Into the Archive: $2/lb

The Allegory of Love - A Study in Medieval Tradition Paperback – January 1, 1963

by C. S. Lewis (Author)

Love is the commonest theme of serious imaginative literature and is still generally regarded as noble and ennobling passion. Love has not always taken such precedence, however, and it was in fact not until the eleventh century that French poets first began to express the romantic species of passion which English poets were still writing about in the nineteenth century. This book is intended for students of medieval literature from A-level upwards. Anyone interested in the "Courtly Love" tradition. Fans of C.S. Lewis's writings. – Amazon

I’ve had a copy of this for donkey’s years: badly marked up and with a cracked spine. The copy I got yesterday was just as old, and except for some fading on the cover is almost pristine. The vagaries of time, eh? I guess I can retire the ‘old’ one.

 

The Golden Ass: The Transformations of Lucius (FSG Classics) Paperback – March 31, 2009

by Apuleius (Author), Robert Graves (Translator)

The story of The Golden Ass is that of Lucius Apuleius, a young man of good birth who encountered many strange adventures while disporting himself along the roads to Thessaly. Not the least of these occurred when Apuleius offended a priestess of the White Goddess, who turned him into an ass. The tale of how Apuleius dealt with this misfortune and eventually resumed human form is conveyed by Robert Graves in modern English that is infused with a bawdy wit and sense of adventure that is "itself a small masterpiece of twentieth-century prose" (Kenneth Rexroth, Saturday Review). - Amazon

I have an unwieldy copy of this. The fact that this was a Robert Graves translation really drove the sale.

 

The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart (Author)  

Born the bastard son of a Welsh princess, Myridden Emrys -- or as he would later be known, Merlin -- leads a perilous childhood, haunted by portents and visions. But destiny has great plans for this no-man's-son, taking him from prophesying before the High King Vortigern to the crowning of Uther Pendragon . . . and the conception of Arthur -- king for once and always. – Amazon

Getting a hardback copy that looks exactly like the copy I read back in middle school is great. Should be easier (certainly more nostalgic) to read than in my aging paperback.

 

The Dilbert Future: Thriving on Business Stupidity in the 21st Century 

by Scott Adams (Author)

Step aside, Bill Gates! Here comes today′s real technology guru and his totally original, laugh-out-loud New York Times bestseller that looks at the approaching new millennium and boldly predicts: more stupidity ahead.

In The Dilbert Principle and Dogbert′s Top Secret Management Handbook, Scott Adams skewered the absurdities of the corporate world. Now he takes the next logical step, turning his keen analytical focus on how human greed, stupidity and horniness will shape the future. Featuring the same irresistible amalgam of essays and cartoons that made Adams previous works so singularly entertaining, this uproariously funny, dead-on-target tome offers half-truthful, half-farcical predictions that push all of today′s hot buttons - from business and technology to society and government.

Children - they are our future, so we′re pretty much hosed. Tip: Grab what you can while they′re still too little to stop us.

Human Potential - we′ll finally learn to use the 90 percent of the brain we don′t use today, and find out that there wasn′t anything in that part.

Computers - Technology and homeliness will combine to form a powerful type of birth control. – Amazon

With the recent passing of Scott Adams, I’ve become more keenly aware of the need to sip deeply from the coffee cup of knowledge, and since we have no longer the living fount, we at least have in his books "the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life", as it were. There is an AI version of the man online which John tells me is good, but I’m still a little suspicious that extraneous content might start leaking in. I’m stodgy enough to trust books more for now.

 

Walt Kelly's Pogo Revisited: Instant Pogo / The Jack Acid Society Black Book / The Pogo Poop Book Paperback – June 25, 1974

by Walt Kelly (Author)

The cartoon antics of Pogo the Possum and his friends in Okefenokee provide a witty and satirical view of American politics, morality, social values, and behavior. -Amazon

Now this, this is probably the jewel in the crown of our day’s harvesting. Pogo books were hard to come by in the days of our youth, and only got scarcer and harder to obtain as the years went by. To actually get an old volume (and in very good shape, too) for so little seems nothing short of a miracle. Jack Acid and Poop? You sly old dog, Mr. Kelly!

 The Works of Josephus Hardcover – Unabridged

by Flavius Josephus (Author), William Whiston (Translator)

Josephus’s writings on ancient Jewish thought, background, and history are now more accessible than ever!
This renowned reference book has served scholars, pastors, students, and those interested in the background of the New Testament for years. The insight given into the Essene community, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the interpretations and traditions of the Old Testament in first century Judaism is invaluable. The outlook of Josephus, a late-first-century Pharisee and historian, on Jesus and the New Testament documents is enlightening and provocative. As an original reference, The Works of Josephus is essential to a full understanding of the first century, the time of Christ, and the New Testament. - Amazon

I’ve been wanting to get a volume of Josephus for a long time but have never found one for the right price (practically nil). To have all his work, in hardback, in one book – amazing. Sure, it’s in teeny-tiny eye-strain-o-vision, but nobody’s perfect. It’s a handy and intriguing doorstopper from the Ancient World.

 

Dilbert Gives You the Business (Paperback – January 1, 1999)

by Scott Adams (Author)

Dilbert in ... business!!?? – Amazon’s succinct review. A collection of business and office-themed comic strips, arranged by category, from Bosses to Teamwork.

 

Riddle of Stars (The Quest of the Riddle-Master Trilogy) Hardcover – October 1, 1979

Issued by the Science Fiction Book Club in October 1979. Collects the three books in the trilogy for the first time; The Riddle-Master of Hed (1976), Heir of Sea and Fire (1977) and Harpist in the Wind (1979). With an essay, "People and Places" by the author. - Amazon

I sold my old copy a few years back, but to find one in library binding, to have all three books in one cover (I have them in separate paperbacks), well I found that suddenly irresistible. I passed it by the last time we went; if it had been gone that would have been that. But to be presented with a second bite at the apple! I also have the lame excuse that it would make a good loner copy.

 

So we went to the Second Chance Bookstore near Geronimo before we had Movie Night (it was Network (1975), a film I had never seen, but one of John’s favorites) yesterday, and this time Kameron was with us. So I found these books, and I bought Kameron 4, and since John only found 1 we added it to the pile for ease of ringing up. To remind you of the deal, books here are sold by weight, $2 for every pound.  The total was a tad over $32, so about 16 pounds of books. You can hardly order one new book for under $32. A steal of a deal! As I explained to Kameron, you can’t go in hoping to find one expected book; the joys of the place are the unexpected windfalls and the thrill of the hunt.

Divine Humility of God

“I call this a Divine Humility because it is a poor thing to strike our colors to God when the ship is going down under us; a poor thing to come to him as a last resort, to offer up 'our own' when it is no longer worth keeping. If God were proud He would hardly have us on such terms: but He is not proud, He stoops to conquer, He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to him, and come to him because there is 'nothing better' now to be had. The same humility is shown by all those Divine appeals to our fears which trouble high-minded readers of Scripture. It is hardly complimentary to God that we should choose Him as an alternative to Hell: yet even this He accepts. The creatures illusion to self-sufficiency must, for the creature's sake, be shattered; and by trouble or fear of trouble on earth, by crude fear of eternal flames, God shatters it 'unmindful of his glory's diminution'. Those who would like the God of Scripture to be more purely ethical, do not know what they ask.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Into the Archives: Well, That Was An Adventure

The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain Hardcover – January 1, 1957 by Mark Twain (Author), Charles Neider (Editor)

1957. 676 pages.

Hollywood Anecdotes – August 12, 1988 by Paul F. Boller Jr. and Ronald L. Davis

Authentic and apocryphal anecdotes about the American movie industry and various aspects of American filmmaking. 460 pages.

Urban Legends: The Truth Behind All Those Deliciously Entertaining Myths That Are Absolutely, Positively, 100% Not True  – January 1, 1999 by Richard Roeper (Author)

Recounts dozens of stories that have become part of contemporary folklore even though they have no basis in fact, and reveals the truth behind each legend. 285 Pages.

The Grand Miracle: Daily Reflections for the Season of Advent

This full-color, 64-page booklet features the writings of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Dorothy Sayers, George MacDonald, and others, with daily reflections penned by modern influencers.

The Giant Garden of Oz Hardcover by Eric Shanower (Author) 178 pages.

As fans of L. Frank Baum's Oz books know, Dorothy not only returned to Oz but eventually brought her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em back to live there. Now they have a little farm miles from the Emerald City, but one night when Dorothy stops to visit the farm isn't little anymore -- overnight everything growing in the garden grows to immense size. With an also growing Henry and Em trapped in their home Dorothy has to find her way through the giant garden for help, but things get even worse when the unfriendly cause of this calamity appears. – Mark R. Hunter

A Man for All Seasons: A Play in Two Acts Paperback – April 14, 1990 by Robert Bolt (Author). 163 pages.

Consciences of Sir Thomas More and Henry VIII are poles apart in the religious conflict over the king's marriage to Anne Boleyn.

The Uses of Enchantment - The meaning and importance of fairy tales, by Bruno Bettelheim. 323 pages.

The great child psychologist [since disgraced] gives us a moving revelation of the enormous and irreplaceable value of fairy tales - how they educate, support and liberate the emotions of children.

Letters To Young Churches by J. B. Phillips 1960 with Introduction C.S Lewis. 225 pages.

A translation of the New Testament Epistles with introduction by C.S. Lewis. 

I got a couple of nice monetary gifts for Christmas, and I asked my brother John to squire me around town so I could put some of it to good use. He suggested we look up a new bookstore in Geronimo, a little town not far away, and I agreed. It is called Second Chance Books, and is in a sort of industrial-style strip mall. It was very basic; they sell books for $2 per pound, and there is an automatic checkout with a scale. The shelves and warehouse are very basic; in fact it is the closest place to Yesterday's Warehouse I've been to in years. No frills, and the selection seems to be made of the dross of library and bookstore closeouts, with the detritus of decades of once popular 'hottus shittus' publishing on shabby display. I find this very exciting; there is about one grain of gold to 999 grains of sand, and the hunt for that gold is what makes the search exciting. As you can see, I found a trove, as did John, and I left volumes behind that were marginal, but so cheap I was tempted. And there were shelves I was too tired to search. So for the first time in a while I have a nearby bookstore to whet my appetite, and have 'at least one interesting tomorrow to look forward to.' I got copies of two books I had sold before and several volumes connected to the Inklings, including Letters to Young Churches (the copy I found was in much better condition). I've wanted to get that Eric Shanower Oz book for years; finding it there was the surprise gem of the haul.

Wish Fulfillment: Five Years of the Wish List (C S. Lewis and Other Inklings)

Okay, technically G. K. Chesterton and Dorothy L. Sayers were not Inklings, but I tend to think of them in the same category. Perhaps because they are among the 'Sacred Seven' that Wheaton College have made their particular study. Barfield and Williams were Inklings, of course. Joy Davidman was Lewis's wife. In general, I'm judging the Wish List acquisitions by what I got after the main Archive entries were recorded. I don't know exactly why I feel compelled to do this sort of thing; somehow it fascinates me.

Into the Archive: The Latin Letters of C.S. Lewis

The Latin Letters of C.S. Lewis (Paperback)

by C.S. Lewis (Author), Don Giovanni Calabria (Author), & 2 more

In September 1947, after reading C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters in Italian, Fr. (now St.) Giovanni Calabria was moved to write the author, but he knew no English and assumed (rightly) that Lewis knew no Italian. So he wrote his letter in Latin, hoping that, as a classicist, Lewis would know Latin. Therein began a correspondence that was to outlive Fr. Calabria himself (he died in December 1954, and was succeeded in correspondence by Fr. Luigi Pedrollo, which continued until Lewis’s own death in 1963).
        Translator/editor Martin Moynihan calls these letters “limpid, fluent and deeply refreshing. There was a charm about them, too, and not least in the way they were ‘topped and tailed’ — that is, in their ever-slightly-varied formalities of address and of farewell.”
 More than any other of his published works The Latin Letters shows the strong devotional side of Lewis, and contains letters ranging from Christian unity and modern European history to liturgical worship and general ethical behavior.
       This new edition is greatly enhanced by a new foreword from the eminent Lewis Scholar, Mark A. Noll, from the University of Notre Dame.  – Amazon

What that description does not exactly clarify is that this book includes the letters of Fr. Calabria and Fr. Pedrollo, which prompted Lewis’ letters. I am sure that I have some if not all of the letters from CSL in the 3 massive volumes of his collected letters, but being gathered here with the complete correspondence does give it some further context. As Peter Kreeft said, “If someone had told me there existed a long correspondence between C. S. Lewis and a saint … and that it was about ecumenism and reunion …I would think they were pulling my leg.”

“Giovanni Calabria (8 October 1873 – 4 December 1954) was an Italian Roman Catholic priest who dedicated his life to the plight of the poor and the ill. He established two congregations, the Poor Servants of Divine Providence and the Poor Sisters Servants of Divine Providence to take better care of poor people in various Italian cities and later abroad while underpinning the need to promote the message of the gospel to the poor. Pope John Paul II beatified him in 1988 and then canonized him a decade later in 1999. His liturgical feast is 4 December.” - Wikipedia

I Don't Think They Quite 'Get' Narnia, Aslan, or C. S. Lewis

"Good? Evil?"

C. S. Lewis Sez:

Don't Stop Believing

 

I hate on Facebook when somebody puts up a quote or phrase and simply says "This!" without explanation or defense. I would hope they would at least make some sort of definite statement like "This is true, I will assert it is true." To simply say 'this' seems a little slippery to me; it gives one room to wiggle out, to make no definite statement. Well, this statement seems demonstrably true to me.

C. S. Lewis on "Basic Reading" and Why

 

"They accuse us of arrested development because we have not lost a taste we had in childhood. But surely arrested development consists not in refusing to lose old things but in failing to add new things? I now like hock, which I am sure I should not have liked as a child. But I still like lemon-squash. I call this growth or development because I have been enriched: where I formerly had only one pleasure, I now have two. But if I had to lose the taste for lemon-squash before I acquired the taste for hock, that would not be growth but simple change. I now enjoy Tolstoy and Jane Austen and Trollope as well as fairy tales and I call that growth; if I had had to lose the fairy tales in order to acquire the novelists, I would not say that I had grown but only that I had changed. A tree grows because it adds rings; a train doesn't grow by leaving one station behind and puffing on to the next."

--from "On Three Ways of Writing for Children," (1952).

 

"I spent the afternoon and evening...beginning to re-read The Well at The World's End. I was anxious to see whether the old spell still worked. It does--rather too well. This going back to books read at that age is humiliating: one keeps on tracing what are now quite big thing's in one's mental outfit to curiously small sources. I wonder how much even of my feeling for external nature comes out of the brief, convincing little descriptions of mountains and woods in this book." ---C. S. Lewis, All My Road Before Me.

 

“The value of the myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by ‘the veil of familiarity.’ The child enjoys his cold meat, otherwise dull to him, by pretending it is buffalo, just killed with his own bow and arrow. And the child is wise. The real meat comes back to him more savory for having been dipped in a story…by putting bread, gold, horse, apple, or the very roads into a myth, we do not retreat from reality: we rediscover it.”

― C.S. Lewis, On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature

Into the Archive: Volumes Redux Deluxe

Yesterday my brother John and I went to the Seguin Public Library bookstore, where we hadn’t been for months. I was able to find a couple of great books for $5.

The Great Divorce: A Dream, by C. S. Lewis (1946, this Edition 2009 by HarperOne)

“[William] Blake wrote the Marriage of Heaven and Hell. If I have written of their Divorce, this is not because I think myself a fit antagonist for so great a genius, nor even because I feel at all sure that I know what he meant. But in some sense or other the attempt to make that marriage is perennial. The attempt is based on the belief that reality never presents us with an absolutely unavoidable "either-or"; that, granted skill and patience and (above all) time enough, some way of embracing both alternatives can always be found; that mere development or adjustment or refinement will somehow turn evil into good without our being called on for a final and total rejection of anything we should like to retain. This belief I take to be a disastrous error.” – from the Preface.

I have long had a paperback of this book, and was glad to get a newer softcover edition, with French cover-flaps, no less, easier on both hand and eye. I always have a twinge of guilt getting something like this, however: what if someone in the same position as I was forty years ago would have liked to find this book and I (who have no real crying need of it) have just snatched it away? On the other hand, I might just be another step on the way to its real destination. A secondhand book, inscribed to “my favorite boss/pastor” by a squiggly name that I can’t quite make out.

Grendel, by John Gardner (First Edition, Alfred A. Knopf 1971)

I have long had both a paperback and a softcover edition of Grendel and have wanted a proper hardback copy. Well now I have one, in an almost pristine condition, for $3.

It is odd to think it was a mere ten years between publication of Grendel and Gardner’s death, and even stranger to me to realize I was only aware of him for maybe four years before he was gone. His work seemed so timeless. It’s also odd that I’ve only just watched Grendel, Grendel, Grendel, the 1981 animated adaptation, and that I’ve just found out that the Jim Henson Company has a live-action adaptation in the works, starring Jeff Bridges as Grendel and Dave Bautista as Beowulf. Even the recently acquired The Truth About Dragons (published 1970, just one year before Grendel) opens with a retelling of Beowulf from the dragon’s point of view. All-in-all, finding this copy seems strangely fated.

 

An Inkling of a Tale: Another Abandoned Beginning

INKLING OF A TALE

 

Jack Lewis stepped out the back door of the Kilns and clapped his battered, dung-colored hat onto his balding head. The crisp October air rose like an incense of fallen leaves and cool earth, and a nascent breeze that shuddered the trees at the bottom of the garden thrilled him. He shivered appreciatively. This weather suited him. He swung his knobbed black walking stick and stumped down the smooth stone steps into the garden.

As he crackled his way through the leaf strewn path Jack thought of one of the past autumns that he and his brother had spent at the strange, rambling house of Little Lea, with its enormous indoor silences and labyrinthine, book-lined passages. This season reminded him strongly of that one, some hint of mood, perhaps, that did not come with every year. That time was a golden one, he thought, when they had been busy reading, arguing, and working out the history of their imaginary kingdom, Boxen.

As if the thought had conjured it, a puff of smoke sailed over the lichened wall at the back of the garden. Jack smiled, and turning through the gate came upon the portly figure of his brother Warnie, sitting on a stump against the wall and pulling placidly on his old cherrywood pipe.

Warnie smiled, creasing up the corners of his thick brown moustache. "I thought you might be coming out this way today," he said.

Jack laughed and pulled out his own pipe. "Now what made you think that," he asked as he tamped the bowl down.

"Because that's what I wanted to do myself." Warnie reached down into a drift of leaves and pulled out his own walking stick. "Is it a ramble, then?"

Jack lit his pipe and inhaled deeply--of the aromatic smoke, of the autumn day, of the dark weedy wind blowing off the stream that wandered along the bottom of their land. He exhaled, sighing audibly with pleasure.

"Of course," he said. "Nothing's stopping us." Warnie lifted his stout frame with a little grunt, and swinging their sticks the two brothers began winding their way down the path under the ceramic blue sky.

 

*****************************

 

Early that same morning Ronald Tolkien, lately elected Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford, rode his bicycle through the chilling mist that blurred the grey graveled pavement of Northmoor Road. Despite the early hour he was dressed fastidiously as ever, in a herringbone suit and a light green corduroy vest. It was a saint's day, and he was on his way to early Mass.

As he pedaled along he reflected glumly on the encroachments of so-called progress, that seemed to be hurried along on the wings of the war. By the road he could see the hacked stumps of trees, that had been cut to widen the way. That had been months ago, and still the trunks lay as they had fallen. Tolkien grieved.

Ahead in the mist the squat, plain shape of St. Aloysis' Church hove into view, like a whale breaching the ocean waves. Tolkien pulled his bicycle to a stop with a crunch of gravel and pulled it into the rack. He was still putting it in order when he was suddenly accosted by the ghostly figure of Father Justin sailing out of the fog in full white vestments.

"Professor Tolkien!" he gasped. "Thank Heaven you've come early. We need your help getting things in order before the service can begin. The verger and I simply can't lift her by ourselves. The wickedness of it all!"

"Of course, Father," Tolkien said. "What's the matter? Has the cleaning lady slipped and broke her ankle again?"

"If only it were as simple as that," the priest said as they swiftly went up the steps and through the foyer. "At least I should know what to do. This sort of thing has never occurred to anyone of my acquaintance, even."

"What exactly is it?"

The priest swung open the door of the chapel and pointed. "Look."

Tolkien looked down the rows of freshly scrubbed pews up to the altar. At first he noticed nothing untoward, but when he focused on the statue of Mary to the left of the altar, he went still with shock. The little priest took his arm and led him up the aisle to the desecrated figure.

The body had been painted red from head to foot, all except the face, which was bone white and drawn into a parody of licentiousness. On the sculpted fabric of the breast were two gilt nipples, and down below a gaping black line suggested open genitals. The crown of rays around the figure's head had been broken off, all except two, that stood out like horns. At the foot of the statue was the sexton, a thin spare man looking sadly up into the painted eyes, his cap in his gnarled hands.

The priest hurried briskly over to him. "Come now, Mr. Cullen," he said. "Professor Tolkien will help us. I think we should be able to shift her out."

Using some dirty rags the sexton had gathered up (the paint was still tacky), they rocked the plaster figure off its base. Father Justin carried the relatively light end with the head, while the professor and Cullen heaved the sturdy pediment forward. With a little awkward steering they got it into the aumbry, which the priest hastily locked.

The priest led them around to the back to the sexton's shed, where they washed up. The sexton filled a bucket, grabbed a mop, and headed back into the church.

"What are you going to tell the people about the absence of Mary?" Tolkien asked as he wiped his hands dry.

Father Justin grimaced. "The truth, insofar as it now stands," he replied. "That the figure is out for repairs and renovation. There's no need to alarm the parishioners with an outbreak of anti-papist feeling right now. The condition appears to be endemic, anyhow. No, as soon as Cullen mops up that graffiti on the floor, we will be the only ones who will know about this."

"Graffiti?"

"Surely you noticed? But it was a little way from the figure. Filthy stuff, I assure you, what I could make out of it; most of it appeared to be in some foreign language."

"Good heavens," said Tolkien. "Perhaps you'd better show me."

They went back in, Tolkien hurrying a little ahead of the priest. Inside the dim hall the sexton was scrubbing away at the floor in front of the altar. "Wait," Tolkien called urgently, and drew a small notebook and pencil from his breast pocket.

The writing was already a third erased, and the rest was scuffed and blurred by the passing of feet, but still legible, especially to one who was used to deciphering the pen strokes of ancient manuscripts and careless students. Someone had drawn several concentric circles and decorated them with strange pictographs, and letters in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek.

As he hastily sketched them down into his notepad Tolkien's mouth grew grim, and when he had finished and told the sexton "Go on," his voice was low and stern. From the locked front door came the mumble of people already gathering for the mass.

As Father Justin hurried about, making last minute arrangements, Tolkien approached him and took him by the arm.

"Was anything else out of place?" he asked. "Was anything missing?"

Father Justin glanced up at the now cleansed altar. "Yes, a small number of communion wafers were taken. Terribly wicked act. But I do not think that need affect today's service." He looked closely at the professor. "Why do you ask?"

Tolkien looked for a moment as if he were about to say something, then closed his mouth and shook his head. Father Justin turned and went to open the doors to the congregation.

 

*********************************

 

Many miles later found the Lewis brothers near the University, and since it was close to noon they decided to head for the Bird and Baby for some beer and lunch. As they turned a lane, Warnie suddenly stopped and pointed with his stick toward a crater that opened like a raw pit in the flesh of the earth, surrounded by hills of shattered rubble. "Look at that," he muttered. "That's the one we felt last Friday."

Jack stared and nodded, impassively. He had seen so many now. In the piles of debris, children in knee-breeches and old ladies in long, drab coats and scarves were picking through the bricks, trying to salvage undamaged ones. The sudden drone of a plane overhead made him glance up quickly.

Warnie squinted at the sky. "Don't worry. One of ours."

Jack sighed and shook his head. "Every time I hear that sound, I wonder if this is the time."

"One wonders what's the use of carrying on, under the circumstances."

Jack laughed. "If we waited to do things only when the circumstances were right, the human race would never get anything done. At any rate, we all carry on our business under the threat of death, at all times. It's just that this war makes us realize it more intensely." He turned, and they started up the street again.

"That's very glib," said Warnie. "One of your talks again?"

"As a matter of fact, yes," said Jack. "I'm addressing the people at St.-Mary-the-Virgin on learning in wartime. Canon Milford tells me that apparently a group of undergraduates are getting rather restless about the relevancy of their studies in the face of the destruction of western civilization. I hope to get them to stick to their guns, so that there'll be some western civilization to defend come the end of the war."

Warnie chuckled. "If it's anything like your address on the necessity of war to that pacifist society, it should be some spectacle."

They reached the Bird and Baby, where the sign of Jupiter bearing away Ganymede swung in the cool October breeze. Outside they noticed a familiar bicycle, and inside they found the familiar trim, fair-haired figure of Ronald Tolkien, just finishing off a pint of bitter and getting ready to leave.

Tolkien's craggy eyebrows were creased in a frown over his magisterial nose. Jack was struck with a momentary fancy that he looked like an Inquisitor, pondering over some new stench of heresy. But when the professor turned and noticed the brothers grinning in the doorway his face slid up into an easy smile and he rose from his seat with an air of relief.

"Tollers!" Jack boomed from across the room. "I hope you've left enough for a couple of thirsty wnaderers!"

"Hello, Jack. Hello, Warnie," he said, rolling the r with his characteristic Midlands intonation. "You're just the fellows I wanted to see. Can I buy a round?"

"I shall," said Warnie. "Pension day yesterday, you know." As he went to get the drinks, the other two sought out a table in the rear. As they sat down, Jack's bright blue eyes searched Tolkien's rather troubled grey ones.

"What's wrong, Tollers?" he asked in a lower tone. "You can tell me; as a Catholic, you know confession is good for the soul. If it's Edith's health again, you know you need only tell me..."

"No, no, it's nothing like that," Tolkien said hastily. "Edith's doing as well as she can be, thank God. But I have seen something today that...I can hardly tell you. It was very odd and disturbing. Do you know if Charles will be at the Inklings tonight?" Jack thought he had changed subjects to their monthly meeting of friends and writers rather quickly.

"Yes, I'm fairly sure. You can never tell with the London train these days, though. It should be a good night. The porter rang to tell me that I have another parcel from Firor of America waiting in my rooms. He said he discerned the distinct shape of a ham under the wrappings."

Tolkien chuckled. "I think your rooms are the only place one can find real meat in all of Magdelene," he said. "When the war is over we'll have to invite Firor over and fete him from the college cellars 'with excellent bowse.'"

"Yes," said Jack. "I suppose Charles will bring more of his Arthurian stuff. I've got more of the pain book. I hope you have some more of the new Hobbit?"

"About half a chapter. I can honestly say that with examinations and tutoring, I have done my best."

"Well that's fine. What do you particularly want to see Charles about?"

Tolkien grimaced. "I have to ask him a question in his own field of personal expertise."

Jack looked at him. "You mean...?"

The inquisitorial look settled like iron in Tolkien's face.

"Black Magic."

 

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[Notes: Time, 1945; Place, Oxford. C. S. Lewis is 47, Warnie Lewis is 50, J. R. R. Tolkien is 53, Charles Williams is 59. A cabal of Black Magicians, with Aliester Crowley as their agent, try to seize power during the confusion of WWII. I have to note that I began this last century, well before the spate of 'fictional Inkling adventures' began.]