The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 1: Family Letters, 1905-1931

I recently finished reading The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 1: Family Letters, 1905-1931.
Here are some quotes that stood out to me.

"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 beleive 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 man’s own invention–Christ as much as Loki. Primitive man found himself surrounded by all sorts of terrible things he didn’t understand–thunder, pestilence, snakes etc: 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 etc. 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."
(Kindle edition, page 230)

"It is getting to be quite homely to me this room, especially when I come back to it by firelight and find the kettle boiling. How I love kettles!"
(Kindle edition, page 297)

"I arrived in his rooms a little too early, and thus had an opportunity of studying his books, which I always consider the best introduction to a new acquaintance."
(Kindle edition, page 303)

"The place has been looking just lovely in the snow. As you come out of our college gate you see All Souls and just beyond it the grey spire of St Mary’s Church: you know what real Gothic is like: all little pinaccles with every kind of ornament on them and in the snow they look like a wintry forest hung up against the dark sky, and always associated in ones mind with the sound of bells."
(Kindle edition, page 431)

"You will be interested to hear that in the course of my philosophy–on the existence of matter–I have had to postulate some sort of God as the least objectionable theory: but of course we know nothing. At any rate we don’t know what the real Good is, and consequently I have stopped defying heaven: it can’t 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."
(Kindle edition, page 509)

"It was fine, dry, powdery snow while it lasted and the College looked very beautiful under it."
(Kindle edition, page 662)

"I am slowly reading a book that we have known about, but not known, for many a long day–Macdonald’s Diary of an Old Soul. 81 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.
(Kindle edition, page 833)

"One week I was up till 2.30 on Monday (talking to the Anglo Saxon professor Tolkien who came back with me to College from a society and sat discoursing of the gods & giants & Asgard for three hours, then departing in the wind & rain–who cd. turn him out, for the fire was bright and the talk good?), a perfect winter day with mellow sunlight slanting through a half frosty mist on the grey fields, the cosy farms, and the tall leafless elms, absolutely unmoving in the air."
(Kindle edition, page 838)

"Another day all on Chaucer. What I am actually doing is going thro the parts of the Canterbury Tales which I know least with the aid of several commentators, making copious notes and trying to get really ‘sound’ on them. You see there has been a new edition since my undergraduate days, so that most of my knowledge–it was never very exact–on Chaucer, is out of date. This sounds dull, but as a matter of fact I take great pleasure in it."
(Kindle edition, page 861)

"And now, for my first week of term. All private reading has ceased, except for 20 minutes before bed (if alone) when I drink a cup of cocoa and try to wash the day off with Macdonalds Diary of an Old Soul."
(Kindle edition, page 872)

"Luckily the world is full of books of that general type: that is another of the beauties of coming, I won’t say, to religion but to an attempt at religion–one finds oneself on the main road with all humanity, and can compare notes with an endless succession of previous travellers."
(Kindle edition, page 872)

"Tolkien is the man I spoke of when we were last together–the author of the voluminous unpublished metrical romances and of the maps, companions to them, showing the mountains of Dread and Nargothrond the city of the Orcs."
(Kindle edition, page 880)

"I am an instrument strung but preferring to play itself because it thinks it knows the tune better than the Musician."
(Kindle edition, page 882)


You have just finished reading The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 1: Family Letters, 1905-1931.
Connect with me on Twitter and Pinterest.