we must just go on [doing the ordinary things /as well as we can]

[soso]

TO EDWARD LOFSTROM: On what Lewis attempted in The Chronicles of Narnia; on the character of the man Jesus

—his tenderness, ferocity, and even humor; and on the need to do one’s duty /while having patience with God.

16 January 1959

1. I am afraid () I don’t know the answer /to your question /about books of Christian instruction for children. 

[Most of those () I have seen]—but I haven’t seen many—seem /to me [namby-pamby and ‘sissie’

and calculated to nauseate any child /worth his salt]. 

Of course I have tried[ to do what I can for children]

—in a mythical and fantastic form by my seven ‘Narnian’ fairy tales. 

They work /well /with some children but not with others. 

Sorry () this looks like salesmanship: but honestly if I knew anything else I’d mention it.

2. Of course. ‘Gentle Jesus’, my elbow! 

[The most striking thing about Our Lord] is the union of great ferocity with extreme tenderness.

(Remember Pascal?

 ‘I do not admire the extreme of one virtue /unless you show [me] /at the same time [the extreme of the opposite virtue]. 

One shows one’s greatness /not by being at an extremity

but by being simultaneously at two extremities and filling all the space between.’)

Add /to this [that He is also a supreme ironist, dialectician, and (occasionally) humourist].

 So go on! 

You are on the right track now: getting to the real Man /behind all the plaster dolls //that have been substituted for Him. 

This is the appearance in Human form of the God //who made the Tiger and the Lamb, the avalanche and the rose. 

He’ll frighten and puzzle you: but the real Christ can be loved and admired /as the doll can’t.

3. ‘For him //who is haunted by the smell of invisible roses the cure is work’ (MacDonald). 

If we feel () we have talents //that don’t find expression‎ in our ordinary duties and recreations,

I think () we must just go on [doing the ordinary things /as well as we can]. 

If God wants to use these suspected talents, He will: in His own time and way. 

At all costs one must keep clear of all the witchdoctors and their patent cures—as you say yourself.

From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III
Compiled in Yours, Jack