The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings
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“kicked a few ideas around”: Joy Gresham to William Gresham, quoted in Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Complete Guide, 247.
“when they are preparing”: C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold (San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, 1984), 97.
“every nice, affectionate”: Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3, 590.
“I know now”: Lewis, Till We Have Faces, 308.
“Most reviewers”: Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Complete Guide, 262.
“mumbo-jumbo”: T. H. White, Time and Tide 37 (October 13, 1956): 1227–28.
libel risk: Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3, 581.
“partly in answer”: Lewis, preface to Surprised by Joy, vii.
“long corridors”: Lewis, Surprised by Joy, 10.
“‘Do you like that?’”: Ibid., 130.
“as fascinating”: Ibid., 200.
“the most dejected”: Ibid., 228–29.
“latter stages”: Dorothy L. Sayers, “Christianity Regained,” Time and Tide 36 (October 1, 1955): 1263.
“In a sense”: Lewis, Surprised by Joy, 17.
“God moves, indeed”: Norman Cornthwaite Nicholson, “Joy and Conversion,” The Times Literary Supplement 2797 (October 7, 1955): 583.
“The limpidity of these waters”: Sayers, “Christianity Regained,” 1264.
“shimmering in the heat”: Davidman, Out of My Bone, 258.
“smelled marriage”: Eva Walsh, quoted in Dorsett, And God Came In, 128.
“it was now obvious”: W. H. Lewis, Brothers and Friends, 245.
“Joy, whose intentions … the gap between the end”: Ibid., 245.
“How did I get into this theology racket”: Davidman, Out of My Bone, 278.
“place of unearthly beauty”: Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3, 781.
“a v. fine, wild country … a ‘St. Luke’s summer’”: Ibid., 797.
“I have got something really hellish … The X-rays showed”: Davidman, Out of My Bone, 297.
“I never have loved her more”: W. H. Lewis, Brothers and Friends, 245.
“physical agony”: Davidman, Out of My Bone, 300.
“I am trying very hard”: Ibid., 306.
“a notable act of charity … I found it heartrending”: W. H. Lewis, Brothers and Friends, 246.
“a power which … Yes, in my legs”: Coghill, “Approach to English,” 63.
“gives me a wonderfully youthful figure”: Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3, 875.
“a spiritualist picture”: Ibid., 967.
“life-giving generosity”: Coghill, “Approach to English,” 63.
“One dreams of a Charles Williams substitution!”: Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3, 901.
“hardly any hope”: Ibid., 866.
“has improved”: Ibid., 884.
“the improvement in my wife’s condition”: Ibid., 894.
“almost miraculous”: Ibid., 903.
“by supposing Charles’s theory”: W. H. Lewis, Brothers and Friends, 232.
“My heart is breaking”: Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3, 862.
“wd. be surprised”: Ibid., 837.
“we are often … something which began in Agape”: Ibid., 884.
“naturally I shall want”: Quoted in Dorsett, And God Came In, 147.
“remember you as a man … If you do not relent”: Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3, 843–45.
“the center of his life”: Ladborough, “In Cambridge,” 103.
“for the unlearned”: C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1958), 1.
“Christians cry to God”: Ibid., 12.
“that typically Jewish prison”: Ibid., 17.
“are indebted”: Ibid., 28.
“Father of Lights … good work”: Ibid., 110.
“a little more technical equipment … only the most tenuous”: Joseph Bourke, Blackfriars 40 (September 1959): 389–91.
“bring in nearly … Cartwheel”: C. S. Lewis Papers, Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Let. C. 220/4, fol. 28, quoted in Green and Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Biography, 387.
“Today I want to discuss”: Joy Davidman, letter to Chad and Eva Walsh, Out of My Bone, 341.
“If people are already unlovable”: Lewis, The Four Loves, 41.
“hard day’s walking”: Ibid., 72.
“Love Himself”: Ibid., 128.
“vague and fluid … a novelist’s insights”: Martin D’Arcy, “These Things Called Love,” The New York Times Book Review (July 31, 1960): 4.
“more like resurrection”: Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3, 1000.
“drunk with blue mountains”: Ibid., 967.
“like being recaptured by the giant”: Ibid., vol. 3, 1101.
“Joy was often in pain”: Green and Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Biography, 396.
“in a nunc dimittis frame of mind”: Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3, 1153.
“made an Amazon”: Ibid.
“Don’t get me a posh coffin”: W. H. Lewis, Brothers and Friends, 250.
“I shall survive, unembittered … it does often strike me as preposterous”: Owen Barfield letter, December 29, 1957, Barfield Papers, Bodleian Library, Dep. c. 1055.
“exist by virtue”: Owen Barfield, What Coleridge Thought (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1971), 36.
“the subjectivity of the individual mind”: Owen Barfield, quoted in Sugerman, Evolution of Consciousness: Studies in Polarity, 18.
“basis of his whole way”: Barfield, quoted in ibid., 17.
“round box”: Owen Barfield, Worlds Apart: A Dialogue of the 1960’s (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1971), 210.
“so exciting … Your language sometimes disgruntles”: Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3, 1328.
“recently deceased … a fascinating link”: Thomas J. Altizer, review of Worlds Apart, Journal of Bible and Religion 32, no. 4 (October 1964): 384–85.
“metaphor, symbol, language, and problems of communication”: Penciled note by Barfield recounting “Origin of U.S Connection,” dated August 30, 1963, Barfield Papers, Bodleian Library, Dep. c. 1054.
“like starting a new life”: Blaxland–de Lange, Owen Barfield, 39.
“now about 34 years behind … wide view”: Tolkien, “Valedictory Address to the University of Oxford,” 224.
“the foundation”: Ibid., 225.
“the B.Litt. sausage-machine … the degeneration”: Ibid., 226–27.
“the duguð”: Ibid., 240.
“vigorous … crotchety”: “Tolkien’s Farewell,” Oxford Mail (June 6, 1969): 4.
“in many ways a melancholy”: Tolkien, Letters, 300.
“I am in fact utterly stuck”: Ibid., 301.
“ponderous silliness”: Ibid., 302.
“Forgive my chattiness”: Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, quoted in Scull and Hammond, J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Chronology, 574.
“a very pretty book”: Quoted in Scull and Hammond, J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Chronology, 599.
“I do not think … of course no dragon”: Quoted in ibid., 595, 596.
“ingenious … hurrying rhythm”: Alfred Duggan, “Middle Earth Verse,” The Times Literary Supplement 3169 (November 23, 1962): 892.
“something close to genius”: Anthony Thwaite, “Hobbitry,” The Listener 1756 (November 22, 1962): 881.
“sagging faith … men’s hearts”: Tolkien, Letters, 336–37.
“Faith is an act of will … demented megalomaniac”: Ibid., 337–38.
“fell in love … the greatest reform”: Ibid., 338–40.
“plausible English pseudonym”: Quoted in Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3, 1201.
“not written with publication”: Hooper, C. S Lewis: A Complete Guide, 196.
“a defence … describe a state”: C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed (New York: HarperOne, 2009), 71.
“there are a lot of things”: Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3, 1174.
“For those few years”: Lewis, Grief Observ
ed, 19–20.
“appall”: Ibid., 29.
“the most precious gift”: Ibid., 30.
“She is, like God”: Ibid., 36.
“Cosmic Sadist”: Ibid., 43.
“an instantaneous, unanswerable impression”: Ibid., 57.
“Turned to God”: Ibid., 73.
470–71 “Him as the giver”: Ibid., 74.
“Not my idea of God”: Ibid., 79.
“strange, firm magnetism … Religion—reassurance”: Sylva Norman, “Argument with Sorrow,” The Times Literary Supplement 3115 (November 10, 1961): 803.
“easy tone … continually interesting”: William Empson, “Professor Lewis on Linguistics,” The Times Literary Supplement 3057 (September 30, 1960): 627.
“unintelligible”: Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3, 1202.
“as a substitute”: C. S. Lewis, “Undergraduate Criticism,” Broadsheet (Cambridge) 8, no. 17 (March 9, 1960): [1,] quoted by Walter Hooper in Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3, 1230. Discussed in an editorial, “Professor C. S. Lewis and the English Faculty,” ibid., no. 22 (October 1960): 6–17.
“Pecksniffian disingenuousness”: Delta: The Cambridge Literary Magazine 22 (October 1960): 6–17.
“Do not misunderstand”: Lewis, letter to the editor, Delta: The Cambridge Literary Magazine 23 (February 1961): 4–7, reprinted in Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3, 1230–35.
“shrinking a little”: Frank Kermode, “Against Vigilants,” New Statesman 62, 1599 (November 3, 1961): 658–59. Kermode, who had also incurred the wrath of Scrutiny, was impressed by the artful way in which Lewis suggests, without naming names, the particular school of critics he has in mind; moreover, Kermode says, “there is no specific mention of that dreadful Vigilant arrogance which corrupts pleasure and judgment, and which is now available in paperback…”
“Tell me the date”: C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1961, 2004), 105.
“No poem will give”: Ibid., 94.
“permits, invites”: Ibid., 104.
“an enlargement of our being … In reading great literature”: Ibid., 137–41.
“The saner and greater”: I. A. Richards, Coleridge on Imagination (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1934; Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1960), 171.
“not to ‘think about’”: F. R. Leavis, “Literary Criticism and Philosophy,” The Common Pursuit, 213.
“Professor Lewis’s own credo”: Reginald P. C. Mutter, “The Function of Criticism,” The Times Literary Supplement 3114 (November 3, 1961): 790.
“The actual history of Eng. Lit.”: Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3, 1371.
“a perfectly sincere, disinterested, fearless, ruthless fanatic”: Ibid., 1372.
“C. S. Lewis is dead”: Leavis’s remark was recorded by D. Keith Mano, quoted in James E. Person, Jr., “The Legacy of C. S. Lewis,” Modern Age (Summer 1991): 409.
“whether we were his pupils”: Helen Gardner, review of The Discarded Image, The Listener 1842 (July 16, 1964): 97.
“(a.) Having educated Betjeman”: Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3, 1251.
“I never liked Eliot’s poetry”: Green and Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Biography, 390.
“It was a quiet morning”: Donald Swann, Swann’s Way: A Life in Song, quoted in Green and Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Biography, 403.
“During the year … I drank from”: W. H. Lewis, Brothers and Friends, 252–53.
“a dipsomaniac retired major”: Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3, 1312.
“I wear a catheter”: Ibid., 1382.
If Lewis had taken a leave: See W. H. Lewis, Brothers and Friends, 272.
“But oh Arthur”: Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 3, 1456.
“By early October”: W. H. Lewis, “Memoir of C. S. Lewis,” 45.
John F. Kennedy: Kennedy died first, being shot at 12:30 Central Time (USA) and declared dead at 1:00 p.m.; Huxley died at 5:20 Pacific Time (having received two one-hundred milligram injections of LSD during his last hours, administered by his wife, Laura Huxley); Lewis, as noted, died at about 5:30 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time in Oxford.
19. INKLINGS FIRST AND LAST
“time of close communion … So far I have felt”: Tolkien, Letters, 341.
“My life continues”: W. H. Lewis, Brothers and Friends, 254.
“SPB”: Warnie’s curious sobriquet for his brother. The letters stand for Smallpiggiebotham (Warnie was the Archpiggiebotham), nicknames ultimately derived from their childhood nurse, Lizzie Endicott. A humorous “Pigiebotian” philosophy evolved between the two brothers, devoted to studied appreciation of inactivity. See Lewis’s letter to Warnie, August 2, 1928 (Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. 1, 776).
“I forget quite important”: W. H. Lewis, Brothers and Friends, 255.
“the absolutely unforgettable”: Owen Barfield, “C. S. Lewis,” Owen Barfield on C. S. Lewis, 3.
“You came to him”: Owen Barfield, “Moira,” Owen Barfield on C. S. Lewis, 163.
“I find the prospect exciting … 2 lectures a week”: Letter, Owen Barfield to Philip Mairet, March 28, 1964, Barfield Papers, Bodleian Library, Dep. c. 1074.
“rather jumped at”: Blaxland–de Lange, Owen Barfield, 40.
“spoke of Jack … flew from Los Angeles”: Ibid., 307.
“you go at it”: Lewis, Surprised by Joy, 200.
United States poet laureate: From 1937 to 1986, encompassing Nemerov’s first term of service, the official title of the post was “Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress”; from 1986 to the present day, including Nemerov’s second term of service, the title has been “Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.”
“ambassador at the court”: Donna L. Potts, Howard Nemerov and Objective Idealism: The Influence of Owen Barfield (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1994), 1.
“a strong affinity”: Letter, Owen Barfield to Professor Coburn, February 16, 1963, Barfield Papers, Bodleian Library, Dep. c. 1054.
“had a muddled life”: Barfield, What Coleridge Thought, 5.
“even my unsatisfactory children … I like the work”: Blaxland–de Lange, Owen Barfield, 305.
“an interpenetration”: Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, chap. 18, quoted in Owen Barfield, Speaker’s Meaning (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1967), 82.
“plot”: Barfield, Speaker’s Meaning, 117.
“non-spatial relationships”: Owen Barfield, Unancestral Voice (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1965), 143.
“stimulating and not infrequently”: Ivor Thomas, “Hello Meggid,” The Times Literary Supplement 3306 (July 8, 1965): 583.
“The events and troubles … I am at last recovering”: Tolkien, letter to Rayner Unwin, May 28, 1964, quoted in Scull and Hammond, J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Chronology, 618.
“I feel his loss”: Quoted in Martin Bentham, “Literary Greats Exposed as Gossips and Snipes,” Sunday Telegraph, February 7, 1999, and then in Scull and Hammond, J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Chronology, 615.
“He was a great man”: Tolkien, Letters, 341.
“a Catholic could not”: Quoted in Christie’s, 20th-Century Books and Manuscripts, November 16, 2001, 22, and in Scull and Hammond, J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Chronology, 612.
“And once again”: C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1964), 124.
“I personally found”: Tolkien, Letters, 352.
“about prayer”: Quoted in A. N. Wilson, C. S. Lewis, xvii.
“ponderous silliness”: Tolkien, Letters, 302.
“crops up regularly”: Quoted in Scull and Hammond, J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Reader’s Guide, 1044.
“a remarkable creature … till people more aware”: Tolkien, Letters, 353.
“my admiration for”: Ibid., 356.
“confused”: Ibid., 359.
“frequently fired verbal”: Clyde S. Kilb
y, Tolkien & The Silmarillion (Wheaton, Ill.: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1976), 36.
“on a lawn”: J.R.R. Tolkien, Smith of Wootton Major (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1967; New York: Ballantine Books, 1969), 31–33.
“a good tale”: Robert Phelps, “For Young Readers,” The New York Times Book Review (February 4, 1968): 76.
“Tolkien needs”: Naomi Mitchison, “Why Not Grown-Ups Too?” Glasgow Herald (November 25, 1967): 9.
Some saw in the hero: For Smith as Anodos, see Mathew Dickerson, “Smith of Wootton Major (Character),” in Drout, J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, 619–20.
“an old man’s”: Tolkien, Letters, 389.
“periphery”: Charles Moorman, The Precincts of Felicity (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1966), 101.
“in days to come”: Moorman, Precincts of Felicity, 138.
“silly … frankly absurd”: W. H. Lewis, Brothers and Friends, 268.
“died at the same instant … But little did I realize”: Ibid., 269.
“Hell-hole”: Ibid., 255.
“busybody … withering discourse”: Ibid., 256–57. See discussion by Walter Hooper, introduction, Letters of C. S. Lewis, 12–17. Hooper’s revised and enlarged edition of this book, published in 1988, included more complete versions of the letters Warnie had excerpted.
“on my death bed”: Ibid., 277.
“that nice type”: Ibid., 261.
“It is rather queer”: Letter, Owen Barfield to R. J. Reilly, April 17, 1969, Barfield Papers, Bodleian Library, Dep. c. 1056.
“Red Indians … not unpleasingly”: Quoted in Blaxland–de Lange, Owen Barfield, 309.
“his researches”: G. B. Tennyson, “Barfield and the Rebirth of Meaning,” The Southern Review, vol. 5, no. 1 (January 1, 1969): 42.
“I always felt … Towards the end”: Letter, Nevill Coghill to Owen Barfield, July 1, 1965, Barfield Papers, Bodleian Library, Dep. c. 1056.
“I am so glad … since the Times”: Letter, Colin Hardie to Owen Barfield, November 6, 1979, Barfield Papers, Bodleian Library, Dep. c. 1058. The Times had suspended publication because of a labor dispute in November 1978. It resumed regular publication a week or so after Hardie wrote his letter.
“I heard from”: Letter, Cecil Harwood to Owen Barfield, April 1972, Barfield Papers, Bodleian Library, Dep. c. 1057.
“that I wasn’t”: Blaxland–de Lange, Owen Barfield, 31.