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The Year 1930 (254) Summary: On January 30, Jack likely experienced his unbuckling on top of a bus going up Headington Hill as well as the “zoo of lusts” insight. On February 3, Jack wrote his famous monastery letter to Owen Barfield in which he wrote about the “Spirit” becoming more personal. On February 25, Warren sailed from Shanghai on the freighter Tai-Yin, and on April 16 his ship landed in Liverpool. On May 25, Warren accepted Jack and Mrs. Moore’s invitation to make his home with them. On June 3, Warren left Little Lea for the last time. During the first six days of June, Jack became a theist. Warren returned to Bulford on May 15. On July 16, the offer of Warren, Jack, and Mrs. Moore to purchase the Kilns was accepted. On October 10-11, Warren helped Jack, Mrs. Moore, and Maureen move from Hillsboro to the Kilns. On October 12, Jack and Warren walked past Holy Trinity and agreed that this must be their church. In December, Warren began the work of editing The Lewis Papers while on leave. Jack writes his De Bono et Malo1 this year. Jack probably also writes his De Toto et Parte2 to Barfield this year. Jack probably writes the poem “Leaving For Ever the Home of One’s Youth,” since his father died on Sept. 25, 1929. Jack writes several undated letters to Barfield this year (see Collected Letters, III, 1519-1521). Don King dates the poem “You, Beneath Scraping Branches” to this year.3 King dates the poem “When the Year Dies in Preparation for the Birth,” elsewhere known as “Launcelot,” to one of the years between 1930 and 1933.4 Martin Lings writes a masque, which is performed in Oxford and sends a letter to Jack; Jack responds to that letter and masque in complimentary fashion.5 January 1930 January 1 Wednesday. Jack is staying at Owen Barfield’s home in Long Crendon. During this month Jack writes to Joseph Lewis, Jack’s first cousin, about a bookcase they sent from Albert’s estate and he expresses thanks for Joseph’s help last summer. January 2 Thursday. Today Jack comes home from a four-day stay (Sunday through Wednesday) with Barfield. Jack writes to Arthur about really understanding Dante’s Paradiso like never before. January 3 Friday. Jack writes to Arthur, asking if Arthur can find Jack’s Bank of Ireland checkbook at Little Lea. Jack spends the morning in the Bodleian Library. After lunch he returns at 3:00 and finds the Bodleian closing. He buys Eugene Vinaver’s Malory. Warren, still in Shanghai, goes downtown, draws pay, and goes to Dodwell’s to pay the deposit on his berth on board ship for his February 25 journey. January 5 Sunday. Jack spends the morning finishing a long letter to Griffiths on philosophical subjects. In the afternoon Jack has a “delicious walk.” In the evening Jack reads Jacob Boehme, The Signature of all Things, with Other Writings, which he describes as “about the biggest shaking up I’ve got from a book, since I first read Phantastes.” January 6 Monday. Jack works in the morning at College and goes to the train station at 1:30 to return a pair of skates to Cecil Harwood, who is traveling with his wife and two babies and whose train stops for ten minutes. Jack walks after lunch, stopping for fifteen minutes to see 80-year-old Foord-Kelsie, a retired parson who is a reader and a carpenter and a repairman for radios, in his workshop. In freezing temperatures, Warren goes to the Depot, where there is little work to do. He goes home and back to bed until 5:00 p.m. He reads John Fletcher’s play, The Faithful 1 Latin: “On Good and Evil.” 2 Latin: “On the Whole and the Part.” 3 Don King, ed., The Collected Poems of C. S. Lewis, 240f. 4 Don King, ed., The Collected Poems of C. S. Lewis, 260-267. 5 Martin Lings, The Elements and Other Poems, Preface, 7. Shepherdess, until supper time. After supper Warren sits in the anteroom in front of the fire until 11:00 p.m., because it is too cold to read in his room, and then he goes to bed. January 7 Tuesday. Parkin returns to Shanghai after a three-week holiday in Singapore, full of stories. Warren writes about this in his diary. January 8 Wednesday. Jack writes more to Arthur about letter-writing, diary-writing, King Arthur, Rev. Claude Chavasse, and the old prose Dymer. January 9 Thursday. Jack spends all day making notes on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and adds to his letter to Arthur about John Bunyan, a share in judging the damned, his afternoon walk, and thinking. January 10 Friday. Hilary Term begins. Jack adds to his letter to Arthur about January weather, Jacob Boehme, The Signature of all Things, understanding Boehme better, and Shakespeare’s Henry IV. January 11 Saturday. Jack gets a letter from Warren. January 12 Sunday. Jack adds to his letter to Arthur, stating that Warren wants to keep Mother Goose’s Nursery Rhymes, Tales and Jingles from Little Lea because it was his first book, and therefore asking Arthur to send him that book and a manuscript book catalog, all of which goes in the letter sent on January 13. Jack writes to Warren about envisaging the future, the attempt to sell Little Lea, keeping some of the contents of Little Lea, especially certain books, disposing of some of those contents by burying or burning them, a letter from Aunt Mary about two bookcases that she claims are Uncle Joe’s, asking Condlin’s advice about the bookcases, where Warren will live after his military service (i.e. with Jack), a “new little end room,” Warren being welcome to live with Jack, Pigiebotianism vs. Hillsborovianism, the advantages and disadvantages of both domestic and institutional life, Warren’s travel plans to England, and possibly renting a house in Cloghy, Northern Ireland. After breakfast Warren takes pictures of billets he has had in Shanghai, going first to Edinburgh Road, followed by No. 16 Wei-Hei-Wei Road, and then the “New World,” after which he goes to the Shanghai Club, buying a tobacco pouch in Nankin Road on the way. Warren reads upstairs until 1:00 p.m. and then eats a plate of cold mutton in the grill room. At about half past one he walks to Baikal Rd. along the docks. He takes his last two pictures at “Bakerloo” to capture the Tramway Depot and the Montries Piano factory, and then he walks back via Wha Shing Rd. and the Bund to the Shanghai Club, arriving at about 3:45. He takes a hot bath, then goes upstairs to read and have tea. He reads the Contemporary review of Robert Bridges’ new book The Testament of Beauty. Warren also reads a lecture on some aspects of English poetry by a man named Bailey. After this he joins Parkin and Bill, and they go to the bar where they are joined by “Dinty” Moore of the Wiltshires. While they are drinking, they get a taxi and then get into the bar by another door where they find Grover of the Mariners and Huck. They get home by car in time for supper, after which Warren reads Jarrocks in his room until 11:00 and then goes to bed. January 13? Monday. Jack writes to Arthur Greeves and sends the letter. Term begins at the end of this week. January 14 Tuesday. Warren dines with Baring at his billet on Ming Hong Road. After dinner Baring takes Warren to see the movie “Rio Rita” at the Grand, a musical comedy which he enjoys a great deal. He gets to bed at about 12:30 a.m. January 16 Thursday. In a letter related to the Great War correspondence, Jack writes to Owen Barfield about material Barfield is writing on metaphor, probably his unpublished English People.6 Warren walks downtown in the morning, having left his passport at home, so he takes a taxi back to the mess to get his passport and then goes to the Cathay to meet Barton. After a cocktail or two, they have tiffin in the grill room. Afterwards they go to the H. K. L. S. Bank where Warren is introduced to Dunkley, who is to be a fellow passenger on the ship Tai Yin. From there they go to the Consulate where Barton gets a visa. Then they go to the U.S. Consulate for their American visas. January 17 Friday. Warren purchases a pair of brown boots and a pair of brown shoes at Whiteway & Laidlaw’s for sixty-three dollars. 6 The Great War of Owen Barfield and C. S. Lewis, Feinendegen and Smilde, 39. January 23 Thursday. Warren is reading a pamphlet called “The spirit of Japanese poetry,” written in English by Yone Noguchi. January 24 Friday. Magdalen Classics Fellow John T. Christie7 comes in and visits Jack from 11:00 p.m. until 12:45 a.m. January 26 Sunday. Jack writes to Arthur about letter-writing, “an attempt at religion,” calling it coming home, and his weekday schedule. He ends each day with a cup of cocoa and an excerpt from George MacDonald’s Diary of an Old Soul. He describes his weekday schedule to Arthur: getting called at 7:30, rising about 8, working (no pupils on Monday), home at noon, lunch, digging the hen run, walking (on Monday with Foord-Kelsie), back home for tea, to College for a pupil at 5:30, after dinner a meeting of a society; Tuesday pupils from 10 to 1 and again at 5; Wednesday the same; Thursday with pupils beginning at 9, Anglo-Saxon class after dinner and informal talk until midnight; Friday and Saturday like other days except no pupil after tea; five free evenings a week after dinner.

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