Jack at Home C. S. Lewis and those who knew him best “ Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”— C.S. Lewis a youNG seeker Lewis had just been discharged from the army in this portrait. No pruNes for me In his essay “On Three Ways of Writing for Children,” Lewis recalled announcing “I loathe prunes” very loudly in the dining room of a hotel. A little boy nearby announced just as loudly, “So do I.” Lewis evidenced similar empathy in writing to children—speaking about their daily lives, critiquing the writings they sent him, and discussing God. In a letter written the day before he died, he noted to one boy, “All the children who have written to me see at once who Aslan is, and grownups never do!” The blue cow oN The piaNo Eric Routley (1917–1982), later a famous church musi- cian and composer, was an undergraduate at Oxford during World War II and attended a Socratic Club meeting Lewis was chairing. There, Routley said, “students crowded into a room and sat on the floor or under the piano.” When one of the students asked during the discussion how one could prove anything, including whether there was a blue cow on the piano, Lewis responded, “Well, in what sense blue?” L Did you know? I EncountErs with c. s. LEwis The oriGiNal meDia fasT EUM HEATON, S W U around thE hEarth and aLong Derek Brewer (1923–2008), a Chaucer scholar, studied M AR EGE, under Lewis in the mid-1940s. Lewis once told Brewer he W thE byways LL “lack[ed] pep,” but supported his later scholarship, serv- L ing as general editor for one of Brewer’s Chaucer MPERIA I HEATON CO —© editions. Brewer recalled that Lewis never read W newspapers because, Lewis said, “Someone will 1941 H, always tell you if anything has happened.” S ADE CENTER, W . “sTeiNer says” E NK AND WA I Daphne Olivier Harwood (1889–1950), first . ARION 1941 wife of Lewis’s friend Cecil Harwood (1898– M C2 E 1975), was actor Laurence Olivier’s (1907–1989) , cousin. An Anthroposophist, she introduced TREET ION OF THE S both Harwood and Lewis’s friend Owen SS HAM Barfield to this complex mystical philosophy S founded by Rudoph Steiner (1861–1925). GRE S : Lewis once exclaimed in reaction to her ED BY PERMI US . AGNE criticism that he was making Christianity too T S 1918 . authoritarian, “When you have heard half as C AND many sentences beginning ‘Christianity teaches’ ANNE from me as I have heard ones beginning ‘Steiner T S OF says’ from you & Cecil & Owen & [another H C friend]—why then we’ll start talking about EATED PORTRAIT, S HUR T, L authoritarianism!” But he greatly admired them C THE both, describing Harwood as “the sole Horatio , S known to me in this age of Hamlets.” , YOUNG ADU ANDER S FL wheN The bombs fell Many of Lewis’s writings S ENNI D responded directly or indirectly to horrors of war. C.S. LEWI Christian History cupiD’s arrow Lewis’s Till We Have Faces The poG aND The fox retells the myth of cupid, or Eros (in a 1st-c. Lewis often visited Inkling greek statue at left), and Psyche. George Sayer (1914–2005) and his wife, Moira (1913–1977), although he generally for- whisper, “do you talk at breakfast?” “By train- got to tell them what train ing, no; by nature, yes,” I replied. Down went he was coming on. Lewis Punch. “Oh, good,” he said. “I’m Lewis.” “Not and Sayer enjoyed hiking the Screwtape?” I blurted out. “I’m afraid so; yes.” countryside. Once they met a tired Lewis and Dundas-Grant became friends. Dundas- fox trying to escape a fox hunt, and Grant attended Inklings meetings. He recalled, “I found Lewis sent the hunt the other way. how much one learned just sitting and listening.” Another time they encountered some pigs, and Lewis dubbed the blesseD peDesTriaNs? most intelligent one “not a pig but Clifford Morris (1914–?) saw Lewis from a unique per- the first pog. The Pig and the Pog. spective—as his chauffeur. Because Lewis couldn’t That’s not a bad title. I wonder if I can drive, he frequently used the car-hire firm Morris write the story to go with it.” TalkiNG aT breakfasT James Dundas-Grant (1896–1985) first L I met Lewis at Magdalen College in 1944, when Dundas-Grant was newly HEATON, in charge of the University Naval Division. At breakfast W he noticed “a baldish head” behind the magazine Punch: EGE, LL There was a rustle of Punch, and I found a pair of merry, friendly eyes looking at me. “I say,” then in a HEATON CO W shareD love Lewis presented this copy (below) of The Four Loves to william gresham, Joy Lewis’s first husband, IKIMEDIA W ] after her death. ADE CENTER, 2.5 W . BY E ARION M EUM / [CC S U M ION OF THE SS IKIMEDIA yrina.—Louvre W M ] ED BY PERMI IN 4.0 B above US A lioN aT resT this doorknob ( ) graces the rectory of . -S the church served by Lewis’s grandfather, John hamilton. BY ROM TOMB F C. UDE / [CC worked for, and they shared picnics, walks, and stops B D 1 THE FOUR LOVES at inns with each other. Morris picked Lewis up from –to IDE S TORIAN 50 the hospital the night his wife, Joy, died. S I H R One day someone crossed the road in front of them; M HAM IN YRINA, S M a— RE Morris exclaimed in frustration, “Blessed pedestrians.” L G Lewis immediately began to question Morris’s theology: UNDE IAM D LL I S “You certainly didn’t hope that they were exceedingly W ark’ happy now and that presently they will enjoy the bliss of TO M S OTTA FIGURINE OF the celestial realms!” Morris described Lewis as never C talking religion, “except in the sense that a true Christian ERRA T . never talks anything else.” ch S OORKNOB, ST. D RO E RIPTION OF C.S. LEWI TORY Many of these anecdotes can be found in C. S. Lewis at the C SC E RAPED N R I D Breakfast Table, edited by James Como. Issue 140 1 Magisterial Works “Continental Achievement is itself on the “Starr’s magisterial narration of a glorious achievement! Starr’s European Catholic presence in narrative turns the early years of North America —the Norse, the Catholicism in the USA into a Spanish, the French, the English, Founding and others—is a contribution of the riveting story of rivalry, piety, and ambition.” rst order to our understanding of the whole foundation of this land of — John T. McGreevy the free." Professor of History OF America University of Notre Dame — James V. Schall, S.J. Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University ◆ CONTINENTAL ◆ AMERICA ON TRIAL ◆ CONTINENTAL ACHIEVEMENT Robert Reilly AMBITIONS — Kevin Starr e Founding of America is on trial. A fast-paced evocation of three Kevin Starr Critics say it was a poison pill with e sequel to Continental Ambitions, Roman Catholic civilizations—Spain, a time-release formula, and that its Starr’s magisterial work on Catholics France, and Recusant England—as principles are responsible for the who explored, evangelized, and settled they explored, evangelized, and set- country's moral disintegration. the North American continent. is tled the North American continent. In this well-researched book, Reilly work focuses on the participation of e rst time this story has been told strives to prove this thesis is false Catholics, alongside their Protestant in one volume, with Starr’s narrative by tracing the lineage of the ideas that and Jewish fellow citizens, in the Rev- verve, this riveting history will appeal made the USA, and its ordered olutionary War and the creation and to a wide readership. liberty, possible. He argues that the development of the early Republic. Starr dramatizes the representative bedrock of America’s founding are With the same panoramic view personalities and events that illustrate the beliefs in the Judaic oneness of and cinematic style of Starr’s cele- the triumphs and the tragedies, the God; the Greek rational order of the brated Americans and the California achievements and the failures, of each world based upon the Reason behind Dream series, Continental Achieve- of these societies in their explorations it; and the Christian arrival of that ment documents how the American and translations of religious and Reason (Logos) incarnate in Christ. Revolution allowed Roman Catholics social values to new and challenging of the English colonies to earn a new AOTH . Sewn Hardcover, $27.95 environments. His history is notable and better place for themselves in the for its honesty and synoptic success "Reilly’s argument is unanswerable, the emergent Republic. in comparing and contrasting three documentation massive, and the issue disparate civilizations with three CACH . 7 x 10 Sewn Hardcover, $27.95 prophetic in import." di ering approaches to expansion in — Peter Kree , Ph.D. the New World. Professor of Philosophy Boston College CAMH . 7 x 10, Sewn Hardcover, $34.95 www.ignatius.com P.O. Box 1339, Ft. Collins, CO 80522 (800) 651-1531 Letters to the editor Readers respond to Christian History A SAINTLY CAMEo MULTIPLYING MINISTRY The cover art for CH 137 is identified as The Cloth Market We just received issue #138 yesterday. Although we had in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. Clearly, the subject of the painting is seen what [our] ad would look like, its actual placement not the market, but the actions of a saint (indicated by in the CH magazine was to us both stunning and the halo behind his head).