In the spring of 1921, some eight years before his conversion to Christianity, C. S. Lewis said this about death:
I have seen death fairly often and never yet been able to find it anything but extraordinary and rather incredible. The real person is so very real, so obviously living and different from what is left that one cannot believe something has turned into nothing, It is not faith, it is not reason– just a “feeling.” “Feelings” are in the long run a pretty good match for what we call our beliefs.
True and not true, of course. More than a feeling, but definitely something that involves feelings. It’s interesting, particularly in light of Lewis’s lifelong quest for Joy, which must in some way subsume death, too.
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I’ve decided to spend some time reading the letters of Lewis and Tolkien as much “in tandem” chronologically as possible. The big problem with that, I’m realizing, is that my collection of Tolkien letters doesn’t kick in for a good while when compared to Lewis’s.
In the quote above, Lewis is responding to the death of William Kirkpatrick, who was something of a giant and patron in Lewis’s early life. An early letter from Tolkien to Geoffrey Smith, a dear friend and fellow member of the “Tea Club and Barrovian Soiety,” also deals with death loss. One member of their group, Rob Gilson, had died in July of 1916 i the war. It brings out thoughts of “greatness” in Tolkien, and a real sense of loss early on. He wrote:
God grant that this does not sound arrogant– I feel humbler enough in truth and immeasurably weaker and poorer now. The greatness I meant was that of a great instrument in God’s hands– a movie, a doer, even an achiever of great things, a beginner at the very least of large things.
The greatness which Rob has found is in no way smaller– for the greatness I meant and tremblingly hoped for as ours is valueless unless steeped with the same holiness of courage and suffering and sacrifice– but is of a different kind. His greatness is in other words now a personal matter with us– of a kind to make us keep July 1st as a special day for all the years God may grant any of us . . .
It is interesting to read young Lewis alongside young Tolkien, particularly as Tolkien’s faith was steady and pronounced early on. His is a long obedience in the same direction earlier on than with Lewis, which makes their connection later in life such a promising and hopeful sign.
One of the best parts of C. S. Lewis’s The Pilgrim’s Regress is the afterword to the book’s third edition. The book, the first Lewis wrote after his conversion to Christianity, is a fantastical retelling of his journey to the Christian faith as told in a vein similar to The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. What is interesting about the third edition’s afterword is this. After a quick articulation of his move from “popular realism” all the way to Christianity via idealism, pantheism, and theism, Lewis admits:
My first week of spring break is quietly and quickly coming to an end. And while I haven’t gotten as much done as I’d hoped, I have been able to do some quality reading. This afternoon, I finished Justin Whitmel Earley’s The Common Rule. And while I hope to write more about it later, there was one thing that I wanted to get down before the week comes to an end.
A few weeks ago, a dear friend who also happens to oversee our student publications, recommended the work of Benjamin Dreyer. The recommendation probably came up as she was working on a piece and we were talking about proofreading, something I’ve had the chance to do many times over the last few years (you have to use that English degree every chance you get). She mentioned the humor of Dreyer’s Twitter feed. And she pointed out that he had a writing style book out. The next day, I snatched up the only copy that Barnes and Noble had at the time. I read as much of it as I could before passing it on to the one who suggested it (and ordered my own copy as soon as I realized what a treasure the book was).
Space Enough, and Time 