Reverend Brian McGreevy continues his series, Not as Unwise but as Wise: Reflections from C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man and That Hideous Strength on Living Christianly in a Post-Christian World. This is available as a podcast on iTunes.
Episode 10: Not as Unwise but as Wise: Reflections from C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man and That Hideous Strength on Living Christianly in a Post-Christian WorldFollowing up our discussion of the Preface and first part of Chapter 1, we delve into the nefarious doings of the Fellows of Bracton College and explore Lewis’s framing of Beauty and Truth and Goodness as he sets the foundation of this story.
SUMMARY OF SECTIONS 3 AND 4 OF CHAPTER 1, “SALE OF COLLEGE PROPERTY”
Adapted from scholar Rudolf Rentzel
Sub-Warden Curry wanted to talk with Mark Studdock about the upcoming meeting of the Fellows that day, and specifically about a motion for the College to sell Bragdon Wood, a secluded, walled-in, peaceful area of well-tended grass (by sheep) and trees, with an ancient well in the middle, smack in the middle of the College. Ancient legend claims that the Wood is the burial site for Merlin and that the well was named for him. An organization named the National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments (N.I.C.E.) made a generous offer to purchase Bragdon Wood to construct a new headquarters building to house their operations. The NICE presents itself as a new organization which fuses the power of the State and the laboratory to create a place where thoughtful people could make a better world free from the constraints of red tape and with an unlimited, state supported budget.
At the meeting, the College Bursar announced that the College’s budget looked so woeful, the meager stipend for the Junior Fellows might have to be cut from the amounts already paid. Thus, when the question of the sale of Bradgon Wood to the NICE for a generous amount arose, only the old guard wanted to hang on to this part of the college that had belonged to it since its founding back in 1300. The other Fellows clearly saw the advantage of the sale and the motion easily carried. During the meeting, much of the conversation is characterized by “doublespeak,” a recurring element of the confusion of language theme throughout the book.
The scene switches from the meeting at Bracton College back to the Studdocks’ home. Jane can’t focus on her work, being troubled by her dream. She goes out for a walk and to do some shopping. In town, Jane encounters Mrs. Dimble, an old friend, who invites her home for lunch. Mrs. Dimble’s husband, Dr. Dimble, is a Fellow at Northumberland, another college of Edgestow University. Jane and her friends used to meet at their house often in their undergraduate days. The Dimbles live in a lovely and ancient cottage by the river next to the wall of Bragdon Wood. Jane learns that the Dimbles are being forced to move, as they rent the cottage from Bracton College, who plan to sell it to the N.I.C.E. along with several other properties, including Bragdon Wood, the small park that contains “Merlin’s Well,” beneath which Merlin himself is said to be sleeping.
“Over lunch, talk of Merlin’s Well leads Dr. Dimble to talk about literary history (his subject) and the Matter of Britain in particular. He remarks about how much historical accuracy there is or could be in the Arthur stories, and describes the half-Celtic, half-Roman society Arthur would have lived in. When he remarks that the Celtic language Arthur spoke would sound “something like Spanish,” Jane nearly faints.
Jane then describes her nightmare to the Dimbles, who take it with gratifying seriousness. She asks if they think she should be psychoanalyzed. Dr. Dimble tells her that, if she wants to go to anyone about that dream, he has a name and address he could give her.”—adapted from Earl Wajenberg
KEY PASSAGES
“Though I am Oxford-bred and very fond of Cambridge, I think that Edgestow is more beautiful than either. For one thing it is so small. No maker of cars or sausages or marmalades has yet come to industrialise the country town which is the setting of the University, and the University itself is tiny…There are only two colleges: Northumberland which stands below Bracton on the river Wynd, and Duke’s opposite the Abbey. Bracton takes no undergraduates. It was founded in 1300 for the support of ten learned men whose duties were to pray for the soul of Henry de Bracton and to study the laws of England. The number of Fellows has gradually increased to forty, of whom only six (apart from the Bacon Professor) now study Law and of whom none, perhaps, prays for the soul of Henry de Bracton.”
THEMES TO NOTICE
Beauty
Industrialization
Spiritual purpose
Understanding of LawSetting the Stage: Beauty, Truth, Goodness
“Very few people were allowed into Bragdon Wood. The gate was by Inigo Jones and was the only entry: a high wall enclosed the Wood, which was perhaps a quarter of a mile broad and a mile from east to west. If you came in from the street and went through the College to reach it, the sense of gradual penetration into a holy of holies was very strong. First you went through the Newton quadrangle which is dry and gravelly; florid, but beautiful, Gregorian buildings look down upon it. Next you must enter a cool tunnel-like passage, nearly dark at midday unless either the door into Hall should be open on your right or the buttery hatch on your left, giving you a glimpse of indoor daylight falling on panels, and a whiff of the smell of fresh bread. When you emerged from this tunnel you would find yourself in the medieval College: in the cloister of the much smaller quadrangle called Republic. The grass here looks very green after the aridity of Newton and the very stone of the buttresses that rise from it gives the impression of being soft and alive. Chapel is not far off: the hoarse, heavy noise of the works of a great and old clock comes to you from somewhere overhead. You went along this cloister, past slabs and urns and busts that commemorate dead Bractonians, and then down shallow steps into the full daylight of the quadrangle called Lady Alice. The buildings to your left and right were seventeenth-century work: humble, almost domestic in character, with dormer windows, mossy and grey-tiled. You were in a sweet, Protestant world. You found yourself, perhaps, thinking of Bunyan or of Walton’s Lives. There were no buildings straight ahead on the fourth side of Lady Alice: only a row of elms and a wall: and here first one became aware of the sound of running water and the cooing of wood pigeons. The street was so far off by now that there were no other noises. In the wall there was a door. It led you into a covered gallery pierced with narrow windows on either side. Looking out through these, you discovered that you were crossing a bridge and the dark brown dimpled Wynd was flowing under you. “
“Now you were very near your goal. A wicket at the far end of the bridge brought you out on the Fellows’ bowling green, and across that you saw the high wall of the Wood, and through the Inigo Jones gate you caught a glimpse of sunlit green and deep shadows. I suppose the mere fact of being walled in gave the Wood part of its peculiar quality, for when a thing is enclosed, the mind does not willingly regard it as common.”
Setting the Stage: Beauty, Truth, Goodness
Inigo Jones
Gradual penetration into a Holy of Holies
Medieval/dry aridity of Newton/green grass/Chapel/clock and bells
Dead Bractonians commemorated
“Sweet Protestant world”/Bunyan/Walton The Lives of Dr. John Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, Mr. Richard Hooker, Mr. George Herbert
Sound of running water
“In the wall there was a door.”
Crossing a bridge
High wall/a thing enclosed/not common
Inigo Jones (15 July 1573 – 21 June 1652) was the first significant architect in the early modern period and the first to employ Vitruvian rules of proportion and symmetry in his buildings (Vitruvius, De architectura, 1st century BC). As the most notable architect in England, Jones was the first person to introduce the classical architecture of Rome and the Italian Renaissance to Britain.
Practices of Hope and of Wisdom
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.—Philippians 4:8-9
1.Pray to notice and be alive to and contemplate and praise God for Beauty.
–For how great is God’s goodness, and how great His beauty! (Zech. 9:17)
–And let the beauty of the Lord of God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands (Psalm 90:17).
–Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined. (Psalm 50:2)
–Honor and majesty are before Him: strength and beauty are in His sanctuary…O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness: fear before Him, all the earth (Psalm 96:6,9)
“Too late came I to love thee, O thou Beauty both so ancient and so fresh.” Augustine of Hippo
“The Triune God, Creator of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible, is the Fountainhead of Beauty, wherever and in whatsoever shape and form it is experienced. In manifesting Himself to us, God comes in judgement, in mercy, in holiness, in grace: that is, in his splendour and beauty…Scripture overwhelms me when it speaks of the beauty of God’s holiness. I was raised up to think that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, that it is something relative. I was taught that the artistic heart expresses its own intrinsic sense of beauty. Not having thought these things out, I initially assumed that I am autonomous as far as art and creativity are concerned. The case turned out to be otherwise. Truth, goodness and beauty all come down from above: they proceed from God. ”—Paul Mizzi
2. Pursue Advent disciplines.
–Advent wreath
–Advent devotions (http://www.betsycahill.com/)
–Advent hymns
–Trinity College Advent Sunday service–Go to church!
3. Read theological poetry to increase your sense of wonder.
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings
(“God’s Grandeur”—Gerard Manley Hopkins)
Music link:
