C.S. Lewis – From Oxford to Cambridge

In a November 1, 1954 letter to Mary Willis Shelburne Lewis writes:

Did I tell you I’ve been made a professor at Cambridge? I take up my duties on Jan. 1^st at Magdalene College, Cambridge. Note the differing in spelling [from Oxford’s Magdalen]. It means rather less work for rather more pay. And I think I shall like Magdalene better than Magdalen. It’s a tiny college (a perfect cameo architecturally) and they’re so old fashioned, & pious, & gentle and conservative – unlike this leftist, atheist, cynical, and hard-boiled, huge Magdalen...

It is nice to be still under the care of St. Mary Magdalene: she must by now understand my constitution better than a stranger wd., don’t you think. The allegorical sense of her great action [see Luke 7:37ff] dawned on me the other day. The precious alabaster box wh. one must break over the Holy Feet is one’s heart. Easier said than done. And the contents become perfume only when it is broken. While they are safe inside they are more like sewage. All v. alarming.

 While Lewis mentions his change in colleges to many correspondents, this is the only letter I’ve read in which he expresses the above thoughts about Oxford. Since 1925 Lewis had been a “tutor” at Oxford, not a professor. When professorships had opened Lewis had not been elected. Through this discouragement Lewis worshiped Christ, served his students, and became a national and then international voice for the Gospel. Where others might have become bitter and turned inward, Lewis creatively flourished and blessed others with his mind, imagination, and book royalties.

The allegorical meaning of St. Mary Magdalene’s “great action” may have just dawned on Lewis cognitively, but thank God Lewis had already been learning to live as Mary – whether he realized it or not.

Here are a couple of other excerpts regarding the change in colleges that you might enjoy:

January 17, 1955, written to Belle Allen from the Kilns (Lewis’s home in Oxford):

No, my change of address does not imply retirement – or at least retirement from academic life; what has happened is that Cambridge has given me a Professorship. [The professorship was established especially for Lewis.] In many ways I regretted leaving Magdalen, but after nearly thirty years of the tutorial grind, I shall appreciate the less strenuous life of a ‘Chair’ at Cambridge. I am now settling in there, and think I shall be happy: many of my colleagues are Christians, more than was the case in my old College; my rooms are comfortable, and Cambridge, unlike Oxford, is still a country town, with a farming atmosphere about it.

February 19, 1955, written to Joan Lancaster from Cambridge:

You see I have changed my job and my address. Note the different spellings: Magdalen at Oxford and Magdalene at Cambridge. But are both pronounced Maudlin. This is a lovely little college and looks nice to-day, all covered with snow