C.S. Lewis & Roald Dahl

On August 17, 2022 By robstroudIn Advice to Readers, Books, C.S. Lewis, C.S. Lewis & the Inklings, Christian Life, Christianity, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literature, Narnia, Reading, Writing9 Comments

Do C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) and Roald Dahl (1916-1990) have anything in common, besides authoring books enjoyed by children?

Looking back, I must have been deprived of opportunities to read common children’s books. I recall my mom having many of Dr. Seuss’ classics, but don’t remember more advanced works such as those of Beatrix Potter or E.B. White.

I suppose that is why Roald Dahl’s name means little to me. By the time I was aware of his popular works, I was too old to appreciate them. Added to that was my intense dislike for the cinematic presentation of his Chocolate Factory, which has permanently (and probably unfairly) soured my impression of the poor man.

In Matilda, published in 1988, Dahl offers a rather curious homage to the Inklings. The young protagonist offers to her teacher the following observations.

“I like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” Matilda said. “I think Mr. C.S. Lewis is a very good writer. But he has one failing. There are no funny bits in his books.”

“You are right there,” Miss Honey said.

“There aren’t many funny bits in Mr. Tolkien either,” Matilda said.

If you are intrigued by this brief interchange, you would probably enjoy reading “Disagreeing with Matilda on Lewis and Tolkien.”

Curiously, a number of people have offered their evaluations of Lewis and Dahl, vis-à-vis one another. Author Grudge Match: Roald Dahl vs. C.S. Lewis invited diverse contributions to the debate eight years ago on LibraryThing.

A Christian blogger offers a faith-based appraisal on an entertaining website called “Like but better.” It’s entitled “How C.S Lewis is like Roald Dahl, but better (and Aslan is like Willy Wonka, but better).”

C.S Lewis is serious about what Dahl jokes about; even as both want us to pursue a childlike wonder and joy. For Lewis these enchanted stories and our sense of wonder are small stories reflecting on the big story — the ‘myth that became history’ — the death and resurrection of Jesus.

A BBC Culture article is quite critical of Dahl, despite his popularity. The introduction to “The Dark Side of Roald Dahl” aptly describes the essay.

Roald Dahl was an unpleasant man who wrote macabre books – and yet children around the world adore them. Perhaps this shouldn’t surprise us, writes Hephzibah Anderson.

An article by a Jewish journalist refers to both of the authors discussed here. It describes his bitter introduction to the major flaws of an author whose work he enjoyed as a child. “Why I Hope My Kids Never Read Roald Dahl” is, for me, most valuable for the way in which the journalist regards the faith which underlies the tales of Narnia.

As a nerdy Jewish kid in Indiana and Tennessee in the late 1970s and 1980s, I had far better relationships with books than I did with other kids. If I liked a book, I read it again, and again and again.

And so it was with Roald Dahl’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” Dahl’s protagonists Charlie and later James (of the “Giant Peach”) both provided early models for how to find a better way through a hostile world where I always felt like an outsider.

Given that personal history, the announcement that Netflix has acquired Dahl’s entire catalog and plans a robust lineup of multimedia adaptations ought to feel like good news. . . .

Seeing his work still celebrated fills me with sadness, leaving me caught between attachment to something that mattered to me as a boy and commitment to the principles that, I hope, make me the man I am today.

Because I know that Roald Dahl hated Jewish people like me.

There are cases where it’s complicated to ascribe modern values to figures from the past and as a reader, my feelings, my emotions, are just not going to be consistent. I don’t share C.S. Lewis’ religious views . . . J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy is, I’m sad to say, bound up in long histories of racism.But my childhood copies of their books still occupy my shelves, some missing covers and pages, and I bought new copies for my kids and tried – with mixed success – to share my love of those stories with them. It’s hardly new for readers of one generation to struggle with the views of authors from another.But Dahl is different. He passed away in 1990, only 31 years ago. And we know he was an anti-Semite because he said so.

While I would challenge Perry’s modest critiques of the Inklings, I am delighted he is able to look beyond his adult disappointment with their imperfections to commend them to his own children. As for Dahl . . . this article reinforces my lack of regret in being unfamiliar with his work.

Enough, now, of their differences. I promised readers a surprising similarity between the two British authors.

And What Is Their Unusual Commonality?

In 1951, C.S. Lewis was approached by Prime Minister Churchill’s office to accept an honor occasionally bestowed upon renowned literary figures. He was invited to become a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Lewis declined, because he felt the political implications might overshadow the nonpartisan spirit of his writings. He was, however, honored to have been offered the honour.

This decision brings us to the peculiar similarity between the two writers. It turns out that Roald Dahl also passed up the invitation to join this chivalric order.

And the two were not alone. In 2012 a list of deceased individuals who had declined related honors between 1951 and 1999 was published.

Literary names were prominent amongst those to have said no to CBEs, OBEs and knighthoods in the annual New Year or Birthday Honours list, with Dahl, Lewis, and Huxley . . . joined by fellow naysayers Eleanor Farjeon, the children’s author, the poets Philip Larkin and Robert Graves, who said no to both a CBE and a CH (Order of the Companions honour), literary critic F.R. Leavis, Booker [Prize] winner Stanley Middleton and the authors J.B. Priestley and Evelyn Waugh.

An aspiring literary historian might do well to research whether and why successful writers might be more inclined to dismiss such an honor than other British citizens. I wonder if that inclination would carry over to other nationalities or cultures.

Ultimately, I assume most writers care less about receiving honors, than having their work read. And, perchance, having their literary efforts improve the lives of one or two others along the way. [This statement inspired vigorous debate when I shared this draft with members of my critique group.]

That desire – to enrich lives – is what motivates me. I believe it is also what inspired C.S. Lewis. And I know we are not alone.

C.S. Lewis, Dentistry & Bones

On June 28, 2022 By robstroudIn C.S. Lewis, Christian Life, Christianity, Family, Marriage9 Comments

Visiting the dentist for a regular check-up is one thing. Going there to address a painful problem is quite another. That is a truth everyone – including Oxford’s great scholar, C.S. Lewis – understands.

Occasional comments in his letters reflect on his mixed attitude toward dentistry. In 1914 he related to his father this balanced attitude. Many readers will identify with his ironic opening.

This week I have enjoyed the doubtful privilege of having two teeth extracted, both of which had been bothering me a good deal off and on this term. The dentist, who is a thoroughly competent official, pronounced his verdict that as they had been tinkered with over and over again, and were now hopelessly rotten, they had better come out. So out they came, with gas, and I think it was a good job.

I too have “enjoyed the doubtful privilege.” Like Lewis, I appreciate the skill and care of dentists, but hold an aversion to the more painful of their interventions.

Typically, C.S. Lewis was able to use our complex attitudes toward dental work, one of the “necessary evils of life” (Surprised by Joy), to teach about larger truths. An interesting piece on the subject can be seen here.

Lewis says when we move toward God, it will be like going to the dentist. If we dodge and hesitate to move, our aches will only increase.
Lewis wouldn’t tell his mother about his toothache because he knew it meant fixing it, and that likely meant the pokes and prods of the dentist on other infected teeth. So he hid and endured the pain for a time. It didn’t help. And it doesn’t help when we hesitate to be upturn our lives for Jesus. “Our Lord is like the dentists,” Lewis says. “He will give you the full treatment.”

As Lewis learned from experience during his extractions, healthy teeth are inseparable from bone, which forms the “tooth sockets.”

Which segues into a subject of even more significance to C.S. Lewis and every other lifeform with a skeleton: bones. But before we discuss that subject, allow me to share a personal note.

A Patient’s Dilemma

The reason dentistry is on my mind comes from the fact that I recently endured the extraction of one of my molars. That initiated the involved (and expensive) process of getting a “dental implant.”

The molar had served me well for decades, even after having a root canal many years ago. Its full golden crown still shines radiantly. Sadly, one of its roots fractured, and an endodontist determined removal is the only option.

For those who will someday follow this regrettable path, we no longer have to resort to human (or animal) bone to restore our jaws after the extraction of the renegade teeth.

Yes, that’s right. The most common “grafting material” has historically been bone. While it’s possible to transplant some of your own, it usually comes from another source.

Autograft Tissue is from your own body. Allograft Tissue is donated by another – typically deceased – individual. I wonder if others find the thought of having cadaver bone added to one’s personal physiology unsettling.

I’ve been an organ donor since I was first able to sign up. Sadly, being stationed in England during the spread of the Mad Cow Disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) has reduced any future value for my redundant body parts.

The seriousness of the danger is revealed in the story of Sergeant Major James Alford, a Green Beret who contracted it during his military service.

Speaking of the armed forces, the military is on the leading edge of medical advances. Shortly before I required my own bone graft, I read a fascinating press release from the Veterans Affairs Health Care System. It describes a new system for using 3D printers to create “3-dimensional bioprinting of vascularized bone tissue.” This breakthrough promises to relieve the suffering of countless people with bone injuries and ailments.

For VA Ventures, the future of using 3D printing to build constructs from each patient’s own cells, matched to their anatomy and defect geometry will soon be a reality, offering customized bone tissue grafts at the point of care.

The connection between teeth and bones is one thing, but there are far more important bones in the human body than the sockets in our jaw bones.

C.S. Lewis & Bone Disease

C.S. Lewis died young; he was nearing his sixty-fifth birthday. Toward the end of his life, he suffered from osteoporosis. He describes his diagnosis in a 1957 letter.

My back turns out to be not slipped disc but osteoporosis – a spongy condition of the bones that is common in men of 75 but almost unknown at my age (58). After full investigation by a great Professor of Pathology the cause remains quite obscure.
It has passed the stage of spasms and screams (each was rather like having a tooth out with no anaesthetic and you never knew when they were coming!), but I still ache a good deal and need sleeping draughts.

As vividly as C.S. Lewis describes the pain created by his bone disease, it diminished to nothing in comparison to the suffering of his wife, Joy. She was dying of cancer resident primarily in her bones, when Lewis married her at her hospital bedside.

Although she would eventually succumb to the disease, she experienced a miraculous respite after an Anglican priest prayed for her healing as he laid his hands upon her frail, pain-racked body.

Peter Bide had laid hands on Joy and prayed for her healing because, some years earlier, he had discovered that when he did this people often were indeed healed: he possessed, it appears, what the Church calls the gift of healing.
In January 1959 an essay by Lewis appeared in the Atlantic Monthly; it was called “The Efficacy of Prayer,” and one of its early paragraphs goes like this: I have stood by the bedside of a woman whose thigh-bone was eaten through with cancer and who had thriving colonies of disease in many other bones as well. It took three people to move her in bed. The doctors predicted a few months of life, the nurses (who often know better), a few weeks. A good man laid his hands on her and prayed. A year later the patient was walking (uphill, too, through rough woodland) and the man who took the last x-rays was saying, “These bones are solid as rock. It’s miraculous.” (The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis).

Sadly, Joy’s remission was only that. She did, however, live for several years. Her relative health even allowed the couple to take a bona fide honeymoon.

During her terminal illness, Lewis resorted to a questionable practice to which many of us can personally relate. He prayed that God might spare his wife, and transfer her pain to him instead. This common prayer is fueled by the desperation and helplessness we feel as we witness the suffering of our loved ones.

On these grounds Lewis began [after her release from the hospital] to pray for Joy’s sufferings to be transferred to him. Soon thereafter, Joy’s bones began to heal, and Lewis’s began to weaken. He did not get cancer but rather osteoporosis; nevertheless, as the pain in her bones decreased, his increased.
To Sister Penelope he wrote about his worst period: “I was losing calcium just about as fast as Joy was gaining it, and a bargain (if it were one) for which I’m very thankful.” In the same conversation in which he told Coghill of his unexpected happiness, he explained that he believed that God had allowed him to accept in his body her pain: the way of exchange.
These were for him very strange times. When he still thought that, despite his osteoporosis, Joy was dying, he wrote to Dorothy Sayers . . . “Indeed the situation is not easy to describe. My heart is breaking and I was never so happy before; at any rate there is more in life than I knew about.”
But at this point he still had little hope, though he noticed that she seemed much better than the doctors told him she really was, despite her bedridden status. By November he could tell Sister Penelope that Joy was walking with a cane; a month later he could tell a godson that she “has made an almost miraculous, certainly an unexpected, recovery.”
In August 1958 he wrote to a friend to say that “my wife walks up the wooded hill behind our house”; it seems likely that the image of her doing so was what went into the Atlantic essay. “All goes amazingly well with us.” (The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis).

In the previously cited 1957 correspondence, C.S. Lewis describes a curious interplay between their two ailments. It notes a practical benefit to his own osteoporosis.

Joy is now home, home from hospital, completely bed-ridden. The cancer is ‘arrested,’ which means, I fear, hardly any hope for the long term issue, but for the moment, apparently perfect health, no pain, eating & sleeping like a child, spirits usually excellent, able to beat me always at Scrabble and sometimes in argument.
She runs the whole house from her bed and keeps a pack of women not only loving her but (what’s rarer) one another. We are crazily in love. . . .
My back turns out to be not slipped disc but osteoporosis . . . Can you realise the good side? Poor Joy, after being the sole object of pity & anxiety can now perform the truly wifely function of fussing over me – I’m in pain and sit it out – and of course the psychological effect is extremely good. It banishes all that wearisome sense of being no use. You see, I’m very willing to have osteoporosis at this price.

To recognize the grace in being the one “in need,” is a wonderful gift. Something only the mature can ever possess.

So, once again we see just how much we have in common with the creator of Narnia. We may lack his brilliance, and fall shy of his skills as a communicator . . . but his willingness to lay bare his own life, offers encouragement to us as we experience the same challenges – and joys.

The Right Kind of Family Love

On April 25, 2022 By robstroudIn C.S. Lewis, Christian Life, Christianity, Family, Grandparenting, Marriage, Modern Life9 Comments

People who are wise understand that not all forms of “love” are healthy. That’s obvious with the epidemic of faux love in today’s “hookup culture.”

But even in genuine relationships, such as families, what passes for “love” can become twisted. Even the best of motives can blind us to what’s really best for our children. This sad irony is on my mind right now, since it recently struck close to home.

The title of this post suggests that just as there is a healthy version of family love, there can also be subtle corruptions of that virtue.

Parenting is complicated. We love our children, but if we make “happiness” the primary goal we are missing the mark. This pursuit of what is more often “pleasure” than genuine joy, usually devolves into letting kids do whatever they want. Some people parent this way.

Others are willing to pay the price of helping their children learn the lessons that will lead to a truly meaningful and fulfilling life. This is love. Children raised with the first objective often end up pursuing their appetites. They seldom accomplish much in life and rarely look beyond their own desires, to see the needs of others.

One prominent organization supporting the families of addicts shares the following epiphany.

When I first came to Al‑Anon, I spent a great deal of time wrestling with the term, “enabling.” I am a mother. Surely a mother’s role is to enable her children, is it not? It has been a struggle to understand, let alone accept, that the behavior I viewed as that of a good mother was actually unhealthy!

In his brilliant book, The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis describes how this unbalanced approach can be based in love, but results in unintended consequences.

The maternal instinct . . . is a Gift-love, but one that needs to give; therefore needs to be needed. But the proper aim of giving is to put the recipient in a state where he no longer needs our gift.
We feed children in order that they may soon be able to feed themselves; we teach them in order that they may soon not need our teaching.
Thus a heavy task is laid upon this Gift-love. It must work towards its own abdication. We must aim at making ourselves superfluous. The hour when we can say “They need me no longer” should be our reward.
But the instinct, simply in its own nature, has no power to fulfil this law. The instinct desires the good of its object, but not simply; only the good it can itself give. A much higher love – a love which desires the good of the object as such, from whatever source that good comes – must step in and help or tame the instinct before it can make the abdication.

The internationally recognized Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation offers an article on the subject entitled “Five Most Common Trademarks of Codependent and Enabling Relationships.”

The concept of codependency and enabling sounds simple and straight forward – doing for a loved one what they can and should do for themselves – but it can be incredibly difficult to tell the difference between supporting and enabling a loved one.
So what’s the difference? After all, enablers want to help their loved one, too, and codependency might feel like healthy support. But enabling allows the status quo – drinking or using drugs – to continue, whereas healthy support encourages a person to address their addiction and all of its consequences.

In contrast to this indulgent version of parenting, good parents are able to say “no” to their children, when it is necessary or appropriate. Teaching healthy behavioral boundaries early on teaches kids to make their own, healthy, decisions. Letting them take shortcuts and lie leads to disaster.

God’s divine love is inexhaustible. But God’s approval and blessing are linked to the choices we make. He does not commend self-destructive actions. He still loves, but he makes quite clear the life he desires for his children and the alternative path that leads to Death. God does not prevaricate. God does not hesitate to say “no.”

In the Book of Hebrews, the writer elaborates on this truth – that discipline (not to be confused with anger or punishment) is an evidence of genuine love.

Have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”
It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.
For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it (Hebrews 12).

Parental Love in Lewis’ Fiction

C.S. Lewis’ classic The Great Divorce creatively illuminates errors that can come between each of us and God’s desire to bless and redeem us, and to usher us into his heavenly presence. In an “encounter” which shows how something as wonderful as familial affection can be perverted into a grotesque distortion of true love.

You should read the entire account in Lewis’ book, but hopefully the selection below will illustrate his insight.

One of the most painful meetings we witnessed was between a woman’s Ghost and a Bright Spirit who had apparently been her brother. They must have met only a moment before we ran across them, for the Ghost was just saying in a tone of unconcealed disappointment, ‘Oh…Reginald! It’s you, is it?’ ‘Yes, dear,’ said the Spirit. ‘I know you expected someone else. Can you…I hope you can be a little glad to see even me; for the present.’
‘I did think Michael would have come,’ said the Ghost . . . ‘Well. When am I going to be allowed to see him?’
‘There’s no question of being allowed, Pam. As soon as it’s possible for him to see you, of course he will. You need to be thickened up [the unredeemed are insubstantial, thus their description as “ghosts”] a bit.’
‘How?’ said the Ghost. The monosyllable was hard and a little threatening.
‘I’m afraid the first step is a hard one,’ said the Spirit. ‘But after that you’ll go on like a house on fire. You will become solid enough for Michael to perceive you when you learn to want Someone Else besides Michael. I don’t say “more than Michael,” not as a beginning. That will come later. It’s only the little germ of a desire for God that we need to start the process.’
‘Oh, you mean religion and all that sort of thing? This is hardly the moment . . . and from you, of all people. Well, never mind. I’ll do whatever’s necessary. What do you want me to do? Come on. The sooner I begin it, the sooner they’ll let me see my boy. I’m quite ready.’
‘But, Pam, do think! Don’t you see you are not beginning at all as long as you are in that state of mind? You’re treating God only as a means to Michael. But the whole thickening treatment consists in learning to want God for His own sake.’
‘You wouldn’t talk like that if you were a mother.’
‘You mean, if I were only a mother. But there is no such thing as being only a mother. You exist as Michael’s mother only because you first exist as God’s creature. That relation is older and closer. No, listen, Pam! He also loves. He also has suffered. He also has waited a long time.’
‘If He loved me He’d let me see my boy. If He loved me why did He take Michael away from me? I wasn’t going to say anything about that. But it’s pretty hard to forgive, you know.’
‘But He had to take Michael away. Partly for Michael’s sake…’
‘I’m sure I did my best to make Michael happy. I gave up my whole life . . .’
‘Human beings can’t make one another really happy for long. And secondly, for your sake. He wanted your merely instinctive love for your child (tigresses share that, you know!) to turn into something better. He wanted you to love Michael as He understands love. You cannot love a fellow-creature fully till you love God. Sometimes this conversion can be done while the instinctive love is still gratified. But there was, it seems, no chance of that in your case. The instinct was uncontrolled and fierce and monomaniac. Ask your daughter, or your husband. Ask our own mother. You haven’t once thought of her. . . .
‘This is all nonsense—cruel and wicked nonsense. What right have you to say things like that about Mother-love? It is the highest and holiest feeling in human nature.’ ‘Pam, Pam—no natural feelings are high or low, holy or unholy, in themselves. They are all holy when God’s hand is on the rein. They all go bad when they set up on their own and make themselves into false gods.’ ‘My love for Michael would never have gone bad. Not if we’d lived together for millions of years.’
‘You are mistaken. And you must know. Haven’t you met—down there—mothers who have their sons with them, in Hell? Does their love make them happy . . ?’
‘Give me my boy. Do you hear? I don’t care about all your rules and regulations. I don’t believe in a God who keeps mother and son apart. I believe in a God of love. No one had a right to come between me and my son. Not even God. Tell Him that to His face. I want my boy, and I mean to have him. He is mine, do you understand? Mine, mine, mine, for ever and ever.’

Exercising the right kind of family love is not always easy. Due to our sinful nature, it is often corrupted. Still, striving to build a healthy (and, dare I say, holy) family is quite an adventure. A final thought from C.S. Lewis.

Since the Fall no organization or way of life whatever has a natural tendency to go right. . . . The family, like the nation, can be offered to God, can be converted and redeemed, and will then become the channel of particular blessings and graces.
But, like everything else that is human, it needs redemption. Unredeemed, it will produce only particular temptations, corruptions, and miseries. Charity begins at home: so does un-charity.
By the conversion or sanctification of family life we must be careful to mean something more than the preservation of “love” in the sense of natural affection. Love (in that sense) is not enough. Affection, as distinct from charity, is not a cause of lasting happiness. Left to its natural bent affection affection becomes in the end greedy, naggingly solicitous, jealous, exacting, timorous. It suffers agony when its object is absent—but is not repaid by any long enjoyment when the object is present. . . . The greed to be loved is a fearful thing. . . .
Must we not abandon sentimental eulogies and begin to give practical advise on the high, hard, lovely, and adventurous art of really creating the Christian family? (“The Sermon and the Lunch”).

The Goodness of Good Friday

On April 14, 2022 By robstroudIn C.S. Lewis, Christian Life, Christianity, Faith, History, Modern Life, The Ancient Church, The Bible, Theological Matters8 Comments

Jesus died on a cross. So why in the world would his followers choose the image of a cross to identify their faith?

The answer comes via a paradox. The cross is about two, superficially-contradictory realities. (1) Jesus bled, suffered and died on the cross. (2) On that very cross, Jesus purchased for all who call upon his name, eternal life.

This seeming paradox between simultaneous truths is sometimes referred to as a theological dialectic.

C.S. Lewis brilliantly illustrates this dynamic in his description of Death in his book Miracles.

On the one hand Death is the triumph of Satan, the punishment of the Fall, and the last enemy. Christ shed tears at the grave of Lazarus and sweated blood in Gethsemane: the Life of Lives that was in Him detested this penal obscenity not less than we do, but more.
On the other hand, only he who loses his life will save it. We are baptized into the death of Christ, and it is the remedy for the Fall. Death is, in fact, what some modern people call “ambivalent.”
It is Satan’s great weapon and also God’s great weapon: it is holy and unholy; our supreme disgrace and our only hope; the thing Christ came to conquer and the means by which He conquered (Miracles).

Thus, the grim suffering of Good Friday . . . becomes Good. It is not an accident. Nor is it a mistake. It was the necessary consequence of humanity’s fall and our costly, divine rescue. As C.S. Lewis writes in The Four Loves:

He creates the universe, already foreseeing – or should we say “seeing”? there are no tenses in God – the buzzing cloud of flies about the cross, the flayed back pressed against the uneven stake, the nails driven through the mesial nerves, the repeated torture of back and arms as it is time after time, for breath’s sake, hitched up. . . .
Herein is love. This is the diagram of Love Himself, the inventor of all loves.

Of course, this truth is only recognizable to those who have knelt before Jesus the Messiah and received his grace.

To unbelievers, “the world,” the cross makes no sense at all. Those in spiritual blindness reject it as the epitome of Christian absurdity.

Just such claims were made from the very beginning. Not long after Christ’s resurrection, these challenges were addressed by Paul, the Pharisee turned Apostle. Proclaiming the miracle of the cross, he reminds the young church in Corinth how they cannot expect the lost to comprehend its glory, its untainted goodness.

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. . . .
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.
For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men (1 Corinthians).

The crucifixion and resurrection of the only begotten Son of God are the sole means by which you and I may be cleansed, healed, and restored to the unending life for which our Lord created us.

Using Quotations in Your Writing

On January 5, 2021 By robstroudIn Advice to Writers, Books, C.S. Lewis, C.S. Lewis & the Inklings, Classics Worth Revisiting, Great Authors, Great Authors, History, Humor, Latin, Literature, Modern Life, Nature, Poetry, Reading, Words, Writing20 Comments

Do you consider quotations good or bad? As a reader, do you think quotations enhance what you are reading . . . or do they detract from the text?

My personal opinion is that the educated use of quotations enriches writing. (Sloppy quotation is another matter.) Positive contributions made by quotes would include:

They can offer “authoritative” support of a point being made by the writer.
Quotations can offer a refreshing change of pace in a lengthy work.
The selection of the individuals quoted gives me insight into the mind of the current writer.
A well-chosen epigraph piques my curiosity about the chapter which follows.
And, frankly, I simply enjoy a brilliant turn of phrase or a timeless but fresh insight.

I’m not alone in appreciating quotations. It’s no accident The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations is in its seventh edition. Why Do We Quote? describes it this way:

The demand for ODQ remains substantial. It has also spawned numerous sister dictionaries, many themselves appearing in several editions. We have The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations,… of Literary Quotations,… of Political Quotations,… of Biographical Quotations,… of Medical Quotations,… of American Legal Quotations,…. of Scientific Quotations.… of Phrase, Saying, and Quotation,… of Thematic Quotations,… of Quotations by Subject,… of Modern Quotation,… of Twentieth-Century Quotations, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotation. A Little Oxford Dictionary of Quotations has gone through successive editions. There have also been several editions of The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, the first in 1936. There is an avid market, it seems, for quotation collections.

The number of quotation collections is staggering. Read on, and I’ll provide links to some of the compilations available for free download, thanks to public domain laws.

The sheer weight of these books reveals their popularity. And quotations collections are marketable today. In “How Inspirational Quotes became a Whole Social Media Industry,” the author cites a Canadian whose “interest in motivational quotes has proven lucrative, and while he still has a day job in the wireless technology industry, he says that he’s recently been taking home two to three times his regular income from advertising on his website.”

And it all began when, “One day when he was a teenager, he was browsing in a book shop and came across a small book of famous quotations. Something about these pithy sayings appealed to him, and he started to compile his own collection of quotes that particularly resonated.”

Before the birth of the internet, I invested in several quotation collections—a not uncommon purchase for pastors. I confess to still referring on occasion to The Quotable Lewis to suggest new themes to explore here at Mere Inkling.

C.S. Lewis and Quotations

A beloved lecturer, C.S. Lewis recognized the value of worthy quotation. While few of us have his “eidetic memory,” we can certainly follow his example in using apt quotations to illustrate our points.

Lewis even regarded quotation collections highly enough to compile one. In 1946, he published George MacDonald: An Anthology. It was a tribute to the writings of his “mentor,” who appears in his fictional masterpiece about heaven and hell, The Great Divorce. The anthology remains in print. However, Canadian readers of Mere Inkling can benefit from it falling into public domain status in their Commonwealth. Canadians will find it available for download at this site.

While every reader is capable of enjoying the 365 selections in the volume, Lewis did have a specific intent in the passages he chose.

This collection, as I have said, was designed not to revive MacDonald’s literary reputation but to spread his religious teaching. Hence most of my extracts are taken from the three volumes of Unspoken Sermons. My own debt to this book is almost as great as one man can owe to another: and nearly all serious inquirers to whom I have introduced it acknowledge that it has given them great help—sometimes indispensable help towards the very acceptance of the Christian faith.

Scores of Free Quotation Collections Available to All

Internet Archive has an enormous (free) lending library of books featuring collections of quotations. Many can be “checked out” for temporary use. Other older books are available for download.

Project Gutenberg offers a smaller number, but includes titles they have edited themselves by gleaning pithy phrases from books in their public domain library. Many* of these free (public domain) compilations are linked below.

The massive selection of quotation collections (I quit counting as I approached 100) is daunting. Among those not available for download (which are still accessible for reading) you will note ever more esoteric subject matter. As a whole, we find a small number are collected from prolific individuals, such as Shakespeare, Mark Twain, or John F. Kennedy. Many are generalist, featuring “popular” quotations on a wide range of subjects. Others are thematic, focusing on subjects such as friendship, humor, women, sports, country music, dog [or cat] lovers, climbers, business, motor racing, the military, lawyers, saints, atheists, rock ‘n’ roll, or any of fourscore more themes. Some featuring national or cultural quotations, for example French, Jewish, Scottish, German, etc. And, for those up to the challenge, you can even read Wit and Wisdom of the American Presidents: A Book of Quotations.

🚧 Feel Free to Ignore Everything Below 🚧

Only the smallest attempt has been made here to sort the free volumes. You will find a few general headings below, and a multitude of similarly titled books. One wonders how many of the quotations cited in the larger volumes are common to all of them. Perhaps as you glance through this list, you will see a title or two you might appreciate perusing.

General Quotation Collections

The Oxford Dictionary Of Quotations
(Second Edition: 1953)
The Book of Familiar Quotations
Unnamed Compiler (London: 1860)
Familiar Quotations
John Bartlett (Boston: 1876)
Dictionary of Contemporary⁑ Quotations (English)
Helena Swan (London and New York: 1904)
What Great Men have Said about Great Men: a Dictionary of Quotations
William Wale (London: 1902)
A Cyclopaedia of Sacred Poetical Quotations
H.G. Adams (London: 1854)
The International Encyclopedia of Prose and Poetical Quotations from the Literature of the World
William Shepard Walsh (Philadelphia: 1908)
The Book of Familiar Quotations; being a Collection of Popular Extracts and Aphorisms from the Works of the Best Authors
Unnamed Compiler (London: 1866)
The Book of Familiar Quotations; being a Collection of Popular Extracts and Aphorisms from the Works of the Best Authors
L.C. Gent (London: 1866)
Dictionary of Quotations (English)
Philip Hugh Dalbiac (Long & New York: 1908)
A Dictionary Of Quotations
Everyman’s Library (London: 1868)
Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical
by Charles Noel Douglas (New York: 1904)
Three Thousand Selected Quotations From Brilliant Writers
Josiah H. Gilbert (Hartford, Connecticut: 1905)
Stokes’ Encyclopedia of Familiar Quotations: Containing Five Thousand Selections from Six Hundred Authors
Elford Eveleigh Treffry (New York: 1906)
Historical Lights: a Volume of Six Thousand Quotations from Standard Histories and Biographies
Charles Eugene Little (London & New York: 1886)
Great Truths by Great Authors: A Dictionary of Aids to Reflection, Quotations of Maxims, Metaphors, Counsels, Cautions, Aphorisms, Proverbs, &c., &c. from Writers of All Ages and Both Hemispheres
William M. White (Philadelphia: 1856)
Truths Illustrated by Great Authors: A Dictionary of Nearly Four Thousand Aids to Reflection, Quotations of Maxims, Metaphors, Counsels, Cautions, Aphorisms, Proverbs, &c., &c.
William M. White (Philadelphia: 1868)
Handy Dictionary of Prose Quotations
George Whitefield Powers (New York: 1901)
Letters, Sentences and Maxims
Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield (London & New York: 1888)
Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson: With Copious Indexes
Samuel Austin Allibone (Philadelphia: 1875)
Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay
Samuel Austin Allibone (Philadelphia: 1880)
Cassell’s Book Of Quotations, Proverbs and Household Words
William Gurney Benham (London & New York, 1907)
Putnam’s Complete Book of Quotations, Proverbs and Household Words
William Gurney Benham (New York, 1926)
Benham’s Book Of Quotations
William Gurney Benham (London: 1949)
Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations
by Kate Louise Roberts (New York: 1927)
Classic Quotations: A Thought-Book of the Wise Spirits of All Ages and all Countries, Fit for All Men and All Hours
James Elmes (New York: 1863)
A Dictionary of Quotations from the English Poets
Henry George Bohn (London: 1902)
A Complete Dictionary Of Poetical Quotations
Sarah Josepha Hale (Philadelphia: 1855)
The Handbook of Quotations: Gleanings from the English and American Fields of Poetic Literature
Edith B. Ordway (New York: 1913)
Carleton’s Hand-Book of Popular Quotations
G.W. Carleton (New York: 1877)
Many Thoughts of Many Minds
George W. Carleton (New York: 1882)
Many Thoughts Of Many Minds
Henry Southgate (London: 1930)
A Manual of Quotations (forming a new and considerably enlarged edition of MacDonnel’s Dictionary of Quotations)
E.H. Michelsen (London: 1856)
A Dictionary of Quotations from Various Authors in Ancient and Modern Languages
Hugh Moore (London: 1831)
Dictionary Of Quotations: from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources
James Wood (London: 1893)
A Dictionary of Quotations in Prose: from American and Foreign Authors
Anna L. Ward (New York: 1889)
Webster’s Dictionary Of Quotations: A Book of Ready Reference
(London: undated)

Collections of Individual Authors

Quotations from Browning
Ruth White Lawton (Springfield, Massachusetts: 1903)
The Wesley Yearbook: or, Practical Quotations from the Rev. John Wesley
Mary Yandell Kelly (Nashville: 1899)
Quotes and Images From The Works of Mark Twain
David Widger (Project Gutenberg: 2002)
Widger’s Quotations from the Project Gutenberg Editions of Paine’s Writings on Mark Twain
David Widger (Project Gutenberg: 2003)
Quotes and Images From The Diary of Samuel Pepys
David Widger (Project Gutenberg: 2004)
Quotes and Images From Memoirs of Louis XIV
David Widger (Project Gutenberg: 2004)
Quotes and Images From Memoirs of Louis XV and XVI
David Widger (Project Gutenberg: 2005)
Quotes and Images from the Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
David Widger (Project Gutenberg: 2004)
Quotes and Images From Motley’s History of the Netherlands
David Widger (Project Gutenberg: 2004)
Quotes and Images from the Writings of Abraham
David Widger (Project Gutenberg: 2004)
Quotes and Images From The Tales and Novels of Jean de La Fontaine
David Widger (Project Gutenberg: 2004)
Quotes and Images From The Works of George Meredith
David Widger (Project Gutenberg: 2004)
Quotes and Images From Memoirs of Cardinal De Retz
David Widger (Project Gutenberg: 2005)
Quotes and Images From Memoirs of Count Grammont by Count Anthony Hamilton
David Widger (Project Gutenberg: 2005)
Widger’s Quotations from the Project Gutenberg Editions of the Works of Montaigne
David Widger (Project Gutenberg: 2003)
Widger’s Quotations from Project Gutenberg Edition of Memoirs of Napoleon
David Widger (Project Gutenberg: 2003)
Quotes and Images From the Works of John Galsworthy
David Widger (Project Gutenberg: 2005)
Quotes and Images From The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau
David Widger (Project Gutenberg: 2004)
The French Immortals: Quotes and Images
David Widger (Project Gutenberg: 2009)
Quotes and Images From The Works of Charles Dudley Warner
David Widger (Project Gutenberg: 2004)
Quotes and Images From Memoirs of Marie Antoinette
David Widger (Project Gutenberg: 2005)
Quotes and Images From The Works of Gilbert Parker
David Widger (Project Gutenberg: 2004)
Quotes and Images From The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer by Charles James Lever
David Widger (Project Gutenberg: 2004)
Quotes and Images From Memoirs of Madame De Montespan
David Widger (Project Gutenberg: 2005)
Quotes and Images From the Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
David Widger (Project Gutenberg: 2004)
Quotes and Images From The Works of William Dean Howells
David Widger (Project Gutenberg: 2004)
The Spalding Year-Book: Quotations from the Writings of Bishop [John Lancaster] Spalding for Each Day of the Year
Minnie R. Cowan (Chicago: 1905)
Worldly Wisdom; Being Extracts from the Letters of the Earl of Chesterfield to His Son
William L. Sheppard (New York: 1899)
A Year Book of Quotations: From the Writings of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
with spaces for Autographs and Records (New York: 1896)
The Bernhardt Birthday Book: Being Quotations from the Chief Plays of Madame Sarah Bernhardt’s Repertoire and Other Works
E.M. Evors (London: 1912)
Beauties of Robert Hall
John S. Taylor (New York: 1839)

Shakespeare Gets His Own Section

Everyman’s Dictionary Of Shakespeare Quotations
D.C. Browning (London: 1961)
Shakespearean Quotations
Charles Sheridan Rex (Philadelphia: 1910)
Shakespeare Quotations
Emma Maria Rawlins (New York: 1900)
Quotations from Shakespeare
Edmund Routledge (London: 1867)
A Dictionary of Shakspere Quotations
C.J. Walbran (London: 1849)
The New Shaksperian Dictionary of Quotations
G. Somers Bellamy (London: 1875)
Longer Moral Quotations From Shakespeare
M. Venkatasiah (Mysore/Mysuru, India: 1923)
Dictionary of Shakespearian Quotations: Exhibiting the Most Forceful Passages Illustrative of the Various Passions, Affections and Emotions of the Human Mind
Thomas Dolby (New York: 1880)
Odd, Quaint and Queer Shaksperian Quotations Handsomely and Strikingly Illustrated
Henry McCobb [using pseudonym Shakspere Snug] (New York: 1892)

Thematic Quotation Collections

Quotations from Negro Authors
Katherine D. Tillman (Fort Scott, Kansas: 1921)
Sovereign Woman Versus Mere Man: a Medley of Quotations
Jennie Day Haines (San Francisco: 1905)
About Women: What Men have Said
Rose Porter (New York: 1894)
The Dixie Book of Days
Matthew Page Andrews (London & Philadelphia: 1912)
Living Waters
Alice L. Williams (Boston: 1889)
Green Pastures and Still Waters
Louis Kinney Harlow (Boston: 1887)
Out-of-Doors; Quotations from Nature Lovers
Rosalie Arthur
Ye Gardeyn Boke: a Collection of Quotations Instructive and Sentimental
Jennie Day Haines (San Francisco & New York: 1906)
The Optimist’s Good Morning
Florence Hobart Perin (Boston: 1909)
The Optimist’s Good Night
Florence Hobart Perin (Boston: 1910)
The Book of Love
Jennie Day Haines (Philadelphia: 1911)
Author’s Calendar 1889
Alice Flora McClary Stevens (Boston: 1888)
Proverbs and Quotations for School and Home
John Keitges (Chicago: 1905)
Excellent Quotations for Home and School
Julia B. Hoitt (Boston: 1890)
Borrowings: A Compilation of Helpful Thoughts from Great Authors
Sarah S.B. Yule & Mary S. Keene (San Francisco: 1894)
More Borrowings: the Ladies of First Unitarian Church of Oakland, California
Sarah S.B. Yule & Mary S. Keene (San Francisco: 1891)
Quotations
Norwood Methodist Church (Edmonton, Alberta: 1910).
Goodly Company: a Book of Quotations and Proverbs for Character Development
Jessie E. Logan (Chicago: 1930)
The Atlantic Year Book: Being a Collection of Quotations from the Atlantic Monthly
Teresa J. Fitzpatrick & Elizabeth M. Watts (Boston: 1920)
Here and There: Quaint Quotations, a Book of Wit
H.L. Sidney Lear
Author’s Calendar 1890
Alice Flora McClary Stevens (Boston: 1889)
Catch Words of Cheer
Sara A. Hubbard (Chicago: 1903)
Catch Words of Cheer (new series)
Sara A. Hubbard (Chicago: 1905)
Catch Words of Cheer (third series)
Sara A. Hubbard (Chicago: 1911)
How to Get On, Being, the Book of Good Devices: a Thousand Precepts for Practice
Godfrey Golding (London: 1877)
The Dictionary of Legal Quotations: or, Selected Dicta of English Chancellors and Judges from the Earliest Periods to the Present Time . . . embracing many epigrams and quaint sayings
James William Norton-Kyshe
The Vocabulary of Philosophy, Mental, Moral and Metaphysical: with Quotations and References
William Fleming (Philadelphia: 1860)
Manual of Forensic Quotations
Leon Mead and F. Newell Gilbert (New York: 1903)
Toaster’s Handbook Jokes Stories And Quotations
Peggy Edmund and Harold W. Williams (New York: 1932)
The Banquet Book: A Classified Collection of Quotations Designed for General Reference, and Also an Aid in the Preparation of the Toast List
Cuyler Reynolds (London & New York: 1902)
Like Expressions: a Compilation from Homer to the Present Time
A.B. Black (Chicago: 1900)
Oracles from the Poets: a Fanciful Diversion for the Drawing-Room
Caroline Howard Gilman (London & New York: 1844)
The Sibyl: or, New Oracles from the Poets
Caroline Howard Gilman (New York: 1848)
A Book of Golden Thoughts
Henry Attwell (London & New York: 1888)
A Little Book of Naval Wisdom
Harold Felix Baker Wheeler (London: 1929)
Medical Quotations from English Prose
John Hathaway Lindsey (Boston: 1924)
Psychological Year Book: Quotations Showing the Laws, the Ways, the Means, the Methods for Gaining Lasting Health, Happiness, Peace and Prosperity
Janet Young (San Francisco: 1905)
The Oshawa Book of Favorite Quotations
(Oshawa, Ontario: 1900)
The Pocket Book Of Quotations
Henry Davidoff (New York: 1942)
Quotations for Occasions
Katharine B. Wood (New York: 1896)
Quotations For Special Occasions
Maud Van Buren (New York: 1939)
A Complete Collection of the Quotations and Inscriptions in the Library of Congress
Emily Loiseau Walter
Words and Days: a Table-Book of Prose and Verse
Bowyer Nichols (London: 1895)
The Book of Good Cheer: “A Little Bundle of Cheery Thoughts”
Edwin Osgood Grover (New York: 1916)
The Good Cheer Book
Blanche E. Herbert (Boston: 1919)
Just Being Happy: a Little Book of Happy Thoughts
Edwin Osgood Grover (New York: 1916)
Pastor’s Ideal Funeral Book: Scripture Selections, Topics, Texts and Outlines, Suggestive Themes and Prayers, Quotations and Illustrations
Arthur H. DeLong (New York: 1910)
Quips and Quiddities: a Quintessence of Quirks, Quaint, Quizzical, and Quotable
William Davenport Adams (London: 1881)
The Book of Ready-Made Speeches: with Appropriate Quotations, Toasts, and Sentiments
Charles Hindley (London: 1893)
Suggestive Thoughts on Religious Subjects
Henry Southgate (London: 1881)
Two Thousand Gospel Quotations from the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price
Henry H. Rolapp (Salt Lake City, Utah: 1918)
Selected Quotations on Peace and War: with Especial Reference to a Course of Lessons on International Peace, a Study in Christian Fraternity
Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America (New York: 1915)
Book of Science and Nature Quotations
Isaac Asimov & Jason A. Shulman (New York: 1988)
From an Indian Library Collection (not generally public domain)

Foreign (i.e. non-English) Collections

Dictionary of Quotations (Spanish)
[With English Translations]
Thomas Benfield Harbottle and Martin Hume (New York: 1907)
A Literary Manual of Foreign Quotations Ancient and Modern, with Illustrations from American and English Authors
John Devoe Belton (New York: 1891)
Dictionary of Quotations (Classical)
Thomas Benfield Harbottle (London: 1897)
Dictionary of Latin Quotations, Proverbs, Maxims, and Mottos, Classical and Medieval
Henry Thomas Riley (London: 1866)
Treasury of Latin Gems: a Companion Book and Introduction to the Treasures of Latin Literature
Edwin Newton Brown (Hastings, Nebraska: 1894)
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations (Arabic and Persian)
Claud Field (London & New York: 1911)
A Little Book of German Wisdom
Claud Field (London: 1912)
Dictionary Of Foreign Phrases And Classical Quotations
Hugh Percy Jones (Edinburgh: 1908)
Dictionary Of Quotations: in Most Frequent Use, Taken Chiefly from the Latin and French, but Comprising Many from the Greek, Spanish and Italian Languages
[Translated into English]
D.E. MacDonnel (London: 1826)
A Dictionary Of English Quotations And Proverbs
With translations into Marathi
C.D. Deshmukh (Poona/Pune, India: 1973)
Classical and Foreign Quotations: a Polyglot Manual of Historical and Literary Sayings, Noted Passages in Poetry and Prose Phrases, Proverbs, and Bons Mots
Wm. Francis Henry King (London: 1904)

* Too many.

⁑ A bit of irony in this title, since it was written over 115 years ago.

C.S. Lewis, Writing and Lust

On August 19, 2020 By robstroudIn Advice to Writers, Books, C.S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, Literature, Modern Life, Reading, Writing12 Comments

We’re accustomed to hearing the word “lust” used in a positive manner, such as “she has a lust for life.”

You might even see this in the context of writing. C.S. Lewis himself did this. In 1948, in a letter to an American pastor, he apparently answers a query about what inspires him to write. “The ‘incentive’ for my books has always been the usual one—an idea and then an itch or lust to write.”

I resonate with Lewis’ response. Some idea dawns on me—usually arising from something I’m reading—and then I get the desire to put my own twist on it and share the original idea with others.

This post is no different. I have been working on the military chaplaincy journal that I edit, and I was reading the poetry of a British chaplain from the First World War. Rev. G.A. Studdert Kennedy (1883-1929) was an Anglican priest. He was awarded the Military Cross due to his “disregard for his own safety in attending to the wounded under heavy fire.” The award also noted his Gospel contribution to the harsh life of WWI trenches. “He searched shell holes for our own and enemy wounded, assisting them to the dressing station, and his cheerfulness and endurance had a splendid effect upon all ranks in the front line trenches, which he constantly visited.”

You can read many of his poems in past issues of Curtana: Sword of Mercy, which is available for free download here.

After reading some of his poetry, I turned for the first time to one of his postwar books. It was entitled “Lies!” and addresses a litany of deceptions that plague the world. Included among these deceits is “the lie of lust.”

In the following excerpt, he refers to writing prurient literature which can guarantee a market. It is echoed by a later comment I read from a writer who said she had to write erotic novels to supplement her preferred titles, just so she could make a living. She used a pen name, of course, for the smut.

You can follow Chaplain Kennedy’s argument in the excerpt which follows. Since it is rather lengthy, I will highlight the reference to writing by using a boldface font. Kennedy contrasts in this passage the conflict between humanity’s sinfulness and our call to holiness, the struggle the Apostle Paul describes so succinctly in the seventh chapter of Romans.

“For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.”

Here is Kennedy’s argument:

But lust in a man is obscene and filthy because it is unnatural. It becomes cruel and debased. It does not proceed to the making of children naturally and cleanly; it descends to unmentionable and disgusting things. The report on the German atrocities in Belgium* provides a kind of horror-chamber in which we can see what lust can bring men to. As one reads that awful document a kind of hot shame comes over one, and makes one sweat for sorrow over sin.
The sting of that shame lies in the fact that one is dreadfully conscious that the root of that disgusting horror is there in one’s own soul. Have you never felt a ghastly doubt rising up in your mind when you read such things? Now what am I reading this for? Is it purely because I want to hate it . . ?
Write a book about the cruelties and debaucheries of a Nero or a Rasputin, and it will sell. There is an appeal in it which thousands, nay, which all men feel, which all men would answer, if the other force within them failed. But the horror of it, the shame for it, is, thank God, as real, more real, than the appeal. There is human history: the war between the appeal and the repulsion of sin: the war between the monkey and the man.
There are thousands of writers, artists, playwrights, musicians, who are making their fortunes out of the appeal to the animal in man. It is the best paying business in the world. Yet, if there is anything that human experience makes certain, it is that there is no end to the journey a man makes in answer to that appeal except damnation, the utter loss of all that makes life good. Lust cannot satisfy a man, because he needs Love. Lust is unnatural in man, it leaves one side of his nature out, and sooner or later that neglected side has its revenge, and turns life’s sweetness bitter to his taste. Then in his despair he will descend in search of new sensations to things which men cannot mention, or even think of without shame. That is the way of it with all men if the great force fail that leads them upward from the animal to the human and divine (Lies! published in 1919).⁑

C.S. Lewis on Carnality

As noted, Lewis was able to use the word “lust” in its muted, nonliteral sense. He was also able to address it literally, and to challenge the hold it exerts on so many lives. In “Religion: Reality or Substitute?” C.S. Lewis vividly described how lust is an enemy.

If we wish to be rational, not now and then, but constantly, we must pray for the gift of Faith, for the power to go on believing not in the teeth of reason but in the teeth of lust and terror and jealousy and boredom and indifference that which reason, authority, or experience, or all three, have once delivered to us for truth.

In a more metaphorical manner, in the Great Divorce Lewis uses the surprising image of a foreboding ruddy lizard to portray the sinister nature of lust.

I saw coming towards us a Ghost who carried something on his shoulder. Like all the Ghosts, he was unsubstantial, but they differed from one another as smokes differ. Some had been whitish; this one was dark and oily. What sat on his shoulder was a little red lizard, and it was twitching its tail like a whip and whispering things in his ear. As we caught sight of him he turned his head to the reptile with a snarl of impatience. “Shut up, I tell you!” he said. It wagged its tail and continued to whisper to him. He ceased snarling, and presently began to smile.

The encounter which follows is amazing. I won’t spoil it by describing how it ends, but I will once again encourage you to read what is one of my favorite novels. The Great Divorce is about the separation between Heaven and Hell, and explains how a loving God could allow some of his creation to choose a path away from him.

And a Bonus Insight from Dorothy Sayers

Lewis and Sayers were friends, and they deeply respected one another’s work. In 1943, Lewis wrote to Sayers congratulating her on her recently published The Other Six Deadly Sins. He said, “it is one of the few things which I find, within its limits, perfect—i.e. there is nothing one would wish added or removed or altered.” High praise.

Sayers brilliantly strips away some of the euphemisms that mask and confuse candid discussions about sin. This is how she begins what was originally delivered as a public address:

Perhaps the bitterest commentary on the way in which Christian doctrine has been taught in the last few centuries is the fact that to the majority of people the word “immorality” has come to mean one thing and one thing only. The name of an association like yours is generally held to imply that you are concerned to correct only one sin out of those seven which the Church recognizes as capital.
By a hideous irony, our shrinking reprobation of that sin has made us too delicate so much as to name it, so that we have come to use for it the words which were made to cover the whole range of human corruption. A man may be greedy and selfish; spiteful, cruel, jealous, and unjust; violent and brutal; grasping, unscrupulous, and a liar; stubborn and arrogant; stupid, morose, and dead to every noble instinct—and still we are ready to say of him that he is not an immoral man. I am reminded of a young man who once said to me with perfect simplicity: “I did not know there were seven deadly sins: please tell me the names of the other six.”
About the sin called Luxuria or Lust, I shall therefore say . . . that it is a sin, and that it ought to be called plainly by its own name, and neither huddled away under a generic term like immorality, nor confused with love.

The book sounds like it’s well worth reading. It has been out of print for eighty years⁂ but it appears to have been reproduced in toto by this website. (I plan to read the essay as soon as I get this post uploaded!)

* Over 800 civilians were killed by German troops as they advanced through neutral Belgium in 1914. A short describing of these events can be found at this British Library site.

⁑ You can download free copies of Chaplain Kennedy’s books at Internet Archive: Lies! or a collection of his poetry in Rough Rhymes of a Padre.

⁂ A single used copy is currently available via amazon, for the modest price of $287.36, with the comforting notation that the shipping is free.

C.S. Lewis and Squirrels

On October 31, 2019 By robstroudIn Animals, C.S. Lewis, Narnia, Nature16 Comments

One unchanging constant through the whole of C.S. Lewis’ life, was his love of nature. His affection for a creature frequently regarded as a pest, illustrates this perfectly.

In 1954, Lewis wrote playfully to the eight Kilmer siblings in the, the family to whom he dedicated The Magician’s Nephew. (Coincidentally, the thirty letters he wrote to these children recently sold for over $100,000.)

There is no snow here yet and it is so warm that the foolish snowdrops and celandines (little yellow flowers; I don’t know if you have them or not) are coming up as if it was spring. And squirrels (we have hundreds and thousands about this college) have never gone to bed for their winter sleep at all.
I keep on warning them that they really ought to and that they’ll be dreadfully sleepy (yawning their heads off) by June if they don’t, but they take no notice.

One can imagine the awe Lewis would have expressed at learning about the almost supernatural hibernations undergone by Arctic ground squirrels. Believe it or not, as they say, it is a fact that during their lengthy hibernations, curled up beneath the solidly frozen ground, the core body temperature of these small mammals actually hover around 3 degrees below freezing!

In 1941 he responded to a comment from one of his correspondents about unbridled nature.

I do know what you mean by the sudden ravishing glimpse of animal life in itself, its wildness—to meet a squirrel in a wood or even a hedgehog in the garden makes me happy. But that is because it is, being partly exempt from the Fall, a symbol and reminder of the unfallen world we long for.
That wildness would not be lost by the kind of dominion Adam had. It would be nicer, not less nice, if that squirrel would come and make friends with me at my whistle—still more if he would obey me when I told him not to kill the red squirrel in the next tree.

In the early 1930s, Lewis mentioned squirrels in several of his letters to his good friend Arthur Greeves. For example, he described a simple pleasure experienced during one of his daily walks.

I also had the experience lately of walking under an avenue of trees after a shower, and saw that tho all the rest was still, a kind of wave-motion was passing over the branches on one side, followed by a patter of drops. Coming nearer I found it was a squirrel leaping from branch to branch and sending a wake of tiny showers to earth as they bent under him.

Similar happiness echoes in a 1939 letter to another friend.

[During] my annual January walking tour with my brother . . . We had one glorious day crossing Wenlock Edge . . . with new snow on the ground and cloudless sunshine from end to end of the skies–beautiful shadows. And out in the country snow is a great betrayer. Rabbits and squirrels became as easy to see as bushes.
The tracks are rather exciting, too, aren’t they? To climb up some unearthly lane to a hill crest far from any house, still early in the morning, and find from the innumerable paw-prints how long ago the animals’ day has begun.

Squirrels in Narnia

Squirrels play prominently in at least two episodes in the enchanted land of Narnia. In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, we witness a terrible scene when the White Witch comes upon a group of Narnians who are celebrating a visit by Father Christmas.

A little way off at the foot of a tree sat a merry party, a squirrel and his wife with their children and two satyrs and a dwarf and an old dog-fox, all on stools round a table. . . . But when the whole party saw the sledge stopping and who was in it, all the gaiety went out of their faces.
The father squirrel stopped eating with his fork halfway to his mouth and one of the satyrs stopped with its fork actually in its mouth, and the baby squirrels squeaked with terror. “What is the meaning of this?” asked the Witch Queen. Nobody answered. “Speak, vermin!” she said again. . . . Who gave [these things] to you?” said the Witch.
“F-F-F-Father Christmas,” stammered the Fox. “What?” roared the Witch, springing from the sledge and taking a few strides nearer to the terrified animals. “He has not been here!” At that moment one of the young squirrels lost its head completely. “He has—he has—he has!” it squeaked, beating its little spoon on the table.
Edmund saw the Witch bite her lips so that a drop of blood appeared on her white cheek. Then she raised her wand. “Oh, don’t, don’t, please don’t,” shouted Edmund, but even while he was shouting she had waved her wand and instantly where the merry party had been there were only statues of creatures . . .

On a happier note, in Prince Caspian we see how even the Talking Animals remain true to their species’ nature.

After that they went on till they came among tall beech trees, and Trufflehunter [the badger] called out, “Pattertwig! Pattertwig! Pattertwig!” and almost at once, bounding down from branch to branch till he was just above their heads, came the most magnificent red squirrel that Caspian had ever seen. He was far bigger than the ordinary dumb squirrels which he had sometimes seen in the castle gardens; indeed he was nearly the size of a terrier and the moment you looked in his face you saw that he could talk.
Indeed the difficulty was to get him to stop talking, for, like all squirrels, he was a chatterer. He welcomed Caspian at once and asked if he would like a nut and Caspian said thanks, he would. But as Pattertwig went bounding away to fetch it, Trufflehunter whispered in Caspian’s ear, “Don’t look. Look the other way. It’s very bad manners among squirrels to watch anyone going to his store or to look as if you wanted to know where it was.”

Squirrels certainly know how to chatter. In 1955, C.S. Lewis shared with a regular correspondent, his idea of a perfect world. “I’m all for a planet without aches or pains or financial worries but I doubt if I’d care for one of pure intelligence. No senses (no relish of smells & tastes?), no affection, no Nonsense! I must have a little fooling. I want to tickle a cat’s ears and sometimes have a slanging match with an impertinent squirrel.”

The Most Significant Squirrel in C.S. Lewis’ Life

In his autobiography, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life, Lewis describes an early encounter that exerted a profound influence in the shaping of his identity. It came not from a living specimen but, as I have written about in a different context, from a fictional member of the Family Sciuridae. Lewis describes the opening of his mind to the pursuit of true Joy.

Then came the Beatrix Potter books, and here at last beauty. It will be clear that at this time—at the age of six, seven, and eight—I was living almost entirely in my imagination; or at least that the imaginative experience of those years now seems to me more important than anything else. . . . in mapping and chronicling Animal-Land I was training myself to be a novelist.
Note well, a novelist; not a poet. My invented world [Boxen] was full (for me) of interest, bustle, humor, and character; but there was no poetry, even no romance, in it. It was almost astonishingly prosaic. Thus if we use the word imagination in a third sense, and the highest sense of all, this invented world was not imaginative. But certain other experiences were, and I will now try to record them.
The second glimpse came through Squirrel Nutkin; through it only, though I loved all the Beatrix Potter books. But the rest of them were merely entertaining; it administered the shock, it was a trouble. It troubled me with what I can only describe as the Idea of Autumn. It sounds fantastic to say that one can be enamored of a season, but that is something like what happened; and, as before, the experience was one of intense desire.
And one went back to the book, not to gratify the desire (that was impossible—how can one possess Autumn?) but to reawake it. And in this experience also there was the same surprise and the same sense of incalculable importance. It was something quite different from ordinary life and even from ordinary pleasure; something, as they would now say, “in another dimension.”

Rereading some of Lewis’ words about these entertaining creatures has taken me on an enjoyable journey, and not only because I share a similar rodent legacy or because our forest home is located on Squirrel Place. Lewis’ vision of the place of animals in this world and the next resonates with my sense of God’s relationship with this portion of his creation.

After all, it was our parents, not theirs, who brought about the fall. Thus Lewis’ sentimental thought that they are, “being partly exempt from the Fall, a symbol and reminder of the unfallen world we long for.”

C.S. Lewis and the Matter of Sex in Space

On March 22, 2019March 22, 2019 By robstroudIn C.S. Lewis, Christian Life, Modern Life, Narnia5 Comments

If you are curious about a 1950s perspective on the sexual mores of life on a Martian base, you are in for a rare treat.

Although C.S. Lewis’ foray into science fiction is best seen in his Space Trilogy, which begins with Out of the Silent Planet, he also penned a curious short story about courtesans in outer space. Lewis did not raise this rather tawdry subject, but he was responding to a serious argument for the practice, made by an American astronomer.

But First, a Quick Apologia

My posts have been fewer during recent months due to competing demands on my time. Most of these distractions are good, like watching over my wonderful brood of grandchildren. Another special pleasure has been working on a chapter for a book that will probably be published in a year or so. It deals with Theology and Star Trek.

I’ve been a fan of Star Trek ever since I watched the first episode that aired, back on September 8, 1966. Thus, it’s no surprise that my enthusiasm has seeped into Mere Inkling.

Earlier this year I posted a piece related to Star Trek, in which I censured a human version of the Klingon practice of eating animals while they are still alive. And five years ago, I wrote about “Humanity’s Interstellar Exodus” and referred to Star Trek’s utopian view of the universe.

I have always enjoyed science fiction. It was, in fact, via C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy that I was introduced to the great writer. Lewis wrote in so many diverse genres. There are many paths that can motivate readers to explore his writings further, ultimately being invited to consider issues of faith and eternity.

That’s one reason I celebrate the fact that Netflix (admittedly a company without altruistic motivation) is going to be filming new productions set in Narnia.

According to the deal between Netflix and The C.S. Lewis Company, the streaming service will develop stories from the Narnia universe into series and films that the producers hope will cross mediums, similar to what the Star Trek and Marvel franchises have done with their successful properties.

Back to Mars

In the mid-fifties of the last century, Robert S. Richardson broached the question of what life would be like for the first humans to live on Mars. There are several flaws in Richardson’s presuppositions. The first is his gender-bias, which postulates “a station of several hundred young unmarried men.”

In addition, although the challenges of travel move some theorists to view the residents as quasi-permanent colonists, Richardson’s proposal is based on an estimate that “puts the round trip at nearly three years [which] includes a stay on Mars of 449 days.” He does note that due to the cost, “a man who volunteers for Mars must do so with the expectation of remaining a minimum of, say, five years on the planet.”

At the end of the article he raises his concern for the sexual needs of “normal, healthy young men.” His solution is to consider jettisoning the “moral attitudes” of his day. “To put it bluntly, may it not be necessary for the success of the project to send some nice girls to Mars at regular intervals to relieve tensions and promote morale?”

In order to address “the greatest threat to the success of the interplanetary project [which is] the gnawing absence of the opposite sex,” he argues:

Is it not conceivable that in an entirely alien environment survival will produce among other things a sexual culture—shocking on Earth—which would be entirely “moral” judged by extraterrestrial standards?

Ironically, the erosion of moral standards in the Western world appear to make his argument rather moot. Nonetheless, the essential argument elicited a creative response from C.S. Lewis. Richardson’s article had appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and it was to that same pulp journal that Lewis responded.

Lewis’ article was chosen for republication in the 1959 anthology The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction, where it was introduced as “perceptive, human, and warmly comic. It is dated, of course, but well worth a read. And, it specifically addresses the issues raised by Richardson.

The arrival of two women at the Mars base is unexpected. But the powers that be on Earth decided that the men must be in need of Aphrodisio-Therapy, and sent two volunteers. One was rather elderly and morbidly obese. The other was a shrill psychology professor from a “modern” university.

The following scene features a conversation between the Captain (Mars base commander) and the presumably Scottish commander of the ship upon which the women arrived. It begins with the Captain being stunned that the two candidates presented for the novel role were quite ill-suited to it.

The Captain seemed at first wholly occupied with its comic side. ‘Still,’ he said at last, ‘it has its serious side too. The impertinence of it, for one thing! Do they think—

‘Ye maun recall,’ said Ferguson, ‘they’re dealing with an absolutely new situation.’

‘Oh, new be damned! How does it differ from men on whalers, or even on windjammers in the old days? Or on the North West Frontier? It’s about as new as people being hungry when food was short.’

‘Eh mon, but ye’re forgettin’ the new light of modern psychology.’

‘I think those two ghastly women have already learned some newer psychology since they arrived. Do they really suppose every man in the world is so combustible that he’ll jump into the arms of any woman whatever?’

‘Aye, they do. They’ll be sayin’ you and your party are verra abnormal. I wadna put it past them to be sending you out wee packets of hormones next.’

‘Well, if it comes to that, do they suppose men would volunteer for a job like this unless they could, or thought they could, or wanted to try if they could, do without women?’

‘Then there’s the new ethics, forbye.’

‘Oh stow it, you old rascal. What is new there either? Who ever tried to live clean except a minority who had a religion or were in love? They’ll try it still on Mars, as they did on Earth. As for the majority, did they ever hesitate to take their pleasures wherever they could get them? The ladies of the profession know better. Did you ever see a port or a garrison town without plenty of brothels? Who are the idiots on the Advisory Council who started all this nonsense?’

C.S. Lewis’ insights into human nature are far more accurate than those of our previous writer, who assumes morality is so arbitrary that it can be modified according to location. “The minority,” as Lewis rightly points out through the voice of his protagonist, will seek to live according to high moral standards . . . whether they reside in Montreal, Mumbai, on Mars or in the Delta Quadrant of the Milky Way Galaxy.

Read More about Aphrodisio-Therapy

Both of the works discussed above are available online. Read the essay and story in full at the Internet Archives.

“The Day After We Land on Mars”

“Ministering Angels”

Did you know there is a crater on Mars named Malacandra, in honor of C.S. Lewis?

C.S. Lewis & Scrabble

On February 12, 2019 By robstroudIn C.S. Lewis, Christian Life, Family, Marriage, Words15 Comments

scrabble

It’s not uncommon for people who love words to also enjoy the game Scrabble.

The word game, born in 1933, is quite popular. In fact, the Hasbro company claims “today the SCRABBLE game is found in three of every five American homes.”

The game made enough of an impact in New York City, that the neighborhood where it was conceived is adorned with the distinctive Scrabblesque street sign shown above.

C.S. Lewis was also a fan of the game. He and his wife Joy played the game regularly. But they modified the rules, to allow for their particular intellects. Doug Gresham, their son, describes this in The Magic Never Ends: The Life and Works of C.S. Lewis.

They played word games with each other. They had their own rather unique rules for Scrabble. They would take one board and both sets of letters from two Scrabble sets. And then they would proceed to play Scrabble, allowing all known languages, whether factual or fictional, and they would fill the whole board with words.

Jack, Joy & Their Love of Words

The third volume of The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis includes two references to the way Scrabble became a familiar feature of their married life. In the first, written in July of 1957, he describes the situation at the beginning of Joy’s remission.

It is fascinating in several ways. It describes Lewis’ own declining health and the manner in which God had used it to be a blessing in their relationship. The shock, however, comes in Lewis’ confession about who was the Scrabble champion at The Kilns.

Joy is now home, home from hospital, completely bed-ridden. The cancer is ‘arrested,’ which means, I fear, hardly any hope for the long term issue, but for the moment, apparently perfect health, no pain, eating & sleeping like a child, spirits usually excellent, able to beat me always at Scrabble and sometimes in argument.

She runs the whole house from her bed and keeps a pack of men not only loving her but (what’s rarer) one another.

We are crazily in love.

My back turns out to be not slipped disc but osteoporosis–a spongy condition of the bones that is common in men of 75 but almost unknown at my age (58). After full investigation by a great Professor of Pathology the cause remains quite obscure. It has passed the stage of spasms and screams (each was rather like having a tooth out with no anaesthetic and you never knew when they were coming!), but I still ache a good deal and need sleeping draughts.

Can you realise the good side? Poor Joy, after being the sole object of pity & anxiety can now perform the truly wifely function of fussing over me–I’m in pain and sit it out–and of course the psychological effect is extremely good. It banishes all that wearisome sense of being no use. You see, I’m very willing to have osteoporosis at this price.

The fact that Jack and Joy were truly “crazily in love,” made the brevity of their life together all the more poignant and precious. In July of 1960, Lewis wrote to inform a friend of Joy’s passing.

Dear Mrs Gebbert, Alas, you will never send anything ‘for the three of us’ again, for my dear Joy is dead. Until within ten days of the end we hoped, although noticing her increasing weakness, that she was going to hold her own, but it was not to be.

Last week she had been complaining of muscular pains in her shoulders, but by Monday 11th seemed much better, and on Tuesday, though keeping her bed, said she felt a great improvement; on that day she was in good spirits, did her ‘crossword puzzle’ with me, and in the evening played a game of Scrabble.

At quarter past six on Wednesday morning, the 13th, my brother, who slept over her, was wakened by her screaming and ran down to her. I got the doctor, who fortunately was at home, and he arrived before seven and gave her a heavy shot.

At half past one I took her into hospital in an ambulance. She was conscious for the short remainder of her life, and in very little pain, thanks to drugs; and died peacefully in my company about 10.15 the same night.

I could not wish that she had lived, for the cancer had attacked the spine, which might have meant several days of suffering, and that she was mercifully spared.

You will understand that I have no heart to write more, but I hope when next I send a letter it will be a less depressing one.

This letter suggests that Joy’s final evening in this world was a happy one. It was filled with warm and family domesticity. Under the circumstances, who could hope for more. As Lewis writes, it would only be for our own selfishness that we would wish to prolong the suffering of those we love.

I would be curious to learn whether Lewis ever again played Scrabble during those final few years of his own life. I suspect that it would have been too painful. Best to recall the game in light of the affectionate competition the two of them shared.

Offering Comfort Like C.S. Lewis

On June 28, 2017 By robstroudIn Animals, C.S. Lewis, Christian Life, Christianity, Counseling, Ministry, Narnia13 Comments

comfort bunny

Some people flee from those who are depressed. Others feel compelled to do their best to lift their spirits. Did you react the same way as C.S. Lewis to the suffering of others?

Recently I’ve had the privilege of sharing the anguish of several people who see no solution to their personal challenges. In truth, even though I sincerely believe “with God, all things are possible,” it is likely that these particular dilemmas will trouble these people the remainder of their lives.

Some people are “fixers,” or problem-solvers. They want to step in, quickly resolve the difficulty, and return to their normal routine as soon as possible. When faced with an intransigent challenge, they typically get called away by other matters, or they fade into the background.

There is a sort of spectrum when it comes to offering comfort to people. At one end, we have the people who offer insincere clichés like “I’m so sorry.” These remarks are often an automatic response and the only thing the speaker is “sorry” about is having their time “wasted” by the litany of another’s suffering.

Better than these liars, are the pretenders. They actually do feel sorry for the person when they say so. Only, they’re not sorry enough to actually devote another moment’s thought to their pain. They are hypocrites, because if they really understood what the word sorrow means, they would understand that it doesn’t evaporate into the mists six mere heartbeats after it is experienced.

Most people fall further along the spectrum, where we might place sympathy and empathy. Although the words are frequently used interchangeably, this site offers a concise definition of their differences.

In essence, when we are empathetic, we identify more intimately with the sufferer. It seems to me that empathy, often viewed as a sort of super-sympathy, is not necessarily the mark of a better sympathizer. Sometimes it corresponds to our own life experiences. For example, while my mother was still living I could readily sympathize with those who had lost their own. After my mom’s untimely death, I found myself naturally, and sometimes intensely, empathizing with their grief.

Genuine sympathy is a precious commodity. But it must grant higher honor to that form of consolation that puts our emotional concern into actual action. The specific actions are less important than the fact that we have physically placed the needs of the other ahead of our own. They might consist of attending to someone’s responsibilities while they are incapacitated, or simply holding a hand for long hours in a silent bedside vigil. The form matters little; the essence of the gift is everything. It is nothing less than love in action.

Lewis’ Compassionate Heart

Lewis constantly offered consolation to those with whom he corresponded. Our last post included an excellent example of this. What made his brief expressions of concern so powerful was not their eloquence. It was their sincerity. As we read the words we have no doubt that Lewis meant them. What’s more, when he said that he was praying for someone, he truly was.

Lewis also incorporated moving scenes of compassionate empathy in his fiction. Read how Steven Garber described the comfort he has received from the Chronicles of Narnia.

“A children’s story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children’s story. The good ones last,” Lewis once wrote. Over the years, in the moments when life seems bleakest, when I can only sigh or groan, I have come back again and again to The Magician’s Nephew. . . .

Lewis gives us an image that is profoundly rich and wonderfully tender. We need both. The tears of God are complex. They must be tears of sympathy, even empathy, as Aslan weeps for Digory’s mother and as Jesus weeps with his friends at the death of their brother.

But sometimes they are also tears of anger at the unnaturalness of death, at the distortion of death, at the skewing of human hopes, as Jesus “groaned severely in his spirit” at the death of Lazarus. (Visions of Vocation)

One of the clearest examples of consolation offered by Lewis is found in his provision for Mrs. Moore, the mother of a WWI friend. The story is complex, but it is based upon Lewis keeping a promise—that if one of them died in the trenches, the other would care for that soldier’s parent.

Lesser men would have conveniently forgotten their vow, but Lewis provided for her from 1917 until her death in 1951. Their relation during the early years is uncertain, but there is no doubt that after his conversion to Christianity, it was chaste. Lewis was dutiful, like a true son, in caring for a woman more than twenty-five years his senior, whose own daughter acknowledged was emotionally abusive towards Lewis.

Professor Alice von Hildebrand offers a candid essay on this sensitive subject here. She includes the following quotation from the diary of Lewis’ brother, Warnie, who was a member of the same household.

One of Jack’s friends is supposed to have said, “Cursed be the day that thou fell into the hands of the Moore.” Warren gave vent to his frustration and constant irritation by confiding in his diary. He writes:

“It fills me with both admiration and irritation to see how completely the whole of J’s [Jack, the name by which Lewis’ friends addressed him] life is subordinated to hers—financially, socially, recreationally: the pity of it is that on his selflessness her selfishness fattens . . .”

True Compassion

An essay on this subject could easily grow into a book. To avoid that, I will restrain myself to one final point.

Only a master of language, and an astute student of humanity, recognizes the immense power, and the fragile limitation, of words. Ironically, it is when they are most important—such as in the offering of comfort to someone bereaved—that their shortcomings are most clear.

In the wake of the unbearable loss of his wife, Joy, Lewis wrote A Grief Observed. In this enlightening text, he points out the hollowness of mere words.

Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand.

This is something few people recognize before they are the recipients of word-oriented attempts at comfort. That’s why we stumble about saying things that frequently provide precious little true consolation.

Lewis had learned that abstract theological declarations—even those based on certain promises of God—do little to remove the deep sting of death. Far more effective, is sharing the crippling pain of the loss. To offer, as Jesus did to the sisters of Lazarus, one’s own tears.

If you are interested in reading more about this subject, you might want to check out one of my earlier posts on the nature of genuine consolation.

_____

The illustration above comes from a thirteenth century manuscript. I have included it here, because the effort of the rabbit seeking to console the forlorn bird seems quite Narnianesque. It echoes the essence of Lewis’ childhood world of Boxen as well, and I imagine that C.S. Lewis would have enjoyed this marginalia on its own merit.

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