LEWIS, Clive Staples (1898-1963). Autograph letter signed to Mr Pitman, Magdalene College, Cambridge, 13 February 1958, 1½ pages, 4to ; with a copy of Lewis's Broadcast Talks , London: The Centenary Press, 1943, 8vo, cloth, with ownership inscription, 'B.R. Pitman'. C.S. LEWIS on the subject of lust: 'love of every sort is a guard against lust, even by a divine paradox, sexual love is a guard against lust.' Lewis's correspondence with Mr Pitman comprises a detailed and theological discussion, which in parts sheds light on his own work, The Great Divorce, A Dream , published in 1945. Opening by citing St Paul's vetoing of 'sexual abstinence within marriage', Lewis goes on to defend his image of lust and desire, through the 'metamorphosis of the lizard into the stallion' (see The Great Divorce , London: 1945, in which an Angel kills a lizard, which then transforms into a stallion as is ridden away by an 'immense.. new made man': 'What is a Lizard compared with a Stallion? Lust is a poor, weak, whimpering, whispering thing compared with that richness & energy of desire which will arise when lust has been killed', pp.92-4). In the present letter Lewis explains this act, 'meant to symbolize perfect sublimation, after painful struggle and agonising surrender... by supernatural grace ... the evidence seems to be that God sometimes works such a complete metamorphosis and sometimes not: We do not know why'. In his unmarried days, Lewis feels that although God gave him the 'power to resist the temptation as far as the act was concerned', that 'He never stopped the recurrent temptations'. Lewis's view is that temptation is partly punishment for the 'sins of one's earlier life', but that it is a force which fades, if not yielded to. Continuing with a discussion on St Francois de Sales' writings on sexuality and vice, Lewis turns to his own experience of the physical side of lust, 'I've always found that a cup of tea and bodily weariness are the two great disposing factors', ending his letter with the thought that a society without women 'provokes the normal appetite'. In 1942, when teaching at Oxford, Lewis founded the Socratic Club, a Christian discussion group, of which he was president until 1954. (2)
LEWIS, Clive Staples (1898-1963). Autograph letter signed to Mr Pitman, Magdalene College, Cambridge, 13 February 1958, 1½ pages, 4to ; with a copy of Lewis's Broadcast Talks , London: The Centenary Press, 1943, 8vo, cloth, with ownership inscription, 'B.R. Pitman'. C.S. LEWIS on the subject of lust: 'love of every sort is a guard against lust, even by a divine paradox, sexual love is a guard against lust.' Lewis's correspondence with Mr Pitman comprises a detailed and theological discussion, which in parts sheds light on his own work, The Great Divorce, A Dream , published in 1945. Opening by citing St Paul's vetoing of 'sexual abstinence within marriage', Lewis goes on to defend his image of lust and desire, through the 'metamorphosis of the lizard into the stallion' (see The Great Divorce , London: 1945, in which an Angel kills a lizard, which then transforms into a stallion as is ridden away by an 'immense.. new made man': 'What is a Lizard compared with a Stallion? Lust is a poor, weak, whimpering, whispering thing compared with that richness & energy of desire which will arise when lust has been killed', pp.92-4). In the present letter Lewis explains this act, 'meant to symbolize perfect sublimation, after painful struggle and agonising surrender... by supernatural grace ... the evidence seems to be that God sometimes works such a complete metamorphosis and sometimes not: We do not know why'. In his unmarried days, Lewis feels that although God gave him the 'power to resist the temptation as far as the act was concerned', that 'He never stopped the recurrent temptations'. Lewis's view is that temptation is partly punishment for the 'sins of one's earlier life', but that it is a force which fades, if not yielded to. Continuing with a discussion on St Francois de Sales' writings on sexuality and vice, Lewis turns to his own experience of the physical side of lust, 'I've always found that a cup of tea and bodily weariness are the two great disposing factors', ending his letter with the thought that a society without women 'provokes the normal appetite'. In 1942, when teaching at Oxford, Lewis founded the Socratic Club, a Christian discussion group, of which he was president until 1954. (2)
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
