<p> </p><p><span style="color: #000000;">Screwtape </span><span style="color: #000000;"><b>advises </b></span><span style="color: #000000;">Wormwood /on using time to wear down a soul:</span></p><p> </p><p><span style="color: #000000;">The Enemy </span><span style="color: #000000;"><b>has guarded</b></span><span style="color: #000000;"> him /from you /through the first great wave of temptations. </span></p><p> </p><p><span style="color: #000000;">But, if only he </span><span style="color: #000000;"><b>can be kept</b></span><span style="color: #000000;"> alive, you </span><span style="color: #000000;"><b>have </b></span><span style="color: #000000;">time itself for your ally. </span></p><p> </p><p><span style="color: #000000;">[The long, dull, monotonous years of </span><span style="color: #f89009;">middle</span><span style="color: #000000;">-</span><span style="color: #f89009;">aged</span><span style="color: #000000;"> prosperity or </span><span style="color: #f89009;">middle-aged</span><span style="color: #000000;"> adversity </span><span style="color: #000000;"><b>are</b></span><span style="color: #000000;"> excellent campaigning weather. </span></p><p> </p><p><span style="color: #000000;">You </span><span style="color: #000000;"><b>see</b></span><span style="color: #000000;">, it </span><span style="color: #000000;"><b>is </b></span><span style="color: #000000;">so hard [for these creatures to persevere]. </span></p><p> </p><p><span style="color: #000000;">[The routine of adversity, the gradual decay of youthful loves and youthful hopes], </span></p><p><span style="color: #000000;">[the quiet despair (hardly felt as pain) of ever overcoming the chronic temptations </span></p><p><span style="color: #000000;">//with which we </span><span style="color: #000000;"><b>have</b></span><span style="color: #000000;"> again and again </span><span style="color: #000000;"><b>defeated</b></span><span style="color: #000000;"> them], </span></p><p><span style="color: #000000;">[the drabness //which we </span><span style="color: #000000;"><b>create</b></span><span style="color: #000000;"> in their lives and the inarticulate resentment //with which we </span><span style="color: #000000;"><b>teach</b></span><span style="color: #000000;"> them to respond to it]</span></p><p><span style="color: #000000;">—[all this] </span><span style="color: #000000;"><b>provides </b></span><span style="color: #000000;">admirable opportunities of wearing out a soul by attrition. </span></p><p> </p><p><span style="color: #000000;">* [all this] = [The routine...], [the quiet despair...], [the drabness... and the inarticulate...]</span></p><p> </p><p><span style="color: #000000;">If, on the other hand, the middle years </span><span style="color: #000000;"><b>prove </b></span><span style="color: #000000;">prosperous, our position </span><span style="color: #000000;"><b>is </b></span><span style="color: #000000;">even stronger. </span></p><p> </p><p><span style="color: #000000;">Prosperity </span><span style="color: #000000;"><b>knits </b></span><span style="color: #000000;">a man to the World. </span></p><p> </p><p><span style="color: #000000;">He </span><span style="color: #000000;"><b>feels </b></span><span style="color: #000000;">that he </span><span style="color: #000000;"><b>is ‘finding</b></span><span style="color: #000000;"> his place in it’, while really it </span><span style="color: #000000;"><b>is finding</b></span><span style="color: #000000;"> its place in him. </span></p><p><span style="color: #000000;">* it = the World </span></p><p> </p><p><span style="color: #000000;">His increasing reputation, his widening circle of acquaintances, his sense of importance,</span></p><p><span style="color: #000000;">the growing pressure of absorbing and agreeable work, </span></p><p><span style="color: #000000;"><b>build up</b></span><span style="color: #000000;">/ in him [a sense of being really at home in earth], which </span><span style="color: #000000;"><b>is</b></span><span style="color: #000000;"> just [what we </span><span style="color: #000000;"><b>want</b></span><span style="color: #000000;">]. </span></p><p> </p><p><span style="color: #000000;">You </span><span style="color: #000000;"><b>will notice</b></span><span style="color: #000000;"> that the young </span><span style="color: #000000;"><b>are </b></span><span style="color: #000000;">generally less unwilling /to die /than the middle- aged and the old.</span></p><p> </p><p><span style="color: #000000;">From The Screwtape Letters</span></p><p><span style="color: #000000;">Compiled in A Year with C.S. Lewis</span></p><p> </p>
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