Letters of C. S. Lewis Read online

  TO HIS FATHER: from Keble College

  Postmark: 10 September 1917

  I was very glad to get your letter, for, though my own sins in that line are as scarlet, I must admit that I was beginning to get a little bit anxious. It was such a pity that Warnie and I could not be home together—and yet too, in a way, it spread out the ‘invasion’ of your young hopefuls longer for you. Warnie seems to have thoroughly enjoyed his leave, and I am sure the ‘drag’ exists only in your imagination . . .

  The next amusement on our programme is a three days bivouac up in the Wytham hills. As it has rained all the time for two or three days, our model trenches up there will provide a very unnesseccarily good imitation of Flanders mud. You know how I always disapproved of realism in art! . . .

  As time gets on towards the end of our course, we are more and more crowded and live only in hope for the fabulous amounts of leave we are going to get before we’re gazetted. Tell Arthur I simply CAN’T write.

  TO HIS FATHER: from Keble College

  Postmark: 24 September 1917

  I hope I was not grousing in my last letter, for though this may not be the life I had chosen, yet a little hard work never did any one any harm, and I might be much worse off. The sleeping out on Cumnor hills (there were only two nights of it) illustrated some old theories of anticipation etc.—but I needn’t go through it. In point of fact, sleeping out of doors proved delightful. You have a waterproof groundsheet, two blankets, and your haversack for a pillow. There was plenty of bracken to make a soft bed, and I slept excellently. You wake up in a flash without any drowsiness, feeling wonderfully fresh. Both nights were fine, but of course it would be horrible in the wet.

  Our final exam comes off next Tuesday: and remembering my wonderful faculty for failing in easy exams (vide Smalls17) I don’t feel too confident. There seems some doubt as to when we get away after it, but probably before the end of this week. In any case I shall stay on here with the Moores over the Sunday, and wire exact date of my crossing to you later. We get a free warrant home, but I should be glad if you would send me the Samaritans ‘two pence’ for oil and wine en route . . . 18

  TO HIS FATHER: from 56 Ravenswood Road, Redlands, Bristol

  3 October [1917]

  I suppose you must have been wondering what had become of your prodigal son all this time. Rather a chapter of adventures has occurred, and I will hasten to recount them—in the best journalese style.

  We got away from Keble on the Saturday, and instead of staying in Oxford with the Moores I came down here to their home at Bristol—within a mile or so of Clifton school. On the Sunday we went and saw the latter, including the Chapel where I failed to find Qui procul hinc ante diem etc,19 which in fact does not exist. The place is fine, but inferior to Malvern.

  On Monday a cold (complete with sore throat) which I had developed at Oxford, went on so merrily that Mrs Moore took my temperature and put me to bed, where I am writing this letter (Wednesday). I am quite looking forward to seeing you soon again . . .

  [Albert Lewis wrote in his diary: ‘Friday 12 October. Jacks arrived from Oxford. News arrived that Jacks gazetted Somerset Light Infantry. He had stayed with Moore at Bristol for three weeks, leaving one week for home.’ ‘Thursday 18 October. Jacks left by Holyhead to join regiment at Crownhill, S. Devon.’ As Mr Lewis was to learn later, Jack was separated from ‘Paddy’ Moore who was sent to France with the Rifle Brigade.]

  TO HIS FATHER: from 3rd Somerset Light Infantry, Crownhill, South Devon

  Monday, 5.5 P.M.

  [22 October 1917]

  I have waited till now so that I could tell you what an ordinary working day here is like. Incidentally the phrase ‘working day’ is merely façon de parler: but more of that anon, as you will first be anxious to hear what sort of thieves I have fallen among. I should say the gentlemen are about sixty-five per cent of the whole crowd of officers, which is quite as large a majority as one has a right to expect now-a-days. One or two of them I think I shall like, though of course it is hard to say at present. It must be admitted that most of them are hardly after my style: the subjects of conversation are shop (Oh! for the ancient taboo that ruled in officers messes in the piping times of peace), sport and theatrical news recurring with a rather dull regularity—that is in the few moments of conversation which interrupt the serious business of bridge and snooker. However, they are for the most part well bred and quite nice to me. So that if this new life rouses no violent enthusiasm in me, it is on the other hand quite bearable or even pleasant.

  The ‘work’ is a very simple matter. All the men nearly are recruits, and the training is carried on by N.C.O.s. All you do is to lead your party onto parade, hand them over to their instructor, and then walk about doing nothing at all. This you do for several hours a day. It is a little tiring to the legs and I think will finally result in atrophy of the brain. However, it is very much better than hard work, and I am quite satisfied.

  I was a bit too previous in wiring from Plymouth station that Crownhill was a barracks. It turns out to be a village of wooden huts, set up in the hills amid really very beautiful scenery. Besides the officers’ mess—which is a sort of glorified golf club-house—we each have our own room, with a stove in it. When this is lit, it is really very snug . . . So my verdict you see is quite favourable. The life, so long as I am in England, will be rather dull, but easy and not unpleasant. There is no need to transfer into any other infantry regiment. So at least I think now: of course I may change . . .

  [For weeks it was rumoured that Jack’s battalion would almost certainly be sent to Ireland to fight either the Sinn Fein or the Germans, said to be landing there. However, on 15 November they were ordered to the front following a 48-hour leave. As it was impossible for him to go to Belfast, Jack went to Mrs Moore’s home in Bristol from where he sent a telegram to his father saying: ‘Have arrived in Bristol on 48 hours leave. Report Southampton Saturday. Can you come Bristol. If so meet at station. Reply Mrs Moore’s address 56 Ravenswood Road Redlands Bristol. Jack.’ Mr Lewis wired back: ‘Don’t understand telegram. Please write.’]

  TO HIS FATHER: telegraphed from Bristol

  15 November 1917

  I have just got your wire. I am sending off another to explain things more clearly: I’m awfully sorry, but I can’t think how I failed to make it plain in the first. It is perfectly wretched giving me such short leave—forty-eight hours is no earthly use to a person who lives in Ireland and would have to spend about two days and nights travelling. Please don’t worry, I shall probably be a long time at the base as I have had so little training in England. Can’t write more now: must go and do some shopping. I return the proofs. I should like one of each I think. I’ll let you know my address in France as soon as I can.20

  TO HIS FATHER: from France

  21 November 1917

  This is really a very sudden and unpleasant surprise. I had no notion of it until I was sent off on my forty-eight hours final leave, in fact I thought they were ragging me when they told me. I am now at a certain very safe base town where we live comfortably in huts as we did at Crownhill. I am being innoculated this afternoon and have forty-eight hours off duty afterwards . . . I suppose we have no reason to grumble: this was bound to come sooner or later. There is no need to worry for a good time yet, and I’ll try and let you hear every day when there is. Have got to go on parade in a few minutes, so must stop. Shall be able to write you a proper letter off duty tomorrow.

  [Mr Lewis was desperately worried about Jack’s safety. Upon receiving the above letter he wrote to Colonel James Craig, later Viscount Craigavon (1871–1940), who was M.P. for the East Division of Co. Down, asking for his help in getting Jack transferred from the Infantry to the Artillery. He believed Jack would be safest with the gunners. Colonel Craig replied that it would be necessary for him to have a letter from Jack expressing his wish to be transferred, as well as a recommendation from his Commanding Officer. Mr Lewis then sent a copy of this correspondence
to Jack.]

  TO HIS FATHER: from France

  13 December 1917

  The letter of which you forwarded me a copy is rather a surprise, and I hope you will not be disappointed at my answer to it. Some arguments in favour of staying in the infantry have arisen since we were last together. In the first place, I must confess that I have become very much attached to this regiment. I have several friends whom I should be sorry to leave and I am just beginning to know my men and understand the work. In the second place, if the main reason for going into the gunners is their supposed safety, I hardly think it is enough. On this part of the front the guns are exposed to almost as heavy shelling (and it is shells that count far more than rifle fire) as the infantry: if their casualties are fewer that must be because their total strength is so much smaller. Then, again, nobody holds out any hopes of my getting recommended by the C.O. He would be sure to reply (and not without reason) that it would be expensive and wasteful to take a half-trained infantry officer home again and turn him into a gunner. Our C.O.—a Lt Colonel Majendie—is a splendid fellow for whom I have a great admiration, and I should be sorry to cut so poor a figure in his eyes as I must do in trying to back out as I get nearer the real part of my job.21 Of course I fully understand that it is rather late for me to talk thus; and beyond the right which you have to guide me in any case, you have ample grounds for claiming that I should stick to our arrangement. Yet I think you will sympathize with what I have said above.

  I am at present in billets in a certain rather battered town somewhere behind the line. It is quite comfy, but of course the work is hard and (which is worse) irregular. I have just finished Adam Bede22 which I liked immensely—but don’t send me any more of hers as I know a shop (or rather canteen here) that has them—in the Tauchnitz edition . . .

  TO HIS FATHER: from France

  4 January 1918

  I have thought a good deal about the question that is uppermost in both our minds, and talked it over with some of my friends. The arguments in favour of staying where I am seem overwhelming, and I have finally made up my mind to do so. I am very sorry that you should have taken trouble unnecessarily, and I hope that my decision will not be a disappointment to you. From what you say in your last letter, I think you agree with me that the gunners are not really preferable for safety or society. I have been up in the trenches for a few days (which I will speak about later on) attached to a company for instruction, and the number of shells that went singing over our heads to fall on the batteries far away behind, did not—as you may imagine—weaken my affection for the infantry!

  I am now back again on a course of bombing, where I live with the bombing officer, a very nice fellow, of literary tastes, in a quite comfortable billet. The work, involving a good deal of chemical and mechanical questions, is not of the sort my brain takes to readily, but as long as one is safe and has an unbroken night’s sleep, there is nothing to grouse about I suppose.

  You will be anxious to hear my first impressions of trench life. This is a very quiet part of the line and the dug outs are very much more comfortable than one imagines at home. They are very deep, you go down to them by a shaft of about twenty steps: they have wire bunks where a man can sleep quite snugly, and brasiers for warmth and cooking. Indeed, the chief discomfort is that they tend to get TOO hot, while of course the bad air makes one rather headachy. I had quite a pleasant time, and was only once in a situation of unusual danger, owing to a shell falling near the latrines while I was using them.

  I think I told you that I had read Adam Bede and am now at The Mill on the Floss,23 which I like even better. Do you know of any life of George Eliot published in a cheap edition? If you find one, I should like to read it.

  Thank you muchly for the smokeables. The pipes have been soaked in whisky, according to the dictum of experts, and are going very well. I also thank you from my heart for your last letter that defies definition. I am very proud of my father . . .

  [On 2 February 1918 the War Office in London sent the following message to Albert Lewis: ‘The Military Secretary presents his compliments to Mr Lewis and begs to inform him that the following report has just been received. 2nd Lieutenant C. S. Lewis, Somerset Light Infantry, was admitted to 10th Red Cross Hospital, Le Tréport on February 1st., suffering from slight Pyrexia. Further news will be sent when received.’]

  TO HIS FATHER: from No. 10 British Red Cross Hospital, Le Tréport

  16 February 1918

  Your letter has remained unanswered for some time, and if I had literally fulfilled my promise of ‘writing when I got up’, I fear the time would have been longer still. ‘Trench fever’ sounds a formidable name enough—like ‘prison fever’ in the days of the Bloody Assize I always think, but it is not usually a troublesome business. In this country it is called P.U.O. which, I am told, stands for ‘Pyrexia unknown origin’: which in plain English means merely a high temperature arising from the general irregularity of life at the front. In my case however, after they had got me down to normal, I had a relapse, and was pretty ill for a day or two. I am now however on the highroad to recovery, though still in bed. I consider this little turn as an unmixed blessing: even if I get no leave by it—and I’m afraid that is not very likely—I shall have had a comfortable rest from the line. The place where I have been dropped down is a little fishing village so far as I can make out. There are cliffs and a grey sea beyond—which one is very glad to see again—and from my own window pleasant wooded country. They tell me Dieppe is about eighteen miles away: and that makes one remember . . . eheu fugaces!24

  By the way (I can’t remember whether I told you before or not) the Captain of the Company I am in is the Harris who used to be a master at Cherbourg: I think you met him once. He impressed me in those days, but I find him very disappointing. I wonder is it my own fault that so many of my old acquaintances I have run up against since leaving my shell at Bookham ‘Please me not’? I suppose these things are to be expected.25

  You kindly ask if there is anything you could send. The next time you are in Mullan’s, I should be ‘beholden’ if you would ask them to look out some cheap edition of Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy and send it to me, or the 1st volume of it. You remember it used to be a fancy of mine, and somebody has recommended it to me lately. If the only edition is in a fairly large book, let them send it all the same—I can find room for it. What are you reading? You see I make some desperate attempt to keep in touch with a life beyond the one which we lead here. I hope you keep well in body: so long as I am in hospital you may keep easy in mind. How I wish your hopes about leave could be realized. Of course it is possible, but I don’t think there is much chance. By the way, offer Warnie all my congratulations upon his recent glories when next you write. That at least is a blessing: he won’t be doing badly in the soldiering line if he is to be a Captain after the war at his age . . .

  TO HIS FATHER: from No. 10 British Red Cross Hospital, Le Tréport

  22 February 1918

  Your letter of the 17th has just arrived, with the enclosure, for which many thanks: a widening experience of other people’s parents has taught me to value these things more than I once did, both for themselves and what they mean. That suggests literary possibilities: there is already a book called Other people’s children,26 but why not a companion volume Other people’s parents?—in our schooldays we have most of us suffered from time to time at the hands of these irrelevant beings.

  It is one of the punishments—to be sure, richly deserved—of a bad correspondant, that when at last he does write, his letter usually crosses the next one from his victim. I hope that you have before this got the longer letter which apparently had not come when you wrote yours.

  I don’t think there is need to worry if at any future time you hear of my being in hospital merely with illness. Even supposing it to be fairly serious, it is a more natural and easy kind of danger than that of the front: as well, there is always the rest, the unaccustomed comforts, and at the end of the poss
ibility of leave. In this case I am afraid I have not been bad enough.

  I am sending you in this two photographs of my room at Univ. They were taken by my friend Moore shortly before I left Oxford, but remained undeveloped for a long time and have lately been sent to me by his mother. The room is not of much personal interest, as everything in it belonged to another man—I think I mentioned that at the time. But I daresay you may care to see them. Do you remember it used to be one of my dreams that I might some day entertain you and the Knock [W. T. Kirkpatrick] there together. As you said, ‘That would be a symposium of the gods’. What crack there would have been! With what an added zest we would have drunk in the man’s ‘statements of fact’ in the hope of chuckling over them between ourselves later on. Who knows? At any rate we can hope that you and I will some time see Oxford together.

  The picture of our Warnie attending an A-murican proffessor’s lecture from the chair of Poker is good. But I’m afraid the psychology of the card player will always baffle me as it has baffled you. I had as soon spend the evening building card houses—much sooner watch the picture in the red of the fire.

  I have discovered that optimism about the war increases in an inverse ratio to the optimist’s proximity to the line. Was our Colonel so hopeful a month ago?27 But indeed I’m afraid I must live up to our family reputation, for certainly I can’t see any bright prospects at present. The conditions at home are almost as bad as anything we once fabled of starvation in Germany: spirits will be more pacific every day on short commons: there seems to be ‘spiritual wickedness in high places’ . . .

  I am ordering a couple of books of Vergil from my bookseller in London, and if I find that I get on with these I shall order something equally pleasant and simple in Greek. German and Italian I fear must go to the wall: of course I read a French book from time to time and seek opportunities of speaking it—but one sees very little of the natives. I am also still at Boswell, and have also begun Middlemarch. You see I am quite ‘caught’ by George Eliot’s books.