Tag: Weather

C.S. Lewis & Summertime

On By robstroudIn C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Likely Useless Trivia, Middle Earth, Modern Life, Nature4 Comments

What’s your favorite season of the year? My preference is Autumn, with Spring a close second.

In the United States, Spring comes out on top. Actually, it is the preference in forty (80%) of the states. Probably due to its northern latitude, “the most popular season in the Northeast is Summer.” Unsurprisingly, Winter is the least favorite across the board, although a few hardy souls disagree. “Alaska and Vermont are the only two states that say winter is the most wonderful time of the year.”

Some years ago, Gallup published the result of polls on the subject, which are also analyzed by the ages of respondents.

Americans aged 18 to 29 are the group least likely to prefer spring (24%), while those 65 and older are most likely to prefer it (53%). Younger Americans are much more likely to prefer summer than are those in older age groups, and, in fact, summer is the top choice among this age group. [Editor: I wonder if that has anything to do with the traditional academic calendar?]

Everyone is aware of how the seasons (through length of daylight, etc.) affect our moods. In a 1914 letter to his father in Ireland, C.S. Lewis offers a curious description of the “magnificent summer” he was enjoying in England.

My mental picture of home is disturbed to a certain extent by your mention of a fire. Here, we are in the middle of a magnificent summer: day succeeds day with the same cloudless sky and parched earth, and the nights are hot and comfortless. But on the whole, fine weather is agreeable, and has, I think, a certain effect on the spirits.

At the end of September, he wrote again about the extended summer he was experiencing. It doesn’t sound like the opinion of someone whose seasonal preference was summer. “I suppose the winter has closed in at home by this time: but we are still having quite summer weather here – which I rather resent.” Sometimes, it seems, seasons do overstay their welcome.

The following year, C.S. Lewis again lamented summer’s length. In mid-November he complained to his father.

The weather here is a perfect joke, warmer than July, bright sunshine and gentle breezes. Personally I have had quite enough summer, and should not be sorry to bid it goodbye, though Kirk persistently denounces this as a most unnatural state of mind.

A year later, in 1916, Lewis’ distaste for excessive heat is seen in an October letter to his friend Arthur Greeves. One reason for this was C.S. Lewis’ passion for hiking through the countryside.

The beastly summer is at last over here, and good old Autumn colours & smells and temperatures have come back. Thanks to this we had a most glorious walk on Saturday: it was a fine cool, windy day & we set out after lunch . . .

In a poem entitled “The Day with a White Mark,” Lewis opens with vivid imagery and the notion that mood is normally related to environment and circumstances.

All day I have been tossed and whirled in a preposterous happiness:
Was it an elf in the blood? or a bird in the brain? or even part
Of the cloudily crested, fifty-league-long, loud uplifted wave
Of a journeying angel’s transit roaring over and through my heart?
My garden’s spoiled, my holidays are cancelled, the omens harden;
The plann’d and unplann’d miseries deepen; the knots draw tight.
Reason kept telling me all day my mood was out of season.
It was, too. In the dark ahead the breakers only are white.

One website offers generalized thoughts about “what your favorite season” reveals about you. For example, it says of those who share my preference:

“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns,” George Eliot (aka Mary Ann Evans) once wrote of her affection for the fall season.

While parts of the world tend to think of spring as the season of renewal, fall is also a very good time for a fresh start. The vibrant orange colors and cooler weather of autumn appeal to your constant desire for change. The upcoming holidays inspire many to reflect back on the year that was and make plans for the year to come.

A study in England went so far as to link birth months to the frequencies of several psychiatric conditions. If it is correct, your likelihood of suffering from recurrent depressive disorder, bipolar affective disorder and even schizophrenia varies according to your birth month.

Summer does provide a welcome time for vacations and events that would be difficult to wedge into the “busier” seasons of the year. For example, it’s not too late to register for the 2022 C.S. Lewis Summer Institute. The theme is “Surprised by Love: Cultivating Intellectual Hospitality in an Age of Uncertainty.” It is slated for 28 July – 5 August 5, 2022 in Oxford.

C.S. Lewis’ Favorite Season

Last year, the United Kingdom’s National Trust* conducted a poll which determined summer (30%) as the favorite season for Brits. Curiously, for young adults, summer tied with the second overall favorite, autumn.

After autumn colour, Britons’ favourite things about the [autumn] season are spending time in nature – running, walking or cycling (13 per cent) and the weather – cold crisp days, Indian summer, or stormy days (12 per cent).

So what exactly was C.S. Lewis’ favorite season. At the end of his life he wrote the following. As he so often did, he used a familiar subject to make a profound comment about life.

Yes, autumn is really the best of the seasons; and I’m not sure that old age isn’t the best part of life. But of course, like autumn, it doesn’t last.

But then, isn’t it the flow of the seasons that makes each so welcome in turn? Charles Dickens offered just such an observation in a quote which offers a fitting end to our reflections today.

Nature gives to every time and season unique beauty; from morning to night, as  from the cradle to the grave, it’s just a succession of changes so soft and comfortable that we hardly notice the progress.

* The National Trust helps conserve sites of historic and natural significance in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Scotland has its own National Trust for Scotland, devoted to the same purposes.

Lewis’ good friend J.R.R. Tolkien also enjoyed autumn. In a post several years ago I shared a portion of a letter to his son where he says, “I have the autumn wanderlust upon me, and would fain be off with a knapsack on my back and no particular destination . . .” Sounds like something someone in Middle Earth might say – although, certainly not a hobbit!

British Weather

On By robstroudIn C.S. Lewis, Great Authors13 Comments

euro weatherWinter arrived early. The current “arctic outbreak” has brought subzero temperatures to Canada and the United States. It proves once again that the demarcation of seasons is capricious.

“Meteorological winter” reckoning makes much more sense than relying on a solstice, which actually occurs in the midst of the season.

Prior to the arrival of this polar cold front, the shortening of the days had been the only sign of winter’s approach where we live. Our summer in Puget Sound was wonderful, and lasted long into the fall.

Although the United States Air Force preferred to assign me to hot climates, I’m really a temperate (climate) person. I enjoy seeing four separate seasons, and seek the unique joys that arrive with each of them.

I don’t enjoy any of them in excess. The record-setting snowfalls we survived during several years in Minnesota were a bit much. The relentless heat of the Mojave Desert was even worse.

We did enjoy the weather of England, when we spent three wonderful years there. I guess it takes a true Washingtonian to say they genuinely enjoyed the weather in Britain—but we did.

C.S. Lewis recognized the perceived shortcomings of England’s weather. In the eyes of many, of course, the rain that keeps everything lush and green is considered a dreary imposition on their activities. In 1950 he wrote the following to one of his American correspondents.

Here we are enjoying the dubious delights of early English spring, and I often wonder what visiting Americans make of it: for they are already arriving in surprisingly large numbers considering the time of year. I can only suppose that they all come from Northern Alaska, and find our climate a nice change! If you have any friends who think of coming over, tell them that the English summer generally falls in the third week in June.

This delightful paragraph brings to mind the apocryphal Mark Twain comment that, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”

The great thing about the pseudo-Twain quote is its versatility. It is easily edited for any locale.

One last thought about winter. We Northern Hemisphereans reveal our hemisphere-centric prejudices when we fail to realize that these colder months don’t represent winter to half of the globe.

And I suspect the folks who live on that side of the world are not subject to “Antarctic outbreaks” of polar cold, due to the oceans . . . but that’s a question to research on another day.

Savoring the Weather

On By robstroudIn C.S. Lewis & the Inklings3 Comments

We awoke this morning to our first true snowfall of the year. Pretty late in winter for it to arrive, and we’ve been longing for a blanket of snow for some time. Getting a call last night about a “weather cancellation” for my wife’s classes was an added joy.

It’s utterly beautiful!

I realize, of course, there are numerous ramifications to changes in weather. The extremes (e.g. from downpours to droughts) can create hardships and hazards. But, when we have an opportunity to simply pause and savor the essence of the changing seasons, it is healing and awe-inspiring.

C.S. Lewis loved the outdoors. And, in a 1931 letter to Arthur Greeves he wrote, “That is a thing you and I have to be thankful for—the fact that we not only don’t dislike but positively enjoy almost every kind of weather.”

If you have a copy of his letters, you really should look up the December 6th correspondence. Lewis describes the wonders of several successive days of dense fog that “was enough to tax even my powers of doing without the sun . . .” He adds, “in the end I felt that it was a cheap price to pay for its beauties.”

So, today I’m doubly blessed. Not only am I enjoying the snow; I’ve learned I have one more thing in common with the great Oxford Don.