On August 12, 1963 Lewis writes
to John Forbes and Richard Ladborough at Cambridge:
“The bearer, Walter Hooper, will
leave on the shelves in my room [at Cambridge]
all the books that I want sold…(If either of you sees anything he would like as
a keepsake let him pocket it.)…I am ashamed to ask all this of you but Walter
has to return to America
almost at once and my brother is still away, so I am at my wits end what to
do.”
On August 13, 1963 Lewis writes
Forbes again about selling books and furniture. Lewis concludes with:
“This is, I am afraid, a dreadful
amount of trouble but my situation is rather desperate. Tell all my colleagues
I am fit to be visited and should welcome it.”
Walter Hooper writes that Lewis
gave him, “…seven pages of instructions about the care and disposal of every
book in his library.”
Lewis brother, Warnie, is still away; presumably “drying out” in Ireland.
Warnie, Lewis’s lifelong companion is absent in Jack’s desperate situation. Walter Hooper must return to America, Douglas
and David are away at school; Jack would welcome visitors.
While Lewis is having a large
number of books brought to his home in Oxford,
many will now be sold. A portrait of his grandfather is to be shipped from Cambridge to the Parish Hall, Dundela, Belfast. There is no point in bringing the
portrait back to Oxford, let it go home to Ireland for
Jack will soon be going home himself…going to be with his Lord.
Jack is ashamed to ask for all this help, but what is he to do? No Warnie,
a soon departing Walter, absent stepsons; what is Lewis to do? His situation is
rather desperate. Here is a man who
spent most of his life walking the pathways of England,
Ireland, Wales…walking
with friends, walking with Warnie, walking, walking, walking. A man enjoying
the company and repartee of friends and acquaintances, a man engaged in a flow
of correspondence; now he can’t walk, he can hardly write, and he can’t go out
to meet friends; and where is Warnie?
Lewis is selling books. Not all
of his books, many are being shipped to Oxford,
but nevertheless he is selling books. What did he think about the books being
shipped home? Did he really think he’d have them much longer? Ah, but they are
friends and they represent the corridors of a lifetime of reading – so perhaps
he’ll have them around just a bit longer. Of course I don’t know if Lewis had
those thoughts or not, but I know that I’d have them, and since Lewis and I are
book lovers I think I may be close to the mark. To read Lewis’s early letters
to his friend Arthur Greeves about books…well…Lewis writes about books the way
some men write about women; affectionately, adoringly, descriptively,
passionately. I don’t know that I could write the words, the books that I want sold. Such a final phrase…once they are sold
there is no return. But Lewis wrote those words and there was a finality about
them.
No Warnie, Walter is leaving, the
boys are away, and the books are being sold; the situation is desperate… Tell all my colleagues I am fit to be
visited and should welcome it.
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