Two Blessings

In addition to good parents, good food, and a garden (which then seemed large) to play in, I began life with two other blessings. One was our nurse, Lizzie Endicott, in whom even the exacting memory of childhood can discover no flaw--nothing but kindness, gaiety, and good sense. There was no nonsense about 'lady nurses" in those days. Through Lizzie we struck our roots into the peasantry of County Down. We were thus free of two very different social worlds. To this I owe my lifelong immunity from the false identification which some people make of refinement with virtue. From before I can remember I had understood that certain jokes could be shared with Lizzie which were impossible in the drawing room; and also that Lizzie was, as nearly as a human can be, simply good.

The other blessing was my brother. Though three years my senior, he never seemed to be an elder brother: we were allies, not to say confederates, from the first.
~ C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (1955)

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On this day:

1944 Lewis reads "Is Theology Poetry?" to the Oxford University Socratic Club; it is later published in The Socratic Digest, vol. 3 (1945)

1962 Hmmm...lemme check my driver's license...