Oxford: Day 2

My day began with breakfast in the dining room of The Kilns with the sunlight streaming through the windows.

I then walked into Central Oxford as C. S. Lewis did many times. As I saw a bus going up Headington Hill, I could not help but think of these lines from Surprised by Joy about a double-decker bus....

"I was going up Headington Hill on the top of a bus. Without words and (I think) almost without images, a fact about myself was somehow presented to me. I became aware that I was holding something at bay, or shutting something out. Or, if you like, that I was wearing some stiff clothing, like corsets, or even a suit of armour, as if I were a lobster. I felt myself being, there and then, given a free choice. I could open the door or keep it shut; I could unbuckle the armour or keep it on. Neither choice was presented as a duty; no threat or promise was attached to either, though I knew that to open the door or take off the corslet meant the incalculable. The choice appeared to be momentous but it was also strangely unemotional. I was moved by no desires or fears. In a sense I was not moved by anything. I chose to open, to unbuckle, to loosen the rein. I say, 'I chose,' yet it did not really seem possible to do the opposite. On the other hand, I was aware of no motives. You could argue that I was not a free agent, but I am more inclined to think that this came nearer to being a perfectly free act than most that I have ever done. Necessity may not be the opposite of freedom, and perhaps a man is most free when, instead of producing motives, he could only say, 'I am what I do.' Then came the repercussion on the imaginative level. I felt as if I were a man of snow at long last beginning to melt. The melting was starting in my back--drip-drip and presently trickle-trickle. I rather disliked the feeling."

(To learn more about Lewis' choice on the bus you will have to read Surprised by Joy for yourself.)

In town I spent the morning at the Bodleian Library reading some of the original, hand-written letters of Lewis.

In the afternoon I enjoyed tea with my good friend Walter Hooper, Lewis' secretary in the last year of his life.

Then it was on to the Eagle & Child Pub where I enjoyed supper in the Rabbit Room (a meeting place of the Inklings) with some new friends.

And finally I gave a talk to the Oxford C. S. Lewis Society about C. S. Lewis' Reading of George MacDonald.

Another great day....

Comments

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