TO MARY WILLIS SHELBURNE: On
whether we dare hope that dying is like having a tooth extracted;
on
purgatory; and yet more on forgiveness and the feeling of being forgiven.
7 July 1959
. . . You seem to have had a very nasty experience.
I can see [why you describe it as ‘looking into the face of death’]:
but who knows [whether that face, when we really look at it, will be at all like that]?
* 명사절/목적으로 쓰인 why/whether 절
Let us hope better things.
I had a tooth out the other day,
and came away /wondering whether we dare hope that the moment of death may be very like that delicious moment /when one realises that the tooth is really out and a voice says ‘Rinse your mouth out /with this.’
‘This’ of course will be Purgatory. . .
* 5형식 I had a tooth out the other day. 에서 out 은 형용사/목보
* we dare (to) hope that~
* the tooth is really out. 에서 out 은 형용사/보어
* Rinse your mouth out 에서 out 은 동사와 결합한 타동사구의 소사/전치사
You surely don’t mean ‘feeling that we are not worthy to be forgiven’?
For of course we aren’t.
Forgiveness by its nature is for the unworthy.
You mean ‘Feeling that we are not forgiven.’
I have known that.
I ‘believed’ theoretically in the divine forgiveness for years /before it really came /home /to me.
It is a wonderful moment [when it does].
* it really came 에서 it = the divine forgiveness
* 가주어 it = [when it does] 진주어이기에 명사절 역할
* [when it does] 에서 it = the divine forgiveness
* to come home to me ; To be understood or realized by someone.
From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III
Compiled in Yours, Jack
The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume III: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy 1950-1963. Copyright © 2007 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Yours, Jack: Spiritual Direction from C. S. Lewis. Copyright © 2008 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.