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Welcome to the C.S. lewis Festival Scholar Series. I'm your host, David Krause. As part of this growing podcast series, we're taking a look at the previous year C.S. lewis Festival, held every September in Petoskey, Michigan. Over 1200 people attended a variety of cultural, religious and educational events along the beautiful shores of Lake Michigan in September. For this year's festival, please Visit us@cs LewisFestival.org for events and registration. In this series of talks, the theme focuses on C.S. lewis and the nature of friendship. The festival welcomes Montre College Professor Don King, who has authored five books on Lewis. His most recent and the nature of his talk is Inkling Historian, Soldier and A Life of Warren Hamilton Lewis. It's an in depth look at the remarkable friendship of the Lewis brothers and the impact he had on Jack Lewis. He covers much ground in this seminal biography on Warney Lewis. From boat builder to author of books to Lewis's secretary. We learn also what he really felt about Mrs. Moore and and Lewis's wife, Joy Davidman, a revelation in of itself. Now, Professor Don King,

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thank you very much for inviting me and for being here this morning. I'm probably like these two other gentlemen. Asking me to talk about CS Lewis is like letting a little boy loose in a candy store. So I hope that today we have a wonderful time together. I want to preface my talk this morning with a confession and an admission. First, the title of my talk is Deliberate Hyperbole. That is, although I know there's no way I could possibly explore everything many of you would like to know about Warren Lewis. I hope the title might have made you curious and you're here this morning, so it must have worked to some degree. Second, an admission. From the moment I decided to write this biography, I faced the thorny dilemma. That is, how should I refer to the names of the two brothers? I knew that constant references to C.S. lewis or CSL or the more unforgivable Clive would become tiresome and irritating. The solution I adopted was convenient, appropriate, and efficient, but not, however, without risk. Because C.S. lewis's family name was Jack, it was also the one most often used by Warning or by Warren. And because Warren's family name was Warney, I decided to risk the ire of some who might believe my use of Jack and Warny suggest an intimacy with the two men that couldn't have been mine. So I beg your indulgence and I hope you'll soon come to be at ease with my use of Jack and Warning. My talk is in two parts. In the first portion I review some reasons why I thought a biography of Warning was necessary. In the second portion, I offer four additional takeaways from the biography itself. So why was the biography needed? Although Warning is best known as the beloved brother of Jack, his biography is important because of his intimate involvement in the military, social and cultural history of 20th century England. He fought in World War I as a young, untried officer. His experience in history's greatest bloodbath mirrored that of thousands of others. In addition, his nightmarish days in northern France call to mind the poetry of Edmond Blundeen, Ivor Gurney, David Jones, Wilford Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, and Edward Thomas, as well as the prose of Sassoon and Robert Graves and their German counterparts, Ernst Younger and Erich Marie Ron Mark. Moreover, as a career army officer, later serving in Sierra Leone and Shanghai, Warning's Eurocentric sensibilities made him capable of seeing the ways in which British colonialism shaped and hampered his understanding of the native of African and Chinese people among which he lived. Retiring from the army at the relatively young age of 37, Warny spent the remainder of his life resolved to beginning what he called the business of living, by which he meant finding satisfaction and meaning in a life outside the world of billets and barracks. In addition to what I've already mentioned, several additional matters underscore the importance of this biography. First, Warning's life sheds new light on his famous brother, including the warm and loving relationship the two brothers shared that lasted throughout their life. Here's what Warney writes in his memoir about his first memory of his brother. If I can find my notes, he writes, my brother was born in one of the inner suburbs of Belfast on 29th November 1898, when I was nearly 3 and a half years old. I remember him dimly as a vociferous disturber of my domestic peace and a rival claimant to my mother's attention. Few detailed and particular memories remain of our first years together, though. During these first years, up to our move to the new house in the spring of 1905, we laid the foundations of an intimate friendship that was the greatest happiness of my life and lasted unbroken until his death 58 years later. And Jerry was sharing with us the other night about the importance of friendship. I think in the case of C.S. lewis, his three greatest friends first of all were his brother and then Arthur Greaves, and then Owen Barfield, but more on that later. As young boys, Jack and Warnie bonded quickly, in part as a response to the loss at early ages of their mother Flora and their corresponding complicity against what they believed to be the emotional, intellectual and social intrusions upon their lives by their father, Albert. Jack's autobiography, Surprised by Joy, as well as its collected letters. The first volume, entitled Family Letters, provide ample evidence of this complicity. However, little work had been done focusing upon Warney's response to his mother's death and his father's role in his early life. In addition, Warney's struggle with alcoholism is well known, but its origin, influence on his life and impact on his brother's life had not really been explored in any detail. Moreover, after the death of Jack, Warney lived another 10 years, years that became increasingly dark as he grieved the passing of his beloved brother. Second, this biography explores Warney as an accomplished writer and amateur historian. That is, he was not a university trained and educated scholar. Nevertheless, he researched and wrote seven books on 17th century French history. In addition, he collected, edited and wrote the 11 volume typescript manuscript Memoirs of the Lewis Family, 1850-1930. Further, he wrote eight essays on his experiences piloting a motorboat on and around the canals of Oxford. Moreover, after Jack's death in 1963, he published the Letters of C.S. lewis. These volumes continue to be consulted by researchers wanting to learn more about the life of C.S. lewis. But perhaps Warny's greatest written work was his diary, one that he kept for roughly 60 years and running to 1.2 million words. One of the things I do in this biography is to explore Warny's strengths and weaknesses as a researcher and writer and how these works contribute to our understanding of him and Jack. Third, this account of Warney's life examines his role as an original member of, along with his brother and Tolkien of the Oxford Inklings, that now famous group of novelists, thinkers, churchmen, poets, essayists, medical men, scholars and friends who met regularly to drink beer and to hear written compositions read aloud and to discuss books, ideas, history and writers. I think many of us in this room would have liked to have been able to attend an Inklings meeting. Well, in his diaries, Warning often wrote summaries of what occurred in the meetings. Among the many things discussed, apparently were some of these. The possibility of dogs having souls. The morality of the Nuremberg Trials, the possibility of the communications with the dead. The moral aspects of atomic bombing and total war. Second sight or the ability to perceive future or distant events. The ethics of Cannibalism can there be ethics of cannibalism Interesting Here the almost impossible challenge of interesting the uneducated indifferent in religion. How far pagan Mythology was a substitute for theology, the various versions of the Bible, A.E. houseman and ferocity of his prefaces, public schools, Sherlock Holmes stories. I would have liked to have sat in on that one. The inexplicable problem of why some children are allowed to die in infancy, and whether poets create or reflect the mood of their time. Warney's wit was often on display during a meeting of the Inklings. On one occasion, when the audience had flatly refused to hear Jack discourse and define chance, Jack said, very well, some other time. But if you die tonight, you'll be cut off. Knowing a great deal less about chance than you might have. Warning said, that only illustrates what I've always said. Every cloud has a silver lining. Force. The biography delves into Warning's participation as an active member of the household at the Kilns, the residence in Headington that he co owned with his brother and Mrs. Janie Moore. In fact, after his retirement from the army in the early 1930s, two rooms were added to the kilns that served as his study and bedroom for the rest of his life. I draw extensively from Warny's published and unpublished diaries and discover new insights about life at the Kilns, especially the relationship between Jack and Mrs. Moore, between Warney and Jack, between Warney and Mrs. Moore, and between the various other members of the household. Of special interest to many will be the unhappy nature of Warning's relationship with Mrs. Moore. By the time of her death, Warning disliked her deeply. More on this in a moment. Lastly, this life of Warning reveals the important role he played in the relationship between Jack and the woman he married, Joy Davidman. As his brother's secretary, Warney read Joy's initial correspondence to his brother. A confirmed bachelor, Warney might have resisted Joy's overt efforts to develop a friendship with his brother, perhaps seeing her as a gold digger. Yet this was not the case, and despite his awareness that Joy wanted more than just friendship with his brother, Warning was not jealous or protective. In fact, he came to love Joy deeply, noted the divine irony that as Mrs. Moore was gradually being removed from his brother's everyday care, Joy was slowly becoming an important part of that life, admired her courage as she fought the cancer that eventually took her life, and grieved deeply when she died. As much as Warney had come to despise Mrs. Moore, it's important to note how much he loved Joy as a confidant, counselor, collaborator, sister and beloved friend. After his mother, Joy was the woman he most loved in his life. In letters to his friends, he commented on his loss to one he confessed that Joy's death had left a hole in him that no one else could fill. Although he knew his loss was nothing compared to Jack's, he affirmed that he missed her dreadfully. He especially admired her fun filled life despite her pain and suffering. Now, several additional notes I tried as much as possible to resist writing another biography of Jack Lewis. Many good ones already exist, including the most recent three volume biography by Hal Poe. At the same time, because the lives of the two brothers were so intertwined, it's inevitable that at certain points I may have strayed perilously close to sketching too much of the life of Jack Lewis. I hope readers will forgive that. Furthermore, Jack's diary is the primary source for this biography. An important value of keeping a diary is that it affords the diarist a forum for honest candor. On the one hand, the diarist can unashamedly confess doubt, fear, joy, prejudice, delight, lust, empathy, anger, satisfaction, envy, and so on. On the other hand, the diarist can explore the surprising truths that rise to the surface by writing that is free, open, and unchecked. This means that the writer can see what he or she thinks, not just think it. Thoughts are fleeting, ephemeral, and wispy things, often jumbled, garbled, and incoherent. One may think he or she holds certain beliefs in a personal mental strongbox. However, it's only when the thoughts are written down to see that one can begin to consider the following Do I really believe that? Does that actually represent me at my deepest core? Does this cause me to live my everyday life the way I do, or has seeing written down on paper what I say I actually believe exposed my beliefs as absurd, unsupportable, ill formed, and hypocritical. Sometimes a diarist may shock himself or herself when the answer to these questions is the opposite to what he or she had always assumed. Thus, the chief value of keeping a diary is that the written word trumps fuzzy, nonlinear, imprecise thinking. Words on paper are clear, objective, and solid, so the diarist can explore, with no restraint every facet of his or her belief system. Furthermore, a diarist is self absorbed. It follows that we should not be overly critical of a diarist for his or her self focused and picking up on what Jerry said the other night. Every self is self centered. At least the diarist admits that much. In Warney's case, he read diaries, other diaries, voraciously and often reflected upon the diarists. As we read his diary, we learn Warren's Unfiltered opinions, convictions and prejudices. Indeed, the insight we gain into Warney's psychology is a central reason we read him. His was a life, I would say, of existential loneliness. The early death of his mother, his emotional estrangement from his father, the lack of a long term romantic relationship, his deep psychological reliance upon his brother, the absence of many deep and sustained male friends and his dependence upon alcohol are markers of this loneliness. Accordingly, in the biography I draw extensively from Warney's diaries, including both the published and especially the unpublished portions. By the way, the published portion is entitled the Brothers and Friends. It's been available since, I think, the mid-80s. It's about a tenth of the complete diary. It'd be a mistake to assume that Warren's life or Warning's life can primarily be understood as the only sibling of Jack, undoubted that a relationship between the two brothers plays a central role in both their lives and I do not neglect the importance of their relationship. However, Warning was also a soldier, an inkling and a noted French historian of the 17th century. These three lives, if you will, are given careful attention in the biography as they are the central shaping influences in his life. Now, the second part of my talk, four additional takeaways, and the first one just has to do with Jack and Warny. Contrasts between the two. In the opening pages of Lewis is surprised by Joy. He relates a story that explains the genesis of what he calls Zenzuk, or Joy. He writes, once in those very early days, my brother brought into the nursery the lid of a biscuit tin which he had covered with moss and garnished with twigs and flowers, so as to make it a toy garden or a toy forest. That was the first beauty I ever knew. As long as I live, my imagination of paradise will retain something of my brother's toy garden. While the impact of this story has long been recognized as marking the central theme in Jack's life and works, what's not been noticed until now is how significant this incident is to the life and works of Warning that is in the making of that toy garden, we see the defining mark of Warnie's life, an approach to life that was tactile, practical and utilitarian. While for Jack Latoy garden awakened a powerful, nurturing aesthetic sense. Excuse me for warning. I think I got some water here. Excuse me. While for Jack the toy garden awakened a powerful, nurturing aesthetic sense for Warning, the episode illustrates that he was given to working with things, with objects in the world before him, with the matters of everyday life. He fabricated the toy garden for his brother with no idea how it would impact his imagination. Rather, Warny put together the toy garden because he delighted in making, constructing and assimilating. Indeed, throughout his life, Warning took a pragmatic and hands on view of life. He was concerned with how things work, the continuous flow of life, the day to day and the present and pressing matters of the moment captured his attention. This vision of life explains his penchant for history, his interest in current events, his keen awareness of what was happening in contemporary English society and his primary focus on the matters of everyday experience. He was a careful observer, a sharp eyed reporter, an active doer. His mind was prosaic rather than poetic, pragmatic rather than imaginative, and engaged rather than detached. If Jack was romantic, reflective and intuitive, Warning was realistic, practical and commonsensical. In short, if Jack was right brained, warning was left brain. Let me draw several other contrasts between Warney and Jack. Both were voracious readers. However, the ends for which they read were different. In general, when Warney read, he was essentially exercising what might be called an applied imagination, meaning that he enjoyed reading and writing towards serviceable ends. His later work on the Lewis papers, his diary, his essays about boating, the boating in the canals in and around Oxford, and his books on French history are expressions of this applied imagination. Moreover, although he was a devoted reader throughout his life, for him reading was primarily for pleasure and information. Witness his late in life dogged rereading of Shakespeare's plays, even when he was not particularly enjoying the play at hand. Reading was a great enjoyment for him, but primarily it was a way to expend time to move life along, not as a particular source of inspiration, imaginative interaction or literary development. When Jack read, on the other hand, he was exercising a creative imagination. He enjoyed reading and writing towards intuitive, reflective and aesthetic ends. Certainly his deep reading of the towering figures of Western literature, Homer, Virgil, Dante, and of English literature, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, George Herbert, Samuel Johnson, Jane Austen, Wordsworth, George McDonnell, William Morris and G.K. chesterton served as the wellhead of his creative imagination. Jack read and wrote in order to explore, express and nourish his already rich imagination. A second significant contrast concerns their spiritual lives. Jack and Warny were both, I would argue, melancholic. However, they were different kinds of melancholics. Jack was a sanguine melancholic. I don't think that's an oxymoron, but it might be. The world might be a mess and its people even messier. And yes, human Existence was problematic. Suffering argued against a world with purpose and the early death of his mother left a deep wound. Still, when he viewed all this through the lens of his Christian faith, Jack did not take the darker view. He was buoyed by his confidence in the goodness of God's character, even if he did not understand the mystery of pain, suffering and doubt. Warney, on the other hand, was a phlegmatic melancholic. When he looked at the world, it was an existential puzzle. Although he shared his brother's faith, he did not take comfort it in the same way. Too much of his life been touched by deep disappointment. The loss of his mother, the horrors of World War I, the crushing boredom of his years in the army, the unwelcome return to service, military service during World War II, and his conflicted life at the kilns with Mrs. Moore. As he mused on his existence, a dark shadow loomed over him and pervaded his day to day reality. If Jack found in Christianity an answer to his melancholy, Warney found only a partial answer, one that as years went by he supplemented with an increasing use of alcohol. Regrettably, Warny's internal gaze and phlegmatic melancholy fled off each other, causing his alcoholic consumption to accelerate. At the risk of a simplistic summary, I put their spiritual difference this Jack knew God, while Warning knew about God. Jack opened himself up to a full gaze of God. Warning was only able to glimpse God. Jack dove in and risked all. Warney only waded in, hedging his bets. In the fullness of God's gaze, Jack found freedom. Warney instead found discomfort. Although it sounds as if I'm finding fault with Warney's Christian faith, it is probably the case that most Christians, including me, are more like Warnie than Jack. Given how far I've pushed this. Here are a few other thoughts in terms of comparisons. Jack is George Herbert Tuworny's Dr. Samuel Johnson. Jack is William Wordsworth to Warn a Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Jack is George McDonald to warn his WT Kirkpatrick. Jack is Lucy to Warnace Trumpkin the gyp dwarf. Jack is Jewel the Unicorn to Warnace Bree the War horse. Jack is Repe chief to Warnie's Truffle hunter the badger. Jack is Psyche to Warnie's war. You owe the second takeaway Warny as a writer of memoirs and as a writer of character sketches, and we find these repeatedly throughout the Lewis Papers. Some of the most important aspects of Warney's life become wonderfully imagined through detailed memoirs or character Sketches that appear in the Lewis Papers. For instance, Warny's recollection of his experience at Wynyard, the horrific school that Jack calls Belsen in Surprised by Joy, center primarily around the headmaster, Robert Capron. Perhaps the most lasting impressions Warny has of Capron are found in his physical description and his teaching methods. Capron's face, writes Warny, was marred by the nose, which was small, had the appearance of being varnished, and from which the lobe of the right nostril had at some time been removed. Of medium height, well built and physically powerful, Capron inspired fear. Warny recalls that the headmaster could lift a boy of 12 off the floor by his collar, hold him at arm's length as one might a dog, and refresh the unfortunate youth's memory by applying his cane to his calves. Also memorable was his neglect of personal hygiene with Warney. Remembering his dirty beard, dandruff, powdered collar, tobacco stained fingers and mustache, and wolfish eating habits. His commanding voice struck fear in all the students and he suffered no opposition. Without Warny's carefully realized accounts of Capron, readers today would little understand the nightmarish experiences of Warnie and Jack at Winyard. This sketch of Capron was certainly discussed with Jack and in his later autobiography, Surprised by Joy. It's clear that Jack bases his own description of Capron on on Warning's profiles of him in the Lewis Papers. Undoubtedly Warning was Jack's unnamed co conspirator. On portions of Surprise by Joy. Consider as well another of his character sketches, this time of one of his commanders during World War I. Warning writes, he was short and sturdily built, with a square head cover, it covered with gray hair, very closely cropped except in front where one lock usually hung down over his forehead. His ruddy weather beaten face contained a blunt nose, a close clipped little mustache, and a pair of very gray small eyes partially concealed by lids which were always half closed. He spoke in a low querulous monotone. One speedily realized that the man was a mass of hate. Hatred of almost everyone was to him the normal condition of existence. A banked up, smoldering hatred, always active, never flaring into temper, reasonless and as intractable as the forces of nature. If for any reason or no reason he took a dislike to a man, he was extraordinarily ingenious and painstaking at making his life a hell to him by a thousand careful thought out vexations and inflictions. He was in fact that worst of all types, the nagging bully. He gloated on stories of British atrocities committed on Germans. He frequently lectured his men on Germany and the Germans in the style of an Old Testament prophet. In the course of a somewhat picaresque life, I have met a good many men of all classes and types. It raises my faith in human nature when I reflect that of all I've met, I can only recollect four whom I would describe as bad men. Ronald McClure was one of the four. Warning's character sketches, whether brief or extended, are key components to strengthening the overall quality of the Lewis Papers. In these character sketches, he shows a sharp eye for physical description. But perhaps even more telling are his astute evaluations of the essential moral, spiritual and social qualities of the individual under review. Warning's predilection for writing memoirs and character sketches serves him well throughout the Lewis Papers and equips him to write effectively and convincingly about the many people or persons he later covers in his books on French history. The third takeaway has to do with Warney as a sailor. You might not have known that Warney was a sailor. In the mid-1930s, Warney turned his attention to a project that filled both a long held dream and an immediate need. The latter was a creation of a retreat away from the kilns. The former was the building of a boat where he could indulge his lifelong love of ships and being on the water. Both the dream and the need were met in 1936 when he contracted with Salter Brothers Ltd. By the way, this company is still in operation in Oxford to build a motorboat so that he could enjoy sailing on the many canals and rivers near Oxford. Drawing from days when he and Jack created their imaginary worlds in the attic room at Leighborough, Warning named his vessel after one of the box' n ships, the Bosphorus. Designed only for inland sailing, the Bosphorus was built to Warnie's specifications. 20ft long with a beam of 6ft 8 inches and a draft. That's the depth of water needed to keep the boat afloat of 1 foot 10 inches. The interior of the Bosphorus was simple, with a toilet in the bow, a two berth cabin 6ft 6 inches long, a galley and a pantry and an open cockpit with a locker in the stern. Bosphorus was powered by an eight horsepower marine engine. Commissioned on July 3, 1936, the Bosphorus went into immediate service and cost 200 pounds. And today that would roughly be 40,000 pounds according to the people at the Salters. Not only did Warnley love touring about in the Bosphorus. But he also delighted in writing about his experiences, eventually penning eight essays published in the Motorboat and yachting magazine from November 1938 to June 1939. For instance, in the first essay entitled but what Is It Going to Cost? Warning offers a good deal of practical advice for anyone contemplating the purchase of a river cruiser, also called a ditch crawler. He advises potential buyers to consider all the risks, especially the costs of upkeep. One source he says no one should trust is the owner, who gives only vague and unsantiated reports about the actual financial costs costs of maintaining a Nile boat. Warning says, I regret to say that owners of their beloved boats are no more to be trusted than mothers talking of their children. Speed is usually a little slower and fuel consumption a little higher than the proud owner is ready to admit. Although his essays are long on practical advice, he also offers thoughtful musings and reflections. For instance, he says, the main benefit of spending so much time on his boat is the immediate satisfaction he receives. He writes, but most important of all are the imponderable assets the ever changing panorama of river or canal, the wind and the sun, even the rain. The village inn At Ajurdi's Inn, still starlit nights, the birds at dawn, silent waters far from traffic routes and roadhouses where one's own little floating home. Who can calculate the value of all these in pounds, shillings and pence? Warning also describes lovely vistas in one essay writing Now I was in the real heart of the country. Cows gazed at my passing with stolid disinterest, whilst horses, on the contrary, cantered the width of the field to snort their disapproval. Heavy coated sheep drowsed by the waterside and among them ran panic stricken lambs who had lost their mothers. A troop of ducks marching in a single file along a towpath quacked a greeting and here and there a heron flapped up out of a low green meadow. The Bosphorus was Warning's promised land, his Shangri La, his Arcadia, or his Elysium. Throughout his army days he had sometimes grimly soldiered on, looking forward eagerly to the day when he would be free to do what he wanted. The move to the kilns was the first step and his completion of the Lewis Papers the next step. Having the Bosphorus was a further move in the direction of enjoying what he called the business of life. Self fulfillment and self satisfaction were increasingly significant for Warning. Having a boat that he can enjoy alone or with an invited guest was a dream come true and now the fourth takeaway, warning's antipathy for Mrs. Moore. Her nickname, by the way, within the family was Minto. Warning's antipathy for Minto, his brother's longtime companion and adopted mother, is well documented. Lewis, Beth, or excuse me, Warny, best sums up his jaundiced view towards her in his diary. Following her death on 12 January 1951. He writes, and so ends the mysterious self imposed slavery in which Jack has lived for at least 30 years. How it began, I suppose I shall never know. It is quite idle, but nonetheless fascinating to muse of what his life might have been like if he had never had the crushing misfortune to meet her. Most infuriating to the onlooker was the fact that Minto never gave the faintest hint of gratitude. Indeed, she regarded herself as Jack's benefactor, presumably on the grounds that she'd rescued him from the twin evils of bachelorism and matrimony at one fell swoop. Even after 10 or more years living at the kilns with her, the kilns always seemed to me to be a billet which I had marched into late at night and would be leaving early the following morning. Apart from the major disaster of the rape of Jack's life, the next worst result of his complete submission to her whims was the steady deterioration which it worked in her own character. It had never been an attractive one and laterally it became frankly intolerable. An intense selfishness and egoism which excluded any pretense of interest in any subject but herself, and an arrogant and ignorant dogmatism on every topic, however obtruse, made her company intolerably tedious. What do you really think? Warny Warren's reference to Moore's years with her brother as the rape of Jack's life is hyperbolic and ungracious at the same time. There's little question Minto was not an easy person to live with. Not only was he jealous, not only was Warnie jealous of how Minto dominated Jack's life, but he also found her personality maddening. In many of his diary entries he complains about these things. Her selfishness, egoism, inflexibility, stubbornness, know it all, attitude, bossiness, baseless opinions, boring conversation, ignorance, overreactions to the unexpected, unreasonable worries, prejudices, dogmatic positions, condescension, bitter hatreds, petty meanness and domineering personality. At one point he wrote, this life to her is a very simple business on any conceivable subject, from the washing of a plate to the nature or the Existence of the Trinity, there are only two opinions, the right one held by her and the wrong one held by anybody who did not agree with her. She is quite incapable of thought, at least as I understand it, and supplies in its place a bundle of prejudices whose origin, when it can be traced at all, proves to be a point of personal selfishness. Her selfishness is her most prominent characteristic. It fills me with both admiration and irritation to see how completely the whole of Jack's life is subordinated to hers. Financially, socially, recreationally. The pity of it is that on his selflessness her selfishness fattens. So irritated was warning with her that he eventually kept a log of her outlandish statements. Here's a sample of some of them. Warny's just come back from seeing the 191933 film King Kong, and he comments to Mrs. Moore. The fight between the prehistoric animals was amazingly well done. Mrs. Moore said, were they real prehistoric animals? About a neighbor, Mrs. Moore said she was one of that horrible sort of person that brings her religion into her ordinary everyday life. In a conversation with another neighbor, the first neighbor says, the Joneses make conversions very rapidly. I met one of them one day and she was quite ordinary. I met her the next and she told me that on the following evening she was to make her surrender to Jesus Christ. Mrs. Moore. It's a pity, and she used to be such a nice girl. Moore recounting the horrors of a night spent on board a cross channel steamer and dock. She said all the lights were turned out and there were about 50 of us. And the only light was from an old stable lantern on the passage floor. It was wicked. People might have been ill or anything and unable to see. I took the lantern and put it in my cabin. Mrs. Moore, studying a map of Africa, said, but where is Greece? Warren says about a visitor at the kilns. Margaret will want to go to church on Easter Day. Do we know where the Presbyterian Church is, Mrs. Moore? No, she won't. Presbyterians don't believe in Easter. So this morning I'm only able to touch on Warnie's conflicted relationship with Mrs. Moore. So let me offer some reflections. First, although Warney says it was a crushing misfortune that his brother ever met Mrs. Moore. I think it was also a crushing misfortune for Warnie since most of his life after World War II excuse me, World War I, and particularly after his retirement from the army was blighted by his years of living with her at the kilns. With only a few years of moving to the kilns. Warning was profoundly unhappy. His relationship with Mrs. Moore poisoned his life. While it would be unfair to blame Mrs. Moore for warning's slide into alcoholism, it has to be said that his feelings towards her certainly led him to drink excessively at times as a way of coping with being around her. Second, at the center of the conflict between Warney and Mrs. Moore was Jack. Both wanted the lion's share of his attention, and so they were jealous of each other. Moore replaced her son, Patty, lost in World War I, with Jack. She became possessive and obsessive about him, and she fought against anything or anyone that threatened their relationship. Warney longed to return to the idyllic days when he and Jack were in the little attic room at their home back in Belfast. He resented Moore's hold over Jack, finding it mysterious, bizarre and marked by pathos. If two people ever fought each other over the soul of a Third, it was Mrs. Moore and Warney. Finally, both Moore and Warney were emotionally dependent people. Both needed someone to serve as a beacon, to be the focus of their lives, lives that sought to find meaning and purpose in what was often an existence marked by uncertainty, confusion and heartache. Warney and Moore would never have known each other, much less live together for over 20 years, had not both loved Jack so much. Warning was never so happy as when he was with Jack. He was never so happy with Jack as when they went on their eight walking tours, which I haven't had time to discuss this morning. And he was never so happy with Jack on their walking tours as when, at the end of a long day of tramping through forests, meadows, hills, often in rain or snow, they found their way to a snug little inn and took their baths, consumed a hearty meal, a pint of beer, and then settled in for a quiet evening of reading. If Warney could have had his way, this would have been the life he would have chosen. Permanently alone with Jack, with no distractions from Moore, would have been as close a return to their idyllic childhood days in the attic room at their home in Belfast as possible, and then to finish up. John Wayne himself at inkling had a great affection for Warney, noting, among many other qualities, his penchant for excellent writing. In writing about the published portions of Warney's Intention Entire diary, wayne linked the two brothers. He wrote, I think C.S. lewis is the best writer of expository prose that modern England has to show. His sets out his subject matter absolutely correctly and his style is perfect from one sentence to the next. It's always rhythmical, cogent, economical, memorable. The words are right, the rhythms are right, the words are in the right order, the images are right, and there's no clumsy sentence anywhere. It's absolutely superb prose. And then Wayne adds this WH Lewis is exactly the same in his less ambitious way. There is no clumsily written sentence anywhere in his work. He had the same gift. And then here's another well, this is an anecdote offers another testament to Warning's efficacy as a writer. Many of you might recognize the name James Como, a well known CS Lewis scholar. His life Alexandria so loved Warney's books on 17th century French history that she wrote him a fan letter in August of 1971. When the letter arrived at the kilns, Walter Hooper opened it and read it aloud to Warney. In the letter, she told Warney that she thought he was a better writer than Jack. After hearing her compliment, Warning thought for a moment and then exclaimed forcefully, well, that makes two of us. If ever there were two brothers devoted to one another, it was Jack. And Warning that they shared a grave on the grounds of Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry is a fitting demonstration of this devotion. They are linked even in death. Perhaps it's best to conclude with a quote from King Lear that followed Warney throughout his life, including appearing on their shared gravestone. Men must endure their going hence thank you.

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This entire podcast has been made possible by the C.S. lewis Festival in Petoskey, Michigan and its general sponsors. To learn more, please Visit us@cs LewisFestival.org I'd like to thank the festival as well as podcast producer Zach Smith of Hands Media.