C.S. Lewis: Near the Journey’s End – IX

On August 29, 1963 Lewis writes to Cecil Harwood:

“…the whole experience (the Nurses took it for granted I wd. die) was very gentle. It seems almost a pity, having reached the gate so easily, not to be allowed through…”

On August 29 Lewis also wrote to John Warwick Montgomery:

“I am afraid my days of lecturing and travelling are over. Last July my death was hourly expected, and tho’ I didn’t get through the gate I have had to resign all my posts and settle down (not unhappily) to the life of an invalid.”

August 30, 1963 to Mary Willis Shelburne”

“I am quite comfortable but v. easily tired. B.B. [this is Big Brother – Warnie] is still away…you must expect my letters to be very few and very short…”

On September 8 in a letter to Michael P. Perrott:

“To know one has been so used always gives pleasure – pleasure of a rather awe struck kind. I remind myself frequently that any one, or any thing, may be used: e.g. Balaam’s donkey!”

[All excerpts are from The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, 3 Volumes, Walter Hopper, editor. Harper San Francisco.]

I selected the above to represent the tenor of Lewis’s correspondence in this season of life. I don’t know that I can, or should, add anything.