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it. I suspect it is a principle with them. ‘Do not let your Authors act as volunteer Readers.’ It is even possible that such volunteered recommendations do harm. I do sympathise deeply with you.

      And there’s no sign yet of the present dark dynasty weakening. Not that the modern kind of poet is read except by a coterie: but he somehow keeps the rest of you out. With much regret & affection.

      Yours always

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO ROGER LANCELYN GREEN (BOD): TS

      REF.162/53.

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. 3rd March 1953.

      Dear Roger,

Alas, I shall be at Malvern in Easter week. Did you know that slithy was a word long before Lewis Carroll?⁶³ I found it in Bunyan:⁶⁴ but see N.E.D.⁶⁵

      Love to both of you.

      Yours,

      Jack

      

       TO MARY WILLIS SHELBURNE (W):

      Magdalen College

      Oxford 4/iii/53

      Dear Mrs. Shelburne

Thank you for your letter of Feb. 26 wh. arrived today. I think the poem succeeds and has both the lightness and massiveness you wanted. I’m not quite sure about his in 1. 7. It gives the effect of being put in only to fill the line. In so far as you pass from God simply to ‘our God’ I think you’re weakening the very effect you want at that moment. But I don’t know how to mend it: diagnosis is often easier than cure. ‘Majestic shapes more formidably fair’ is a most august line. (Old Solar grammar a bit weak. Eldila is the true plural: but you can Anglicise it as eldils?)⁶⁶

I am delighted that yr. lecturer approved my angels. I was v. definitely trying to smash the 19th century female angel. I believe no angel ever appears in Scripture without exciting terror: they always have to begin by saying ‘Fear not’.⁶⁷ On the other hand the Risen Lord excites terror only when mistaken for a ghost, i.e. when not recognised as risen. For we are in one most blessed sense nearer to Him than to them: partly of course because He has deigned to share our humanity, but partly, I take it, because every creature is nearer to its creator than it can be to superior creatures. By the way, none of my Eldila wd. be anything like so high up the scale as Cherubim & Seraphim. Those orders are engaged wholly in contemplation, not with the ruling the lower creatures. Even the Annunciation was done by–if I may so put it!-a ‘mere archangel’. Did your lecturer point out my heavy debt to Ezekiel?⁶⁸

      Of course I knew you weren’t asking for a copy of a ‘First’: but I wanted to explain why I was not offering one–quite a different matter!

      I also am having a kind of flu’ that seems never to get beyond early convalescence, tho’ nothing like so acute as yours. For that, and also else, deepest sympathy. Let us continue to pray for each other.

      Yours most sincerely

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO GEOFFREY BLES (BOD): TS

      REF.28/53.

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. 4th March 1953.

      My dear Bles,

      This is awkward. I am struggling along at present with sinusitis and the kind of ‘walking’ ‘flu by dint of getting up late and going to bed early and doing as little as I possibly can.

A day in London, even tho’ soothed by your Apician**⁶⁹hospitality, would knock me up. How long can you afford to wait without serious inconvenience? Or would it be safe to send them by registered post. Sorry to be a nuisance, but I’m the ghost of a man at present. And thanks, and love to both,

      yours,

      C. S. Lewis

      

TO W. K. SCUDAMORE (W): ⁷⁰

      Magdalen College

      Oxford lO/iii/53

Dear Mr. Gardamole⁷¹

      Thank you for your most interesting letter. Your explanation produced–I was going to say ‘complete conviction’, but as you rightly say, one can never be certain that any interpretation of an image in C.W. is complete. But I shall be v. surprised if the Druidical sacrifice is not the master key. I now think I was rather stupid not to have seen it before. My copy of Taliessin is out of the house and I am in College to the end of the week, so I can’t look up any of the passages, and therefore can’t help about the worshipped Duke. Could it be Aeneas? With many thanks.

      Yours sincerely

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO W. K. SCUDAMORE (W):

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. 13/iii/53

There are few names I wd. so regret having mangled!⁷² But when a man rides (or writes) with his beaver down-! C.S.L.

On 16 March Warnie wrote to Arthur Greeves: ⁷³

      Magdalen College, Oxford. 16th March 1953.

      My dear Arthur,

       What between sinus and examinations, poor Jack is sunk fathoms deep this morning. However, we talked over your letter of the 11th last night, and he has asked me to ask you whether Saturday 29th August to Saturday 12th September would suit you for the jaunt: to which he is very eagerly looking forward. These dates are tentative, so if you don’t like them, please say so. But let us know as soon as possible, as it is part of a ‘master plan and we have all kinds of other things to make fit in with it.

Incidentally, if the dates suit, I hope to be with J. at Craw-fordsburn for a few days before you and he set out, and am looking forward to more than one meeting with you. I daresay amongst other things, we may be having a supper with our Jane,⁷⁴ and a drive home across the Holywood hills.

       Love to Lily, Janie, and any others of my old friends you meet; and kindest regards to those good Samaritans, your neighbours and relations, who gave us drinks that Sunday morning.

       Can you forsee any end to this winter?

      Yours ever,

       Warren

       TO GEOFFREY BLES (BOD):

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford.

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