After Prayers, Lie Cold

[Image: 'The Passion' by Vitali Linitsky]

Arise my body, my small body, we have striven
Enough, and He is merciful; we are forgiven.
Arise small body, puppet-like and pale, and go,
White as the bed-clothes into bed, and cold as snow,
Undress with small, cold fingers and put out the light,
And be alone, hush'd mortal, in the sacred night,
A meadow whipt flat with the rain, a cup
Emptied and clean, a garment washed and folded up,
Faded in colour, thinned almost to raggedness
By dirt and by the washing of that dirtiness.
Be not too quickly warm again. Lie cold; consent
To weariness' and pardon's watery element.
Drink up the bitter water, breathe the chilly death;
Soon enough comes the riot of our blood and breath.

Poems ~ CS Lewis (1964)

Sturch on Williams

In Descent into Hell the crucial choices are those of the military historian Lawrence Wentworth; there are three, and each time he chooses the worst. A rival historian is knighted. It could be an opportunity for joy, to take it as an honour to his profession. "At least he could refuse not to enjoy. [...] With a perfectly clear, if instantaneous, knowledge of what he did, he rejected joy instead. He instantaneously preferred anger, and it came; he invoked envy, and it obliged him."

Then a girl to whom he is attracted prefers someone else, and he cannot accept this either; instead, out of his daydreams (egoistic castle-building!) is fashioned a succubus, a horrible parody of the girl which is in no danger of showing the independence the real girl had.

Finally, he is offered a chance for professional integrity, akin to the repentance through non-moral goodness that I have already discussed. His knighted rival, we are told, is "a holy and beautiful soul who would have sacrificed reputation, income, and life, if necessary, for the discovery of one fact". Wentworth has already lost much of this integrity; but now he is given a chance to regain it. The uniforms for a play being produced by some acquaintances are historically inaccurate. He could point this out. He is actually asked to say whether they are correct or not. But he cannot be bothered; he prefers to be lost in his fantasies. And, steadily, he loses touch with reality and slides into a mindless damnation.

Richard Sturch ~ Four Christian Fantasists [Walking Tree - 2001]

The Tryst of the Worlds

She knew what she must do. But she felt, as she stood, that she could no more do it than he. She could never bear that fear. The knowledge of being burnt alive, of the flames, of the faces, of the prolongation of pain. She knew what she must do. She opened her mouth and could not speak. In front of her, alone in his foul Marian prison, unaware of the secret means the Lord he worshipped was working swiftly for his peace, believing and unbelieving, her ancestor stood centuries off in his spiritual desolation and preluding agony of sweat. He could not see beyond the years the child of his house who strove with herself behind and before him. The morning was coming; his heart was drained. Another spasm shook him; even now he might recant. Pauline could not see the prison, but she saw him. She tried to choose and to speak.

Behind her, her own voice said: "Give it to me, John Struther." He heard it, in his cell and chains, as the first dawn of the day of his martyrdom broke beyond the prison. It spoke and sprang in his drained heart; and drove the riotous blood again through his veins: "Give it to me, give it to me, John Struther." He stretched out his arms again: he called: "Lord, Lord!" It was a devotion and an adoration; it accepted and thanked. Pauline heard it, trembling, for she knew what stood behind her and spoke. It said again: "Give". He fell on his knees, and in a great roar of triumph he called out: "I have seen the salvation of my God."

Charles Williams : "Descent into Hell" (Chapter 9)

Letter to W.H. Auden (excerpt #3)

7 June 1955
Since The Hobbit was a success, a sequel was called for; and the remote Elvish Legends were turned down. A publisher's reader said they were too full of the kind of Celtic beauty that maddened Anglo-Saxons in a large dose. Very likely quite right. Anyway I myself saw the value of Hobbits, in putting earth under the feet of 'romance', and in providing subjects for 'ennoblement' and heroes more praiseworthy than the professionals…

Letter #163 - J.R.R. Tolkien

To W.H. Auden (excerpt #2)

All I remember about the start of The Hobbit is sitting correcting School Certificate papers in the everlasting weariness of that annual task forced on impecunious academics with children. On a blank leaf I scrawled: 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit'. I did not and do not know why. I did nothing about it, for a long time, and for some years I got no further than the production of Thror's Map. But it became The Hobbit in the early 1930s, and was eventually published not because of my own children's enthusiasm (though they liked it well enough), but because I lent it to the then Rev. Mother of Cherwell Edge when she had flu, and it was seen by a former student who was at that time in the office of Allen and Unwin. It was I believe tried out on Rayner Unwin; but for whom when grown up I think I should never have got the Trilogy published.

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien #163

To W. H. Auden (excerpt #1)

7 June 1955
I first tried to write a story when I was about seven. It was about a dragon. I remember nothing about it except a philological fact. My mother said nothing about the dragon, but pointed out that one could not say 'a green great dragon', but had to say 'a great green dragon'. I wondered why, and still do. The fact that I remember this is possibly significant, as I do not think I ever tried to write a story again for many years, and was taken up with language.

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien #163

Tolkien on Human Misery

[Image: Paul Nash]

10 April 1944

I sometimes feel appalled at the thought of the sum total of human misery all over the world at the present moment: the millions parted, fretting, wasting in unprofitable days - quite apart from torture, pain, death, bereavement, injustice. If anguish were visible, almost the whole of this benighted planet would be enveloped in a dense dark vapor, shrouded from the amazed vision of the heavens! And the products of it all will be mainly evil - historically considered. But the historic version is, of course, not the only one. All things and all deeds have a value in themselves, apart from their "causes" and "effects." No man can estimate what is really happening sub specie aeternitatis. All we do know, and that to a large extent by direct experience, is that evil labors with vast power and perpetual success - in vain: preparing always the soil for unexpected good to sprout in.

- from "The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien"

Letter to C.A. Furth, Allen & Unwin

Could you give me any idea of the latest date by which the completed MSS. ought to reach you? I have worked under difficulties of all kinds, including ill-health. Since the beginning of December I have not been able to touch it. Among many other labours and troubles that the sudden death of my friend Professor Eric Gordon bequeathed to me, I had to clear up the New Zealand examinations, which occupied nearly all last vacation. I then caught influenza, from which I have just recovered. But I have other heavy tasks ahead. I am at the peak of my educational financial stress, with a second son clamouring for a university and the youngest wanting to go to school (after a year under heart-specialists), and I am obliged to do exams and lectures and what not. Perhaps you ought to be thinking about Mr Bliss. And what about Farmer Giles? You had the MSS. of the enlarged form in September or October.

I think The Lord of the Rings is in itself a good deal better than The Hobbit, but it may not prove a very fit sequel. It is more grown up - but the audience for which The Hobbit was written has done that also. The readers young and old who clamoured for 'more about the 'Necromancer' are to blame, for the N. is not child's play.* My eldest son is enthusiastic, but it would be a relief to me to know that my publishers were satisfied. If the part so far written satisfied you, there need be no fear of the whole. I wonder whether it would not be a wise thing to get what I have done typed and let you see it? I shall certainly finish it eventually whatever you think of it; but if it did not seem to be what you want to follow The Hobbit there would be no desperate pressure. The writing of The Lord of the Rings is laborious, because I have been doing it as well as I know how, and considering every word. The story, too, has (I fondly imagine) some significance. In spare time it would be easier and quicker to write up the plots already composed of the more lighthearted stories of the Little Kingdom to go with Farmer Giles. But I would rather finish the long tale, and not let it go cold.

JRRT Footnote:* Still there are more hobbits, far more of them and about them, in the new story. Gollum reappears, and Gandalf is to the fore: 'dwarves' come in; and though there is no dragon (so far) there is going to be a Giant; and the new and (very alarming) Ringwraiths are a feature. There ought to be things that people who liked the old mixture will find to have a similar taste.

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
2 February 1939

Young Jack

Jack Lewis seated on one of the stones at Stonehenge. Taken on April 8, 1925 by Warnie Lewis.

Tree and Leaf

In a letter (# 98 -18 March 1945) to Stanley Unwin, Tolkien talks about 'Leaf by Niggle':

"...that story was the only thing I have ever done which cost me absolutely no pains at all. Usually I compose only with great difficulty and endless rewriting. I woke up one day (more the 2 years ago) with that odd thing virtually complete in my head. It took only a few hours to get down, and then copy out."

‘Leaf by Niggle’ is very much an allegory of Tolkien's own creative process, and, to an extent, of his own life. He admitted having been just that in ‘Leaf by Niggle’ in a letter to Caroline Everett (24 June 1957):

"I should say that, in addition to my tree-love (it was originally called The Tree), it arose from my own pre-occupation with the Lord of the Rings, the knowledge that it would be finished in great detail or not at all, and the fear (near certainty) that it would be 'not at all'. The war had arisen to darken all horizons. But no such analyses are a complete explanation even of a short story..."

Niggle is an artists who paints to please himself, living in a society that holds art in little regard. His main occupation is a huge painting of great tree. He starts with one single leaf and the painting grows around it. Niggle hoping to draw every leaf in great detail. Soon Niggle finds birds in the trees and hills that are visible from the branches. And so the painting grows and takes up all the artist’s time. Niggle takes time off from his work, because of politeness, to aid his neighbour, a gardener named Parish who is lame and has a sick wife. In the process of helping, Niggle becomes ill.

Then he is forced to take a trip, but was ill prepared for it (partly due to his illness) and ends up in an institution of sorts where he must labour each day. He is paroled and sent to work as a gardener in the country. He realizes that he is in fact working in the forest of his painting, but the Tree is the true realization of his vision, not the flawed version in his art.

Although Tolkien was against allegory, he wrote ‘Leaf By Niggle’ as an allegorical tale. As he mentions (above) in a letter, it arose from his own pre-occupation with the ‘Lord of the Rings’, the knowledge that it would be finished in great detail or not at all. To think further on that sentence, the hidden meaning could be that Tolkien himself is Niggle.

Tolkien was compulsive in his writing, his revision, his desire for ultimate perfection in form and in the ‘reality’ of his invented world, its languages, its chronologies, its existence and history. Like the painter Niggle, Tolkien came to being absorbed by his personal ‘Tree’, Middle-earth, and like Niggle, Tolkien had many duties that kept him from the work he desired to complete.

From www.tolkienlibrary.com

Trees (again)

[Oaks, festooned with 'spanish moss', on Jekyll Island, Georgia]

We do not look at trees either as Dryads or as beautiful objects while we cut them into beams: the first man who did so may have felt the price keenly, and the bleeding trees in Virgil and Spenser may be far-off echoes of that primeval sense of impiety. The stars lost their divinity as astronomy developed, and the Dying God has no place in chemical agriculture. To many, no doubt, this process is simply the gradual discovery that the real world is different from what we expected... but that is not the whole story. It is not the greatest of modern scientists who feel most sure that the object, stripped of its qualitative properties and reduced to mere quantity, is wholly real. Little scientists, and little unscientific followers of science, may think so. The great minds know very well that the object, so treated, is an artificial abstraction, that something of its reality has been lost.

C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (1943)

Failed in Divinity?

JOHN BETJEMAN’S carefully cultivated image of himself as a devil-may-care student who “failed in divinity” at Oxford has been exposed as a myth after the discovery of his examination results.

Far from being unfazed by his failure, as depicted in his biographical poem Summoned by Bells, he resat his compulsory divinity examination twice, passing on the third attempt.

The Poet Laureate fooled the academic community for 40 years by relating only part of his academic record in chapter nine of his poem, published in 1960. “Failed in Divinity! O, towers and spires!/ Could no one help? Was nothing to be done?/ No. No one. Nothing.”

He lamented that his dreams of “Reading old poets in the library,/ Attending chapel in an M.A. gown/ And sipping vintage port by candlelight” had been dashed.

But curators at the Bodleian Library stumbled across his examination results while researching an exhibition to mark the centenary of his birth today.

Judith Priestman, co-curator of the Betjeman exhibition at the library, said that she had argued with the archivist because she could not believe that Betjeman had passed. “That is how he presented himself. He needed myths to keep himself going. But he didn’t leave Oxford as a Byronic figure.

“He was a good boy really. He presented himself as this great outsider, but actually he did jump through the hoops. He wanted to be an aristocrat, and an aristocrat would have said ‘I’ve failed, so what?’ and swanned off. He came back like the good bourgeois that he was.”

At the time Summoned by Bells was published, Betjeman declared that “one is only interesting when young and struggling”. He recounted his failure to please his father, to learn carpentry or to pass his divinity exam. “I was a poet. That was why I failed.”

He failed his first divinity examination on November 25, 1927, but returned for a second attempt on March 2, 1928. His name finally appeared — misspelt as “Beljemann” — on the moderators’ “satisfied” list on July 18, 1928.

"Times" Online

28 August 2006

The Dilettante and the Don

[A radiant Princess Margaret with John Betjeman on her left in about 1950. On her right is her lady-in-waiting Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, Betjeman's intimate friend, and beyond her is the Old Etonian Simon Phipps, later Bishop of Lincoln. Lady Cavendish and Betjeman engaged in an illicit affair from their meeting (in the early 1950s) until Betjeman's death.]

Betjeman & Clive Staples Lewis at Oxford

Although only eight years older than his pupil, C S Lewis's undergraduate experience of Oxford had been very different from Betjeman's. Born in 1898, he attended University College for one term before being shipped out to the Western Front in 1917, where he was wounded by an exploding shell at the battle of Arras. He returned to Oxford after the war and took a First in Greats, then a degree in English, but like many ex-servicemen he found himself completely at odds with the fast cars and flappers mentality of the early and mid-'20s. There had been just twelve other undergraduates at University College in 1917, when Lewis was 18 and the right age to be carefree. By the time he returned, he was 21 and had lived through a war that had killed the golden boys of his generation and he was in no position to appreciate the so-called Golden Aesthetes of Betjeman's day.

Moreover, there was the additional problem of the School of English Language and Literature, whose establishment in 1894 had attracted the sort of intellectual opprobrium usually reserved for Media Studies today: 'a school for soft-optioners, school teachers, and women'. In order to elevate the study of English above 'mere chatter about Shelley', the emphasis in the taught syllabus was on language rather than literature. Alongside the big writerly guns (Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton), undergraduates were required to study Anglo-Saxon, Middle English and the history of English language and philology. Without an intimate knowledge of Grimm's Law formulating sound-change in early Germanic consonants, even the most diligent student taught by an entirely sympathetic tutor would struggle to excel if language was not their metier, and so Betjeman the puckish dilettante and Lewis the unyielding pedagogue embarked on a fraught master-pupil relationship, the repercussions of which haunted Betjeman for the rest of his life.

Lewis's idea of a literary salon at this pre-Inklings, pre-Christian stage of his career was a roistering beer-and-baccy session, reciting Norse sagas in his booming voice and encouraging his students to chant linguistic mnemonics out loud. His teaching style was pugnacious, and with his tweed jacket, pipe and aggressively unpoetic vocabulary (excellence was indicated by a laconic 'all right'; defaulters were said to need 'a smack or so' to get them into line), Jolly Jack Lewis appeared to be the embodiment of everything that was hearty and antithetical to the fey, Anglo-Catholic aesthete Betjeman, who admired Victoriana and minor poets and incensed his tutor by insisting that Oscar Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas (with whom Betjeman had enjoyed an illicit correspondence when he was at Marlborough), was a greater writer than Shakespeare.

'I wish I could get rid of the idle prig', Lewis confided to his diary. 'I was rung up on the telephone ... from Moreton in the Marsh, to say that he hasn't been able to read the OE, as he was suspected for measles & forbidden to look at a book. Probably a lie, but what can one do?' Or again, when Betjeman did deign to turn up, he 'appeared in a pair of eccentric bedroom slippers and said he hoped I didn't mind them, as he had a blister. He seemed so pleased with himself that I couldn't help replying that I should mind them very much myself but I had no objection to his wearing them.' Betjeman's attempt to win his tutor over by inviting him to tea in his rooms in St Aldate's only alienated Lewis further, as he was forced to participate in conversations about lace curtains and to mingle with 'a galaxy of super-undergraduates', including 'an absolutely silent and astonishingly ugly person called McNeice [sic]'.

It was hardly a surprise, then, that when Betjeman failed the elementary but compulsory First Public Examination in Holy Scripture, his tutor was less than supportive of his requests for help. What was perhaps more surprising was that 'Bishop Betjy', with his attachment to all things ecclesiastical, should have been unsuccessful in his 'Divvers' exam, not once but twice in his third year, before being sent down at the end of Hilary term 1928.

Oxford Today
Volume 18 Number 3, Trinity 2006

From Betjeman to Lewis (never sent)

"It seems to me that we have two different approaches to poetry. Both, I hope, have a sense of the sound of words and of metre and stress in common. After that there is no common ground. Your approach is philosophical, or metaphysical or abstract or something I do not understand. Mine is visual. I would cite a bit of your own poetry - a poem called 'The Planets' which opens with the line: "Lady Luna in light canoe". I don't see how anyone who has looked at the moon can think of it as "cruising monthly" in a light canoe. If we are going back to the day of my lack of style, what 'style' us this?"

John Betjeman - Unpublished Letter : 13th December 1939
Cited in the 'Daily Telegraph' - 29th July 2006

Weapontake

The weapontake was set for the morrow. When all is ordered we will Set out. (Theoden, in LR v. iii)

The word wapentake (OED: 'a subdivision of certain English shires, corresponding to the "hundred" of other counties') is well known in the context of English history, but not in the sense in which Tolkien uses it. It derives from the Old Norse vapnatak, and clearly consists of the two components - weapon and take; the corresponding word in Icelandic was used to mean (among other things) the taking up once more of weapons which had been laid aside by those attending the Althing (the Icelandic parliament). The route by which this word came in English to mean an administrative region rather than an event can only be guessed at; the OED entry offers some ideas. Tolkien decided to take the word at face value, and thereby assign to it (or rather to the respelt form weapontake} an obvious meaning which he needed for his narrative.

The Ring of Words (OUP 2006)

Waybread

This waybread of the Elves had a potency that increased as travellers relied on it alone and did not mingle it with other foods. (LR vi. iii)

In ordinary English usage, this (OED: WAYBREAD) is a folk-name of the plantain (Plantago), meaning literally 'broad-leaved plant growing beside the way'. The second part of the word is related to broad, and has nothing to do with bread. However, Tolkien has punningly adopted the word as if it were a literal compound of 'way’ and 'bread' in order to have an English equivalent to the Elvish lenibas? (explained as being from len 'way5 and bos 'bread'), the cakes provided in Lothlorien which kept the Fellowship, especially Frodo and Sam, nourished on their journeys. It does not occur in Tolkien's earlier writings, but appears in 'Of Tuor and his Coming to, Gondolin' (1951) in Unfinished Tales.

Spiritually minded etymologists might also discern here a scholarly link with the word viaticum. In Roman Catholic practice, this is the consecrated bread of the Eucharist administered to someone; who is dying or in danger of death. The Latin word viaticum originally meant simply 'provision for a journey'; it comes from Latiri via 'way', and from it developed the word voyage (borrowed from French into English and originally meaning simply 'a journey'). Tolkien acknowledged the comparison between lembas and the Eucharist as miraculously sustaining forms of bread: the waybread provides food for Frodo and Sam on a journey that, to the best, of their knowledge, leads to death. He comments that 'far greater,: things may colour the mind in dealing with the lesser things of a fairy-story1 (Letters 213, 25 October 1958).

The Ring of Words (OUP 2006)

Patches of Godlight

Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are “patches of Godlight” in the woods of our experience.

C.S. Lewis ~ Letters from Malcolm

The Wood between the Worlds

There’s a brilliant section in one of the Narnia novels, The Magician’s Nephew, in which the book’s heroes, a boy and girl called Polly and Digory, find some magic rings which transport them into a place called the wood between the worlds. It’s a magical forest full of trees and little pools of water, and they discover that by jumping in the pools they can enter into hundreds of different worlds. It’s one of these jaunts that takes them to a brand new world which eventually becomes Narnia.

What’s great about this sequence is the moment of horror when the children realise that there is no way to clearly identify which pool leads to which world, or indeed, the one that leads them back to their own. They suddenly realise that they risk getting completely lost in the wood between the worlds, with no way to return home.

Michael Parsons ~ Times Online
19th October 2007

The Wood again...

“I suppose the mere fact of being walled-in gave the wood part of its peculiar quality, for when a thing is enclosed, the mind does not willingly regard it as common. As I went forward over the quiet turf I had the sense of being received. The trees were just so wide apart that one saw uninterrupted foliage in the distance but the place where one stood seemed always to be a clearing; surrounded by a world of shadows, one walked in mild sunshine. Except for the sheep, whose nibbling kept the grass so short and who sometimes raised their, long, foolish faces to stare at me, I was quite alone, and it felt more like the loneliness of a very large room in a deserted house than like any solitude out of doors. I remember thinking, ‘This is the sort of place, which as a child, one would have been rather afraid of or else would have liked very much indeed.’ A moment later I thought, ‘But when alone―really alone―everyone is a child: or no one?’ Youth and age touch only the surface of our lives.”

From C. S. Lewis (1945), ‘That Hideous Strength’

[The last two postings prompted by Ian Lowell]

The Image of Wood

“The image of wood has appeared often enough in English verse. It has indeed appeared so often that it has gathered a good deal of verse into itself; so that it has become a great forest where, with long leagues of changing green between them, strange episodes of high poetry have place. Thus in one part there are the lovers of a midsummer night, or by day a duke and his followers, and in another men behind branches so that the wood seems moving, and in another a girl separated from her two lordly young brothers, and in another a poet listening to a nightingale but rather dreaming richly of the grand art than exploring it, and there are other inhabitants, belonging even more closely to the wood, dryads, fairies, an enchanter’s rout. The forest itself has different names in different tongues—Westermain, Arden, Birnam, Broceliande; and in places there are separate trees names, such as that on the outskirts against which a young Northern poet saw a spectral wanderer leaning, or, in the unexplored centre of which only rumours reach even poetry, Igdrasil of one myth, or the Trees of Knowledge and Life of another. So that indeed the whole earth seems to become this one enormous forest, and our longest and most stable civilizations are only clearings in the midst of it.”

Charles Williams (1943), ‘The Figure of Beatrice’

The Father Christmas Letters ~ 1929

It is a light Christmas again, I am glad to say — the Northern Lights have been specially good. We had a bonfire this year (to please the Polar Bear), to celebrate the coming in of winter. The Snow-elves let off all the rockets together which surprised us both. I have tried to draw you a picture of it, but really there were hundreds of rockets. You can't see the Elves at all against the snow background. The bonfire made a hole in the ice and woke up the Great Seal, who happened to be underneath. The Polar Bear let off 20,000 silver sparklers afterwards - used up all my stock, so that is why I had none to send you. Then he went for a holiday!!! — to north Norway — and stayed with a wood-cutter called Olaf, and came back with his paw all bandaged just at the beginning of our busy times. There seem more children than ever in all the countries I specially look after. It is a good thing clocks don't tell the same time all over the world or I should never get round, although when my magic is strongest — at Christmas — I can do about a thousand stockings a minute, if I have it all planned out beforehand. You could hardly guess the enormous piles of lists I make out. I seldom get them mixed. But I am rather worried this year. You can guess from my pictures what happened. The first one shows you my office and packing room and the Polar Bear reading out names while I copy them down. We had awful gales here, worse than you did, tearing clouds of snow to a million tatters, screaming like demons, burying my house almost up to the roofs. Just at the worst the Polar Bear said it was stuffy! and opened a north window before I could stop him. Look at the result — only actually the North Polar Bear was buried in papers and lists; but that did not stop him laughing.

J.R.R. Tolkien

Auden & the Inklings (I)

W.H. Auden had been unable to believe in God since his adolescence. His loss of faith and his discovery of poetry had come, interestingly enough, at almost the same time. But in the late thirties, as Auden’s uncertainty about his role as a poet grew (along with political and social tensions in Europe) some odd things began to happen to him. When in Spain during that country’s Civil War, for instance, he was shocked and disturbed to see that supporters of the Republican cause had closed or burned many of Barcelona’s churches — but he could not account for his own reaction. Soon afterward, he met the English writer and editor Charles Williams, and felt himself to be “in the presence of personal sanctity” — though what sanctity meant in a world without God he could not say.

By the fall of 1940 he was going to church again, for the first time since childhood, and would affirm the Christian faith for the rest of his days.

However, the many readers who have rejoiced in the work of Auden’s fellow British Christians, the Inklings — Lewis, Tolkien, Charles Williams, and (peripheral to their circle) Dorothy Sayers — have paid little attention to this remarkable man or the extraordinary work that emerged from his embrace of the Christian faith.

Alan Jacobs ~ 'First Things'
Aug/Sep, 2001

Human Goodness

[Image: Ascension (detail) Vitali Linitsky]

Even the greatest writers struggle to describe human goodness, and very few (William Blake, Charles Williams) can speak of heavenly things without giving their audience the church giggles. There’s just something about an aura of divine love that stunts the human vocabulary.

Betty Carter
First Things ~ Sep 10, 2009

In The Lord of the Rings Beren and Luthien are frequently compared to Aragorn and Arwen. Arwen too has the choice of remaining immortal or marrying Aragorn. She chooses Aragorn and thus chooses death, a subject of much pain to her father, Elrond, who will live forever with only his recollection of her.

There’s a deeper, personal significance to Tolkien in the story of Beren and Luthien. Tolkien was frequently unhappy with people comparing his work to his own life. However, the story of Beren and Luthien has autobiographical origins, which Tolkien would not have denied.

Tolkien definitely compared his relationship to his wife, Edith Bratt, to the relationship between Beren and Luthien. When Tolkien first met Edith, she was a Protestant, and Tolkien, a devout Catholic was advised not to marry her. In fact, Edith did forsake her family by converting to Catholicism. So it is said that even the first meeting of Beren and Luthien is an echo of Tolkien’s life.

Beren spies Luthien dancing in the woods and falls deeply in love with her. On a romantic starry night, Edith danced for Tolkien and immediately entranced him. Edith was older than Tolkien; she was 19 and he was 16. This reflects Luthien’s agelessness and maturity, as compared to Beren’s relative youth.

Clearly the family struggle that ensued and the opposition Edith encountered in attempting to marry Tolkien was a source of pain to Edith. Luthien is shown as sorry for the family conflict she causes, yet resolute in her path to marriage. Tolkien’s words breathe a kindly sympathy to Edith’s family and an understanding of their pain, while celebrating Edith’s choice for his sake.

Tolkien’s relationship to Edith, and his deep love for her are perhaps even more romantic than his fictional treatment of the subject. To be Luthien, the most beautiful and desired of her people in Tolkien’s eyes, was the highest regard he could possibly give a woman. Further it expresses Tolkien as almost feeling he doesn’t quite deserve the grace that is Luthien, even though Beren, and Tolkien are worthy men.

Throught their long lives, Tolkien referred to Edith as Luthien, and to himself as Beren, this being even carried over to their gravestone in Wolvercote Cemetery.

The fall of Gil-galad

A brief extract from a poem "The fall of Gil-galad", sung Sam Gamgee to the company on Weathertop before the attack of the Nazgûl:

Gil-galad was an Elven-king.
Of him the harpers sadly sing:
the last whose realm was fair and free
between the Mountains and the Sea.

His sword was long, his lance was keen,
his shining helm afar was seen;
the countless stars of heaven's field
were mirrored in his silver shield.

But long ago he rode away,
and where he dwelleth none can say;
for into darkness fell his star
in Mordor where the shadows are.

"That's all I know," stammered Sam, blushing.
"I learned it from Mr. Bilbo when I was a lad."

The Fellowship Of The Ring - JRRT

"Born of Hope" is now available

"Born of Hope" became available for web viewing from 1st December. I have... and it's wonderful, a triumph!

Click here:
http://www.bornofhope.com/

A first review:
When we think of a ‘fan film’ we immediately conjure the image of corduroy trousers, thick rimmed glasses and a couple of 30-somethings living with their mum. Imagine the setting – back garden, local park, poorly disguised living room. Imagine the costume – eBay outfits, plastic ears and children’s toys over a backdrop of clunky dialogue and appalling editing. What you probably won’t see is a massive crew, glorious locations and choreographed action set against a superb musical score. What you won’t see is Lord of the Rings.

Unless you are watching Born of Hope.

Conceived in 2003 by director and actor Kate Madison, Born of Hope is a marvel of what can be achieved with dogged determination and the support of thousands of Tolkien fans. Shot for around £23000 at locations around the UK in 2008/09, it is released today (1st December) on Daily Motion, for free.

What is so special about Born of Hope is in the detail. It is a completely original tale set before the Lord of the Rings trilogy, based on the trials of Aragorn’s father Arathorn, leader of an ever dwindling tribe of nomadic rangers. He has to face the end of his royal line at the behest of the monstrous Orc horde. But that is actually a simplistic view of what is a complex story of love, duty and responsibility. There’s no easy choices for Arathorn (played by actor Chris Dane), who must protect his son even if it means sacrificing his people, and his wife.

Against this excellent tale comes the detail in costume, set design and choreography. Scores of Orcs were recruited using custom made prosthetics, amazing armour, and borrowed props from the equally impressive fan film The Hunt for Gollum. Everything from the hairpieces to the swords was spot on.

The majority of the cast were actors working for nothing between projects, the extras were a mixture of re-enactors and stage-fighters.

It’s even more amazing considering its difficult production. After a test shoot in 2006 the production had all sorts of issues, not the least the schedule – when working for free, people have to find time in their working life, including the actors. To confound matters, Tolkien Enterprises, like all companies with intellectual property rights, weren’t too keen on allowing such a production and Kate had to negotiate a solution.

It’s probably one of the reasons the cast & crew felt like a family; with so much to do, and so little time to do it everyone has to muck in. In some cases in meant braving the harsh November climes and camping out at West Stow in -5C. Or maybe starting a fire and stirring a cauldron of stew meant for the whole team. Or just providing hugs and coffee (thanks to the runners for that!).

It wasn’t just the production team who carried a burden either. Legions of fans donated to the cause and egged the production on, even after four years.

It paid off, with accolades showering the ambitious production from day one, including a staggering testimonial from WETA.

Six years after seeing Return of the King, we finally get to immerse ourselves in the world of Tolkien again.

Alan Kael Ball [1st December 2009]

Born of Hope

Next Tuesday is the big day. From the 1st December ‘Born of Hope’ will be available to view here: http://www.bornofhope.com/ .

A scattered people, the descendents of storied sea kings of the ancient West, struggle to survive in a lonely wilderness as a dark force relentlessly bends its will toward their destruction. Yet amidst these valiant, desperate people, hope remains. A royal house endures unbroken from father to son.

This hour long original drama is set in the time before the War of the Ring and tells the story of the Dúnedain, the Rangers of the North, before the return of the King. Inspired by only a couple of paragraphs written by Tolkien in the appendices of the Lord of the Rings we follow Arathorn and Gilraen, the parents of Aragorn, from their first meeting through a turbulent time in their people's history.

Oxford Crematorium

In the Oxford Crematorium... off the ring-road at Headington, and just outside the furthest chapel from the entrance... there is a small plaque on the wall. It was placed there at the behest of C.S. Lewis following the death of his beloved wife Joy Davidman. It reads: "Remember Helen Joy Davidman (loved wife of C. S. Lewis). Here the whole world (stars, water, air and field, and forest, as they were reflected in a single mind) like cast off clothes was left behind in ashes, yet with hope that she, reborn from Holy poverty, in Lenten lands, hereafter may Resume them on her Easter Day."

A visit to 'The Kilns'

[The Kilns in summer]

The house now stands in Lewis Close, surrounded by houses, but still abutting the beginning of the Shotover woods. In Warnie's words, "the house… stands at the entrance to its own grounds at the northern foot of Shotover at the end of a narrow lane, which in turn opens off a very bad and little used road, giving as great privacy as can reasonably be looked for near a large town." The two men were not recluses, of course. But for people whose professions required frequent interaction with any number of colleagues and students, it was refreshing to be able to return home to their sanctuary, of which Lewis wrote to a friend, "I never hoped for the like."

A local Naturalist's Trust has acquired the woodland and pond to the north of the Kilns, but unfortunately they are in a sorry state. The pond is stagnant with all sorts of rubbish dumped in it, and the woodland is in great need of proper management. The site is a pale reflection on what originally attracted Jack and Warnie to the site.

The Kilns now stands in the Oxford suburbs, at the head of ‘Lewis Close’, but the path to Shotover that runs to the right of the old pond -- originally properly constructed by Jack and Warnie -- their ‘public works’ -- is still in use.

Another still...

Another still from The Hunt for Gollom. The story is an expansion of the report given to the Council of Elrond in LotR of Aragorn and Gandalf's search, over the previous years, for the previous carrier of the ring. If you remember, they were afraid that Gollum might be captured by agents of Mordor as he knew the name 'Bilbo Baggins'. Their fears were of course realised.

The Hunt for Gollum

OK, I know that fan movies are not exactly the real purpose of this weblog, but sometimes exceptions have to be made. The Hunt for Gollum was released (internet only) in May 2009, and must be seen to be believed. Made by fans for fans of LotR, it is quite astounding that its total budget was £3,000. A triumph! http://www.thehuntforgollum.com/

This how one reviewer put it:

The Hunt for Gollum is testament to what can be accomplished with a good idea, a good story, and a bunch of people who believe in something enough to work on it for free. Any Lord of the Rings fan should go to the film's website and take a look. This isn't merely a good film for its budget; it's a good film, period.

And for another visit into Tolkien’s world, very soon we will be able to see Born of Hope:
1st December is the internet release date for the epic fan movie. The hour long film shows the struggle of Aragorn's parents, and from the trailers it will be one amazing ride into the history of Middle Earth. You can find information about it here: http://www.bornofhope.com/

Serkis, Gollum and Screwtape

One of the real successes of the Lord of the Rings movies was Andy Serkis vocalisation of Gollum. Here he is again, in an audio drama of C.S. Lewis' book "The Screwtape Letters". Just click on the title above...

.

Don't think, "Oh, just another ruination of Lewis' work", this has to be seen. (Including comments from Douglas Gresham). Quite breathtaking.

Tolkien on Marriage

Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might be found more suitable mates. But the real soul-mate is the one you are actually married to."

J. R. R. Tolkien, Letter to Michael Tolkien, March 1941

The birth of Elanor the Fair

......"Time went on, and 1421 came in. Frodo was ill again in March, but with a great effort he concealed it, for Sam had other things to think about. The first of Sam and Rosie's children was born on the twenty-fifth of March, a date that Sam noted.

......'Well, Mr. Frodo,' he said. 'I'm in a bit of a fix. Rose and me had settled to call him Frodo, with your leave; but it's not him, it's her. Though as pretty a maidchild as any one could hope for, taking after Rose more than me, luckily. So we don't know what to do.'

......'Well, Sam,' said Frodo, 'what's wrong with the old customs? Choose a flower name like Rose. Half the maidchildren in the Shire are called by such names, and what could be better?'

......'I suppose you're right, Mr. Frodo,' said Sam. 'I've heard some beautiful names on my travels, but I suppose they're a bit too grand for daily wear and tear, as you might say. The Gaffer, he says: "Make it short, and then you won't have to cut it short before you can use it." But if it's to be a flower-name, then I don't trouble about the length: it must be a beautiful flower, because, you see, I think she is very beautiful, and is going to be beautifuller still.'

......Frodo thought for a moment. 'Well, Sam, what about elanor, the sun-star, you remember the little golden flower in the grass of Lothlórien?'

......'You're right again, Mr. Frodo!' said Sam delighted. 'That's what I wanted.'

(from the appendices - LOTR)

J.R.R. Tolkien

20th May 1916 (II)

With the town which you espied,
Where it yet on earth shall be,
Built about you on each side,
The Republic's liberty ;

As you saw her, rising far
To the great design of man.

As you heard her to her war
Call by ban and arrière-ban ;

As your pledges you redeemed,
Serious and gay unthrift,
To the politic you schemed :
All magnificent in gift !

Only once, if aught awake
Still in you of death or pain,
For our loving's ancient sake,
O remember me again !

O courageous, new in power,
Heavened afar from earth and me,
In my own departing hour
Knit again our federacy !　

May 20th 1915 (I)

Beating heart and climbing brain,
Roaming foot and searching tongue,
Get no more of loss or gain,
For the soul hath gone along.

Now of all fine things on earth,
Tales and tastes and towns to see.
Less of wealth hath less of worth
For our double poverty.

In a beggared lane we go.
Palsied of the better hand ;
Purposes none else can show
Are for ever hidden land.

O the songs we shall not sing !
O the deeds we shall not do !
O the robbed hours that shall bring
In your thought's place thought of you !

Now the past is robbed also ;
You, being gone from us and all.
With the ghostly years shall grow
Fainter and phantasmical.

And of us inconstant, you
Shall have like inconstant mind,
In so many ventures new
Slipping us you leave behind.

.

Charles Williams - Poems of Conformity (1915)

The Moon of the Tarots

Nancy found herself alone. The mist round her was thinning; she could see a clear darkness beyond. She had known one pang when she felt Henry's hands slip from around hers; then she had concentrated her will more entirely on doing whatever might be done to save whatever had to be saved from the storm, which now she no longer heard. But the fantastic mission on which she was apparently moving did not weigh upon her; her heart kept its lightness. There had come into her life with the mystery of the Tarots a new sense of delighted amazement; the Tarots themselves were not more marvellous than the ordinary people she had so long unintelligently known. By the slightest vibration of the light in which she saw the world she saw it all differently; holy and beautiful, if sometimes perplexing and bewildering, went the figures of her knowledge. They were all "posters of the sea and land", and she too, in a dance that was happy if it was frightening. Nothing was certain, but everything was safe--that was part of the mystery of Love. She was upon a mission, but whether she succeeded or not didn't matter. Nothing mattered beyond the full moment in which she could live to her utmost in the power and according to the laws of the dance. The dance of the Tarots, the dance of her blood, the dance of her mind, and whatever other measure it was in which Sybil Coningsby trod so high and disposed a movement. Hers couldn't be that yet, couldn't ever perhaps, but she could understand and answer it. Her father, Henry, Ralph, they were all stepping their parts, and she also--now, now, as the last shreds of the golden mist faded, and, throbbing and glad, she came into the dark stillness which awaited her.

Chapter 14

The Greater Trumps (1932)

Charles Williams

Lewis on Taliessin

Dec. 15th 1945:

“... I am (these last 6 months) immersed in a v. different poet who I think great – Charles Williams: the two volumes of his Arthurian poems Taliessin and The Region of the Summer Stars. Inexcusably difficult, as I always told him, but here there really is something behind the difficulty – that something wh. we all need most in literature at present & wh. I wd. call opaque splendour – thick, rich, solid, heavy – porphyry, gold diamond.”

CS Lewis ~ Collected Letters

(Both may be obtained via Amazon)

.

Taliesin [Taliessin]

Taliesin (c. 534 – c. 599) was a British poet of the post-Roman period whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the Book of Taliesin. Taliesin was a renowned bard who is believed to have sung at the courts of at least three Celtic British kings.

A maximum of eleven of the preserved poems have been dated to as early as the 6th century, and were ascribed to the historical Taliesin. The bulk of this work praises King Urien of Rheged and his son Owain mab Urien, although several of the poems indicate that he also served as the court bard to King Brochfael Ysgithrog of Powys and his successor Cynan Garwyn, either before or during his time at Urien's court. Some of the events to which the poems refer, such as the Battle of Arfderydd (c. 583), are referred to in other sources.

His name, spelled as Taliessin in Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King and in some subsequent works, means "shining brow" in Middle Welsh. In legend and medieval Welsh poetry, he is often referred to as Taliesin Ben Beirdd ("Taliesin, Chief of Bards" or chief of poets). He is mentioned as one of the five British poets of renown… in the Historia Brittonum, and is also mentioned in the collection of poems known as Y Gododdin. Taliesin was highly regarded in the mid-twelfth century as the supposed author of a great number of romantic legends.

.
Wikipedia

Romantic Theology

Something must here be said to those who may ask ‘Who was Charles Williams?’ He had spent most of his life in the service of the Oxford University Press at Amen House, Warwick Square, London. He was a novelist, a poet, a dramatist, a biographer, a critic, and a theologian: a romantic theologian in the technical sense which he himself invented for those words. A romantic theologian does not mean one who is romantic about theology but one who is theological about romance, one who considers the theological implications of those experiences which are called romantic. The belief that the most serious and ecstatic experiences either of human love or of imaginative literature have such theological implications, and that they can be healthy and fruitful only if the implications are diligently thought out and severely lived, is the root principle of all his work. His relation to the modern literary current was thus thoroughly 'ambivalent'. He could be grouped with the counter-romantics in so far as he believed untheologized romanticism (like Plato's 'unexamined life') to be sterile and mythological. On the other hand, he could be treated as the head of the resistance against the moderns in so far as he believed the romanticism which they were rejecting as senile to be really immature, and looked for a coming of age where they were huddling up a hasty and not very generous funeral. He will not fit into a pigeon-hole.

The fullest and most brilliant expression of his outlook is to be found in his mature poetry, and especially in Taliessin through Logres and The Region of the Summer Stars. As I have in preparation a much longer study of these works, I must here content myself with saying that they seem to me, both for the soaring and gorgeous novelty of their technique and for their profound wisdom, to be among the two or three most valuable books of verse produced in the (20th) century.

C.S. Lewis ~ From the Preface to:
“Essays Presented to Charles Williams” (OUP 1947)

Jeeves, by Charles Williams

Barbara stretched out her hands, and Lionel pulled her to her feet.

"I just want to shimmer up, like Jeeves, not walk," she said.

"Do you like Jeeves, Mr. Persimmons?"

"Jeeves?" Gregory asked.

"I don't think I know it or him or them."

"Oh, you must," Barbara cried. "When I get back to London I'll send you a set."

"It's a book, or a man in a book," Lionel interrupted. "Barbara adores it."

.

"Well, so do you," Barbara said. "You always snigger when you read him."

"That is the weakness of the flesh," Lionel said. "One whouldn't snigger over Jeeves any more than one should snivel over Othello. Perfect art is beyond these easy emotions. I think Jeeves -- the whole book, preferably with the illustrations -- one of the final classic perfections of our time. It attains absolute being. Jeeves and his employer are one and yet diverse. It is the Don Quixote of the twentieth century."

"I must certainly read it," Gregory said, laughing. "Tell me more about it while we have tea."

"War In Heaven (Eerdmans 1978), page 157-8

Two boys...

Dear Phyllida,

Thanks for your most interesting cards. How do you get the gold so good? Whenever I tried to use it, however golden it looked on the shell, it always looked only like rough brown on the paper. Is it that you have some trick with the brush that I never learned, or that gold paint is better now than when I was a boy! [...]

I'm not quite sure what you meant about "silly adventure stories without my point". If they are silly, then having a point won't save them. But if they are good in themselves, and if by a "point" you mean some truth about the real world which which one can take out of the story, I'm not sure that I agree. At least, I think that looking for a "point" in that sense may prevent one sometimes from getting the real effect of the story in itself - like listening too hard for the words in singing which isn't meant to be listened to that way (like an anthem in a chorus). I'm not at all sure about all this, mind you: only thinking as I go along.

We have two American boys in the house at present, aged 8 and 6 1/2. Very nice. They seem to use much longer words than English boys of that age would: not showing off, but just because they don't seem to know the short words. But they haven't as good table manners as English boys of the same sort would. [...]

yours,

C.S. Lewis

Letters to Children (letter of Dec 18 1953)

Michaelmas

With MichaelmasTerm just starting in Oxford, a poem from Charles Williams:

Adam and Eve came running
From Eden, heavy and sad;
Michael lightened behind them
With spears a myriad.
O love that is broken, broken!
(Sweet, were we running there?)
Lift from us, wings of Michael!
O sword of Michael, spare!

Mary lay in her chamber;
John the Apostle by.
Michael lightened before her,
'Behold, thine hour is nigh!’
O love exalted, exalted!
(Sweet, did we nurse the Lord?)
Gather us, wings of Michael!
Circle us, Michael's sword!

There was that war in heaven
Whereto the worlds were caught;
Michael fought and his angels,
Also the devil fought.
O love that is warring, warring!
(Us too shall that war rend?)
Beat for us, wings of Michael!
Sword of Michael, defend!

Charles Williams

The Discarded Image

Medieval man shared many ignorances with the savage, and some of his beliefs may suggest savage parallels to an anthropologist. But he had not usually reached these beliefs by the same route as the savage.

Savage beliefs are thought to be the spontaneous response of a human group to its environment, a response made principally by the imagination. They exemplify what some writers call pre-logical thinking. They are closely bound up with the communal life of the group. What we should describe as political, military, and agricultural operations are not easily distinguished from rituals; ritual and belief beget and support one another. The most characteristically medieval thought does not arise in that way.

Sometimes, when a community is comparatively homogeneous and comparatively undisturbed over a long period, such a system of belief can continue, of course with development, long after material culture has progressed far beyond the level of savagery. It may then begin to turn into something more ethical, more philosophical, even more scientific; but there will be uninterrupted continuity between this and its savage beginnings.

C.S. Lewis, Chapter 1, The Discarded Image (CUP 1964)

The Seven and the Nine

The Seven and Nine Rings were originally made by the Elves and not evil until Sauron forged the One and later took these rings by war. Their initial purpose was to slow the passage of time and preserve beauty, but since Sauron had a part in their making they became accursed and had evil powers. He gave the rings to different races of Middle-earth to enslave and so control them.

Sauron gave the Seven to the Dwarves, who proved harder to enslave:

"They ill endure the domination of others, and the thoughts of their hearts are hard to fathom, nor can they be turned to shadows. They used their rings only for the getting of wealth; but wrath and an over mastering greed of gold were kindled in their hearts..." [The Silmarillion]

This implies their rings had other powers but were not used probably because this would draw attention to the user and all that he did.

Sauron gave the Nine to Mortal Men who proved easiest to ensnare. It was said that:

"Those who used the Nine Rings became mighty in their day, kings, sorcerers, and warriors of old. They obtained glory and great wealth... They had, as it seemed, unending life, yet life became unendurable to them. They could walk, if they would, unseen by all eyes in this world beneath the sun, and they could see things in worlds invisible to mortal men..." [The Silmarillion]

According to The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien #131, the Seven and Nine conferred invisibility to the user as well as unending life. However, eventually the user would fade and become a wraith under the control of Sauron, the Dark Lord. However, the Three Elven Rings did not confer invisibility.

The song of the elves

'Hmmm! it smells like elves!' thought Bilbo, and he looked up at the stars. They were burning bright and blue. Just then there came a burst of song like laughter in the trees:

O! What are you doing,
And where are you going?
Your ponies need shoeing!
The river is flowing!
O! tra-la-la-lally
here down in the valley!

O! What are you seeking,
And where are you making?
The faggots are reeking,
The bannocks are baking!
O! tril-lil-lil-lolly
the valley is jolly,
ha! ha!

O! Where are you going
With beards all a-wagging?
No knowing, no knowing
What brings Mister Baggins,
And Balin and Dwalin
down into the valley
in June
ha! ha!

O! Will you be staying,
Or will you be flying
Your ponies are straying!
The daylight is dying!
To fly would be folly,
To stay would be jolly
And listen and hark
Till the end of the dark
to our tune
ha! ha!

So they laughed and sang in the trees; and pretty fair nonsense I daresay you think it. Not that they would care; they would only laugh all the more if you told them so. They were elves of course…

J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hobbit
Chapter 3 “A Short Rest”

To a Lady

20 May 1945

I also have become much acquainted with grief now through the death of my great friend Charles Williams, my friend of friends, the comforter of all our little set, the most angelic man. The odd thing is that his death has made my faith stronger than it was a week ago. And I find that all that talk about 'feeling that he is closer to us than before1 isn't just talk. It's just what it does feel like — I can't put it into words. One seems at moments to be living in a new world. Lots, lots of pain, but not a particle of depression or resentment...

Letters of C.S. Lewis
(edited by W.H. Lewis) 1966

Jesting Pilate

[Joy, with Jack Lewis]

The Hebrews began to feel that there was something a little smelly about all tampering with the truth. And when Christ came, his fiercest wrath was for the hypocrite, the living lie whose every action is a false witness to his own virtue. Let us make note of the hypocrite; we shall meet him again, every last one of us, any time we care to look into the mirror. The road to Calvary was lined with many of us whited sepulchres — with scribes who claimed knowledge they had not, and Pharisees who claimed holiness they had not, and false witnesses to identify Christ as a subversive radical, and Judas with his lying kiss. But not until Jesus stood before Pilate was the ultimate lie spoken. What did Pilate mean by his "What is truth?" He seems to have been implying a doctrine fashionable in his time — the lie of the sceptic bound hand and foot in despair, who rather than face his own sins will even doubt his own reality; the question that hints that there is no such thing as truth. We must understand Pilate to understand ourselves, for he may have represented the very modern view that truth is after all a relative and subjective affair, an agreed-upon convention, a matter of expedience — and that therefore we are justified in doing anything that seems expedient, even as Pilate.

Throughout Christian history, denunciations of lying have been loud and frequent. Who has been so abhorred as Ananias? And yet we all know the meaning of the words "pious fraud." From the beginning, the devil has loved to tempt the devout to lie for the sake of their good cause — and thereby make it a bad one. One of the first tasks of the Early Church was to separate the true Gospels from the multitudinous invented "eyewitness" accounts in which the faithful lied their heads off for the supposed good of the Church… the list is endless. Nor did it end with antiquity. Most modern churches have kept up the good work of forging their own praises and their rivals' dispraise, until that clear-sighted and honest Christian Charles Williams found it necessary to write warningly of "the normal calumnies of piety," and to say of a historian, "In defence of his conclusion he was willing to cheat in the evidence — a habit more usual to religious writers than to historical," Let us clean our own house first.

You can usually tell when a hypocrite has been sinning; he denounces that sin in public — and in somebody else. The mere half-hearted sinner may try to wriggle out of his guilt by some verbal quibble; he hasn't really lied to his wife about how he spent the week-end, he just hasn't told her all the truth. But the real, thoroughgoing, incarnate lie of a Pharisee covers his guilt by trumpeting loudly about his virtue; he comes forward boldly and denounces her for lying to Mrs. Jones about that horrid new hat. And if you want to find a man whose whole life is devoted to hypocritical dishonesty and deception, it might be wise to look for one who habitually beats his child for lying.

As to whether there is such a thing as a white lie — well, no one has yet devised a rule of conduct that can be applied to every imaginable case, and the rule against lying is no exception. Here, as elsewhere, charity and common sense must be our guides. If a man comes to my door waving a gun and announcing that he'll shoot his wife the minute he finds her, I shall certainly tell him I have not seen her for a week, even though I've just finished hiding the poor woman in my cupboard. And it would be an uncharitable sort of truthfulness that, when asked, told a doting mother exactly what it thought of her small son's fiddle-playing. All the same, it is possible that most of our white lies are told, not for charity, but for laziness and for cowardice — to save the work of thinking up a real answer, or to avoid a trivial social discomfort.

Joy Davidman ~ Smoke on the Mountain (1955)
Chapter Nine ‘Jesting Pilate’