Mesopotamia’ (pp. x–xi). In order to help these young men from other universities and schools who were also quartered in Keble, Leonard Rice-Oxley published a booklet entitled Oxford in Arms: With an Account of Keble College (1917).]
TO HIS FATHER: from Keble College, Oxford
Postmark: 8 June 1917
Just a line in a hurry, to let you know how things go. I have not been able to write to you before. Well of course this is not an agreeable change, but it was the natural next step in any pilgrimage towards a commission. The cadet batallion, which I joined yesterday (of course it has nothing to do with the varsity) is quartered in Keble. There are several gentlemen among it, and I am fortunate in sharing a room with one. It is a great comfort to be in Oxford, as I shall still be able to see something of my Univ. friends and Cherry.10 As to Responsions, I may or may not be able to persuade them to give me three days’ leave to do it in: if they do, I should not think that under the circumstances my chances of passing would be very bright. At any rate, six months’ service with the colours will exempt me from it. As to the artillery, I am afraid that only those who have ‘some special knowledge of mathematics’ will be recommended. About leave we don’t know anything yet. I am sorry I can’t write any more to cheer you up, but we must both of us thole for a while. My tips etc. on leaving College have cleared me out, so could you let me have something to go on with? . . .
TO HIS FATHER: from Keble College
[10? June 1917]
And now for some account of the new life. Well at first when I left my own snug quarters and my own friends at Univ. for a carpetless little cell with two beds (minus sheets or pillows) at Keble, and got into a Tommy’s uniform, I will not deny that I thought myself very ill used. However, as What’s-his-name said, ‘I have had many misfortunes in life, but most of them never happened to me’. I have quite recovered, and am now leading a very happy life, tho’ not of course the life I would have chosen. In many ways it is a better life: I have never worked until now, and it is high time that I began.
As to my companions, they are really divided into three lots. The first and largest lot consists of rankers who have been out for some time and have come here to get commissions. These are mostly jolly good chaps: clean, honest, infinitely good natured. As they have come here to be made into ‘officers and gentlemen’ their own naïve conceptions of how gentlemen behave among themselves lead them into an impossible politeness that is really very pathetic. Most of our set get on very well with them. The next lot (about one third of the whole) consists of cads and fools pure and simple. They don’t need much description: some of them are vicious, some merely doltish, all vulgar and uninteresting. They drop their h’s, spit on the stairs, and talk about what they’re going to do when they get to the front—where of course none of them has been. Then comes the third lot, our own set, the public school men and varsity men with all their faults and merits ‘already ascertained’.
My chief friend is Somerville, scholar of Eton and scholar of King’s, Cambridge, a very quiet sort of person, but very booky and interesting. Moore of Clifton, my room companion, and Sutton of Repton (the company humourist) are also good fellows. The former is a little too childish for real companionship, but I will forgive him much for his appreciation of Newbolt. I must not pass over the knut, De Pass, also of Repton, our regnant authority on all matter of dress, who is reported to wear stays: nor Davy, the Carthusian, who remembers my Sinn Fein friend as a prefect at Charterhouse.11
The daily round is of course pretty strenuous, and leaves little time for dreaming or reading. However, I eat and sleep as I have never done before, and am getting rid of some adipose tissue . . .
TO HIS FATHER: from Keble College
Postmark: 18 July 1917
Life here goes on pretty much in the usual way, except that the work gets rather more interesting and involves less actual ‘sweat of the brow’ than at first. We do a good deal of night work, which I rather like, and which leads to getting up later in the morning . . . You are allowed week end leave here every week, provided that you do not go out of Oxford. The last four weeks I have spent it over at Univ., enjoying all my old luxuries over again. Now however the Dean—Who as I remarked is a superior person—has vetoed the plan; on the ground that College is kept open in vacation for men who want to read ‘and not for use as an hotel’. I suppose he is quite right in a way, but it is rather a pity.
You can’t imagine how I have grown to love Univ., especially since I left. Last Saturday evening when I was sleeping there alone, I spent a long time wandering over it, into all sorts of parts where I had never been before, where the mullioned windows are dark with ivy that no one has bothered to cut since the war emptied the rooms they belong to. Some of these rooms were all dust sheeted, others were much as the owners had left them—the pictures still on the wall and the books dust covered in their shelves. It was melancholy in a way, and yet very interesting. I have found one room that I have mapped out to be my own when I come back.
At present I am reading a countrymen of ours, Bishop Berkely, ‘that silly old man’ as Andrew Lang calls him: in fact, one of our few philosophers and a very interesting fellow, whom I always admired for the courage with which you find him standing up to the ogre in Boswell12 . . . Could you let me have some money to get boots for my officer-pattern uniform. I find the cadet school so far much more expensive than the Varsity. When does W. get his leave?
TO HIS FATHER: from Keble College
Postmark: 22 July 1917
Pay there was none at first, except for the old soldiers: but the War Office has at last discovered our existence, and on Friday I drew 7/-, the first money I have earned. It ought to be hung on a watch chain. You say that you should talk to me ‘not of the Muse’. Indeed the reverse is quite the truth, for I make every effort to cling to the old life of books, hoping that I may save my soul alive and not become a great, empty headed, conceited military prig. I am finding out that the military ideal in our army differs from the German one only in degree and not in kind. The Sergeant Major told us the other day that ‘soldiering is more than ’arf swank. You’ve got to learn to walk out as if the bloody street belonged to you. See?’ We are also encouraged in every way to be pharisees and pat ourselves on the back for being in khaki, and stare rudely at apparently eligible young men whom we meet in mufti. Well I hope that neither I nor any of my friends—and I have done well here in the way of friends—will ever attain to that degree of soldierhood. The promised four days’ leave will come in about a fortnight’s time: I am sorry that I cannot let you know more definitely. I shall of course come home the quickest way, there being no question of ‘lucre’ when a paternal government provides you with a pass . . .
On Saturday I drank tea with a dear old gentleman named Goddard, formerly an u
ndergrad of Balliol and now a don at Trinity.13 What interested me most was his opinion of Jowett14 (here usually pronounced to rhyme with ‘poet’) who, he said, had spoiled the scholarly tone of Balliol by a vulgar running after lions . . .
Of Swinburne’s prose, I have read the book on Charlotte Bronte, and the smaller one on William Blake.15 It is undoubtedly very bad prose (I did not find the coarseness) but it is so vigorous that you can forgive it. Don’t forget to keep Wells’s God the Invisible King in the house, as I am longing to read it.
TO HIS FATHER: from Keble College (having visited his father in Belfast 9–11 August)
Postmark: 27 August 1917
You must have been wondering what had come over me, but the crowded time I have been having since I left home will serve as some excuse. First of all came the week at Warwick, which was a nightmare. I was billeted with five others in the house of an undertaker and memorial sculptor. We had three beds between six of us, there was of course no bath, and the feeding was execrable. The little back yard full of tomb stones, which we christened ‘the quadrangle’, was infinitely preferable to the tiny dining room with its horse hair sofa and family photos. When all six of us sat down to meals there together, there was scarcely room to eat, let alone swing the traditional cat round. Altogether it was a memorable experience. We came back on Saturday, and the following week I spent with Moore at the digs of his mother who, as I mentioned, is staying at Oxford.16 I like her immensely and thoroughly enjoyed myself. On Wednesday as you know, Warnie was up here and we had a most enjoyable afternoon and evening together, chiefly at my rooms in Univ. How I wish you could have been there too. But please God I shall be able to see you at Oxford and show you my ‘sacred city’ in happier times . . .