Among those whom Kingsley admired and always spoke of respectfully was C.S.Lewis, who had been his tutor. This, despite the fact that Kingsley was anti-Church while Lewis was profoundly Christian.
Lewis was the embodiment of friendship, never thrusting himself or his point of view on anyone.
One of my first meetings with him was in the pub known as the The Bird and Baby, where the Inklings used to gather. In fact the proper name of this narrow friendly pub is The Eagle and Child, an allegorical painting of which hangs over the front door.
On this occasion, I arrived early, to discover Lewis seated reading a book in a corner. I was humbled to feel his superiority – or rather, to feel my inferiority. Going up to him, greeting him, I asked him something. What it was I have long forgotten, but Lewis’s response remains with me forever. ‘I would have more difficulty in answering your question had you formulated it….’ And he then went on to reformulate it.
I was thrilled by this [as I saw it] truly Oxfordian reply or gambit. Nor did I fail to observe that by this formulaic response Lewis had evaded answering my question at all.
We began to see more of each other. I was allowed into his rooms in Magdalen, where the windows looked out on splendid long gardens.
It was a while before I found that Lewis was writing stories and sending them to be published in ‘The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction’, then edited by Anthony Boucher.
At that time, I was beginning to write the Hothouse short stories. I followed Lewis’s lead and sent them to the famous Boucher at ‘F&SF’.
Lewis was already writing the seven Narnia stories, of which The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe is probably best known; it has been staged and filmed.
Nevertheless, we do not forget we are talking about a professor of medieval and renaissance literature, the author of The Allegory of Love, The Problem of Pain, and the humorous Screwtape Letters. Lewis died in 1963. Alas! Another good man gone.
The film Shadowlands, about Lewis’s life and wife is well worth viewing.
