Читать книгу Collected Letters Volume One: Family Letters 1905–1931 - Клайв Льюис, Клайв Стейплз Льюис, Walter Hooper - Страница 6

T he Lewises were a happy family. Albert Lewis¹ had prospered as a police court solicitor, and on 18 April 1905 the family moved from the semi-detached Dundela Villas, where Warnie and Jack were born, into a house Albert had specially built for his wife, Flora.² This was ‘Little Lea’, one of the new ‘big houses’ of Strandtown, a lovely area of Belfast. Outside, the family looked over wide fields to Belfast Lough, and across the Lough to the mountains of the Antrim shore.

Albert and Flora, like most Anglo-Irish parents, wanted their children to be educated in English public schools, and on 10 May 1905 Flora took Warnie,³ who was eight, across the water to Wynyard School in Watford, Hertfordshire. In complete innocence she was delivering her son into the hands of a madman. The headmaster, Robert Capron or ‘Oldie’ as the boys called him,⁴ ‘lived in a solitude of power,’ Jack was later to write, ‘like a sea-captain in the days of sail’ (SBJ II). In two years’ time he would have a High Court action taken against him for cruelty. For the time being Warnie joined the dwindling band of some dozen boys who lived in the pair of semi-detached houses which made up Wynyard School.

Meanwhile, Jack was tutored at home, his mother teaching him French and Latin and his governess, Annie Harper,⁵ teaching him everything else. He was almost eight when he wrote this first letter to Warnie:

TO HIS BROTHER (LP III: 63):

Little Lea.

Strandtown.

[c. November 1905]

My dear Warnie

Peter⁶ has had two un-fortunate aventures since I last wrote, however they came out all right in the end. No. 1, Maude⁷ was in her room (up there remember) heard Peter howling. When she came down, what do you think? sitting on the floor ready to spring on Peter was a big black cat. Maude chased it for a long way. I was not able to help matters because I was out on my bych.

The next adventure was not so starling, never the-less it is worth while relating that a mouse got into his cage.

Tim⁸ got the head staggers the other day while running on the lawn, he suddenly lay down and began to kick and foam at the mouth and shudder.

On Halow-een we had great [fun?] and had fireworks; rockets, and catterine wheels, squbes, and a kind of thing that you lit and twirled and then they made stars. We hung up an apple and bit at it we got Grandfather⁹ down to watch and he tried to bite. Maud got the ring out of the barn-brach and we had apple dumpling with in it a button a ring and a 3 penny bit. Martha got the button, Maude got nothing, and I got the ring and the 3 pence all in one bite. We got some leaves off the road the other day, that is to say the roadmen gave us some that they had got off the road, in fact they wanted them because they make good manure. I am doing french as well as latin now, and I think I like the latin better. Tomorrow I decline that old ‘Bonus,’ ‘Bona,’ ‘Bonum’ thing, but I think it is very hard (not now of course but it was).

Diabolos are all the go here, evrrey body has one except us, I don’t think the Lewis temper would hold out do you? Jackie Calwell has one and can do it beautifully (wish I could)

your loving

brother Jacks

TO HIS BROTHER (LP III: 75-6):

Little Lea.

Strandtown.

[c. 1906]

My dear Warnie

I am sorrey that I did not write to you before. At present Boxen is slightly convulsed.¹⁰ The news has just reached her that King Bunny is a prisoner. The colonists (who are of course the war party) are in a bad way: they dare scarcely leave their houses because of the mobs. In Tararo the Prussians and Boxonians are at fearful odds against each other and the natives.

Such were the states of affairs recently: but the able general Quick-steppe is taking steps for the rescue of King Bunny. (the news somewhat pacified the rioters.)

your loving

brother Jacks.

TO HIS BROTHER (LP III: 79):

Little Lea.

Strandtown.

18 May 1907

My dear Warnie,

Tommy is very well thank you. We have got the telephone in to our house. Is Bennett beter again, as he has been ill you see that you are not the onley boy who stayes at home.

We have nearly seteld that we are going to france this summer, all though I do not like that country I think I shall like the trip, wont you. I liked the card you sent me, I have put it in the album. I was talking to the Greaves through the telephone I wanted Arthur but he was out and I onley got Thom.¹¹

I am sorry I can’t give you any news about Nearo, but I have not got anny to give. The grass in the front is coming up nicely. It is fearfully hot here. I have got an adia, you know the play I was writing. I think we will try and act it with new stage don’t say annything about it not being dark we will have it up stairs and draw the thick curtains and the wight ones, the scenery is rather hard, but still I think we shall do it.

your loving

brother Jacks

TO HIS BROTHER (LP III: 80):

Little Lea.

Strandtown.

[August 1907?]

My dear Warnie

Thank you very much for the post-cards I liked them, the herald was the nicest I think, dont you. Now that I have finished the play I am thinking of writeing a History of Mouse-land and I have even gon so far as to make up some of it, this is what I have made up.

Mouse-land had a very long stone-age during which time no great things tooke place it lasted from 55 BC to 1212 and then king Bublich I began to reign, he was not a good king but he fought gainest yellow land. Bub II his son fought indai about the lantern act, died 1377 king Bunny came next.¹²

your loving

brother Jacks

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 82):

[Pension Petit-Vallon,

Berneval,

Près Dieppe]

4th Sept. ’07.¹³

My dear Papy,

excuse this post-card being so dirty, but in our rooms everything is so dusty. It is still lovely weather still. I was sick and had to go to bed but am quite beter now. I hope you are all right. Are Tommy and Peter all right?

your loving

son, Jacks.

TO HIS BROTHER (LP III: 105):

Tigh-na-mara,

Larne Harbour,

Co. Antrim.

[May 1908]¹⁴

My dear Warnie

how are you geting on. Mamy is doing very well indeed. I am sending you a picture of the ‘Lord Big’,¹⁵ I forgot until it was too late that she was screw not paddle, but of course there might be 2 boats in the same line that have one name. Did I tell you about going to chains memorial?¹⁶ It is a funny old place, one thing that struck me was the thickness of the walls. The light (as I suppose you know) is worked by gas, while I was there the man broct two mantles. Did you get my letters? one of them had a home drawn post card on it, I got yours and now I had beter stop, as there is nothing to say.

your loving brother,

Jacks

Flora Lewis had been ill for months and an operation on 15 February revealed she had cancer. The following month she seemed better, but during this period of uncertainty Albert Lewis’s father died on 24 March. The last letter from Flora Lewis in the Lewis Papers was written to Warnie on 15 June 1908. ‘I am sorry not to have been able to write to you regularly this term,’ she said, ‘but I find I am really not well enough to do so. I have been feeling very poorly lately and writing tires me very much. But I must write today to wish you a happy birthday’ (LP III: 106). Flora was very ill, and the impending tragedy at Little Lea resulted in Warnie being brought home at the end of June. Following another operation, she died at home on Albert’s forty-fifth birthday, 23 August 1908. The following month Jack accompanied his brother to Wynyard School in Watford, and the next letter is the first Jack wrote to his father after his arrival there.

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 140):

[Wynyard School,

Watford,

Hertfordshire

19? September 1908]

My dear Papy,

I suppose you got our telgy-graph to say that we were all right.

It was rather rough crossing, poor Warnie was very sea sick, I was sick once. Unfortunately Warnie was sick again in the train, also the breakfast car was so full that we could not get anything to eat till a long way after Crewe, we were both very hungry but when at last it came Warnie could not eat any worth talking about. When we arrived at Euston we saw both our trunks and plaboxs, the side of mine was dinged in. When we got to Watford the play-boxs were missing, evedently (though Warnie gave him 3d.) the porter had omitted to put them in at Euston. The railways officials think they can find them.

I cannot of course tell you yet but I think I shall like this place. Misis Capron and the Miss Caprons are very nice and I think I will be able to get on with Mr. Capron though to tell the truth he is rather eccentric.¹⁷

Anything we want Warnie is telling you about in his letter.

your loving son,

Jacksie

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 147):

[Wynyard School]

Postmark: 29 September 1908

My dear Papy

Mr. Capron said some-thing I am not likely to forget ‘curse the boy’ (behind Warnie’s back) because Warnie did not bring his jam in to tea, no one ever heard such a rule before.

Please may we not leave on Saturday? We simply cannot wait in this hole till the end of term.

your loving

son Jack

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 149):

[Wynyard School]

Postmark: 3 October 1908

My dear Papy

We are getting on much better since Aunt Any’s visit.¹⁸ We went up to the Franco-British exhibition and enjoyed it very much, but I suppose Aunt Any has told you all about it.

Warnie was just a little sick last night and had to go to bed early and take 2 pills, he is quite well today but did not go to church. I do not like church here at all because it is so frightfully high church that it might as well be Roman Catholic.

You must excuse me writing a long letter as I have a lot of people to write.

your loving

son Jacks

The contrast between what was said of the church the boys of Wynyard attended–St John’s Church, Watford–and what it meant in retrospect is very great. In a little diary kept at Wynyard and dated November 1909, Jack said:

We…marched to church in a dismal column. We were obliged to go to St Johns, a church which wanted to be Roman Catholic, but was afraid to say so. A kind of church abhorred by respectful Irish Protestants. Here Wyn Capron, the son of our Head Master, preached a sermon better than his usual ones. In this abominable place of Romish hypocrites and English liars, the people cross themselves, bow to the Lord’s Table (which they have the vanity to call an altar), and pray to the Virgin. (LP III: 194)

Recalling it some years later in SBJ II, he said:

I have not yet mentioned the most important thing that befell me at [Wynyard]. There first I became an effective believer. As far as I know, the instrument was the church to which we were taken twice every Sunday. This was high Anglo-Catholic.’ On the conscious level I reacted strongly against its peculiarities–was I not an Ulster Protestant, and were not these unfamiliar rituals an essential part of the hated English atmosphere? Unconsciously, I suspect, the candles and incense, the vestments and the hymns sung on our knees, may have had a considerable, and opposite, effect on me…What really mattered was that here I heard the doctrines of Christianity (as distinct from general ‘uplift’) taught by men who obviously believed them.

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 151):

[Wynyard School]

Postmark: 25 October 1908

My dear Papy,

Did you get my letter? Is Maud still with you, I hope so. How is your back?

I am very sorry you are so much annoyed at Mr. Capron’s letter, but it is quite untrue, Warnie is not lazy.¹⁹ How is Ant Any? And now you must excuse me writing such a short letter, but as every day is the same as the last I have little or nothing to say.

your loving

son

Jacks

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 154):

[Wynyard School]

Postmark: 22 November 1908

My dear Papy,

There are only 3 more Sundays this term, next one is my birthday. The term brakes up on 17th Thursday. How is your back? We have thought of a splendid new idea; a book club, it is going to be started next term, Warnie is going to get the Pearson’s, and I the Strand. Field is getting the Captain.²⁰

I find school very nice but it is frightfully monotenis.

with love

from

Jacks

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 155):

[Wynyard School

27? November 1908]

My dear Papy,

How are you feeling? As to what you say about leaving I cannot know quite what to say, Warnie does not particularly want to, he says it look like being beaten in the fight.

In spight of all that has happened I like Mr. Capron very much indeed. Have you still got Maud? How are they all down at Sandycroft? Give Joey my love and tell him I will write to him as soon as I have time.²¹

your loving

son Jacks

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 173):

[Wynyard School]

Postmark: 21 February 1909

My dear Papy,

According to certain authorities this is half term Sunday, others are inclined to think it will fall sometime during the week. But almost everyone is unanimous on the fact that next Sunday will be well over half term.

This week many things of interest are happening here, according to rumour, Peckover, Reis, and a few others are going soon. Peckover we know is for certain, we being in close privy confidence with him. Between us and the other boys great changes are taking place; a secret society got up by ‘Squivy’ included everyone but us. However Peckover (who has up till now been Squivy’s chum) does not seem to think that Squivy is the best of friends, so he more or less sided with us in preference. He contrived to make Jeyes and Bowser assume an aspect of friendship towards us, and enmity towards Squivy. So Squivy and his toady Mears remain together, under the blissful delusion that they are still popular, and in the case of a row would be staunchly supported by every boarder but us. I am delighted to observe Squivy’s popularity and power gradually disappearing. Peckover is leaving because Mr. Capron gives him such a bad time of it here (assisted by Wyn), and in reality, Peckover has been shamefully handled. John Burnett is leaving for a similar reason. Reis (being a day boy, and a nasty one at that), I have not bothered to look into his case.

I may mention that the day boys have taken no part in what I am telling about Squivy.

Thanks for the ‘1st men in the moon’,²² I have already finished it and enjoyed it very much. Is Aunt Annie any better, please tell me all about her, and your back in the next letter you write.

your loving

son Jacks

P.S. Peckover begs me to tell you not to tell anything about what I’ve told you.

J.

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 175):

[Wynyard School

28 February 1909]

My dear Papy,

Thank you very much for the note paper. Did you get the letter I wrote on Friday (at least I think it was Friday) night? A rather amusing incident occurred yesterday afternoon. We went for a walk in the afternoon and those day boys who wished, came with us too. And it so happened that Poppy, the brother of John, and Boivie (the sociable Swede) came with us. Now Boivie is a Swede, and therefore a good old northerner, and like us, hates anything that savours of the south of England: so I mentioned in the course of our conversation how intensely I hated the churches down here: ‘There’re so high’ said I. ‘Oh, yes’, replied Boivie ‘the ones in Denmark are much nicer, look there (pointing to a church across the road) look how high the steeple is’. And he didn’t mean it as a joke either.

Now as there is not much news I must stop.

your loving

son Jacks

On 28 July 1909 Warnie won his release from Wynyard School, and on 16 September he arrived in Malvern, Worcestershire, to begin his first term at Malvern College.

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 185-6):

[Wynyard School]

Postmark: 19 September 1909

My dear Papy,

I arrived safely (as you heard in the telegraph), after a pleasant journey. Oldy met me at Euston as you said, but as his train was late, he was not at my platform. However, I got my luggage attended to all right, and met him on the Watford platform. Euston is not nearly so muddling as I thought, and coming back to here next term I don’t think Oldy need meet me here.

I am sorry to say that there are no new boys this term, but there is a rumour that Oldy is going to have a private pupil (whatever that may mean) later on. He is over sixteen and stands 6 ft. 2., according to Oldy, but then I don’t believe that.

There are thirteen weeks this term, which sounds a lot, but it will soon go past, at least I hope so.

Have you heard any more from Warnie, and if so how is the old chap getting on? I hope to send an epistle to him today. I have not seen the day boys yet, as school does not begin in earnest until tomorrow morning. ‘And now as the time alloted for correspondance is drawing to a close’ etc. But now I must stop, with love and good wishes,

yours loving son,

Jack

P.S. Don’t forget to write very plainly in your letter which I am expecting tomorrow.

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 195-6):

[Wynyard School

16? December 1909]

My dear Papy,

This time next week I will be at home with you. Isn’t it just splendid? One of the causes of writing this letter to you is to remind you to send the journey-money (not that I think you would ever forget); but last time it came just in the nick of time, which made Warnie rather anxious.

I don’t think I will have the microscope for Christmas. In order to study entomological specimens, it would of course be needful to kill them: and to go about exterminating harmless insects, with no other motive in view than the gratification of one’s own whimsical tastes does not seem to me very nice, when I look at it in that light. Of course it must be said that death to the insect is painless and quick; and that certain kinds of beetles (and other insects as well), when turned on their backs, cannot move. One could study these species through the microscope without killing them. However, the arguments against practical entomology are, I think, much stronger than those for it. Consequently I have decided not to have the microscope for Christmas, and it would be nicer not to know what I am going to get.²³

Yesterday (Wednesday) we went for a paper chase. Mears and I were the hares, which was rather absurd, seeing that we are the two worst runners in the school, and know less about the country than the others. Both you and I know that I have got hardly any ‘puff, and so you will be surprised to read as I was to find, that I kept up all right. We ran for a good long way, and however got caught in the end. I can tell you I slept well afterwards. Today we are all very, very stiff.

As the end of term draws nearer and nearer, we must soon decide all about the journey home. I think I had better go by Liverpool; for if I could arrange to meet Warnie at Lime St. Station, it would no longer be necessary for you to come over.

Now I must stop: with much love,

your son,

Jacks

TO HIS FATHER (LP III: 209-10):

[Wynyard School]

Postmark: 21 May 1910

My dear Papy,

I am writing to you today (Saturday) because we are going to St. Alban’s to see Wyn ordained tomorrow.

We have quite settled down to the term here, and the time is beginning to fly: I hope it will go quickly with you too.

I have been thinking about the school question, but the more I think the more difficult it seems to arrive at any definite conclusion. Of course half formed, nebulous, impossible ideas will bubble up spontaneously.

Yesterday (Friday) we went to church in the morning and afternoon; in the afternoon a great many boy scouts were present. Somehow I don’t think ‘Wee Georgie’ (minus the Wood) will be very popular at first: but what is this to Shakespearian students like you and I who know what happens–

‘After a well graced actor leaves the stage.’²⁴

The other day we had a general knowledge examination: it was very exciting. I got 62 marks out of 100, and was second, Bowser was first. Thank goodness Squiffy came out miles below Bowser and I. If I cannot triumph over Squiffy in games and out of school, I will do my level best to triumph over him in work (which I can do), and which is perhaps a far better way of getting my own.

If you are ‘thinking long’ because this is a long term, remember that the holidays are long in proportion.

your loving

son Jacks

P.S. Have you seen the comet? We have not.

1 See Albert James Lewis in the Biographical Appendix.

2 See Florence Augusta ‘Flora’ Lewis in the Biographical Appendix.

3 See Warren Hamilton ‘Warnie’ Lewis in the Biographical Appendix.

4 See Robert Capron in the Biographical Appendix.

5 Miss Annie Harper was governess to the Lewis boys from 1898 to 1908.

6 Jack’s canary.

7 Maude and Martha were housemaids at Little Lea.

8 Tim was the family dog of whom Lewis said in SBJ X: ‘He may hold a record for longevity among Irish terriers since he was already with us when I was at Oldie’s [1908-10] and did not die till 1922…Poor Tim, though I loved him, was the most undisciplined, unaccomplished, and dissipated-looking creature that ever went on four legs. He never exactly obeyed you; he sometimes agreed with you.’

9 Grandfather was Richard Lewis (1832-1908), the father of Albert. See The Lewis Family in the Biographical Appendix.

10 Boxen was a world invented by Jack and Warnie a year or so before this time, and about which Jack was to write many stories and histories involving the characters mentioned here–King Bunny, General Quicksteppe and others. Much of this juvenilia has been published as Boxen: The Imaginary World of the Young C.S. Lewis, ed. Walter Hooper (1985).

11 See the Biographical Appendix for Joseph Arthur Greeves, a boy who lived across the road from the Lewises.

12 This ‘History of Mouse-Land’ is found in Boxen, op. cit, pp. 39-41.

13 This was to be the last holiday Jack and Warnie took with their mother. They travelled to London, and from there they went on to Berneval in France, where they were on holiday from 20 August until 18 September.

14 Jack was here on holiday with his mother.

15 Lord Big, a frog, is the most memorable of the Boxen characters.

16 Warnie Lewis wrote: ‘“chains memorial” is a lighthouse at the entrance to Larne Harbour, erected to the memory of James Chaine, a prominent local landowner; he is buried in an upright position, in unconsecrated ground, overlooking the harbour’ (LP III: 105).

17 Robert Capron was assisted in his teaching by all the members of the family, his wife Ellen Barnes Capron (1849-1909), his son Wynyard Capron (1883-1959), and his three daughters, Norah, Dorothy and Eva. See Robert Capron in the Biographical Appendix.

18 Annie Sargent Harley Hamilton (1866-1930) was the wife of Flora’s brother, Augustus ‘Gussie’ Hamilton, who undertook much of the care of Jack and Warnie following their mother’s death. A Canadian by birth, she married Augustus Hamilton in 1897, and was thereafter Flora’s best friend. Lewis said of her in SBJ III: ‘In her I found what I liked best–an unfailing, kindly welcome without a hint of sentimentality, unruffled good sense, the unobtrusive talent for making all things at all times as cheerful and comfortable as circumstances allowed. What one could not have one did without and made the best of it. The tendency of the Lewises to reopen wounds and to rouse sleeping dogs was unknown to her as to her husband.’

19 On 22 October, Mr Capron wrote to Albert Lewis saying: ‘Not only is Clive an exceptionally bright, intelligent, and most lovable little boy, but he is also very keen and eager to learn. Would that I could write to you in the same strain of Warren! Ever averse to effort, physical and mental, he grows worse, and I am almost driven to regard his indolence in the light of a disease’ (LP III: 150).

20 These were three magazines for boys. Pearsons Magazine ran from 1903 to 1936; The Strand Magazine was an illustrated monthly which aimed at ‘cheap, healthful literature’ in the form of stories and articles–Arthur Conan Doyle’s Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was among its first serials–and ran from 1891 to 1950; The Captain, another magazine for boys, ran from 1899 to 1924.

21 ‘Sandycroft’ was the Belfast home of Albert’s brother, Joseph Lewis (1856-1908) who died on 3 September 1908. He was a marine consulting engineer. In 1880 he married Mary Tegart, and they had five children, of which Joseph or ‘Joey’ (1898-1969) was at this time Jack’s best friend. See The Lewis Family in the Biographical Appendix.

22 H.G. Wells, The First Men in the Moon (1901).

23 Jack apparently got over his scruples about the microscope, for he received one for Christmas.

24 William Shakespeare, Richard II (1595), V, ii, 24.