Today's Reading
When [Digory] had come close up to [the gates] he saw words written on the gold with silver letters; something like this:
Come in by the gold gates or not at all,
Take of my fruit for others or forbear,
For those who steal or those who climb my wall
Shall find their heart’s desire and find despair.
“Take
of my fruit for others,” said Digory to himself. “Well, that’s what I’m
going to do. It means () I mustn’t eat any myself, I suppose. . .
He
knew which was the right tree at once, partly because it stood in the
very center and partly because [the great silver apples //with which it was
loaded] shone so and cast a light of their own down /on the shadowy
places //where the sunlight did not reach. He walked straight across to
it, picked an apple, and put it in the breast pocket of his Norfolk
jacket. But he couldn’t help looking at it and smelling it before he put
it away.
* "I can't help it" (and its variations) is an idiom which means "it's beyond my control."
It would have been better if he had not.
A terrible
thirst and hunger came over him and a longing to taste that fruit. He
put it hastily into his pocket; but there were plenty of others. Could
it be wrong to taste one? After all, he thought, the notice on the gate
might not have been exactly an order; it might have been only a piece of
advice—anpart
about taking one “for others.”
From The Magician's Nephewd who cares about advice? Or even if it were an order, would
he be disobeying it by eating an apple? He had already obeyed the part about taking one “for others.”
Compiled in A Year with Aslan
The Magician's Nephew.
Copyright © 1955 by C. S. Lewis Pte., Ltd. Copyright renewed © 1983 by
C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of
HarperCollins Publishers. A Year With Aslan: Daily Reflections from The Chronicles of Narnia.
Copyright © 2010 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Extracts taken from The
Chronicles of Narnia. Copyright © C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. 1950-1956. All
rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
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