This forum was closed on October 1st, 2010. However, the archives are open to the public and filled with vast amounts of good reading and information for you to enjoy. If you wish to meet some Wardrobians, please visit the Into the Wardrobe Facebook group.

Lewis quote

The man. The myth.

Lewis quote

Postby Jservic2 » July 21st, 2008, 4:21 am

I have read a quote from Lewis on here about greatness being like a leaf on a tree. That the better we are (closer to God's plan) the less like we are with other people's greatness. That excellence has a uniqueness to it.


That a rough paraphrase, I searched and searched and can't find the quote....

Any help is awesome.
Jservic2
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 154
Joined: Jul 2006

Postby arthur111 » July 22nd, 2008, 6:40 pm

I remember several Lewis references or metaphors to branches, and growing toward God, but nothing about leaves, until I was reading today in "Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature", pg 6, "Was neuere lef up-on lynde lyghter ther-after," (talking about Love,i.e. God)
arthur111
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 15
Joined: Jan 2006

Postby repectabiggle » July 22nd, 2008, 7:12 pm

Yeah, that doesn't sound familiar to me, either. The "God's plan" doesn't sound like a phrase Lewis would ever have used; it sounds to "Evangelical" to have been him.

I sometimes think Lewis is going to be one of those people who have all sorts of sayings attributed to them that they never said, like Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain. If there's some witty quip floating around, somebody will attribute it to one of those two gents. Andy Rooney and George Carlin are more recent guys of this sort, constantly having some list or other attributed to them in those emails that start out FWD: fwd: fwd: FWD: IT'S TRU!!!

You people know who you are. . .
User avatar
repectabiggle
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 277
Joined: Sep 2007

Postby Stanley Anderson » July 22nd, 2008, 7:39 pm

Lewis certainly believed in and expressed the idea that it is evil that tends to have a sameness and blandness to it and good that fosters variety and uniqueness. He mentions this sort of thing in a lot of places -- I can't think of a specific reference that talks about a leaf on a tree, at least in connection with "uniqueness" (which would seem a bit contradictory -- we normally think of leaves on a tree as all being bascially alike). But the idea of goodness, rather than evil, fostering variety and uniqueness can be found in all three of the space trilogy books though most prominent in Perelandra and That Hideous Strength. Also Screwtape Letters and Pilgrim's Regress, and Mere Christianity (I think it is -- I might have MC mixed up with Problem of Pain or Miracles).

And apart from explicit mentions of the idea, one sees the idea expressed simply in the way he writes about things that are evil or good. As I've mentioned before, Lewis is a counterexample to the standard idea put forth by a lot of writers and film makers and actors that bad characters are more interesting than good, and that good characters tend to seem all the same and bland. Lewis was certainly able to write about bad characters in a vivid manner to bring out the horror, but he could write even more vividly and wonderfully and with great variety about goodness and good characters.

By the way, one place where Lewis does use the image of leaves on a tree is in an illustration about "reality" that he uses in the essay "Transposition", found in "The Weight of Glory and other [essays?]" where he describes a woman in a prison cell who tries to teach her son about the "real" world using pencil drawings. I'm not sure that image can be connected very directly to the idea of uniqeness and variety talked about above, but there is certainly some intermingling of ideas there that one could apply to the concept.

--Stanley
…on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a fair green country under a swift sunrise.
User avatar
Stanley Anderson
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 3251
Joined: Aug 1996
Location: Southern California

Postby Jservic2 » July 25th, 2008, 5:00 am

Jservic2
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 154
Joined: Jul 2006


Return to C. S. Lewis

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered members and 16 guests