tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2410716623228444076.post5435121810324617740..comments2024-03-28T13:10:04.655+00:00Comments on The Notion Club Papers - an Inklings blog: Mrs Moore: The greatest mystery of CS Lewis's life - now officially solvedBruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2410716623228444076.post-61717612713548350352021-12-31T13:24:22.451+00:002021-12-31T13:24:22.451+00:00@DLD - I don't know the answers. But CSL had a...@DLD - I don't know the answers. But CSL had always been extremely secretive - and indeed dishonest - about this relationship; and this continued after he became a Christian (i.e. he pretended to many people that Mrs Moore was his mother). Recall that he never even told his brother Warnie that the relationship had been sexual. <br /><br />For any of the above marriage scenarios to happen, CSL would have needed to to be publicly open about this business in a way that he never was - and never made any attempt to be. <br /><br />All of which I would suppose probably added to Lewis's sense of guilt, and strengthened his adherence to the 'penance'. Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2410716623228444076.post-6714423627387854232021-12-31T13:02:57.348+00:002021-12-31T13:02:57.348+00:00Lewis's familiarity with St. Augustine's C...Lewis's familiarity with St. Augustine's Confessions came to mind, and, with it, Book 6, chapter 15 where he tells how his converted (and cast off) mistress "went back to Africa, making a vow unto You never to know another man, leaving with me my natural son by her. But I, unhappy one, who could not imitate a woman [...]". This has similarities to and differences from Lewis's situation - Lewis, like the mother of Adeodatus, converted and vowed himself to chastity. But, unlike her with Augustine, could Lewis have married Mrs. Moore? Why didn't they marry? Indeed, why did they not marry earlier? Did Mr. Moore not want to give (the adulterous) Mrs. Moore a divorce? Did the now chaste and consciously Christian Lewis not think he should marry a divorcee, even if the Moores would divorce? What happened? If for whatever reason Lewis did not marry her then, did Mr. Moore die, leaving her a widow, whereupon Lewis could have married her? Or did Mrs. Moore not want to marry him? Or not want to pursue a divorce?<br /><br />Thinking of this got me wondering if his suggestion of State marriage contracts in Christian Behaviour (1943), with which Tolkien took such clear issue in his draft letter (Letter 49), reflected Lewis's 'experience' with Mrs. Moore? Would the young apostate Lewis have married Mrs. Moore on such terms, and she him - or, in any case, if they could have gotten Mr. Moore to agree to a divorce? Did the Lewis of 1943 think that would not have been a bad thing, had it been possible?<br /><br />David Llewellyn Dodds Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2410716623228444076.post-76373794799993958042021-12-17T05:33:09.131+00:002021-12-17T05:33:09.131+00:00@DLD - I don't suppose there will be any direc...@DLD - I don't suppose there will be any direct reference in Barfield's writings (unless in unpublished private diaries, maybe) - but now we know that Barfield knew, it should be possible to see indirect evidence that Barfield knew the basic situation - perhaps in what Barfield did Not say, more than what he did. Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2410716623228444076.post-14287517359480128312021-12-16T23:15:13.759+00:002021-12-16T23:15:13.759+00:00It would be interesting to see if there is any exp...It would be interesting to see if there is any explicit reference to any of this anywhere by Owen Barfield himself.<br /><br />It is also interesting to compare Lewis's April 1945 remark in what Walter Hooper published as 'Christian Apologetics': "I do not myself think we can expect people to recognize it ["fornication"] as sin until they have accepted Christianity as a whole." (God in the Dock (Eerdmans, June 1982 reprint of 1970 ed.), p. 96.)<br /><br />David Llewellyn DoddsAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com