Letters to an American Lady

C. S. Lewis

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780062349293
• Topic: Littérature
• Subtopic: Critique littéraire nord-américaine

On October 26, 1950, C. S. Lewis wrote the first of more than a hundred letters he would send to a woman he had never met, but with whom he was to maintain a correspondence for the rest of his life.

Ranging broadly in subject matter, the letters discuss topics as profound as the love of God and as frivolous as preferences in cats. Lewis himself clearly had no idea that these letters would ever see publication, but they reveal facets of his character little known even to devoted readers of his fantasy and scholarly writings—a man patiently offering encouragement and guidance to another Christian through the day-to-day joys and sorrows of ordinary life.

Letters to an American Lady stands as a fascinating and moving testimony to the remarkable humanity and even more remarkable Christianity of C. S. Lewis, and is richly deserving of the position it now takes among the balance of his Christian writings.

Magdalen College

Oxford

26/10/50

Dear Mrs. __________

Thank you for your most kind and encouraging letter. I should need to be either of angelic humility or diabolical pride not to be pleased at all the things you say about my books. (I think, by the way, you have all the ones that would matter to you). May I assure you of my deep sympathy in all the very grievous troubles that you have had. May God continue to support you; that He has done so till now, is apparent from the fact that you are not warped or embittered. I will have you in my prayers. With all good wishes.

Yours sincerely

C. S. Lewis

Magdalen College

Oxford

Nov. 10th 1952

Dear Mrs. __________

It is a little difficult to explain how I feel that tho’ you have taken a way which is not for me¹ I nevertheless can congratulate you—I suppose because your faith and joy are so obviously increased. Naturally, I do not draw from that the same conclusions as you—but there is no need for us to start a controversial correspondence! I believe we are very near to one another, but not because I am at all on the Romeward frontier of my own communion. I believe that, in the present divided state of Christendom, those who are at the heart of each division are all closer to one another than those who are at the fringes. I would even carry this beyond the borders of Christianity: how much more one has in common with a real Jew or Muslim than with a wretched liberalising, occidentalised specimen of the same categories. Let us by all means pray for one another: it is perhaps the only form of “work for re-union” which never does anything but good. God bless you.

Yours most sincerely

C. S. Lewis

Magdalen College,

Oxford

Jan. 19th 1953

Dear Mrs. __________

Thank you for your kind letter of Dec. 29th which arrived to-day. I am afraid I have no idea what the first editions of Screwtape or the Divorce sell at: I haven’t even got a first of the former myself. But you would be foolish to spend a cent more on them than the published prices: both belong to the worst war-period and are scrubby little things on rotten paper—your American editions are far nicer. Your letter was most cheering and I am full of agreements. Of course we’ll help each other in our prayers. God bless you.

Yours most sincerely

C. S. Lewis

Magdalen College

Oxford, England

4/iii/53

Dear Mrs. __________

Thank you for your letter of Feb. 26 which arrived today. . . . Eldila is the true plural: but you can Anglicise it as eldils!²

I am delighted that your lecturer approved my angels. I was very definitely trying to smash the 19th century female angel. I believe no angel ever appears in Scripture without exciting terror: they always have to begin by saying “Fear not”. On the other hand the Risen Lord excites terror only when mistaken for a ghost, i.e. when not recognised as risen. For we are in one most blessed sense nearer to Him than to them: partly of course because He has deigned to share our humanity, but partly, I take it, because every creature is nearer to its creator than it can be to superior creatures. By the way, none of my Eldila would be anything like so high up the scale as Cherubim and Seraphim. Those orders are engaged wholly in contemplation, not with ruling the lower creatures. Even the Annunciation was done by—if I may so put it!—a “mere archangel”. Did your lecturer point out my heavy debt to Ezekiel?

Of course I knew you weren’t asking for a copy of a “First”: but I wanted to explain why I was not offering one—quite a different matter!

I also am having a kind of flu’ that seems never to get beyond early convalescence, tho’ nothing like so acute as yours. For that, and all else, deepest sympathy. Let us continue to pray for each other.

Yours most sincerely

C. S. Lewis

Magdalen College

Oxford, England

31/3/53

Dear Mrs. __________

I’ve no time for a proper letter to-day but this is just a scrape of the pen to thank you for yours of the 27th and to wish you a very blessed Easter. . . .

Apropos of horrid little fat baby “cherubs”, did I mention that Heb. Kherub is from the same root as Gryphon? That shows what they’re really like!

Yours

C. S. Lewis

Magdalen College

Oxford, England

17/4/53

Dear Mrs. __________

I’m not quite so shocked as you by the story of Charles and Mary. If even adult and educated Christians in trying to think of the Blessed Trinity have to guard constantly against falling into the heresy of Tritheism, what can we expect of children. And “another of whom he was not quite sure” is perhaps no bad beginning for a knowledge about the Holy Ghost.

About my fairy-tales, there are three published by Macmillan, New York (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader). Local bookshops are often very unhelpful. If your friend wants these books she should, of course, write to the publisher at New York.

I expect there is a photo of me somewhere, but my brother, who knows where things are, is away and I couldn’t find it to-day. Ask me again at a more favourable hour!—if you still have the fancy for this very undecorative object.

I’d sooner pray for God’s mercy than for His justice on my friends, my enemies, and myself.

With all good wishes.

Yours sincerely

C. S. Lewis

Magdalen College,

Oxford

9th May 1953

Dear Mrs. __________

There’s very little time today, so I must be short. I am afraid it is certainly true in England that Christians are in the minority. But remember, the change from, say, thirty years ago, consists largely in the fact that nominal Christianity has died out, so that only those who really believe now profess. The old conventional church-going of semi-believers or almost total unbelievers is a thing of the past. Whether the real thing is rarer than it was would be hard to say. Fewer children are brought up to it: but adult conversions are very frequent. . . .

I enclose a copy of the only photo which I have at the moment; it’s only a passport one I’m afraid.

Yours most sincerely,

C. S. Lewis

Magdalen College,

Oxford

May 30th, 1953

Dear Mrs. __________

Thank you for your letter of the 26th. . . .

Yes, we are always told that the present widespread apostasy must be the fault of the clergy, not of the laity. If I were a parson I should always try to dwell on the faults of the clergy: being a layman, I think it more wholesome to concentrate on those of the laity. I am rather sick of the modern assumption that, for all events, “WE”, the people, are never responsible: it is always our rulers, or ancestors, or parents, or education, or anybody but precious “US”. WE are apparently perfect and blameless. Don’t you believe it. Nor do I think the Church of England holds out many attractions to the worldly. There is more real poverty, even actual want, in English vicarages than there is in the homes of casual labourers.

I look forward to Martin’s “appreciations”. Yes, we have the word “dither”—and the thing too. And our offices are in a dither too. This is so common that I suspect there must be something in the very structure of a modern office which creates Dither. Otherwise why does our “College Office” find full time work for a crowd of people in doing what the President of the College, 100 years ago, did in his spare time without a secretary and without a typewriter? (The more noise, heat, and smell a machine produces the more power is being wasted!) I’d rather like to see one of your hail storms: our climate is in comparison, very tame. Have you read S. V. Benet’s Western Star? Excellent, I think.

Yours sincerely

C. W. Lewis

Magdalen College.

Oxford.

June 16th, 1953

Dear Mrs.

It was a kind thought on your part to send on these two little items. Whether it’s good for me to hear them is another matter! One of the things that make it easier to believe in Providence is the fact that in all trains, hotels, restaurants and other public places I have only once seen a stranger reading a book of mine, tho’ my friends encounter this phenomenon fairly often. Things are really very well arranged. I hope you keep well? With all blessings.

Yours

C. S. Lewis

Magdalen College

Oxford

June 22d 53

Dear Mrs. __________

Thank you for your letter of the 18th. I am very sorry to hear of your fall (that sounds sinister, doesn’t it!) They are very nasty things: even worse than the subsequent pain, I think, is the dreadful split second in which one knows one is falling and it’s too late to do anything about it. It always brings back to one vividly one’s childish days when a fall was one of the commonest catastrophes, and I thi...