Letters to Children

Letters to Children

Though his admiration of children led to much controversy, in the collection C.S. Lewis: Letters to Children, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia answers fan mail from children with the profundity and passion illustrated in his works. His words are inspiring, and his advice is meaningful to us as well. Here are extracts of three letters:

A boy named Hugh, asked for a definition of “gaiety”; April 5, 1961:

A creature can never be a perfect being, but may be a perfect creature—e.g. a good angel or a good apple-tree. Gaiety at its highest may be an (intellectual) creature’s delighted recognition that its imperfection as a being may constitute part of its perfection as an element in the whole hierarchical order of creation. I mean, while it is a pity there should be bad men or bad dogs, part of the excellence of a good man is that he is not an angel, and of a good dog that it is not a man. This is the extension of what St. Paul says about the body & the members. A good toe-nail is not an unsuccessful attempt at a hair; and if it were conscious it would delight in being simply a good toe-nail.

To a girl named Joan, Lewis on duty’s false deities; July 18, 1957:

A perfect man would never act from a sense of duty; he’d always want the right thing more than the wrong one. Duty is only a substitute for love (of God and of other people), like a crutch, which is a substitute for a leg. Most of us need the crutch at times; but of course it’s idiotic to use the crutch when our own legs (or own loves, tastes, habits, etc) can do the journey on their own!