All My Road Before Me

by C. S. Lewis

  Winifred went home to see her people today and I washed up after lunch: went for a short walk after tea and escaped headache etc. So far it had been a pleasant day: the rest was unpleasant. Maureen offered to wash up after supper. Like a fool (or a knave) I acquiesced and she began, not according to D’s fundamental principles. D rushed into the scullery and took the implements out of her hands and a violent altercation followed, Maureen claiming to be judged by results, and D saying that if every servant had to learn her ways she didn’t see why her daughter shouldn’t etc. etc. I kept out of it.

  We then got into the dining room and had only a few minutes quiet before another row began. I forget how it started. Maureen said she hadn’t forgiven Dotty and me for Friday night. I discovered this meant that D had gone to meet Maureen on her return from the Ladies’ Musical and waited for three buses. I can’t really see that this was my fault. At any rate Maureen went on to protest against D’s imprudence in her usual tactless way, and of course, all in a flash, D was in a raging temper, and became so unjust that I ventured to say something on Maureen’s side.

  This only made matters worse: and poor D made it a moral issue and said she would always do her duty no matter what all of us said, and she had a splitting headache and if we bothered her any more she’d leave the room. I suppose the headache was at the bottom of the whole thing: I am afraid she is still very poorly. In these cases one can be sure only that any line one takes will be wrong.

  Back to College at 9, feeling miserable. Spencer met me and came up to my room. He has been a special in London and has had a very good time: only four hours’ duty a day, no rows, and much fun. People were driving along the embankment at 70 miles an hour. He confirms the story about the T.U.C. asking for police protection. We were joined by Hardie. Spencer didn’t go till 11.45 and I then went to Hardie’s room to warm my feet at his fire having got cold in my own room without one. To bed 12.30 with a headache—but possibly slept better than if I had gone there straight on the top of the home troubles.

  Monday 17 May: Valentin seems to be still away. Boddington called and arranged to come tomorrow. I worked a little on Aristotle in the morning and read Marlowe’s Edward II: nothing so good or so bad.

  Lunched in my own rooms with Keir and Lawson: the latter as usual stayed for some time and was very boring.

  Got home by 2.30 and found a car standing outside ‘Hillsboro’. It turned out to be the Blacks come to take D for a drive. I saw D herself only for a moment, she was suffering from a headache again. Read for half an hour in a new library book I found on the hall table—Rose Macaulay’s Potterism. I wd. probably have enjoyed it more a few years ago, but it is very good still.

  I then took Pat for a saunter down Cuckoo Lane and the Private Road and, not expecting or intending anything more than a dutiful half hour of exercise, became very happy and more myself (that is, less myself) than I have been this long time.

  Reached home just as D was returning from her drive: I saw her for only a few minutes alone (as the Blacks were staying for tea). She had enjoyed the run and seemed v. much better.

  Back to College soon after five: finished Edward II and read some Tamburlaine. After hall I looked at Boddington’s Aristotle gobbets. Then Hardie came and read me Dr Brown’s paper on Personality to which he has to reply at the Jowett on Wednesday night. Parts of it very vague and mythological, but it improved at the end. I agree with what he means to say, tho’ not with most of his attempts to say it.

  Tuesday 18 May: Boddington at 10 on Aristotle, then Spencer on Lydgate and Hoccleve: the latter a good hour I hope.

  I then went home (at 12) chatted and had lunch. They had had a restless night owing to Maureen’s being ill & D was rather poorly in consequence, tho’ cheerful.

  I bussed back to College at two to meet Ewing and go for a walk with him, my termly penance. We went through the walks to Marston Road and up by the cemetery to Headington. He has just won the Green prize. The poor fellow was as dull as ever. He sails for New York on June 19th to give summer lectures at Ann Arbor.

  Forgot to mention yesterday Keir’s account of Ewing turning up at Univ. to dine with Carritt, wearing full evening dress with a made-up bow tie of which a great tail stuck up perpendicularly behind his neck—and brown boots. We had tea at ‘Hillsboro’ and by the grace of God he had to go almost at once.

  D and I walked round to Phippy’s. This was the first walk D has taken since her illness and great was the excitement of Pat. On the way back we were called in by old Knight to see his pigs which we duly admired: and indeed they are very personable pigs . . .

  Wednesday 19 May: Worked on Ascham’s Toxophilus . . . Hetherington and Hamilton came at 12, and Hetherington read on the Moral Faculty. He was quite good, Hamilton not very. I was very bad.

  Home for lunch. Read a little more of Potterism—it is not really very good—walked in Cuckoo Lane and came in after an early tea to my class at L.M.H. Our usual room was occupied and they led me to Sir Charles’ Library. Here again I was very bad and muddling: so they were, or seemed to be.

  Back to College, propounded a few questions for the Fellowship general paper & then dressed and went to the Martlets dinner at Univ. I sat next to Fell who is one of the black sheep of the College, but a pleasant fellow enough.41 Farquharson and Carlyle were pulling each others’ legs and both were very great. I had forgotten how good Univ. conversation was.

  After dinner John Freeman read us some of his poems. I knew nothing of him but the name and two of the poems in Poems of Today which I had looked up this afternoon. He is a man past middle age with spectacles and a lisp: a rather weak chin: not much of a face altogether. Poets ought not to read their work aloud as an after dinner entertainment: it is extremely uncomfortable . . .

  Thursday 20 May: Yorke came for O.E. and we did the Fall of the Angels together. He tells me he met Siegfried Sassoon and other literary men during the strike. Siegfried spoke of the civil war wh. (he said) wd. begin, and then, sitting down on a tub in which a tree grew, laid his head against the tree, shut his eyes, and agonised in silence.

  Are all our modern poets like this? Were the old ones so? It is almost enough to prove R. Graves’ contention that an artist is like a medium: a neurotic with an inferiority complex who gets his own back by attributing to himself abnormal powers. And indeed I have noticed in myself a ridiculous tendency to indulge in poetical complacency as a consolation when I am ill at ease thro’ managing ordinary life worse than usual . . .

  After Yorke had gone I went to Alfred Street—of hated memory, for there I enlisted in 1917—to see a man about my income tax. It appears the College return does not tally with mine. No doubt mine is wrong.

  Bought a Berner’s Froissart and bussed home. D in good form. Short walk and back again to find Mrs Wilbraham there for tea. She and her undergraduate nephew and friends appear to be coming again on Sunday. There is one who doesn’t play badminton and D very obligingly said I would like to talk to him. This thing threatens to become a nuisance. I resolved that whatever happened I wd. not let it be a custom for me to amuse strange undergraduates (for whom I am not paid) on the one day in the week when I look to be at home and at ease . . .

  Friday 21 May: A really fine day at last. Waterfield and Percival in the morning. I shall have to separate these two: W. is quite good and that grinning nonentity Percival only acts as a drag on him.

  Home and had a delightful walk in the fields by Marston. The hawthorn smells strongest in these low lying sun traps and the path in a field is a long green line ahead dividing an almost solid yellow of buttercups. Back to tea . . .

  Saturday 22 May: Betjeman, Clark and De Peyer, Yorke (v. good, on Swift) and Glasgow this morning: home for the rest of the day.

  D in good form. Another lovely day. I walked to Elsfield by the fields, my first good walk for many days. ‘Mountings of the mind . . . came fast upon me.’ Came home and read Descartes’ Meditations with much interest. Played a game of badminton with Dotty: after su
pper with her and Maureen. The latter then gave Winifred a lesson in the game. She takes it quite well, tho’ her guffaws and gestures are very odd. We all sat in the dining room very idly and talked in the twilight till ten when I came back to College.

  Wrote a short note on ‘A paralogism in Berkeley’. Hardie came in and pronounced my argument valid.

  Sunday 23 May: Out home immediately after breakfast. The walk thro’ Mesopotamia gets more beautiful every week. All well and cheerful at home . . .

  Came into College, attended chapel and read the first lesson. J.A., Hardie and I left the smoking room together and stayed for a long time in the cloister of New Building talking about books. This is almost the first time I have ever conversed with J.A.—tho’ I have often propounded theses to him and listened to his answering (but never quite answering) expositions. As Cox said at Univ. the other night, it is a mark of the Italian school—and J.A. is wholly Italianate in philosophy—never to argue.

  To bed at 11.30 and read The Lunatic at Large in bed for half and hour.

  Monday 24 May: Not having made up my diary for two days, I forget what happened this morning. I presume it was spent in profound thought. Just this moment I remember. It was: I was writing a note on what is meant by ‘present to the mind’.

  Lunched in Merton with Lawson and Keir, and separated early. Went home. It was very hot and I had only a short walk. Later on I had a strenuous game of badminton with Dotty. Had supper at home: back to College late and to bed.

  Tuesday 25 May: Boddington came this morning and we discussed his collections paper on Logic. A note from Spencer to apologise for not coming . . .

  Left home after tea and worked on Descartes with much interest. In the Smoking room Segar presented me with a free ticket (but I must pay for it) for tonight’s Ruddigore, some arrangement of his own having fallen through.42 I went off at once and arrived about ten minutes after the rise of the curtain. It is years now since I have seen a Gilbert and Sullivan, and this, which I never saw before, was delightful. Sheffield as Despard was particularly good, and also the ghost song. Home with moonlight down Holywell, thinking how jolly it all was (touch wood) and to bed by twelve.

  Wednesday 26 May: Sykes and Waddington this morning, later Hetherington and Hamilton: very interesting discussion with both.

  Home for lunch. Afterwards I took my walk over the fields to the row of firs on the way to Forest Hill, and sat down at the foot of one where there was a pleasant breeze. The place is smothered in daisies and buttercups and hedged with hawthorn. I thought a little—all my ideas are in a crumbling state at present—but, thank goodness, stared more. I suspect that the mystical contemplation of a particular external object, if carried out formally, is a spoof and leads to an inferior mode of consciousness, but just a whiff of it—moment’s concentration on a tree or something—usually gives you something you hadn’t got before. I enjoyed myself.

  Home for early tea and then in to L.M.H. A good hour on Hume’s theory of causation. Miss Colbourne has shut up.

  Back to College and worked on Descartes. Dined and went into Common Room afterwards. J.A. had an American guest who sat on my left. I said, as I passed the decanter, ‘This is port.’ ‘Tell him what it is,’ said Cowley, ‘It’s ’96. Before you were born.’ I passed on this important information. ‘What, 1906?’ said the American, ‘Wall, really.’

  At about 10.30 Weldon who had been tutoring Elliston, came in and ‘carried’ me for a stroll round the walks: very cool and dark, with the pleasant sound of the weir and a yellow moon. He talked about the absurd financial position here. A third of our net revenue goes to the University and it is thus to our interest to spend as much of the gross as we can: hence this continual succession of walls and ugly and unnecessary buildings with which we are gradually surrounding ourselves. Came back and drank whiskey in my rooms, talking of the ideal state, eugenics, Raymond and astral tobacco, and why the witch hunts came in the 17th century . . .

  Thursday 27 May: A cooler day with a fresh wind. Betjeman and Valentin came with O.E. Betjeman appeared in a pair of eccentric bedroom slippers and said he hoped I didn’t mind them as he had a blister. He seemed so pleased with himself that I couldn’t help replying that I should mind them very much myself but that I had no objection to his wearing them—a view which, I believe, surprised him. Both had been very idle over the O.E. and I told them it wouldn’t do.

  Home for lunch, after working for the rest of the morning on The Dunciad. Went for a walk towards Stowe Woods: with the wind and changing sky it wd. have been pleasant, but for the number of children everywhere. Back to tea and all three of us went shopping in Headington afterwards.

  I then returned to College and attended a meeting of the Fellowship examiners in the smoking room. I was much struck by the hangdog look of Weldon who keeps up a look of ostentatious boredom on these occasions that must really be more tiring than a show of interest. He’s an odd fish. The President amused everyone by suddenly saying ‘Oh but, Hardie, you’re a philosopher, too, aren’t you?’

  Dined and came away almost at once to work on Courthope, but failed miserably to concentrate. Going down into the cloister I met Hardie and Brightman returning from The Pirates of Penzance. The reverend and aged gentleman was in great spirits, striking the attitudes of a pirate king and proclaiming his wish to embrace both the leading ladies. I then went up to Hardie’s rooms and talked for a while. Late to bed.

  Friday 28 May: Percival and Waterfield this morning. I am getting rather tired of the latter’s domestic similes in his essays: long and pointless examples beginning ‘Once there was a little boy’.

  Home to lunch where we had a telegram from W hoping that we could put him up for the week end. I walked as usual and came back to College after tea. Tutorial meeting in the Chaplain’s room after hall, where I attended and made reports.

  Saturday 29 May: Betjeman came at 9 and surprised me with a very creditable essay. Then Clark and de Peyer on Descartes, both stupid, but we hammered out a good discussion all the same. Then Yorke on Pope, really good work: he is coming on in the most encouraging way. Finally Glasgow—a tough morning.

  W came at 1 o’clock and ‘carried’ me to the Mitre to drink beer. He had a good deal to say about the strike and had had some unpleasant experiences: as he took a convoy through London the crowd shouted to the Tommies ‘Why don’t you bayonet the b——r?’ He says the troops are very solid and the recent events have done much to restore their old contempt for civilians: we must be in a desperate state when one feels grateful for this useful insolence, as I am afraid I did. The men call Saklatvala ‘Mr Sack-lavatory’43 . . .

  Here is a good story of a Guardee Colonel, who, when some superior opened an interview by saying that the situation was much more serious than they had thought at first, replied fervently ‘Yes sir, it is—they tell me at my Turkish bath club that the supply of coal may be cut down!’

  We went to Leighton’s in Holywell where we had left the byke for a small repair, but they had done nothing to it and the men would not be back till two. We were amused by a man who, being asked if he were in charge, asked what we wanted, and when he had heard the grievance, said ‘No, I am not in charge.’

  Went and had lunch at the Town & Gown, then retrieved the byke and went home. Played two sets of badminton with W before tea, and afterwards walked down to Mesopotamia with him and gave Pat a bath. After supper, the girls being in, all four had some amusing badminton. W biked me back to College, came in for a drink, and left me for Headington at eleven.

  D tells me that Dotty is rather inclined to ‘practise’ on W: with all her other faults I thought she was free from this. This was the starting point of an idea and I wrote the first sonnet and a half of a sequence which was to be put into the mouth of a man who is gradually falling in love with a bitch, tho’ quite conscious of what she is. I don’t care for sonnet sequences and it is not the sort of thing I ever imagined myself writing: but it would be jolly if it shd. come off.44 . . .
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  Sunday 30 May: After breakfast re-cast what I wrote last night into a stanza I have long had in my mind (a a b c c b blank b). It is still not very satisfactory.

  W came at about 10 and took me home in his side car. We spent the morning walking down to Mesopotamia and gave Pat another dip: had some beer in Headington when we came back. Winifred went home after lunch and I washed up . . .

  Had an early supper and came back to College whence Hardie took me to Hertford to hear Alexander at the Philosophical Society.45 We met Price in Hertford quad and remained there chatting till presently the great man, bearded and deaf and very venerable, appeared supported by Pritchard, Carritt and others. Cox was there as Carritt’s guest. It was a great evening.

  The first part of A’s paper, on artistic creation, was an admirable and, to me, a satisfying attack on all Croce’s nonsense: the second part, ‘cosmic creation’, was largely beyond me. He has great humour, as when he remarked, after a dark saying, ‘I have not time to add the qualifications wh. make this statement true.’ In discussion a chair was placed beside him to which the disputants came one by one, because of his deafness. Carritt who opened the discussion, was very good: not so the various lawyers and divines who followed, till J.A. took the matter in hand. Back to College with Hardie about 11.

  Monday 31 May: Valentin came this morning: pretty poor. I spent the rest of the time before lunch on my new poem and made eight stanzas, doing far better than I hoped. I really begin to think that something will come of it.

  To Univ. for lunch with Keir alone, Lawson being away at Stow-in-the-Wold by his doctor’s orders.

  Bussed home. D had been into town shopping and had a headache. Walked between lunch and tea time, then settled down to Elyot’s Boke of the Governour for the rest of the day. A good book: the brief description of football is worth remembering.

  Had supper at home and came into college at 10: went on with Elyot till 11.30: then read January, February & March in Spenser’s Calendar and went to bed. I had quite forgotten the pleasant earthy flavour of the Briar and the Oak and was delighted with it. A good day, but shaky and headachy at the end of it.