While the others enjoyed the instalments of Tolkien’s brilliant ‘new Hobbit’ – The Lord of the Rings – Hugo Dyson didn’t hide the fact that he disliked it, and this caused Tolkien pain. ‘A well attended Inklings this evening,’ wrote Warnie on 24 April 1947, ‘both the Tolkiens, J and I, Humphrey, Gervase, Hugo; the latter came in just as we were starting on the “Hobbit”, and as he now exercises a veto on it – most unfairly I think – we had to stop.’51
On 27 September 1947 Warnie wrote:
Present Jack, Sayer, Colin Hardie, Christopher, Hugo and myself. Some enjoyable talk arising out of T.S. Eliot, one of whose poems Jack read superbly, but broke off in the middle declaring it to be bilge: Hugo defended it, Jack and Sayer attacked. I thought that though unintelligible, it did convey a feeling of frustration and despair. Jack thought it had nothing to say worth saying in any case. The conversation drifted to whether poets create or reflect the mood of their time.52
One of the lesser-known Inklings was C.E. ‘Tom Brown’ Stevens, Tutor in Ancient History at Magdalen.* He had known the Lewis brothers since he became a Fellow of Magdalen in 1933, but during nearly the whole of the war he served in the Foreign Office. In his diary Warnie provides the exact date of Stevens’s debut as an Inkling. Writing on the evening of 27 November 1947, he said:
A very pleasant meeting: Tollers, J, self, Stevens and Humphrey. We talked of Bishop Barnes,† of the extraordinary difficulty of interesting the uneducated indifferent in religion: savage and primitive man and the common confusion between them: how far pagan mythology was a substitute for theology: bravery and panache. Stevens said that Vauban’s‡ fortresses killed the old style panache: and told me a very interesting thing, viz., that our stand in the actual forts built by Vauban at Calais enabled the bulk of the B.E.F. [British Expeditionary Force] to escape through Dunkirk in 1940.53
‘A very pleasant little Inklings’, wrote Warnie on 22 January 1948. ‘Present Colin, Tom Stevens, Christopher, Jack and I. We drank wine and finished a noble “old style Kentucky brandied cake” which someone had sent J from America. Much talk of Mauritius, public schools and Sherlock Holmes stories.’54
The ‘old style Kentucky brandied cake’ was probably the gift of Dr Warfield M. Firor, Professor of Surgery at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.* He was one of the American friends who, as described by John Wain, sent Lewis innumerable food parcels during and after the war. Dr Firor, known to Lewis’s friends as ‘Firor-of-the-Hams’, made it possible for the Inklings to enjoy the occasional ham supper. One such meal was enjoyed on 11 March 1948, during which the various Inklings signed a statement thanking Dr Firor for his generosity and toasting his health. Lewis wrote to Dr Firor the next day:
The fate of the ham was this: we have a small informal literary club which meets in my rooms every Thursday for beer and talk, and – in happier times – for an occasional dinner. And last night, having your ham to dine off, we had a meal which eight members attended. By diligent ‘scraping the bottom of the barrel’ in various colleges we got two bottles of burgundy and two of port: the college kitchen supplied soup, fish and a savoury: and we had a delightful evening. This by English standards is a banquet rarely met with, and all agreed that they hadn’t eaten such a dinner for five years or more. I enclose a little souvenir of the occasion which may amuse you … yours Ham-icably, C.S. Lewis.
As some have not v. legible signatures, I had better say the list runs: C.S. Lewis, H.V. Dyson, Lord David Cecil, W.H. Lewis, C. Hardie, C.R. Tolkien, R.E. Havard, J.R.R. Tolkien. The order is just as we happened to be sitting. Tolkien père is the senior and T. fils the baby.
‘A pleasant Inklings,’ Warnie wrote on 18 March 1948, ‘attended by Humphrey, Tom Stevens, the Tolkiens, Colin, Hugo, J and I … Some good talk, largely philological, and about obscene words, arising out of my not understanding the meaning of “stool”* as used in a verse of the psalms we had at evensong in the cathedral.’55
Another Inkling who attended few of the Thursday evening meetings but many of those on Tuesday was R.B. McCallum,† Fellow and Tutor of History at Pembroke College. Writing about the meeting on 4 February 1949 Warnie said:
An enjoyable Inklings in the evening. Present, J, McCallum, Colin, Hugo and myself. Was glad to hear that Keir,‡ late of Univ., now of Queen’s Belfast, has been elected Master of Balliol … This set us talking of red brick universities from the job hunting point of view; from where the talk drifted, by channels which I have forgotten, to torture, Tertullian … the contractual theory in medieval kingship, odd surnames and place names. McCallum very good on kingship; he much improves as time goes on, and if one gets the impression in listening to him that you are having a tutorial, well I suppose a history don cannot very well talk history in any other way.56
The Inklings’ evenings in Magdalen grew fewer and on 27 October 1949 Warnie recorded in his diary: ‘No one turned up.’57 Eventually the Thursday evening meetings ceased altogether; but the Inkling meetings at the ‘B. and B.’ flourished exceedingly and continued until the last week of Lewis’s life. The ‘inner parlour’ was never booked for the occasion, nor shut to the public in any way; but the Inklings nearly always had it to themselves. The Tuesday meetings were changed to Monday after Lewis’s appointment to the Cambridge Chair in 1954, as it was his custom to return to his new university on that day, by the afternoon train, after spending the weekend at The Kilns. Only in 1962 when it was joined on to the main bar and the door removed did Lewis migrate regretfully across to the Lamb and Flag on the other side of St Giles Street – where a secluded corner at least was always obtainable.
There, in time, the most constant Inklings, besides Lewis himself, became R.B. McCallum, Colin Hardie, Humphrey Havard, Gervase Mathew, and Jim Dundas-Grant; but one might be just as likely to find Tolkien or Coghill, Lord David Cecil or W.H. Auden; or American scholars such as Chad Walsh in 1948 or Walter Hooper in 1963. Once again a few diary entries (this time Green’s) will give a pale reflection of these meetings:
13 February 1951. To ‘Eagle and Child’ to meet C.S.L.: a grand gathering – Tolkien, McCallum, Major Lewis, Wrenn, Hardie, Gervase Mathew, John Wain, and others whose names I didn’t catch. Discussion on C. Day Lewis (who was elected Professor of Poetry last week, beating C.S.L. by 19 votes): Lewis praised his Georgics but considered his critical work negligible.
9 November 1954. To ‘B. and B.’ to meet Lewis; his brother, McCallum, Tolkien, Gervase M. there as well. Very good talk, about Tolkien’s book,* horror comics, who is the most influential and important man in various countries: decided Burke for Ireland, Scott for Scotland, Shakespeare for England – but there difficulties arose, Pitt and Wellington also being put forward.
17 June 1963. To ‘Lamb and Flag’ about 12, there joined Jack. Several others – Gervase Mathew, Humphrey Havard, Colin Hardie, and a young American, Walter Hooper, who is writing some sort of book or thesis about Jack …
‘Only in retrospect’, wrote Chad Walsh, the American scholar who visited Lewis in Oxford during the summer of 1948, ‘did I realize how much intellectual ground was covered in these seemingly casual meetings. At the time the constant bustle of Lewis racing his friends to refill empty mugs or pausing to light another cigarette (occasionally a pipe) camouflaged the steady flow of ideas. The flow, I might add, is not a one-way traffic. Lewis is as good a listener as talker, and has alert curiosity about almost anything conceivable.’58
Following Lewis’s death a few of his friends, usually Humphrey Havard, Walter Hooper, R.B. McCallum, and James Dundas-Grant, tried to keep Monday meetings at the ‘Bird and Baby’ going. Increasingly there were excuses why one or more of them couldn’t be there. The epitaph was spoken by McCallum, who at a meeting in 1964 said to Hooper, ‘Let’s face it. Without Jack we can’t go on. When the sun goes out there’s no more light in the solar system.’
* * *
* Edmund Charles Blunden (1896–1974), poet, teacher, critic and biographer, was educated at The Queen’s College,
Oxford, after which poetry and literary journalism claimed most of his time. However, he returned to Oxford and was a Fellow and Tutor of Merton College, 1931–45. He served with the UK liaison mission to Japan, 1947–50, and was Professor of English at the University of Hong Kong, 1953–63.
* Derek Stanley Brewer (1923– ) matriculated in 1941, but spent the next four years in the Army. He returned to Oxford in 1945 and took his BA from Magdalen in 1948. He was a lecturer in English at the University of Birmingham, 1949–56 and 1958–64, and a lecturer in English in the University of Cambridge, 1956–76. He was Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 1977–90, and Professor of English in the University of Cambridge, 1983–90. A distinguished medievalist, Professor Brewer’s numerous books include Chaucer in his Time (1963), Chaucer and his World (1978) and A New Introduction to Chaucer (1998).
* On account of power-cuts decreed by the Labour administration.
* Kenneth Peacock Tynan (1927–80), pupil and theatre critic. He won a demyship to Magdalen College in 1945 and had Lewis as his tutor. Despite his aesthetic eccentricities, he and Lewis warmed to one another and were friends for the rest of their lives. On leaving Oxford Tynan made his mark as an actor, director and critic of the theatre. His works include Curtains (1961) and Tynan Right and Left (1967). See Kathleen Tynan, The Life of Kenneth Tynan (1988) and his biography in CG.
† John Wain CBE (1925–94), novelist, poet, and critic. He became a member of St John’s College, Oxford, in 1943 but was sent to Lewis for tuition in English. On taking a degree in 1947 he was a lecturer in English Literature at the University of Reading until 1955 when he left to devote himself to writing. His first novel, Hurry on Down (1955), was followed by others including The Contenders (1958) and A Winter in the Hills (1970). His Sprightly Running: Part of an Autobiography (1962) includes an account of his tutorials and meetings of the Inklings. See his biography in CG.
* Gordon Bottomley (1874–1948), poet and dramatist, who was obliged by ill health to live in seclusion. His works include Poems in Thirty Years (1925) and the verse play King Lear’s Wife (1915).
* Paul Victor Mendelssohn Benecke (1868–1944) was the great-grandson of the composer Felix Mendelssohn. He became a Fellow of Magdalen College in 1893 and taught classics until his retirement in 1925. Lewis’s reminiscences of Mr Benecke are found in Margaret Denecke’s Paul Victor Mendelssohn Benecke (1868–1944) [1954], pp. 31–4.
* Clement Charles Julian Webb (1865–1954), theologian and philosopher, was Tutor in Philosophy at Magdalen College, 1889–1922, and Oriel Professor of Philosophy of the Christian Religion and Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, 1922–30.
† John Alexander Smith (1863–1939), philosopher and classicist, was Waynflete Professor of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy and Fellow of Magdalen College, 1910–36.
‡ Frank Edward Brightman (1856–1932), liturgist of the Church of England, was one of the original librarians of Pusey House, Oxford. He was a Fellow of Magdalen College, 1902–32. Among his publications is the monumental work, The English Rite (1915).
§ Colin Hardie (1906–98) took a First in Literae Humaniores from Balliol College in 1928 and in 1933 became the Director of the British School at Rome. He returned to Oxford in 1936 as Fellow and Classical Tutor at Magdalen College. In 1940 he married Christian Lucas and they had two sons, Nicholas (to whom The Silver Chair is dedicated) and Anthony. Besides his work on Virgil and Dante, Hardie was Public Orator for the University of Oxford, 1967–73. See his biography in CG.
* Arthur Lee Dixon (1867–1955) was a Fellow of Merton College, 1891–1922, and Fellow of Magdalen and Waynflete Professor of Pure Mathematics, 1922–45. In a portrait of him found in AMR, Lewis said of Dixon: ‘A man to be depended on to the end: he is at peace, like the animals, but with the added charm of reason: a good man, a good (almost a great) gentleman, but no more spiritual than the worst degenerate in whom – for everything else – one would find his opposite. If he had physical beauty he would be the Pagan ideal of the “good man” perfectly realized.’
† Adam Fox (1883–1977) took his BA from University College, Oxford, in 1906. Following his ordination he taught at Lancing College after which he was Warden of Radley College. He returned to Oxford in 1929 as Fellow and Dean of Magdalen College where he remained until 1942. He published a long narrative poem, Old King Cole, in 1937 and the following year he was elected, with a good deal of help from Lewis, Oxford’s Professor of Poetry. See his biography in CG.
* Ruth Pitter CBE (1898–1992), poet, was born in Ilford, Essex. She was converted to Christianity through hearing Lewis’s Mere Christianity broadcasts during the Second World War. Her many volumes of poetry include First Poems (1920), A Mad Woman’s Garland (1935), A Trophy of Arms (1936), Pitter on Cats (1947) and Poems 1926–66 (1968). In 1946 she wrote to Lewis asking if they might meet. He was already an admirer of her poems, and they became close friends. In his biography, Jack: C.S. Lewis and his Times (1988), George Sayer said that following a visit to Miss Pitter in 1955 Lewis told him that ‘if he were not a confirmed bachelor, Ruth Pitter would be the woman he would like to marry’ (ch. 19, p. 211).
* Sir Laurence Whistler (1912–2000), glass-engraver, writer and poet. After taking a degree from Balliol College, Oxford, he published Sir John Vanbrugh, Architect and Dramatist (1938). Meanwhile, his artistic interests grew to include glass-engraving and in this he discovered his true vocation. His correspondence with Lewis is in the Bodleian Library.
† Andrew Young (1885–1971), poet, whose work was much admired by Lewis. His books include Collected Poems (1936), The Green Man (1947), and Out of the World and Back (1958).
* Edward Tangye Lean (1911–74), brother of film director David Lean, matriculated at University College in 1929 where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics. During his three years at Univ. Lean published two novels, Of Unsound Mind (1932) and Storm in Oxford (1933), and served as the editor of the student magazine, Isis. After leaving Oxford he worked for the German Service of the BBC. His Voices in the Darkness (1943) is an account of the task of the BBC’s wartime broadcasts. He later worked as an administrator of the BBC.
* Lord David Cecil (1902–86), second son of the fourth Marquess of Salisbury, was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. After taking a First in History in 1924 he taught Modern History and English Literature at Wadham College, 1924–30. In 1930 he left Oxford to pursue literary work in London. He married in 1932, and in 1939 he returned to Oxford as Fellow of English at New College, a position he held until he became Goldsmith’s Professor of English Literature in 1949. His writings include a biography of William Cowper, The Stricken Deer (1929) as well as biographies of Lord Melbourne and Jane Austen. See his biography in CG.
* Charles Leslie Wrenn (1895–1969) took his BA from Queen’s College, Oxford, after which he lectured in English at Durham University, 1917–20. He was afterwards Principal and Professor of English at Pachaiyappa’s College, Madras, 1920–1; and Head of the Department of English at the University of Dacca, 1921–7. He returned to England in 1928 to become Lecturer in English at Leeds University where he remained until he came to Oxford in 1930 to assist Professor Tolkien with the teaching of Anglo-Saxon. He was Professor of English at the University of London, 1939–46. See his biography in CG.
* Matthew 7:14: ‘Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.’
* The House by the Stable, included in Seed of Adam and Other Plays, ed. Anne Ridler (1948).
† Dr Robert Emlyn Havard (1901–85) matriculated at Keble College in 1919 and took a First in Chemistry in 1921. He became a Catholic shortly afterwards, and because of Keble’s ban on Catholics was forced to move to Queen’s College. On receiving his BM, he practised at London Hospital and the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford. He taught in the Biochemistry Department of Leeds University for several years, but in 1934 he returned to Oxford to take over a medical practice in Headington and St Giles. Lewis gave him the nam
e ‘Humphrey’ after the doctor in Perelandra. Havard was married with five children, and besides being a busy husband and father, he was one of the most energetic of the Inklings and a member of the Socratic Club.
* Father Anthony Gervase Mathew OP (1905–76) was born in Chelsea and was educated at Balliol College where he read Modern History. He joined the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) in 1928 and took the name ‘Gervase’. Blackfriars, Oxford, was his home for the rest of his life. He was ordained a priest in 1934. That same year he and his brother, David Mathew (1902–75), Archbishop of Apamea in Bithynia, published The Reformation and the Contemplative Life (1934). He became a lecturer in the schools of Modern History, Theology and English Literature, and in 1947 he was appointed University Lecturer in Byzantine Studies. His books include Byzantine Aesthetics (1963) and The Court of Richard II (1968).
† James Dundas-Grant (1896–1985) was born in London and educated at Eton College. He entered the Navy at the beginning of the First World War and later volunteered for the Air Branch. He became a major and served in Italy and France. After the war he became a Lloyd’s underwriter, and a member of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. He began his appointment as Commander of the Oxford University Naval Division after being recalled to service in 1944. He was a devout Catholic and he and his wife Katherine did much to help the Catholic youth of Oxford. See his biography in CG.
* W.H. Lewis, The Splendid Century: Some Aspects of French Life in the Reign of Louis XIV (1953).
† The Great Divorce: A Dream (1946).
* Jack Arthur Walter Bennett (1911–81), a distinguished medievalist, was born in Auckland, New Zealand, and matriculated at Merton College, Oxford, in 1933. He took his BA in 1935 and his D.Phil. in 1938. That same year he was elected to a junior research fellowship at Queen’s College. During the war he served with the US Research Department. He returned to Queen’s in 1945, and in 1947 he was elected to a fellowship at Magdalen. In 1964 Bennett succeeded Lewis as Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English in Cambridge. Among his many writings is his inaugural lecture in Cambridge, The Humane Medievalist (1965) in which he pays tribute to Lewis. See his biography in CG.
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