The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings (83 page)

“the love and knowledge of words”: C. S. Lewis,
Studies in Words
, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 3.

“exists to communicate”: Ibid., 313.

“O felix peccatum Babel!”
: Tolkien, “English and Welsh,” 194.

“sound only”: Tolkien,
Letters
, 310.

“cellar door” … “in Welsh”: Tolkien, “English and Welsh,” 190–91. According to the lexicographer Grant Barrett, encomiums to the beauty of “cellar door” go back at least as far as Cyrus Lauron Hooper’s 1903 novel,
Gee-Boy
, and are widely circulated. Mencken spoke of the musical effect of “cellar door” in 1920. As Barrett notes, Lewis discusses the theme in a letter to a young writer dated July 11, 1963 (“I was astonished when someone first showed that by writing cellar door as Selladore one produces an enchanting proper name”) and Norman Mailer carries on the tradition in a more scatological vein in his 1967 novel,
Why Are We in Vietnam?
(New York: Putnam, 1967), 150. Grant Barrett, “On Language: Cellar Door,”
The New York Times Magazine
(February 14, 2010): 16.

“native language”: Tolkien, “English and Welsh,” 190.

“Supposing you say some quite ordinary words”: Bill Cater, “We Talked of Love, Death, and Fairy Tales,”
The Daily Telegraph
(November 29, 2001): 23.

Elen s
í
la l
ú
menn
’
omentielmo
: Tolkien,
Letter
s, 265. Tolkien later changed the spelling to
omentielvo.

unraveled the fellowship: The best study of Tolkien’s life as it was shaped by his early friendships and by the devastation of World War I is John Garth’s biography
Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003).

“‘Friendship to the Nth power,’”: Tolkien,
Letters
, 10.

“consist of Such men”: M. Waingrow, ed.,
The Correspondence and Other Papers of James Boswell Relating to the Making of the Life of Johnson
, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 209, quoted in James Sambrook, “Club (
act.
1764–1784),”
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
, Oxford University Press,
http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/theme/49211
(accessed July 4, 2014).

2. HEAVEN IN A BISCUIT TIN

“‘appeared’ sitting in a chair”: J. B. Phillips,
Ring of Truth: A Translator’s Testimony
(New York: Macmillan, 1957), 118–19.

“verging on the shabby … reflected the warmth”: Luke Rigby, O.S.B., “A Solid Man,” in
C. S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table: And Other Reminiscences
, new ed., ed. James T. Como (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992, 1979), 39. (Republished as
Remembering C. S. Lewis: Recollections of Those Who Knew Him
[San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005].)

“I’ll tell you”: Alastair Fowler, “C. S. Lewis: Supervisor,”
The Yale Review
91, no. 4 (October 2003): 78.

“thick lips”: From a diary kept during the Christmas holidays of 1907 and incorporated by Warnie Lewis into “The Lewis Family Papers or Memoirs of the Lewis Family” (1850–1930) [unpublished typescript], edited by Warren Hamilton Lewis in 11 volumes, 1933–1935, held at the Marion E. Wade Center, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois, and the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

“I have seen landscapes”: C. S. Lewis, “On Stories,” in C. S. Lewis,
On Stories and Other Essays on Literature
, ed. Walter Hooper (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1982, 1966), 8.

“They were not very far off”: C. S. Lewis,
Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life
(New York: Harcourt, 1955), 7.

“an author exactly after my own heart”: Letter to Arthur Greeves, June 5, 1914, in C. S. Lewis,
The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis
, vol. 1:
Family Letters 1905–1931
, ed. Walter Hooper (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), 59.

“I am often surprised”: Letter to Arthur Greeves, November 4(?), 1917, in ibid., 342.

“in whom even the exacting memory … Through Lizzie we struck our roots”: Lewis,
Surprised by Joy
, 5.

“I see the great tree of English literature”: AE, 1895 letter to John Eglinton (William Magee), “Unpublished Letters from AE to John Eglinton,”
Malahat Review
(April 1970): 84–107, quoted in Henry Summerfield, “AE as a Literary Critic,” in
Myth and Reality in Irish Literature
, ed. Joseph Ronsley (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier Press, 1977), 47.

“Remember that the great minds”: Lewis,
Collected Letters
, vol. 1, 394.

“The flatness! The interminableness!… seemed like the voices of demons”: Lewis,
Surprised by Joy
, 24.

“I’m more Welsh than anything”: George Sayer,
Jack: A Life of C. S. Lewis
(Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1994), 21.

“sentimental, passionate, and rhetorical … The Hamiltons were a cooler race”: Lewis,
Surprised by Joy
, 3.

“an endless and one-sided torrent”: Warren Lewis, “Memoir of C. S. Lewis,”
Letters of C. S. Lewis: Edited and With a Memoir by W. H. Lewis, Revised and Enlarged Edition Edited by W. H. Lewis
(New York: Harcourt, 1966, 1983)
,
26.

“miracle … all done by cords”: “The Lewis Family Papers or Memoirs of the Lewis Family” I:312, quoted in Walter Hooper,
C. S. Lewis: A Complete Guide to His Life & Works
(San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 693.

“I always thought … I wonder do I love you?”: “Lewis Family Papers” II: 248–49, quoted in Hooper,
C. S. Lewis
, 695.

On enjoying seaside holidays without Albert: Warren Lewis, “Memoir of C. S. Lewis,” 22.

“strange smells … ill and crying”: Lewis,
Surprised by Joy
, 18–19.

“all settled happiness”: Ibid., 21.

“the brightest jewel in the week”: Ibid., 126.

“infallibly and invincibly wrong”: Ibid., 30.

“had more capacity for being cheated”: Ibid., 10.

“It was axiomatic … more power of confusing”: Ibid., 120–22.

“uncomfortable and embarrassing”: Ibid., 4.

“What time would you like lunch?”: Ibid., 125.

“I never met a man”: Warren Lewis, “Memoir of C. S. Lewis,” 42.

“I would not commit the sin of Ham”: Lewis,
Surprised by Joy
, 123.

“devastatingly cruel”: A. N. Wilson,
C. S. Lewis: A Biography
(New York and London: W. W. Norton, 1990), 31.

“the unfortunate man”: Lewis,
Surprised by Joy
, 19.

“brought into the nursery … the first beauty”: Ibid., 7.

“to a child it seemed less like a house”: Ibid., 10.

“atrociously uneconomical”: Warren Lewis, “Memoir of C. S. Lewis,” 23.

“I am a product of long corridors … I had always the same certainty”: Lewis,
Surprised by Joy,
10.

“
KING BUNNY
”: C. S. Lewis,
Boxen: The Imaginary World of the Young C. S. Lewis
, ed. Walter Hooper (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985), 26.

“India”: Lewis,
Surprised by Joy
, 6.

“a prophetic portrait”: Ibid., 80.

“Neither of us ever made any attempt … ‘I’ll be seeing that fellow Arrabudda’”: W. H. Lewis,
C. S. Lewis: A Biography
(unpublished), quoted in W. H. Lewis,
Brothers and Friends: The Diaries of Major Warren Hamilton Lewis
, ed. Clyde S. Kilby and Marjorie Lamp Mead (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1982), 6, note 13.

“Papy of course is the master … Hoora!! Warnie comes home”: “My Life during the Exmas Holadys of 1907,” “Lewis Family Papers” III:88–92, quoted in Hooper,
C. S. Lewis: A Complete Guide
, 5–6.

“the most courteous”: John Wain,
Sprightly Running
, 184.

By the age of twelve: In this light, it’s interesting to note the remarks, upon reading
Surprised by Joy
, of the Welsh poet and artist David Jones (1895–1974) in a 1956 letter: “I was astounded how virtually
identical
were things he read and thought about as a child and young man … with those which I read etc. It was quite peculiar—almost uncanny—to find item after item … From Everyman’s Library, the Home U Library, the Temple Classics and even going to Denny’s bookshop in the Strand to get them, all is the same. And then Chesterton later and the
Dream of the Rood
and then Langland … in just those early years the similarity of taste is extraordinary.” David Jones,
Dai Greatcoat: A Self-Portrait of David Jones in His Letters
, ed. René Hague (London and Boston: Faber & Faber, 1980), 171–72.

“he has read more classics”: William T. Kirkpatrick, quoted in Roger Lancelyn Green and Walter Hooper,
C. S. Lewis: A Biography
, rev. and exp. ed. (London: HarperCollins, 2002, 1974), 28.

“The great thing is to be always reading”: Fowler, “C. S. Lewis: Supervisor,” 75.

“Joy” … “It troubled me”: Lewis,
Surprised by Joy
, 16.

“I heard a voice that cried”: In
Surprised by Joy,
Lewis says that he found these lines after thumbing through “The Saga of King Olaf”—which appears as “The Musician’s Tale: The Saga of King Olaf” in
Tales of a Wayside Inn
(London: Routledge, Warne & Routledge, 1863; Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1863); but these lines are the beginning of “T
é
gner’s Drapa” (inspired by the Norse themes in the poetical works of the Swedish bishop Esaias T
é
gner) from
The Seaside and the Fireside
. Possibly he was reading a volume of Longfellow’s collected works.

“the banks of Styx”: Lewis,
Surprised by Joy
, 24.

“I think I shall like this place … My dear Papy”: Lewis,
Collected Letters
, vol. 1, 6–7.

“All schools”: “Lewis Family Papers” III:140, quoted in Hooper,
C. S. Lewis: A Complete Guide
, 640.

“I do not like church here … In this abominable place”: Diary, November 1909, quoted by Hooper in Lewis,
Collected Letters
, vol. 1, 8.

“the doctrines of Christianity”: Lewis,
Surprised by Joy
, 33.

“coarser … ravenous”: Ibid., 35.

“the text-book case”: C. S. Lewis, “The Mythopoeic Gift of Rider Haggard,”
On Stories
, 97.

“You have never refused me anything Papy”: Warnie in “Lewis Family Papers” III:146, quoted in Hooper,
C. S. Lewis: A Complete Guide
, 7.

“I find school very nice … in spite of all”: Lewis,
Collected Letters
, vol. 1, 9.

“grave melancholy”: Lewis,
Surprised by Joy
, 53.

“realization … a certain vividness”: Ibid., 61.

“the universe was, in the main, a rather regrettable institution”: Ibid.
,
63.

“a fop, a cad, and a snob … sexual temptation”: Lewis,
Surprised by Joy
, 68.

On “Pogo,” see also Lewis’s 1918 letter to his father, Lewis,
Collected Letters
, vol. 1, 357. Oddly enough, Harris turned up again in Lewis’s life as captain of his company in the Somerset Light Infantry. “He impressed me in those days, but I find him very disappointing,” Lewis told his father, “I suppose these things are to be expected.” In fact, Harris, who left Exeter College without a degree, was twice decorated for his acts of valor. See National Archives WO 339/24756, Captain Percy Gerald Kelsall HARRIS, Prince Albert’s (Somerset Light Infantry) and Walter Hooper’s note in Lewis,
Collected Letters
, vol. 1, 357, note 11.

“
Siegfried
 … almost like heartbreak”: Ibid.
,
72–73.

“secret, imaginative”: Ibid., 78.

“nothing to do with each other”: Ibid., 119.

“all the prefects detest me”: Lewis,
Collected Letters
, vol. 1, 50.

“I was big for my age”: Lewis,
Surprised by Joy
, 94.

“gloom and boredom”: Warren Lewis, “Memoir of C. S. Lewis,” 4.

“I had an idea”: Warnie in “Lewis Family Papers” IV: 156–57, quoted in Lewis,
Collected Letters
, vol. 1, 52.

“I find it very difficult to believe”: Warren Lewis, “Memoir of C. S. Lewis,” 4.

“‘Norse in subject’ … Why should creatures have the burden of existence”: Lewis,
Surprised by Joy
, 114–15.

“dog-tired”: Ibid., 96.

“Please take me out of this”: Lewis,
Collected Letters
, vol. 1, 51.

“‘Do
you
like that?’”: Lewis,
Surprised by Joy,
130.

“You know how I would love”: Lewis,
Collected Letters
, vol. 1, 176.

“neither of us had any other outlet”: C. S. Lewis,
The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis
, vol. 2:
Books, Broadcasts, and the War, 1931–1949
, ed. Walter Hooper (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), 101.

“The story that you have a headache after being drunk”: Lewis,
Collected Letters
, vol. 1, 319–20. In editing the Lewis letters, Hooper reinstated passages that Arthur Greeves had attempted to blot out; the reinstated text appears within these brackets: < >. See Lewis,
Collected Letters
, vol. 1, x.

“Terreauty”: Ibid., 176.

“Niflheim and Asgard, Britain and Logres, Handramit and Harandra”: Lewis,
Surprised by Joy
, 154. Handramit and Harandra are the lower and upper regions of Malacandra (Mars) in Lewis’s first space fantasy novel,
Out of the Silent Planet
(New York: Scribner, 1938; reprint ed., 2003)
.

“crowing cocks and gaggling ducks … ‘spirit grocers’”: Lewis,
Surprised by Joy
, 154.

“I learned charity”: “Lewis Family Papers” X: 218–20, quoted by Hooper in Lewis,
Collected Letters
, vol. 1, 995.