by C. S. Lewis
I happened to remark jokingly that All Souls was an indefensible institution. Morrah said its function was to keep the University in touch with the grande monde: and in developing this thesis became just a little too like an after dinner speaker (of the serious kind).
He told us a good story of how H. G. Wells had dined at All Souls and said that Oxford wasted too much time over Latin and Greek. Why should these two literatures have it all to themselves? Now Russian and Persian literature were far superior to the Classics. Someone (I forget the name) asked a few questions. It soon became apparent that Wells knew neither Greek, Latin, Persian, or Russian. ‘I think,’ said someone, ‘I am the only person present here tonight who knows these four languages: and I can assure you, Mr Wells, that you are mistaken: neither Russian nor Persian literature are as great as the literatures of Greece or Rome.’
I asked Morrah if he believed in the usual cant about dons being so much in need of humanizing and the grande monde: he gave an answer so carefully balanced that the result was nil. After a little talk about Gilbert Murray, Lindsay and other things, he left us: a man distinguished in manner, ready with the tongue, but somehow lacking something that wd. make him a really agreeable fellow.
Coghill and I then had a long and pleasant tête-à-tête until interrupted by the arrival of Dawson, a Professor in Exeter and a great friend of Coghill. We had very good talk triangular, chiefly on books, till I left at 11.30 and came home in great haste through milk white moonlight . . .
Monday 16 June: . . . Lunch was very late and by the time I had finished my jobs it was after three. I then bussed into town to do some shopping. I also went to the Union where I read the whole of De la Mare’s Ding Dong Bell, a beautiful little book in prose.
Bussed home and had tea alone in the garden with D: after which I set out to take Pat for a run and was unexpectedly pleased to meet Jenkin just turning into our road. We walked together down Cuckoo Lane—which is also called ‘The back of the hill’ and ‘Joe Pullen’s lane’. I spoke of the Pasleys’ action in going to a bull fight. Jenkin strongly disapproved of it and said that the fact of their being foreigners and English made their behaviour more important for, strange as it may seem, disapproval of strangers, specially of Englishmen, had altered the feeling about animals in some places before now. He instanced the Italian marble quarries and said also that the presence of the English armies in France had done something to improve the French treatment of animals since the war. I shd. be glad to believe this . . .
Tuesday 17 June: I dreamed in the night that I had a painful and (I understood) final parting from D and shortly afterwards found myself in a large swimming bath whose sides and bottom were of green turf. Here I discovered that a group of particularly unpleasant undergraduates—aesthetes of Satanic sneer—became very rude and violent. One of them however I converted and he came with me to an hotel where, being wakened in the night, we looked out and saw the streets all lit up with red fire. I knew it was the aesthetes who had done it and woke up remarking ‘I suppose this is the second fire of London.’ . . .
Wednesday 18 June: . . . In the evening I bussed into College to read my paper on J. Stephens in Donald’s rooms—Edwards’ old rooms.46 Here I met King who told me that Carritt had been run into by a motor bicycle and had seemed all right for two days except for a black eye: but that now he had retired to bed.
We were a small meeting—King, Donald, Fasnacht, Dawson and two young strangers.47 My quotations from Stephens produced much mirth and I think I made some converts.
During the interval Fasnacht told me about Sutton—my host of the other evening at Christ Church. He was given a Studentship there before Schools and afterwards got only a Second. Fasnacht said he was the worst bore and the worst reasoner of all people whom one met at philosophical societies . . .
Saturday–Tuesday 21–24 June: I left Oxford by the 10.50 for my week end with Harwood and travelled to London in a train crowded with undergraduates going down. There was one in my compartment who added the words ‘I mean’ at the end of his every sentence, and, what was more inexcusable, kept the window shut.
From Paddington I Metro’ed to Victoria and thence, after some difficulty, caught a 24 bus to Lupus St. I had been in the flat for some time before Harwood arrived. He discovered that I had never seen the Elgin marbles, so after lunch he ‘carried’ me to the British Museum.
Our attention was caught and held for a long time by the bull gates of the Assyrian Palace. I said ‘What cruelty—Hassan—one can imagine it all inside those gates.’ ‘No,’ said Harwood, ‘it’s more the cruelty of nature.’
By contrast the Greek things were all the more effective. We sat down for a long time opposite the pediment from Aegina, wondering what on earth it looked like to a company of streetboys who were wandering there. The best of all were the busts just outside the Elgin room: specially those of Pericles, Homer and Chrysippus.
The things from the Parthenon I appreciated more than I had hoped. If only the whole sweep of the pediment which has the horses rising at one end and diving at the other had survived. Besides that what impressed me most was the Artemis among the reliefs of the other gods—the only one that I have ever seen that is virginal but not in the way that appeals to a man’s base love of virginity—and without being girlish or insignificant. It is just thoughtful, unconscious of itself, serious, inhuman and (so to speak) irrelevant—out of our world.
The other gods, so far as I could see, had nothing divine about them. After this the Assyrian things, as we passed them on our way out, were simply savage and stupid.
We had tea in the garden of a little teashop near the Museum. I forgot to mention that Harwood had taken me into the reading room at the Museum. He is a reader, but I am not: he managed it admirably, saying, ‘Now walk on as if you came here every day.’ Then an official shouted something at us and Harwood cried ‘That’s all right’ over his shoulder and so we were in—a most depressing place it is. We sat over our tea in the garden a long time and had some good talk.
Then home to supper and afterwards to the pit of the New Oxford to see the Old Vic people perform As You Like It. They were dreadfully bad and it is a bad play. We remarked (the word ‘came into existence’ somehow between us and I do not know who is the author) adapting Boswell, ‘We’ll go no more before your scenes Baker: the white bosoms of your actresses fail to excite our amorous propensities.’
After the show we went round to the stage door to see Baker. I consented because I thought it easiest to get my first meeting over in the presence of a third party. We were admitted after a long wait and led down many stairs to a long narrow stone passage in the bowels of the earth wh. reminded me of nothing so much as an underground lavatory: then finally into a little greenwashed cell where we found Baker unmaking his face.
He greeted us both warmly and asked our opinion of the play. We hedged rather, saying we hadn’t been able to hear well—wh. was true. Baker, very typically, took charge of the whole play in a seigneural manner and apologised for it—like a host apologising for some hitch in one’s dinner. One other amusing and characteristic thing occurred. ‘These are fine boots,’ said Harwood picking up a pair of strange gambadoes. ‘No, they’re not,’ said Baker with much seriousness, ‘but these,’ (producing another pair from his cupboard) ‘these are the real boots.’
We then emerged from our den. A crowd of people were waiting outside the stage door and as I came past someone asked me ‘Do you know when Cyril is coming out?’ I might have been thrilled at this my identification with the theatrical world if Baker had not assured me that I had been mistaken for an electrician.
These stage electricians he told us have no efficient trades union and are horribly sweated: some of the men in this theatre had not had their boots off for eight days. Their driver is the same Cochran who is responsible for the notorious Rodeo. He seems one of the worst nibelungs in London.48 Harwood said it was wonderful that the crowd had spontaneously objected to the cruelties o
f steer roping. It showed that we were not yet decadent, that even if gladiators and bull fights were introduced, the people themselves would reject them.
The three of us went for some coffee to a place near by and then parted, arranging to meet Baker in Kew Gardens next day. That night I was again bothered with indigestion.
On Sunday morning we were late in rising and did nothing till lunch time. After feeding we trained to Kew and found Baker under the Pagoda—an ugly erection. It was a day almost intolerably bright and the light and shade on the cedars was wonderful. After walking about for some time we found a shady place and sat down. We talked of savage religion, the Russian stage with its mad, one dimensional business on ladders and of Shakespeare—how far he really believed in people like Romeo and Coriolanus—how often he had his tongue in his cheek.
We had tea in the gardens and then walked thro’ the rockeries—Baker has become a gardener. We then came back by train and had supper at a restaurant ‘Espagnole’ in Soho, where Baker stood us a bottle of Chianti. It was here that he announced his engagement in a very amusing manner.
Harwood and I left him soon after this as he had persuaded me to go with him to the Anthroposophical Society—chiefly I think to pull my leg. We had to take a taxi. Arriving at a quite innocent looking house we climbed many stairs into a small and insufferably hot room where some twelve people of various sexes and ages sat together.49
I was introduced to a plain and rather crushed looking woman, Mrs Kauffman. Harwood told her I was quite new to the game. She said it would be rather difficult for me, having my first lecture at this stage in the course, but added ‘perhaps I shouldn’t say that. I don’t know how much you have done.’ Self: ‘I am an absolute neophyte at this sort of business.’ Mrs K.: ‘Oh. That means that you have condemned it beforehand.’ Self: ‘I don’t think you can really take that meaning out of my words.’ Shortly after this Barfield came in and sat between him and Miss Olivier.
Kauffman himself now appeared, a very dark, smooth shaven, broad browed man with a sort of unction about him. He sat down at a desk with his wife just beside him and read us his lecture in a very impressive manner, letting his dark eyes rest on everyone in turn with a sort of sugar sweet, spiritual familiarity. A priestly type beyond doubt.
But he came out best in question time after the lecture, when a number of very shy, rather silly and quite good hearted, ordinary girls put questions to him beginning with stammers and hesitations and ending with little bursts of gush—and then they would dart back into their holes, frightened at the sound of their own voices. At this time he would lean forward with an indescribable expression of encouragement, helping them out and saying by every gesture, ‘Yes—yes—I at least understand you my dear—what a lovely soul you have.’ It disgusted me.
Harwood said afterwards that my objection was not to spiritual conquests in general but to spiritual conquests made by anyone but me: that I disliked Kauffman because I was a rival Kauffman. ‘Thought horrid if true!’
We arranged to meet Barfield at the Truth offices on Tuesday and lunch with him. We then ‘carried’ Miss Olivier home to the flat by bus and she had coffee with us, and after some good talk Harwood saw her home.50
On Monday we decided suddenly after breakfast to go to The Valkyrie at His Majesty’s tonight. This proposal raised me to the heavens and I was surprised to find how warm my old Wagnerian enthusiasm came back to me—it was like revisiting one’s native town. When Harwood had gone to his work I went out and was so afraid we might not get into the gallery tonight that I went to His Majesty’s and got two tickets for the upper circle. On my way home I went into the Tate and saw a lot of things which interested me, but I have forgotten what they were.
What happened in the afternoon I don’t remember clearly. I think it was then that Harwood showed me some of his new poems including the excellent one on Donne’s saying that ‘it is no where recorded that our Lord Jesus laughed’. It has a very fine and specially Harwoodian flavour about it. In the refrain he accepted my emendation of ‘Fac tecum nos maerere’ for his ‘Fac nos tecum’.51 It was also this afternoon I think that we passed through Charing Cross Rd on our return from somewhere forgotten52 and looked into many bookshops.
Despite great heat the hours at His Majesty’s were as glorious as any I have passed. It is not art—it is an irresistible sin or a religious expression. It is wonderful how in all the long scenes between Wotan and Brynhild or Wotan and Fricka (wh. some people find dull) he really gives us the feeling of assisting at the debates of the gods, of seeing the very most ultimate things hammering it out between them. ‘Thou great Argument heardest and the large design that brings the world out of the ill to good.’ Edna Thornton as Fricka was immense: the only one that really gave you the feeling of divinity.
In answer to a question of Harwood’s about the plot I explained that Fricka was my ‘old, old matriarchal dreadfulness’53 wh. he repeated to Barfield next day at lunch, and everyone roared with laughter.
We walked home through Pall Mall striking the stars with our sublime heads. Beckett had returned so I slept on the camp bed (a v. comfortable one).
On Monday we lunched with Barfield in a little underground restaurant near the offices of Truth. They both attacked me about my scepticism about anthroposophy and I defended myself vigorously. Barfield and I turned out to be pretty much in agreement in the end. I was glad, for (as I said) it was always a shock to come up against something irreducibly different from oneself in any human being: that one had to believe that every thou was only a disguised me. Harwood said that I wanted to do away with all human personality, but Barfield agreed with me.
Barfield had to go to a theatrical garden party of all things, and Harwood to his work. I dawdled about for a bit, got my suitcase from Truth office and then, driven by thirst and curiosity, went for the first time in my life to a soda fountain—and the last. A more disgusting drink I never tasted. I then Metroed to Paddington and so home after a capital holiday: and yet glad, as usual, to be back.
Wednesday–Monday 25–30 June: A quiet time. I took Pat to bathe in Parson’s Pleasure wh. they have rather spoiled by clipping the tops of the trees.
D and I had some delightful evening walks after supper down by the cemetery. Maureen goes regularly every evening to walk with Joy Holmes. Mrs Phipps, our charlady, has been ill and D took her her meals (whatever we have been having) daily.
Thursday 3 July: Today I went to Colchester in order to travel back in W’s sidecar. I left by the 10.50 and metroed from Paddington to that desolating place Liverpool St., where I had a rather poor lunch for 4/6d in the G.E.R. Hotel. I travelled down to Colchester in the same compartment with some soldiers and a man of the poorer classes who was apparently an invalid (neurasthenia I think) and had a horribly pathetic parting with his wife—‘Lord send them summer sometime.’
A brisk shower of rain came down as I reached Colchester where I was met at the station by W and driven to the Red Lion where I had tea. This is one of the oldest hotels in England, curiously and beautifully beamed. W tells me that the American who insulted Kipling at the Rhodes dinner in Oxford has made a great name for himself (of a sort) in the army. W had just been reading Puck of Pook’s Hill for the first time: he praised it highly and I agreed with him.
While we were sitting under the roof of a kind of courtyard after tea waiting for the rain to stop, a Major came up, to whom W introduced me, telling me afterwards that he was a very well preserved specimen of the real old type of army bore.
When it cleared a little we walked out to see the town, which is a very pleasant sprawling old world place, not unlike Guildford. The Roman castle is very fine in a kind quite new to me, as also the remains of the old gate of Camolodunum. There is also a pleasant old house (now an office but it ought to be a pub) bullet-marked from the civil wars.
After all this we motored up out of the town to a higher, windy land, full of camps. W’s camp consists of a small old country house (‘a Jorrocks
house’ he called it) and its park, now filled with huts. The C.O. lives in the Jorrocks house. I was taken into the mess (Lord, how strange to be in such a place again!) and of course given a drink. The ‘Orficers’ were really very nice to me. It was odd to me to see a mess full of people in mufti.
We then motored back to town to a civilian club of which W is a member, where he had provided a royal feast of the sort we both liked: no nonsense about soup and pudding, but a sole each, cutlets with green peas, a large portion of strawberries and cream, and a tankard of the local beer which is very good. So we gorged like Roman Emperors in a room to ourselves and had good talk. W told me he had given Dauber54 to a Major Falle (a friend of his) who, tho’ a hater of poetry, had enjoyed it, but made one criticism: viz. that the sailors wd. not have despised Dauber’s paintings: even if they had ragged him they would have been inwardly impressed.
We drove back to camp. W. had turned out into another hut and I had his bedroom. He has two rooms for his quarters. The sitting room with stove, easy chair, pictures, and all his French books, is very snug. I notice that a study in a hut, or a cave, or the cabin of a ship can be snug in a way that is impossible for a mere room in a house, the snugness there being a victory, a sort of defiant comfortableness—whereas in a house of course, one demands comfort and is simply annoyed at its absence. He ‘put into my hands’ Anatole France’s Revolt of the Angels in a translation, which seems an amusing squib.
Friday 4 July: We started on our Oxford journey after breakfast in the mess. The day looked threatening at first, but we had fair weather. I do not remember the names of the villages we passed, except Braintree and Dunmow (where the flitch lives).
At St Alban’s we stopped to see the Cathedral: I had been there once before in my Wynyard days about 1909 or 1910 to sit and kneel for three hours watching Wyn Capron (whom God reject!) ordained a deacon or priest, I forget which.55 Yet, in those days, that day without work, the journey to St Albans, the three hour’s service and a lunch of cold beef and rice in an hotel was a treat for which we counted the days beforehand and felt ‘nessun maggio dolore’56 when the following day brought us back to routine. I was rather glad to find the Cathedral quite definitely the poorest English cathedral I have yet seen.