Into the Wardrobe

Does anyone know of a particular essay or chapter in which Lewis speaks of goodness being more interesting than badness? He seems to have this view that goodness is like a big, full tree with an almost infinite amount of limbs, branches, and leaves, while badness is like a little broken stick on the ground. In other words, goodness is rich and varied and exciting and interesting, and badness is uniform, bland, and dull.

Even if you can only think of a chapter or passage in one of his fiction works I would appreciate it. All I can think of is a line here or there, like the end of Mere Christianity when he says that sameness is to be found most among the most natural of men, or in A Grief Observed when he responds to the thought that a malevolent God might be behind the universe by saying that that kind of God couldn't even make a joke, much less the universe with its sunsets, stars, and stalagmites.

Anyone know what I'm talking about?

...Bueller?

Lewis' essay entitled The Abolition of Man(click here) may have what you're looking for. The essay is on the whole subject of a universal morality. It may have what you're looking for. I can't think of a particular passage, and it isn't a work of fiction, but it may have something.

Moderator edit (Sven): Removed link. Out of courtesy to the Lewis estate, no linking to copyrighted materials, please.

Oh wait, I just thought of another possibility. This one from fiction:

Puddleglum in The Silver Chair

"Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a playworld which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia."

To what use do you plan to put this passage? Does Screwtape's assertion that "To be greatly and effectively wicked a man needs some virtue. What would Attila have been without his courage, or Shylock without self-denial as regards the flesh?" help any?

Thanks for that. It's not quite what I had in mind though, and it doesn't have to be fiction; in fact, I was hoping that someone could mention a non-fiction passage in which Lewis elaborates on this idea of goodness being more interesting and rich than badness. I think that Out of the Silent Planet contains a lot of this idea, like when Lewis is writing about the devil character, but maybe more so when he is writing about the Eve character.

I guess Lewis never wrote an essay or anything about this idea because I have pretty much every essay he wrote and I can't find anything on it. Maybe I missed something though.

i know somewhere he makes analogy to virtue and vice being like in either a fog or clear day. the source escapes at the moment, but that seems to be what you're going towards. either we're in a blank, boring, scary realm of vice or in the clear, bright, warm, interesting virtue. in the same context he also says that, since vice is foggy, we cannot clearly see out own badness. only as we at least try to be virutuous do we recognize how evil we are.

Exactly. Seems like he talks about it indirectly in The Great Divorce. By they way, I should have said Perelandra in that post above, not Out of the Silent Planet.

What do you mean by interesting?

I seem to recall that somewhere he talks about giving in to temptation, and the idea by those who are "bad" that those who try to resist temptation are not worldly and don't understand sin. He points out that someone who gives in to temptation with little or no resistance has no real experience of how serious temptation can be. Those who resist it to their utmost have much more understanding of the allures of sin and their own failings.

I think he is probably right about this, and if it's true, the "good" could be said to a richer understanding of life than the bad.

How about these passages:

If grace perfects nature it must expand all our natures into the full richness of the diversity which God intended when He made them, and Heaven will display far more variety than Hell. "One fold" doesn't mean "one pool." Cultivated roses and daffodils are no more alike than wild roses and daffodils. Letters to Malcolm, chapter 2, paragraph 3

Those who are members of one another become as diverse as the hand and the ear. That is why the worldlings are so monotonously alike compared with the almost fantastic variety of the saints. Obedience is the road to freedom, humility the road to pleasure, unity the road to personality. Membership, paragraph 10