by C. S. Lewis
Monday 16 February: I went in in some trepidation lest a staff meeting might have been sprung upon us since Saturday, but fortunately a notice of warning for Friday next came round and set my mind at rest.
Buchanan brought an essay on Thrasymachus. While he was with me Dawson came in and asked me to the Martlets dinner. I asked to be allowed to come en Martlet (i.e. not as a parasite) but he would not have it. I booked him for walk and tea next Saturday. Nash came at 11 and read a much better essay than last week.
The morning was really glorious—Dionysiac. I enjoyed my walk with Pat before breakfast greatly—round by the Croft. Now it was even better, looking from my window down on the crocuses in the garden and over to Merton tower.
Went to the Union and returned Hoffding, taking out Pollock’s Spinoza: then home by bus. Read a good bit in Pollock before lunch. Afterwards I took Pat down by the cemetery. Home and worked again on Spinoza . . .
Tuesday 17 February: . . . Went to College, having bought a second hand copy of B. Russell’s Problems [of Philosophy] for 1/-, I worked for some time on Spinoza and finished Ethics Part II: then read Problems wh. I had not read before since 1917. What an excellent clear book for anyone to begin on . . .
Home and read a little Bridges, then, after tea, into town and took Bradley and Gordon-Clark on Spinoza and Leibnitz.
Dined in. Farquharson in the chair. Heard a splendid yarn about Campbell of Hertford getting drunk on dentist’s ether—must remember to tell Tchanie [Jane McNeill]. Farquharson discussed the madness of Mary Lamb—quite interesting conversation. I mentioned my qualms about Swanwick to him just before leaving.
Home in good time. D in excellent spirits.
Wednesday 18 February: Called by D at 7.30 and (after tea and bread and butter) walked to the top of the hill and then bussed in to breakfast in Common Room. Poached eggs cold—why can’t they get things hot?
Up to my room where Cox soon arrived. I began to twit him about skipping his last tutorial when I discovered to my horror that he had been absent because his father was dying. Of course I had known nothing about it, tho’ they have sent me round slips with the names of every other fellow who has been absent. I apologised of course, and did the best I could, but it was very unpleasant for everyone.20
Next came Henderson with an excellent essay: then Ross who was quite unexpectedly good. After him Nightingale and Hawker for lecture. I unhappily mentioned Heathcliff and of course discovered that Nightingale was an ardent Bronte-ite which gives him another conversational opening.
When these had gone I went down to Keir’s rooms and lunched with him and Lawson. They also complained of never having their own pupils on the Aeger list. Keir suggested that they put a representative selection of names in to show you: ‘This is the kind of man who is sick at present.’
I took Moore’s Philosophical Studies21 out of the library and bussed home. Phippy was here. Started for a walk with Pat before tea but was driven back by rain. Went down Cuckoo Lane with him later on—a beautiful sunset. Read Moore on ‘External Relations’ in the evening. Supper at home and all very jolly.
Thursday 19 February: A very cold day. Low came at 10 and read quite a good essay on Spinoza.22 Next was Johnson on Kant’s Ethics: a good discussion and not a bad essay—there’s no doubt he’s improving.23 A welcome telephone message came to say that Ziman had a bad cold and could not come for his tutorial.
Bussed home. After lunch I started for a walk with Pat and was just crossing the allotments to Shotover when I was driven back by rain. Went to my room and looked through ‘Dymer’ VIII: was pleased with it and thank the Lord it’s not very old. I managed to get a little stroll down Cuckoo’s Lane: home for tea and in to College to take Firth on Kant’s Causality. An interesting essay. Dined in hall. Poynton and Farquharson both in and very amusing.
Friday 20 February: Up early. Poor D had had a very bad go of neuritis in the night—much worse than before . . .
Buckley came with an essay on Spinoza. I got on with him better than last time. Next was Hogg—a little better but far from good. After him was lecture. Hawker arrived a little earlier than Nightingale and I had a few words with him. He said mine was the most intelligible scheme of ethics he had yet heard. Nightingale was specially interruptive today and remarked ‘I hope I am not taking up your time—but I find I learn more by talking than by listening.’ I was tempted to reply ‘So do I.’
Lunched with Keir and Lawson in Keir’s room. Keir tracked down Kant’s Scottish ancestry—apparently Kant is a good Scotch name. Quite a good rag conversation.
Then bussed home. Feeling very fit. I had a divine walk up Shotover by the main road and down by the path through Quarry. It was frosty with a veiled blue sky and big cloud pinnacles and the most wonderfully fresh and sweet air. Then worked on Moore’s ‘External Relations’ after tea and in to dinner. We had wine in the summer common room afterwards, which I always like better. Farquharson in the chair. He and Allen very amusing.
Saturday 21 February: A fine bright morning. Beattie came and then Donald who read an essay full of squibs, quite clever, but off the point. Then poor Swanwick—worse than ever. I have spoken to Farquharson about him but no one takes any notice.
Then home to lunch. Dawson, Touche and Ewing came at 2.30 and we all walked to Stowe Woods, Dawson preaching Gentile at me hard. Of course neither of us moved the other but it was quite good talk. They came back for tea and stayed till 6.45. I liked them all, even that queer little troll of a Ewing. Dawson has a touch of conceit in him and is a little bit edgy but he has it in hand. Touche I take for anima candida.
Tuesday 24 February: In to College by 10 o’c. and worked till 12 on Hobhouse—a man after my own heart. Then came Campbell with an essay on Plurality of Goods. Rather an interesting discussion.
A terrible day of cold and driving rain. Bussed home and had lunch: then took Pat for a short walk in Cuckoo Lane, getting wet again. D seemed rather tired and depressed today . . .
I then jotted down a few ideas that had occurred to me on the theory of knowledge. In to College by 5.30 and took Bradley and Gordon-Clark on Kant. The latter talked a fair amount, for the first time: I like him much better than Bradley . . .
Wednesday 25 February: In for breakfast by 8.15. Quite a good morning. One very funny episode occurred when the door was opened for a moment and a snatch of Carlyle’s voice croaking away outside drifted suddenly in and threw us all into laughter. Leys gave an excellent sketch of Carlyle in the next world.
Took Cox at 9, Henderson at 10, and Ross at 11—all good in their degrees . . . Then had Hawker and Nightingale: the latter very talkative but rather more relevant than usual . . .
At 7 I bussed in for the Martlets dinner. Managed to dress while Hayden (the Cambridge Martlet whom they have billeted in my bedroom) was in his bath. He turned up presently and we went together to Cox’s rooms. The Master, Allen, and Keir were there. At dinner in the J.C.R. I sat next to Hayden—a most aggressive pup who told me I was ‘terribly Oxford’ and ‘academic’ because I said I disapproved of English as a final honour school.
He read us a paper afterwards on Atlantis in the Senior Common Room, bringing some anthropological and geological evidence which was quite interesting, and then giving us a sketch of Atlantean civilisation: when, by a chain of initiates first planted in the ‘Atlantean colony’ of Egypt and afterwards removing to Tibet, we derive all our ethics and religion to this day. Christ, Moses and a few others were all such initiates or their disciples. The odd thing was that when challenged by Dawson (who is now President) he denied any knowledge of anthropology. Carlyle was very good and roasted Hayden, within the bounds of civility, but exquisitely . . .
Thursday 26 February: Low was absent. Johnson read an essay on the moral faculty which was really quite good in style as well as in thought—a change from his first efforts. I like this man, despite his odd manners and appearance. Ziman, who should have followed him, was aeger . . . Firth at 5.30—a good and agreeable ho
ur.
Dined in hall and went afterwards to the Phil. Soc. in Firth’s rooms where Paton of Queens read a paper on ‘Duty or Duties’. A charming creature: a picture philosopher’s face and a soothing voice on whose modulations he has taken pains and not in vain.24 He is strong on the analogy between ethics and aesthetics and distinguished sharply the legal morality of the vulgar from the creative morality of the saint. He thinks the highest moral good may well be something literally impossible for most men—that the ought does not imply the can. I thanked my God when a drunk man burst into the room by accident with a genial cry, but he left us all too soon, and we went on. Quite a heated discussion afterwards. Dawson and I for once were on one side. We cldn’t make Paton admit any essential difference between art and virtue . . .
Friday 27 February: Buckley, Hogg (much improved) and lecture. At the end of the latter old Nightingale broke forth into a panegyric on my lectures. What between comic despair that my only admirer was such an old ass, and a sort of shame that I shd. return an old honest man’s good will by thinking him an ass, I was in a confused state . . .
Sunday 1 March: Up late. A grey, raw day, bringing horizons near. Up Shotover with Pat after breakfast. Too many people about, but I enjoyed my walk. The fire was in the yellow room. Sat there when I got home and began re-reading Tasso’s Jerusalem with considerable enjoyment: but I was disappointed in my Italian. Lunch and jobs and a nice quiet afternoon reading in the yellow room with D: the girls being all at the Taylors, D and I had a pleasant little stroll round Barton after tea.
Once again Lewis abandoned his dairy, this time from 2 March until 16 August 1925. While it is a pity that this happened when there was so much of interest going on, the events which he was too busy to record are pretty amply covered in letters to his father. Writing to him in April 1925 he said ‘This is my last term “in the bond” at Univ. and there is still no word of the Fellowship. I begin to be afraid that it is not coming at all. A Fellowship in English is announced at Magdalen and of course I am applying for it, but without any serious hopes as I believe much senior people including my own old English tutor are in for it. If he gets it I may get some of the “good will of the business”: I mean some of the pupils at Univ., Exeter and elsewhere whom he will have to abandon. These continued hopes deferred are trying, and I’m afraid trying for you too. About money, if you will put in £40—if you think this is reasonable—I shall be on the pig’s back.’
The next few weeks were to be some of the most nerve racking of Lewis’s life. Writing to his father about them on 25 May he described what happened about the Fellowship in English at Magdalen: ‘First of all, as I told you, I thought that I had my own tutor Wilson as a rival, which would have made the thing hopeless. But that I found to be a false rumour. Then I wrote to Wilson and Gordon . . . for testimonials, relying on them as my strongest support. Within twenty-four hours I had the same answer from both. They were very sorry. If only they had known I was going in for it . . . they thought I had definitely abandoned English for philosophy. As it was, they had already given their support to my friend Coghill of Exeter . . . That was enough to make anyone despair: but mark how the stars sometimes fight for us. Two days later came news that Coghill had been offered a fellowship by his own College and had withdrawn from the field. Wilson’s testimonial—a very good one—came by the next post. Gordon said he wouldn’t write anything as he was going to be consulted personally by the Magdalen people, but he would back me . . .
‘Then came an invitation to dine at Magdalen on Sunday a fortnight ago [3 May]. This showed only that I was one of the possibles . . . Then came a spell of thundery weather of the sort that makes a man nervous and irritable even if he has nothing on his mind: and the news that Bryson and I were the two real candidates . . . One afternoon, in that week, I saw the said Bryson emerging from Magdalen and (“so full of shapes is fancy”) felt an unanswerable inner conviction that he had won and made up my mind on it . . . On Monday [18 May] I had a very abrupt note from [Sir Herbert Warren—President of Magdalen College] asking me to see him on Tuesday morning . . . I got to Magdalen, and . . . when he did see me it turned out to be all formalities. They were electing tomorrow and thought me the “strongest and most acceptable candidate”. Now, if I were elected would I agree to do this, and would I be prepared to do that . . . The only thing of the slightest importance was “would I be prepared in addition to the English pupils, to help with the philosophy”. (This, I imagine, stood me in good stead: probably no other candidate had done English as well as philosophy.) I need hardly say that I would have agreed to coach a troupe of performing bagbirds in the quadrangle . . . And then next day—about 2.30—they telephoned for me and I went down. Warren saw me, told me I had been elected and shook hands . . . It is a fine job as our standards go: starting at £500 a year with “provisions made for rooms, a pension, and dining allowance.”’
Sunday 16 August: The day was spent in preparations for our departure tomorrow for Cloud Farm at Oare on Exmoor. How the putting up of three people’s clothes for three weeks can take so much labour is a mystery. D spent most of the day making a canvas cover for the new trunk so that the packing proper could not begin till about five and did not end till 2 A.M. . . .
In the afternoon I went to order a taxi for tomorrow at Griffins, and finding him engaged, walked down to Nicholls on Cowley Road. A sweltering afternoon. Sometime between eleven and one we drifted into a discussion on packing in which Maureen and I foolishly ventured on some criticisms. I hope it was not my fault, but D was so angry and nettled that we had to drop the subject. To bed with a fairly bad headache but slept sound.
Monday 17 August: Up in good time. Pretty bad time till we got off at 10.45. D called on Herbert to have some small point set right in her new teeth which are, on the whole, a real piece of artistry: not too regular—a life-like if idealistic version of her old ones and comfortable as well. I am glad that business has been so well got over.
In the train to Reading D had lunch with a remarkably unpleasant old woman who told brazen lies about a seat. It was another gorgeous day. I think I never stopped sweating from the time I got up till after supper. We managed the rest of the journey to Minehead quite comfortably, tho’ we were crowded till Taunton. We had lunch and tea from our own stores in the train. It was interesting to go through the Old Cleeve country. I was at the window from Watchet to Minehead picking out every detail of that wonderful three weeks in 1920. From Minehead we came to the County Gate (above Glenthorne by char-a-banc: the first time any of us had travelled in one. We didn’t like it—either for comfort or safety—specially on the nightmare hill from Porlock).
Once on top of the moor, despite the heat and discomfort of our crowded seats, we all revived: tho’ poor D was feeling a little sick. It was heather all round us and a grand smell . . . the sea far down below on our right: and every now and then a glimpse to the left of flattish grey and brown ridges, one behind the other to the horizon—a gloriously large horizon.
At the County Gate we were met by a civil but densely stupid raw boned youth with a two wheeled vehicle on which D and Maureen and the luggage went off. There was a woman by the Gate whom I shall always remember: a cross between the Duchess in Alice in Wonderland and the first Mrs Rochester.
Then Pat and I turned in ecstasy to our walk. Pat bolted after the others but I recovered him. I went through a wicket on to the moor and proceeded down hill. In front of me I saw a deep winding valley stretching as far as I could see to left and right and deeply wooded: at right angles to it on the far side, another and narrower combe (which I rightly took for Badgworthy) piercing well into the moor. After a few more steps I could see a broad flat brown river in the bottom before me. On my way down I had a glimpse of a fat fast snake in the bracken. I reached the river and forded it: shoes and socks in my left hand, a stick and Pat’s lead in the right.
Here, at the bottom, I was as if between walls: purple walls of heather behind me and green ones ahead: both
unexpectedly steep when seen from that angle. I shall remember while I live the feel of that cold yet not biting water and the deliciously cool stones. It made amends for all the troubles of packing and journey.
I then followed a red lane into Malmsmead which proved to be no more than three or four cottages with black pigs at doors and a house of entertainment where stone ginger was the best they could give me. I had some difficulty in finding the path to Cloud Farm: but was finally led to it by a man on a pony whom I met at Oare: a respectful horsy person—a huntsman perhaps, who read me a lecture on the merits of Exmoor ponies. I followed up a path through a wood on to a flat field by the riverside: it was still cultivated land about me but I saw the real moor ahead—the almost black combe opening out beyond Cloud Farm in its windings.
Here I met D and Maureen. The whole thing realised my best dreams. The farm house stands under a wood of fir with one field between it and the river. The rooms were comfortable and the supper good.
After the meal Pat and I went out and having crossed Badgworthy began to follow the valley up. It was an almost colourless evening with one star very much blunted by mist hanging in the V shaped cleft of the hills before me. The river is very broken with rocks and there is plenty of white foam. I went as far as a little wood and here the path went a bit higher, and thence down to a flat platform of turf between the wood and the water. I was quite out of sight of cultivated land here: I looked back and I looked forward and either way saw nothing but high hills.
It was not until I struck a match for my pipe that I realised how dark it had grown. When I got back into the wood it was almost pitch black except for the odd light cast upwards from the stream through the tree trunks. There were many strange appearances of white stones that could have passed for ghosts.
Home and to bed by eleven in that glorious thing—a good feather bed. Through my window I saw a side of moorland and a few stars. The sky seemed to have cleared.