Two For Tuesday

For your reading pleasure today--a quote from The Magician's Nephew, and a contribution from Sandicomm from Nicholson's Shadowlands:

My first task was of course to study the box itself. It was very ancient. And I knew enough even then to know that it wasn't Greek, or Old Egyptian, or Babylonian, or Hittite, or Chinese. It was older than any of those nations. Ah - that was a great day when I at last found out the truth. The box was Atlantean; it came from the lost island of Atlantis. That meant it was centuries older than any of the stone-age things they dig up in Europe. And it wasn't a rough, crude thing like them either. For in the very dawn of time Atlantis was already a great city with palaces and temples and learned men."
He paused for a moment as if he expected Digory to say something. But Digory was disliking his Uncle more every minute, so he said nothing.

"Meanwhile," continued Uncle Andrew, "I was learning a good deal in other ways (it wouldn't be proper to explain them to a child) about Magic in general. That meant that I came to have a fair idea what sort of things might be in the box. By various tests I narrowed down the possibilities. I had to get to know some - well, some devilish queer people, and go through some very disagreeable experiences. That was what turned my head grey. One doesn't become a magician for nothing. My health broke down in the end. But I got better. And at last I actually knew."

Although there was not really the least chance of anyone overhearing them, he leaned forward and almost whispered as he said:

"The Atlantean box contained something that had been brought from another world when our world was only just beginning."

~C.S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew, Digory and His Uncle
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[Douglas Gresham and Joy Gresham are having tea with the Lewis brothers.]

Douglas: Mom? Will he write in my book?

Joy: We'll have to ask him, won't we? Douglas has brought one of his Narnia books.

Lewis: One of the Narnia books, have you really?

(Douglas gives Lewis his book) The Magician's Nephew. Very good.

(He takes out a pen and writes on the flyleaf.)

Douglas: It's not true, is it?

Lewis: That depends on what you mean by true. It's a story.

Douglas: Digory put on the magic ring, and it magicked him into a palace, where there was this beautiful queen, except she was really a witch and he found a magic apple, and he brought it back for his mother, and she was very sick, and she got well again,

Lewis: That sounds like a fair synopsis.

Douglas: But it isn't true.

Lewis: It's true in the story. There you are.

~William Nicholson, Shadowlands, p. 22 (1991)

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On this day:

1942 Lewis begins his second series of BBC talks entitled "What Christians Believe." These talks were later published in Broadcast Talks (or, in the U.S., The Case for Christianity) and comprise Book 2 in Mere Christianity.