All My Road Before Me

by C. S. Lewis

  Beginning in October, Lewis divided his time between Magdalen and ‘Hillsboro’. During term he slept in College and visited the ‘family’ during the afternoons, and when term ended he spent the nights at ‘Hillsboro’ and came into College during the day. One sees why the President of Magdalen spoke of Lewis as the ‘strongest and most acceptable’ candidate for the post he now held. Lewis was giving tutorials to those reading English as well as Greats and the course in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. Most of the pupils who began coming to him in October 1925 were the ones he had when the diary picks up again in April 1926.

  Tuesday 27 April: One of the new people, Waddington, appeared on my list this morning, but never turned up. I don’t know whether it is his mistake or mine. I went on with Seebohm’s Oxford Reformers in the morning. It is very bad in style, mean without being simple, and silly in sentiment: the arrangement on the other hand is almost the best I have ever seen.

  I also drafted a letter to Miss Perham of St Hugh’s on a rather ticklish business.1 She wrote the other day asking me to take one pupil for her this term. I replied refusing and suggesting Ewing, with Hardie as a possible fallback if Ewing was full up. She answered saying ‘If I were unscrupulous I should ask Mr H. at once, but as I have not yet seen Dr Ewing I suppose I can’t. Next term I will approach Mr H. early—’ I wanted, if I could without blundering, to say that I would be very sorry if any word of mine had induced her to prefer Hardie to Ewing. But I didn’t succeed, and left it.2

  After 12 it became almost too dark to see: a dead black sky came down behind the trees in the grove. Went out to return books to the Union and met Rowse of All Souls in Chaundy’s. I met him first last term when dining with Coghill to meet De la Mare and have been intending to follow him up ever since; I asked him to dine next Wednesday.3

  From the Union I went out home and found all well there. So far D seems to be very satisfied with Winifred. I went for a walk with Pat up Shotover through Quarry and along the Plain: then down nearly to Wheatley, crossing the railway by the footpath. It was still the same dark, strangely coloured, suspended, end of the world kind of day: but I am very insensible to the country and sky just at present.

  After tea back to College and went on with Seebohm till hall. In the evening looked up language and was just settling down to Skeat’s introduction when Weldon came in.4 This meant whiskey and talk till 12.30, greatly to my disappointment. We somehow got on the historical truth of the Gospels, and agreed that there was a lot that could not be explained away. He believes in the Hegelian doctrine of the Trinity and said the whole thing fitted in: in fact he is a Christian ‘of a sort’. I should never have suspected it. Then we turned to the self. Got to bed v. late at last with a headache, regretting a wasted, tho’ interesting evening.5

  Wednesday 28 April: Another very dark, clouded day—less apocalyptic, but more depressing. Pupils in the morning. Yorke for language.6 Then Betjeman and Valentin to stumble through the Voyage of Ohthere: last of all Hamilton and Hetherington who look as if they would be very good indeed.7 Hamilton read the Simon Perrott oration in hall the other night.

  I then bussed out home, had lunch, and took a walk in Cuckoo Lane and the Private Rd., getting home for an early tea.

  I then went to Lady Margaret Hall for my class. Seven girls turned up. Colborne (dignified and fairly sensible), Scoones (lanky, dark), Grant (a very massive, lumpy person who never opened her mouth), Thring (the most talkative), House (nervy, a trifle soulful, and worried), Johnston (who is perhaps the best) and Carter who came very late because she had been looking for her tame tortoise. She is the prettiest and perhaps rather a b****. As hardly any of them had read the Dialogues [of Plato] it was a bit difficult to get discussion started, but once they began it went fairly well. Miss Scoones and Miss Thring joined in snubbing Miss House, very acrimoniously I thought: so I did the best I could for her, but she had become sulky and frightened by them.8

  On my way I looked into Keble Hall for the first time since I was a cadet: it was not v. like what I remembered.

  In the evening I finished Seebohm and began Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay. It is pleasant enough—‘drinking down milk and ale in country cans’ and ‘transporting the whole ninniversity by boat to Southwark’. I must remember ‘ninniversity’.

  Thursday 29 April: Percival and Waterfield came this morning.9 Waterfield was here first and I had a little conversation with him. He is an attractive, sturdy, humorous personage—a dark Celt I think—and read an essay on Mill: too poetical and I objected to some blank verse lines which he was unaware of—I hope it will act as an inoffensive check on rhapsodising in future. In discussion he was good. Percival was bored and boring. Also he won’t open his mouth when he speaks and I have to say ‘What?’ each time, which doesn’t help matters.

  Worked on Skeat’s Introduction (open and close ‘e’ and such dainties) for the rest of the morning. Home to lunch and then out for a walk over the fields in the direction of Forest Hill. It was a very warm day, and misty, the prevailing colour being greyish blue. The fields are in full trim with dandelions and one-o-clocks, and a row of catkins struck me particularly. Home again and had a knock up at badminton with Maureen and Dotty. Poor old Trapp came and asked me not to make a noise: his wife appears to be worse. After that we played in perfect silence, scoring by signs.

  For tea came Mrs Wilbraham (who has been very kind during D’s illness), her daughter, her nephew Wittall of Oriel—whom I don’t much care for—and Diz. After tea D and I got Diz’s advice about my income tax returns and life insurance: it was half an hour’s horror to me, as such discussions are: moving about in worlds unrealised among ‘covers’ and ‘policies’ and what not.10 I suppose it is wholesome to know by acquaintance the miseries of not being able to understand.

  When I got back to College I went and had a talk with Hardie, who is near enough to my helplessness to be able to give me some vague lights. Finally we both went to Thompson and at last I have some points definitely fixed in my mind.11 The notice from him the other day is of moneys paid me since my election up to the end of this taxable year: it is on that year I pay tax during the coming year: I pay a premium of a 5th of my fellowship towards the insurance.

  Dined in and didn’t go to Common Room. When I came back to New Building [I] found battells for £38 odd and am not sure whether they are for the term before last or for last term. If for last, my economies don’t seem to have been much use. A worrying day—which seems nothing to worry about now; but that is because I have been reading The Spectator since 9 o’clock with great delight. It has been raining. A nice soft rain, just audible through drawn curtains, and a pleasant sound to read to. Twinges of tooth all day.

  Friday 30 April: No pupils this morning. Wasted an hour or so on my ‘Outline of History’ poem to very little purpose: then walked to the Turl and bought Trevelyan’s England Under the Stuarts in order to make up Queen Anne politics with a view to doing Swift with Yorke this term. I also looked in at the Clarendon Press to see if de Selincourt’s Prelude was there, but could not find it.12 I read an exciting review of it in Common Room at breakfast this morning. Back to College and read Trevelyan till one with great interest. I wonder is he true?

  Bussed out home. D tells me that Dotty was rather offensive yesterday, talking big for the benefit of Diz and then staying up late to work as a result of the time she had wasted. Maureen too has a grouse about Dotty ‘bossing’ her in her punt, for which I don’t give a fig. Being in her own house Maureen has far more opportunities of doing that sort of thing than Dotty, and does it. On the whole, if they both must domineer, I prefer Dotty’s loud, hoydenish, slapdash method to Maureen’s patient, endlessly repeated prim nagging.13

  It was quite hot today, but with the same dull sky—working up for a thunderstorm I suppose. D in good form. Walked with Pat over the fields to Stowe Woods: extraordinarily beautiful and full of fresh summerlike smells. We had tea in the garden and enjoyed ‘our thrush’ who sings there every day
. . .

  Saturday 1 May: Called at 5 a.m. to do ‘my observances to the May’. A cold, dark morning. I drank what was left of last night’s milk, shaved, dressed and went over to the Tower in surplice and hood. There were crowds going up and it was a slow business.14 The Latin hymn was beautiful: the Vaughan Williams that followed it, inappropriate. In spite of bad weather I was impressed with the landscape towards Marston, the low slopes and the gleam of the river. It began to rain before I left the top of the tower, but I did not get really wet. There was a crowd of visitors, Maureen and Dotty among them.

  Came back to New Building at about 7, had a long hot bath, drank a cup of tea, and read Trevelyan. At 8 I had breakfast alone with Benecke and then the ordinary day began.15

  I had De Peyer and Clark (a desperately stupid pair), Yorke on Steele and Addison, and then Glasgow on Lydgate.16 . . .

  In the afternoon I walked over the fields with Pat to Stowe Woods. Was led somehow into a train of thought in which I made the unpleasant discovery that I am becoming a prig—righteous indignation against certain modern affectations has its dangers, yet I don’t know how to avoid it either.

  After tea worked on Aristotle. Supper at home and then back to College to spend the evening with Hardie on Aristotle. To bed about 11.30, very tired, and had a terrifying dream in the night which I can’t remember.

  On the bus this evening I heard that the miners had gone out.17

  Sunday 2 May: Everyone talking about the strike at breakfast. Craig says that the V[ice] C[hancellor] is anxious to prevent the undergraduates volunteering in the town by forming some separate University framework. This has already got abroad in a garbled version. Craig had prevented Boddington from putting up a notice on the subject, because he did not want people to get the idea that Oxford was a ‘strike breaking’ gang. He was very strong on the necessity of the undergraduates keeping their heads and not becoming provocative.18 Chute’s idea was that some of the miners’ leaders ought to be cut up into small bits.19 Hardie and I hoped we might now realise a boyish dream and drive railway engines.

  A very fresh day, grey-skied and windy. I walked out home after breakfast. Spent a good deal of the morning reading the papers. The right seems to be mainly on the miners’ side if it is true that the Commission prescribed ‘reorganisation and reduction’ and that the miners were then asked to submit to reduction without any guarantee of reorganisation . . .

  After tea I had a delightful walk to Stowe Woods by road to Elsfield and home by the fieldpath. I haven’t done that round for a long time. After a few more reflections on priggery I pretty well stopped thinking. The wind, specially in the deep beds of heather, with their white flower, was very fine.

  Home again and had supper. Worked on Aristotle afterwards, tracking a passage down. D was listening in: the others at the Cathedral. News came through that the Fascists and the Communists had had a row in Hyde Park. These Fascists will spoil the whole thing. As long as it was rowdies on the one side only, we cd. weather a lot without coming to real trouble: once we have moneyed rowdies (without a grievance) acting as agents provocateurs on the other rowdies (who have a grievance) there is bound to be a good deal of trouble . . .

  Monday 3 May: A beautiful bright windy day. Worked on Aristotle all morning for Boddington who came at 12.20

  At one o’c. I went to Merton and lunched with Lawson and Keir. The news in The Times this morning had been that negotiations had broken down. Lawson had seen a midday paper which told that the printers of the Daily Mail, offended at its leading article, had already gone out and it had not appeared today. Merton had a notice up giving leave to all who wished to go down and volunteer for service in their home areas—rather premature of Merton. Keir disapproved of the V.C.’s idea of a special University organisation as promoting class warfare. Lawson defended the Merton notice on the ground that the undergraduates would be dangerous and troublesome as a body, but easily dealt with if dispersed in their own districts.

  We left Merton together. The street was full of cars and motor bicycles. Undergraduates in great excitement and glee were blowing up tyres, pouring in petrol, and strapping on suitcases. Oxford very crowded. We were amused at everyone’s idea that the way to help was to keep everyone in movement—from anywhere to anywhere. After looking into the Union (where there was no news) I left them and went home.

  D sat up last night till one o’c. and heard the later news. Apparently other people besides the Daily Mail’s printers had gone out prematurely and the situation was that the Government refused to continue negotiations unless the T.U.C. repudiated this. I had a delightful walk up Shotover and came back to tea in the garden with D.

  Back to College about 5.30 and found in the Porch the V.C.’s notice saying that he did not want undergraduates to volunteer in the town and that opportunities would be given them of doing so through their colleges.

  In my rooms I found the new de Selincourt Prelude and at once began to read it. Many of the fragments rescued from note books are interesting and important: specially the one distinguishing between the images and things recognised as thoughts wh. are ‘the littleness of life’ and our real selves: leading on to the passage about the cloudless east and the cloudless west. This is almost the distinction between . . . contemplation and enjoyment.

  Masonic dinner on tonight so we non-Masons made a small party in Hall. In Common Room Craig gave us an outline of policy. The undergraduates are to be divided into four classes: (a) those who are free to leave and are volunteering at once for service in their home areas. (b) Those who ‘for one reason or another’ are not free, at the moment. Their papers will be sent in to the Oxford centre, but they will not be called upon until the town has exhausted its own resources. This is to avoid the provocation of ‘imported labour’ as long as possible. (c) Those with cars etc. who will volunteer for messenger service in this district, wh. (on Craig’s view) will not come under the head of ‘imported labour’. (d) Those taking Schools this term. They may fill up forms for service with the town but the forms will be withheld by College until the situation is desperate.

  Some very amusing talk in the smoking room, chiefly by Dixon and Benecke, on their war experiences.21 After that Hardie and I went out for a walk in the Grove, which is most beautiful in twilight. We found a deep pit that we could not account for and also wandered in among the stores in the temporary stonecutting shop. They were very impressive, these pale bulky creatures among the dark trees. How Jenkin would have appreciated the feeling on the scene! Hardie knows very little about that kind of thing, tho’ in other spheres he is more than clever and really wise. Back to my rooms by about 9.30 and read the new Wordsworth till bedtime, except for a few minutes on my Outline of History. I was a long time in going to sleep.

  Wednesday 5 May: Up at 7.45, very dizzy and wretched. Waddington and Sykes came at 9.22 They are quite a good pair . . . At 11 I took Valentin and Betjeman on O.E. Valentin translated ‘twentig hryðera’ ‘twenty hydras’.23

  They told me that Fascists had broken into the Labour Club last night where speeches were being made about strikers’ wives and children: and tho’ they heckled, before they left they contributed a good sum to the relief of the said wives and children. How gloriously English!

  At 12 came Hamilton and Hetherington. The former read an essay: to my surprise, not nearly so good as Hetherington’s last week.

  Lunched in Common Room: then to Balliol at 2. Meeting in the old Common Room with the V.C. in the chair. Discussion chiefly turned on efforts to shorten the notice: I wonder that they should hold paper so much more precious than time. I was finished by about 2.30 and I went to the English Library and took out Dunbar. Back to College: wrote up my diary, worked at my Outline, and wrote a note to Driver.24

  Tea in Common Room and then to L.M.H. to take my class. Miss Scoones read a paper: really astonishingly good for an amateur. She and Miss Colborne were very good in discussion. Left them at 6.15 and bussed home.

  After a dreamlike mor
ning I had begun to feel better about tea time and was now almost myself. I was worried to hear that D had had a return of the pain she felt at Oare: otherwise all well and a pleasant, idle evening . . .

  Thursday 6 May: Began correcting Spencer’s English paper—history of language.25 He raised points I was uncertain about and I went out to buy Wyld’s Mother Tongue, but I couldn’t find out what I wanted.

  A bright cold day with a blue and white sky. Home to lunch as usual. D seemed well. I read the papers—Times 2 sheets and the Govt. Gazette. I had been surprised myself at the party tone of its first number, it certainly ought to have aimed at a colourless and official tone. This has come in for severe and just criticism in the House . . .

  At dinner time I heard that the Govt. had raided the Daily Herald office. Weldon said that if they continued as they had begun they would probably succeed in making trouble where no trouble would have been. They had done three very provocative things: declared a state of emergency before negotiations had broken down, used the Gazette for propaganda, and raided an opposition paper. About the Gazette anyway I thoroughly agreed. In the smoking room Brightman was in great form, proposing to go with any one who wd. volunteer and make hay of Carter’s new building.26

  Reports of rioting in Scotland. I came back to my rooms and worked on Dunbar. Hardie came in about 10.30 and we made hot toddy. Bitterly cold.