The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings (95 page)

“veridical” might have expressed his meaning: Lewis’s reply to Anscombe, from the Socratic Club minutes,
The Socratic Digest
4 (1948): 15, reprinted in Lewis,
God in the Dock
, 146.

“in general it appeared”: Socratic Club minutes,
The Socratic Digest
4 (1948): 15, reprinted in Lewis,
God in the Dock
, 145–46.

“the fact that Lewis rewrote”: G.E.M. Anscombe, preface,
Collected Philosophical Papers
, vol. 2, x.

notable defenders: Alvin Plantinga, “Is Naturalism Irrational?” chap. 12 of
Warrant and Proper Function
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 216–37. For a sustained defense, see Victor Reppert,
C. S. Lewis’s Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason
(Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2003); for a critique, see Peter van Inwagen, “C. S. Lewis’ Argument Against Naturalism,”
The Journal of Inklings Studies
1, no. 2 (October 2011): 25–40.

“The rightful demand”: Lewis,
Miracles
, 97.

363–64
“with real horror … had lost everything”: Derek Brewer, “The Tutor: A Portrait,” in Como,
C. S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table
, 59. Brewer also notes that five of those present when Lewis described Anscombe’s critique “had been infantry officers at the age of nineteen and had seen action”—which is, as he notes, “a curious commentary on English scholarly life in the twentieth century,” but may also help to account for why such language of defeat under siege would come naturally to Lewis.

“My own recollection”: G.E.M. Anscombe, preface,
Collected Philosophical Papers
, vol. 2, x.

“The lady is quite right”: Lewis,
Collected Letters
, vol. 3, 35.

“the subtlest of all the snares”: Lewis,
Great Divorce
, 74.

“nothing is more dangerous … from Christian apologetics”: Lewis, “Christian Apologetics,”
God in the Dock
, 103.

“like the old fangless snake”: Lewis,
Collected Letters
, vol. 3, 129.

“My thought and talent”: Ibid., 651.

“It’s fun”: Ibid., 314.

“I must tell you”: David Cecil quoted in Don W. King,
Hunting the Unicorn: A Critical Biography of Ruth Pitter
(Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2008), 82.

“closely-worked, carved”: L. P. Hartley, “Poet of Many Moods,” quoted in
Ruth Pitter: Homage to a Poet
, with an introduction by David Cecil, ed. Arthur Russell, (Chester Springs, Penn.: Dufour Editions, 1969), 66.

“a poet of the full singing voice”: John Wain, “Poet of Living Form,” in Russell,
Ruth Pitter
, 122.

“deeply struck”: David Cecil, letter to Ruth Pitter, quoted in King,
Hunting the Unicorn
, 103.

“excited me more”: Ruth Pitter, letter to David Cecil, July 13, 1942, in King,
Letters of Ruth Pitter
, 98.

“There were air raids at night”: BBC interview with Stephen Black, June 24, 1955, quoted in King,
Hunting the Unicorn
, 118.

“driven to it”: Palmer Papers, National Library of Australia, MS 1174. Quoted in Don W. King, “The Anatomy of a Friendship: The Correspondence of Ruth Pitter and C. S. Lewis, 1946–1962,”
Mythlore
24, no. 1 (Summer 2003), 2.

“My visit to you”: Ruth Pitter, letter to C. S. Lewis, July 17, 1946, in King,
The Letters of Ruth Pitter
, 128.

“I was prepared for the more definitely mystical”: Lewis,
Collected Letters
, vol. 2, 720.

“I know (or think)”: Ibid., 724.

“greatly relieved … I often lust”: Ibid., 735.

“The important thing”: Ibid., 735.

“kindness and liking”: Ibid., 881.

“Did he ever”: Ruth Pitter, quoted in ibid., 882.

“in place, nationality, language”: C. S. Lewis and Dom Giovanni Calabria,
The Latin Letters of C. S. Lewis
, trans. and ed. Martin Moynihan (South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 1998), 83.

“a problem of the greatest importance … those things which still, by God’s grace”: Ibid., 29–33.

“never in the least”: Ibid., 69.

“I actually wept”: Tolkien, interview with Denys Gueroult in the BBC Oxford studio on January 20, 1965, broadcast in edited form on December 16, 1970, on the BBC Radio 4 program
Now Read On
.

“happy to announce”: Tolkien,
Letters
, 116.

“this university business,” Ibid., 131.

“to complete a number … which are said to be poisoning”: Scull and Hammond,
J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Chronology
, 345.

“curious shabby, happy-go-lucky”: Ibid., 432.

“
Uton herian holbytlas
 … I congratulate you”: Lewis,
Collected Letters
, vol. 2, 990–91.

“was apparently not bored”: Tolkien,
Letters
, 39.

“stoutly and with apparent sincerity”: Canon Norman Power, “Recollections,”
The J.R.R. Tolkien Centenary Conference 1992
[souvenir guide] (Oxford: Tolkien Society and Mythopoeic Society, 1992), 9–10. The leprechaun shoe incident is also described, with quotations drawn from an account by Power published in
Amon Hen
28 (August 1977), in Scull and Hammond,
J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide:
Chronology
, 789–90.

“beyond even the expectations”: Tolkien,
Letters
, 133.

“Dined with J at College”: W. H. Lewis,
Brothers and Friends
, 230.

the idiosyncratic appeal: M. M. Mahood, review of
Arthurian Torso
in
Modern Language Review
45, no. 2 (April 1950): 238–39.

“will … discredit the memory”: John E. Housman, review of
Arthurian Torso
in
The Review of English Studies
, New Series, 1, no. 1 (January 1950): 84–85.

“be only the starting point”: Lewis,
Collected Letters
, vol. 2, 886.

“among the two or three most valuable”: Lewis, preface,
Essays Presented to Charles Williams,
vii.

“I know no more pleasant sound”: Tolkien,
Letters
, 129.

shocked by the resurgent Christianity: See Haffenden,
William Empson: Against the Christians
.

“I’ve read your poem … I have been glad to see”: Letter, T. S. Eliot to Owen Barfield, June 1, 1948, Barfield Archives, Bodleian Special Collections, Dep. c. 1055, #7.

“mark an advance in self criticism … a Copernican revolution”: Lewis,
Collected Letters
, vol. 2, 889.

“has caused me more shame … Did I ever mention”: Ibid., 929.

“I was under very heavy pressure … staved off”: Owen Barfield, in
Owen Barfield: Man and Meaning
,
Transcript of the Award-winning Documentary Video,
ed. G. B. Tennyson (Encino, Calif.: OwenArts, 1995), 9.

“I must now write … a complex of responsibilities”: Owen Barfield,
This Ever Diverse Pair
(London: Victor Gollanz, 1950; Edinburgh: Floris Classics, 1985), 13–15.

“a rather extraordinary sort of chap … a period of intellectual intercourse”: Ibid., 60–61.

“just writes to his publisher”: Ibid., 63.

“like Alice”: Ibid., 52.

“The moment of pain”: Ibid., 54.

“I’m going to kill you”: Ibid., 112.

“the very profession itself … we Burgeons need always remain
sleeping
partners”: Ibid., 114–15.

“enchanted … most anxious to meet the author”: Barfield Archives, Bodleian Special Collections, Dep. c. 1055.

“I am humbled”: Lewis,
Collected Letters
, vol. 2, 945.

“I have two lists of names”: Ibid., 948.

“your prose works are”: Letter, Ruth Pitter to Owen Barfield, October 11, 1949, in Barfield Archives, Bodleian Special Collections, Dep. c. 1055.

“a high and sharp philosophic comedy”: C. S. Lewis, “Life’s Partners,”
Time and Tide
31 (March 25, 1950): 286.

“the impression”: Barfield, introduction to Gibb,
Light on C. S. Lewis
, xiv.

“
voulu
”: Ibid., xi.

“a certain ill-concealed glee”: Alan Watts,
Behold the Spirit: A Study in the Necessity of Mystical Religion
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1947; new ed., 1971), 186.

“became something like an obsession …
laudator temporis acti
[praiser of times past]”: Barfield,
Owen Barfield on C. S. Lewis
, 18–23.

“on the wrong track altogether … a common bit”: Ibid., 20.

“it is a particularly unfavorable season … fine though the poem is”: George Rostrevor Hamilton, unpublished letter, April 16, 1950, Barfield Archives, Bodleian Special Collections, Dep. c. 1055.

16. “MAKING UP IS A VERY MYSTERIOUS THING”

“My house is unquiet”: Lewis, letter to Father Calabria, in Lewis and Calabria,
Latin Letters of C. S. Lewis
, 51.

“stifling tyranny … Every day”: Warren Lewis, “Memoir of C. S. Lewis,” 21–22.

“How long, oh Lord … spirits-insomnia-drugs”: W. H. Lewis,
Brothers and Friends
, 225.

“found the line ‘dead’ … a serious illness”: Ibid., 226.

“out of control”: Lewis,
Collected Letters
, vol. 2, 953.

“as long as [Warnie] is a dipsomaniac”: Ibid., 957.

“wh. is not really a paradox”: Ibid., 951.

“a man writing a story”: C. S. Lewis, “It All Began with a Picture…,”
On Stories
, 53.

“Don’t the ordinary”: Lewis,
Collected Letters
, vol. 2, 802.

“This book is about four children”: Quoted in Green and Hooper,
C. S. Lewis: A Biography
, 303.

“I have tried one”: Lewis,
Collected Letters
, vol. 2, 802.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: A Story for Children
(London: Geoffrey Bles, 1950). In later editions, the subtitle was dropped.

an Umbrian town: Green and Hooper,
C. S. Lewis: A Biography
, 306. Paul Ford notes several references to Narnia in Livy, Tacitus, Pliny the Elder, and Pliny the Younger; all sources Lewis might have encountered; Paul F. Ford,
Companion to Narnia
, rev. and exp. ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), 316–17.

“a Faun carrying an umbrella … I don’t know”: Lewis, “It All Began with a Picture…,” 54.

the American poet and literary scholar Chad Walsh … “in the tradition of E. Nesbit”: Chad Walsh,
The Literary Legacy of C. S. Lewis
(New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979), 129;
Chad Walsh Reviews C. S. Lewis
(Altadena, Calif.: Mythopoeic Press, 1998), 16; and Chad Walsh,
C. S. Lewis: Apostle to the Skeptics
(New York: Macmillan, 1949), 9–10.

“very good indeed”: Green and Hooper,
C. S. Lewis: A Biography
, 307.

Nymphs and Their Ways
was the title of one of the books in the Faun’s cottage. Green and Hooper,
C. S. Lewis: A Biography
, 307.

literary malpractice: See extract from a 1955 letter of Tolkien’s to Hugh Brogan, in Tolkien,
Letters
, 224.

“The Aunt and Amabel”: Douglas A. Anderson has included this Nesbit story in his collection,
Tales Before Narnia: The Roots of Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction
(New York: Del Rey, 2008), 7–15.

“I don’t know where the Lion came from”: Lewis, “It All Began with a Picture…,” 53.

“in a very large … met all these knights and ladies”: C. S. Lewis,
Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 148.

“Logic!”: C. S. Lewis,
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
(New York: Harper Trophy, 2002), 52.

“son of the great … deeper magic”: Ibid., 86, 171.

“‘Myself,’ said the voice”: C. S. Lewis,
The Horse and His Boy
(New York: Harper Trophy, 1954), 176.

“supposal”: Letter to James E. Higgins, December 2, 1962; published by Higgins as “A Letter from C. S. Lewis,”
The Horn Book
42 (October 1966): 533–34.

“If I spoke to him”: C. S. Lewis,
The Magician’s Nephew
(New York: Harper Trophy, 1983), 203.

“I thought I saw how stories”: “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s to Be Said,”
The New York Times Book Review
, November 18, 1956. Reprinted in Lewis,
On Stories
, 47.

“which goes on forever”: C. S. Lewis,
The Last Battle
(New York: Harper Trophy, 1994), 228.

“Where sky and water meet”: C. S. Lewis,
The Voyage of the
Dawn Treader (New York: Harper Trophy, 1994), 22.

Christian educators: See, for example, John Warwick Montgomery, “The Chronicles of Narnia and the Adolescent Reader,”
Religious Education
54, no. 5 (September 1, 1959): 418–28.

“greatest addition … evangelizes through the imagination”: Charles A. Brady, “Finding God in Narnia,”
America
96 (October 27, 1956): 103–105. Brady began writing about Lewis for
America
in 1944: “Introduction to Lewis” (May 27, 1944) and “C. S. Lewis II” (June 10, 1944). “You are the first of my critics so far who has really read and understood
all
my books,” Lewis told him at that time, and he was especially grateful for Brady’s treatment of Narnia. Lewis,
Collected Letters
, vol. 2, 629.

“Oxford Circle”: Brady names Lewis, Williams, Tolkien, and Dorothy L. Sayers as members of the “Oxford Circle.” Charles A. Brady, “Unicorns at Oxford,”
Books on Trial
15 (October 1956): 59–60.

“I don’t like to hear of that ‘bad patch’”: Letter, Walter de la Mare to Owen Barfield, June 14, 1950, Barfield Papers, Bodleian Library, Dep. c. 1055.

“Between you and me”: Letter, Walter de la Mare to Owen Barfield, November 16, 1949, Barfield Papers, Bodleian Library, Dep. c. 1055.