eBook - ePub
Yours, Jack
The Inspirational Letters of C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis, Paul F. Ford, Paul F. Ford
This is a test
Partager le livre
- English
- ePUB (adapté aux mobiles)
- Disponible sur iOS et Android
eBook - ePub
Yours, Jack
The Inspirational Letters of C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis, Paul F. Ford, Paul F. Ford
DĂ©tails du livre
Aperçu du livre
Table des matiĂšres
Citations
Ă propos de ce livre
A collection of 365 readings containing the best and most compelling writing culled from more than 4,000 pages of C.S.Lewis‘s famous published letters.
Foire aux questions
Comment puis-je résilier mon abonnement ?
Il vous suffit de vous rendre dans la section compte dans paramĂštres et de cliquer sur « RĂ©silier lâabonnement ». Câest aussi simple que cela ! Une fois que vous aurez rĂ©siliĂ© votre abonnement, il restera actif pour le reste de la pĂ©riode pour laquelle vous avez payĂ©. DĂ©couvrez-en plus ici.
Puis-je / comment puis-je télécharger des livres ?
Pour le moment, tous nos livres en format ePub adaptĂ©s aux mobiles peuvent ĂȘtre tĂ©lĂ©chargĂ©s via lâapplication. La plupart de nos PDF sont Ă©galement disponibles en tĂ©lĂ©chargement et les autres seront tĂ©lĂ©chargeables trĂšs prochainement. DĂ©couvrez-en plus ici.
Quelle est la différence entre les formules tarifaires ?
Les deux abonnements vous donnent un accĂšs complet Ă la bibliothĂšque et Ă toutes les fonctionnalitĂ©s de Perlego. Les seules diffĂ©rences sont les tarifs ainsi que la pĂ©riode dâabonnement : avec lâabonnement annuel, vous Ă©conomiserez environ 30 % par rapport Ă 12 mois dâabonnement mensuel.
Quâest-ce que Perlego ?
Nous sommes un service dâabonnement Ă des ouvrages universitaires en ligne, oĂč vous pouvez accĂ©der Ă toute une bibliothĂšque pour un prix infĂ©rieur Ă celui dâun seul livre par mois. Avec plus dâun million de livres sur plus de 1 000 sujets, nous avons ce quâil vous faut ! DĂ©couvrez-en plus ici.
Prenez-vous en charge la synthÚse vocale ?
Recherchez le symbole Ăcouter sur votre prochain livre pour voir si vous pouvez lâĂ©couter. Lâoutil Ăcouter lit le texte Ă haute voix pour vous, en surlignant le passage qui est en cours de lecture. Vous pouvez le mettre sur pause, lâaccĂ©lĂ©rer ou le ralentir. DĂ©couvrez-en plus ici.
Est-ce que Yours, Jack est un PDF/ePUB en ligne ?
Oui, vous pouvez accĂ©der Ă Yours, Jack par C. S. Lewis, Paul F. Ford, Paul F. Ford en format PDF et/ou ePUB ainsi quâĂ dâautres livres populaires dans Literatura et CrĂtica literaria. Nous disposons de plus dâun million dâouvrages Ă dĂ©couvrir dans notre catalogue.
Informations
Sujet
LiteraturaSous-sujet
CrĂtica literaria1916
TO ARTHUR GREEVES, his oldest friend: On the book that baptized Lewisâs imaginationâsee Surprised by Joy, 180-181. Anodos is the hero of the book Phantastes; Cosmo is the hero of a story Anodos tells in the book.1
7 MARCH 1916
I have had a great literary experience this week. I have discovered yet another author to add to our circleâour very own set: never since I first read âThe well at the worldâs endâ have I enjoyed a book so muchâand indeed I think my new âfindâ is quite as good as [Thomas] Malory or [William] Morris himself. The book, to get to the point, is George MacDonaldâs âFaerie Romanceâ, Phantastes, which I picked up by hazard in a rather tired Everyman copyâby the way isnât it funny, they cost I/Id. nowâon our station bookstall last Saturday. Have you read it? I suppose not, as if you had, you could not have helped telling me about it. At any rate, whatever the book you are reading now, you simply must get this at once: and it is quite worth getting in a superior Everyman binding too.
Of course it is hopeless for me to try and describe it, but when you have followed the hero Anodos along that little stream to the faery wood, have heard about the terrible ash tree and how the shadow of his gnarled, knotted hand falls upon the book the hero is reading, when you have read about the faery palaceâŠand heard the episode of Cosmo, I know that you will quite agree with me. You must not be disappointed at the first chapter which is rather conventional faery tale style, and after it you wonât be able to stop until you have finished. There are one or two poems in the taleâas in the Morris tales you knowâwhich, with one or two exceptions are shockingly bad, so donât try to appreciate them: it is just a sign, isnât it, of how some geniuses canât work in metrical formsâanother example being the BrontĂ«s.
TO ARTHUR GREEVES: On Lewisâs religious views as a seventeen-year-old.2
12 OCTOBER 1916
As to the other question about religion, I was sad to read your letter. You ask me my religious views: you know, I think, that I believe in no religion. There is absolutely no proof for any of them, and from a philosophical standpoint Christianity is not even the best. All religions, that is, all mythologies to give them their proper name are merely manâs own inventionâChrist as much as Loki. Primitive man found himself surrounded by all sorts of terrible things he didnât understandâthunder, pestilence, snakes et cetera: what more natural than to suppose that these were animated by evil spirits trying to torture him. These he kept off by cringing to them, singing songs and making sacrifices et cetera. Gradually from being mere nature-spirits these supposed being[s] were elevated into more elaborate ideas, such as the old gods: and when man became more refined he pretended that these spirits were good as well as powerful.
Thus religion, that is to say mythology grew up. Often, too, great men were regarded as gods after their deathâsuch as Heracles or Odin: thus after the death of a Hebrew philosopher Yeshua (whose name we have corrupted into Jesus) he became regarded as a god, a cult sprang up, which was afterwards connected with the ancient Hebrew Jahweh-worship, and so Christianity came into beingâone mythology among many, but the one that we happen to have been brought up in.
Now all this you must have heard before: it is the recognised scientific account of the growth of religions. Superstition of course in every age has held the common people, but in every age the educated and thinking ones have stood outside it, though usually outwardly conceding to it for convenience. I had thought that you were gradually being emancipated from the old beliefs, but if this is not so, I hope we are too sensible to quarrel about abstract ideas. I must only add that oneâs views on religious subjects donât make any difference in morals, of course. A good member of society must of course try to be honest, chaste, truthful, kindly et cetera: these are things we owe to our own manhood and dignity and not to any imagined god or gods.
Of course, mind you, I am not laying down as a certainty that there is nothing outside the material world: considering the discoveries that are always being made, this would be foolish. Anything may exist: but until we know that it does, we canât make any assumptions. The universe is an absolute mystery: man has made many guesses at it, but the answer is yet to seek. Whenever any new light can be got as to such matters, I will be glad to welcome it. In the meantime I am not going to go back to the bondage of believing in any old (and already decaying) superstition.
TO ARTHUR GREEVES: On Lewisâs favorite short story by George MacDonald.3
15 NOVEMBER 1916
And talking about books I am surprised that you donât say more of the âGolden Keyâ: to me it was absolute heaven from the moment when Tangle ran into the wood to the glorious end in those mysterious caves. What a lovely idea âThe country from which the shadows fallâ!
1Letters I, 169-170.
2Letters I, 230-231.
3Letters I, 254.
1920
TO LEO BAKER an actor, a teacher of acting, and a friend Lewis made in Oxford in 1919, who introduced Lewis to Owen Barfield, a fellow anthroposophist: On Lewisâs growing sense of God.1
5 SEPTEMBER 1920
You will be interested to hear that in the course of my philosophyâon the existence of matterâI have had to postulate some sort of God as the least objectionable theory: but of course we know nothing. At any rate we donât know what the real Good is, and consequently I have stopped defying heaven: it canât know less than I, so perhaps things really are alright. This, to you, will be old news but perhaps you will see it in me as a sign of grace. Donât mistake the position: its no cry of âallâs well with the worldâ: itâs only a sense that I have no business to object to the universe as long as I have nothing to offer myselfâand in that respect we are all bankrupt.
1Letters I, 386.
1921
TO HIS BROTHER, WARREN LEWIS: On prayer as writing letters to someone who never replies.1
1 JULY 1921
I was delighted to get your letter this morning; for some reason it had been sent first to a non-existent address in Liverpool. I had deliberately written nothing to you since those two you mention: not that I was tired of the job, but because I did not feel disposed to go on posting into the void until I had some assurance that my effusions would reach you. That seemed a process too like prayer for my taste: as I once said to Bakerâmy mystical friend with the crowded poetryâthe trouble about God is that he is like a person who never acknowledges oneâs letters and so, in time, one comes to the conclusion either that he does not exist or that you have got the address wrong. I admitted that it was of great moment: but what was the use of going on despatching fervent messagesâsay to Edinburghâif they all came back through the dead letter office: nay more, if you couldnât even find Edinburgh on the map. His cryptic reply was that it would be almost worth going to Edinburgh to find out. I am glad however that you have ceased to occupy such a divine position, and will do my best to continue: though I hope it wonât be for fifteen months.
1Letters I, 555â556.
1929
Sometime in the spring (Trinity Sunday was May 22 that year) Lewis came to believe in God, though not yet in Christ:
You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him of whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape? The words compelle intrare, compel them to come in, have been so abused by wicked men that we shudder at them; but, properly understood, they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation. (Surprised by Joy, Chapter 14)
TO ARTHUR GREEVES: On Lewisâs praise for MacDonaldâs cycle of prayer-poems.1
10 OCTOBER 1929
I am slowly reading a book that we have known about, but not known, for many a long dayâMacDonaldâs Diary of an Old Soul. How I would have scorned it once! I strongly advise you to try it. He seems to know everything and I find my own experience in it constantly: as regards the literary quality, I am coming to like even his clumsiness. There is a delicious home-spun, earthy flavour about it, as in George Herbert. Indeed for me he is better than Herbert.
1Letters I, 834.
1930
TO ARTHUR GREEVES: On the seven deadly sins.1
10 FEBRUARY 1930
When I said that your besetting sin was Indolence and mine Pride I was thinking of the old classification of the seven deadly sins: They are Gula (Gluttony), Luxuria (Unchastity), Accidia (Indolence), Ira (Anger), Superbia (Pride), Invidia (Envy), Avaritia (Avarice). Accidia, which is sometimes called Tristitia (despondence) is the kind of indolence which comes from indifference to the goodâthe mood in which though it tries to play on us we have no string to respond. Pride, on the other hand, is the mother of all sins, and the original sin of Luciferâso you are rather better off than I am. You at your worst are an instrument unstrung: I am an instrument strung but pr...