Man of Letters

"I'm sorry my letters are so short compared with yours, but I'm afraid this is an irremovable difference between the sexes--women love letter writing and men loathe it.  And there is so much other writing in my day's work!" (104)

So says C. S. Lewis.  He may have hated it but he sure did a lot of it.  Such a well known author received heaps of letters from admirers, and Lewis was diligent to answer them.  Letters to an American Lady contains his thirteen year correspondence with one particular American woman (who remained anonymous) whom he never met in this life.  These letters, which Lewis obviously never knew would be published, reveal a personal side of the great Medieval and Renaissance literary scholar, children's author, and popular theologian.

At times we see vintage Lewis:

"Sleep is a jade who scorns her suitors but woos her scorners" (23).

"But I have long known that the talk about Brotherhood, wherever it occurs, in America or here, is hypocrisy.  Or rather, the man who talks it means 'I have no superiors':  he does not mean 'I have no inferiors'.  How loathsome it all is!" (43).

"My brother heard a woman on a 'bus say, as the 'bus passed a church with a Crib outside it, 'Oh Lor'!  They bring religion into everything.  Look--they're dragging it even into Christmas now!"  (80).

"But I'm afraid as we grow older life consists more and more in either giving up things or waiting for them to be taken from us . . ." (95).

"Yes, it is strange that anyone should dislike cats.  But cats themselves are the worst offenders in this respect.  They very seldom seem to like one another" (105). 

And then we see letters like this, written two days after his wife's death.

"I've just got your letter of the 12th.  Joy died on the 13th.  I can't describe the apparent unreality of my life since then.  She received absolution and died at peace with God.  I will try to write again when I have more command of myself.  I'm like a sleep-walker at the moment.  God bless" (91).

I for one am thankful for this woman's decision to preserve and share these private letters.