words from mr. lewis

Sir: I have read your pathetic letter with such sentiments as it naturally suggests and write to assure you that you need expect from me no ungenerous reproach. It would be cruel, if it were possible, and impossible, if it were attempted, to add to the mortification which you must now be supposed to suffer. Where I cannot console, it is far from my purpose to aggravate: for it is part of the complicated misery of your state that while I pity your sufferings, I cannot innocently wish them lighter. He would be no friend to your reason or your virtue who would wish you to pass over so great a miscarriage in heartless frivolity or brutal insensibility. As the loss is irretrievable, so your remorse will be lasting. As those whom you have betrayed are your friends, so your conduct admits no exculpation. As you were once virtuous, so now you must be forever miserable. Far be it from me that ferocious virtue which would remind you that the trust was originally transferred from Barfield to you in the hopes of better things, and that thus both our honours were engaged. I will not paint to you the consequences of your conduct which are doubtless daily and nightly before your eyes. Believe, dear sir, that I forgive you.

    As soon as you can, pray let me know through some respectable acquaintance what plans you have formed for the future. In what quarter of the globe do you intend to sustain that irrevocable exile, hopeless penury, and perpetual disgrace to which you have condemned yourself? Do not give in to the sin of Despair: learn from this example the fatal consequences of error and hope, in some humbler station and some distant land, that you may yet become useful to your species.

    Yours etc

    C.S. Lewis

(To Cecil Harwood, after Harwood failed to book tickets for Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung for Lewis, his brother Warnie, Tolkien, Barfield, and himself.)