Today's Reading
I admit that some writers have told me /for the first
time /of heavens and hells () I never met before;
but many, equally great
or greater, have told me () only of those we all have to bear /whether we
choose to call them “unbearable” or not].
* (that) we all have to bear (only of those) /whether we
choose to call them “unbearable” or not].
What hells can be harder to
bear than those //in which many of our unpoetic fellow creatures live?
What man, after forty years in the world, has not experienced enough (if
that were all that was needed) to be raw material for all the tragedies
of Shakespeare?
Once again, [the view () I am fighting] depends on a gross
under-estimation of common things and common men.
“To be a man,” as
Professor Tolkien recently reminded us, “is tragedy enough.”
Yes, and
comedy enough too.
The Naturalistic doctrine is a mere assumption, first
made by the arrogance of poets
and since accepted by the misdirected
humility of an irreligious age.
From The Personal Heresy
The Personal Heresy: A Controversy. Copyright © 1939 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.