Sherwood Wirt on the Last Interview with C. S. Lewis (part 2)

Sherwood Wirt

On March 17, 1975, the Portland C. S. Lewis Society was privileged to meet with Dr. Sherwood Wirt, editor of Decision magazine. In May of 1963, Dr. Wirt conducted an interview with C. S. Lewis. It was to be the last that Lewis gave. The following November C. S. Lewis died.

The interview was first published in the September and October, 1963, issues of Decision magazine. It has been reprinted in God in the Dock.

The following is the second part of an edited transcript of Dr. Wirt's remarks to the Society.

QUESTION: Didn't Lewis believe that people come to Jesus in different ways?

DR. WIRT: He told me that God has a habit of bringing people into the Kingdom in ways he especially disliked. So he said he had to be careful. That has helped me many times when I have tended to criticize some of the hotshots.

QUESTION: What did you first read by Lewis?

DR. WIRT: I think The Great Divorce was the first book I read, when I was in seminary. I was very much intrigued by it. Also, his Broadcast  Talks. I remember how he irritated Arthur Koestler because he was making Christianity credible. Nobody else was doing it. It was a great source of irritation to some people. He was on the intellectual scene and able to deal with these people.

QUESTION: What did you think of Lewis's account of his conversion in Surprised by Joy?

DR. WIRT: Kicking and struggling and eyes darting in every direction. I thought it was beautiful. In fact I asked him about that because our emphasis is on choice, and it seemed that he wasn't saying that. He said, "I was decided upon." Yet, he didn't compromise it when he said that the most controlled action is also the freest, which is a paradox. He did allow the fact that there was some choice in choosing the Christian life. But his main, essential point was that this was God's doing and not his. And I'm all for that.

QUESTION: You said that when the interview got started Lewis turned very sober, and yet there is much humor in some of his answers. Did he see it as humorous when he said it?

DR. WIRT: Oh, yes. There was a twinkle in his eye. I asked him specifically why he wrote in a light vein. He said that he chose this deliberately rather than the heavy approach because he felt that this was the kind of writing that appealed to readers the most. I didn't mean to say that he was sober all the way through. He had some nice interchanges, but he was businesslike. He wasn't there to waste his time.

I read that he had a tremendous correspondence, all of which he kept up by hand. People would write him from all over the world. He had nobody there to help. He had no typewriter, no tape recordings. I don't think he had a telephone there. It was just so barren and English, you couldn't believe it. His housekeeper was very stern, no nonsense. Everything in that place was. Well, we walked through this one room into the other room and came out to the sitting room for tutorials where he would sit and talk to his students. Back in there where he would do writing was just the barest of furniture. There was this old clock, and as I recall, no heat in the room--no electric coil or anything like that. You would just put on another sweater.

QUESTION: Was he still teaching at Cambridge at that time?

DR. WIRT: Well, he was still there. They wanted him. I don't know if he was actively teaching at that time. He was still in his "digs." Now, he was at Oxford for many years, and then he made the change over to Cambridge. Cambridge made a big thing out of this. And he had settled there for life. He did retire, I think, from active teaching. I don't know what his relationship to the University was at that time.

QUESTION: Did he answer more than you asked for?

DR. WIRT: On the contrary, he gave you exactly what you asked for, and that's what scared me. For example, President Eisenhower was a Kansas farmer, and he would keep rambling, and you would have to bring him back to the point. But not this man.

QUESTION: Did Lewis consider himself an Anglican?

DR. WIRT: Lewis considered himself a layman in the Anglican Church. He wasn't as disgusted with the clergy as Muggeridge is. Muggeridge is absolutely fed up with the clergy because he thinks they are the most naive and gullible people in the world. But not Lewis. I think he said somewhere that he didn't like to sing hymns. I can see that, because he's just not the hilarious, booming type at all. I think that he had a layman's sincere respect for the clergy and for the church.

One thing I was going to tell you. I mentioned his smoking. I got the feeling that he was trying to kill himself--that after his wife died there was no more real zest for living. It was the smoking that brought on the heart attack. Honestly, I never saw anybody smoke so rough. He smoked continuously for an hour and a half. So, I just got the feeling that he was turning himself into a chimney. I felt sorry for him. I used to smoke, and I know what heavy smoking can do to you. I knew in my heart that he couldn't last at that rate. I didn't expect it to happen quite so suddenly, only two months after I visited him. But I knew this man couldn't last, because he was 65 or so. I attributed it right at the time to the fact that I knew his wife had died. I knew that he was very much in love with her, and this was the great love of his life. He had waited 56 years and had 4 years with her, much of it spent in pain. I think maybe he felt cheated. Of course, what he felt comes out in A Grief  Observed. It's remarkable to read. (COMMENT: At one time he wanted to quit smoking, but he said it was a full time job.) I suppose he would have liked to quit because he knew that was the way to health. But my point was that at the time I talked to him he didn't care. He was just living marking time.

QUESTION: Was he working on anything at that time?

DR. WIRT: I didn't ask him--yes I did. He was working on Letters to  Malcolm.

QUESTION: Some people have seen a change in his writing after his wife died and have suggested that he might have lost his faith. Do you think the change in tone they detect is due to this weariness with life you mention?

DR. WIRT: Oh no, he never lost his faith. That is a very superficial accusation. He was still going to church, and he was still conducting services as a lay reader, fulfilling the various functions as he was invited to. But I think it was more of an inner, unconscious thing of not expecting much of life. He'd had his great love, and now that chapter was closed. He didn't expect anything more, and so it was just a case of how the rest of his life was spent. He died in the faith.

(The written content in this post is copyright of the Sherwood Wirt Estate and The Portland C. S. Lewis Society. The photo is copyright of the Sherwood Wirt Estate.)

Sherwood Wirt on the Last Interview with C. S. Lewis (part 1)

On March 17, 1975, the Portland C. S. Lewis Society was privileged to meet with Dr. Sherwood Wirt, editor of Decision Magazine. In May of 1963, Dr. Wirt conducted an interview with C. S. Lewis. It was to be the last that Lewis gave. The following November C. S. Lewis died.

The interview was first published in the September and October issues of Decision Magazine in 1963. It has been reprinted in God in the Dock.

The following is part 1 of an edited transcript of Dr. Wirt's remarks to the Society.

Sherwood Wirt's photo of C. S. Lewis

Of added interest is a copy of the photograph of Lewis taken by Dr. Wirt at the time of the interview. Dr. Wirt has kindly given the Society permission to reprint both the photograph and a drawing of it published in the September, 1963, Decision Magazine. [The drawing will be posted with part 2 of Dr. Wirt's reflections.]

DR. WIRT: The interview that I had with Mr. Lewis originally appeared in the September and October issues of Decision Magazine, 1963.

I took a picture of C. S. Lewis. My artist drew a picture from it. I asked Lewis to step over to the window, and that picture was probably one of the last that was ever taken of him. Notice he has two sweaters and a coat on. This was taken in May, 1963. This was the way he actually looked. In the second issue we used an early picture of him. The reason my artist wanted to use it was because Lewis's back was there, and he says in that part, "I ride with my back to the engine."

I'll read the introduction I originally wrote to the interview, because it is not in the God in the Dock piece.

I drove to Cambridge, England, on May 7 to interview Mr. Clive Staples Lewis, author of The Screwtape Letters and one of the world's most brilliant and widely read Christian authors. I hoped to learn from him how young men and women could be encouraged to take up the defense of the faith through the written word.

It was quickly evident that this interview was going to be different from any that I had ever been granted. I found Mr. Lewis in a wing of the brick quadrangle at Magdalene College, Cambridge University, where he is professor of Medieval and Renaissance literature. I climbed a flight of narrow, incredibly worn wooden steps, knocked at an ancient wooden door with the simple designation, "Prof. Lewis," and was shown in by the housekeeper.

Passing through a simply furnished parlor, I came into a study that was quite Spartan in appearance. Professor Lewis was seated at a plain table upon which reposed an old-fashioned alarm clock and an old-fashioned inkwell. I was immediately warmed by his jovial smile and cordial manner as he rose to greet me; he seemed the classic, friendly, jolly Englishman. He indicated a straight-backed chair, then sat down, snug in his tweed jacket and two sweaters, and we were away.

I said that a little bit later I decided to shift toward more open ground because the mettle of the man I was interviewing was evident. Well, the truth was that a terrible feeling came over me as I sat down. I have never forgotten it. I suddenly realized to my horror that I was over my depth, and for really the only time in my life that I have ever interviewed someone, I felt that I was in the wrong ball park. I had no business being there because I was not on the man's level intellectually, culturally, or any other way.

I had never felt that way before. I've interviewed President Eisenhower, and I've met Mr. Nixon, and Mr. Ford, and I've interviewed Eddie Rickenbacker, and Van Cliburn, and leaders of the church. None of these people threw me. But this man was different because he was a first-class intellectual and also a theologian. I am neither. I think of myself as a journalist--a reporter with some smattering of culture that I've picked up in various schools, but I realize it's pretty thin. I'm not trained in philosophy, and so when I sat down and started asking this man questions, I realized that he was going to have to lower himself to communicate with me. It was a very uncomfortable feeling.

Nevertheless, I had written out my questions, thank God, and I remember that while I said he was jolly as I came in--very friendly, big smile--once we sat down he was serious. He sat there quietly and smoked. He smoked incessantly. He would smoke a cigarette, then he'd put it out, then pick up his pipe, then he'd smoke that and put it down and light another cigarette. And through the blue haze he waited for my next question.

I would state the question and then he would answer it. I was working with pencil and paper because my tape recorder broke down. I had to make the best of it. I had to make up my mind whether to go into town and ask him to delay the interview for an hour. I just felt I couldn't do it. It would be like asking the President to postpone an interview. So I went with what I had. He didn't seem to like mechanical things anyway.

I would ask him to repeat his answer. And the thing I remember is that he would repeat it exactly the way he said it the first time. He didn't improve it one bit. This shook me because I thought some of his statements could be improved. For example, he said that a person who doesn't face up to the claims of Christ is guilty of inattention and bad thinking. Well, I would have put it differently. I would have used another term, a biblical expression. But when he repeated it, he said the same thing. So I respected his wishes and put it down just the way he said it.

This went on for an hour and a half, much longer than the usual interview. After that I noticed he was getting restless. You can tell the signs. And so I left. I drove back to London, to Shirley House, our Billy Graham office there, and went right to a typewriter, sat down, and typed the whole thing. I put in everything I could remember. So not much time elapsed, and I think I got the essence of it. Then the staff in London mailed a carbon back to Mr. Lewis, and he sent it back unchanged--without a single change. I never expected that. Anyway, he did approve it.

I have been gratified to see that it was picked up in a lot of magazines, and to see it beautifully edited in God in the Dock with footnotes. For, example, I hate to confess this to you, he mentioned Aslan, and I had never heard of Aslan.

That was another problem. My reading was limited to just a few of his books. I think I'd read That Hideous Strength, The Great Divorce, The Case for Christianity, The Screwtape Letters--a half dozen of his books. So, when I got to Cambridge, about an hour early, I went to a bookstore and got all of his books out and tried to get some kind of grasp as to what it was all about. I was so unprepared for this thing.

I had just come from Paris, from the Billy Graham Crusade, and had been completely absorbed in trying to write that story, and so did not properly prepare. And yet I got in where angels fear to tread, and who would have suspected that in two months he would have a fatal heart attack and four months after that he would be dead? In fact, the second part of the interview came out in October, and he died November 22nd. So, we published it just before his death. He was already completely unreachable as far as sending it back for corrections, trying to get additional information, or anything like that. It was just too late. So, that's the story.

At the close of the interview I asked him if he would step to the window. I didn't think the picture would turn out, but I was too bashful to ask him to come down by the steps.

One thing I didn't put in the interview is that he did make a remark at the beginning of the interview about the fact that he didn't necessarily hold the same view of scripture that Billy Graham did. I'm sharing that with you because later on he attacked the religious liberals vigorously, as you saw in the interview, for their position. He certainly held a high view of scripture, but whether it was exactly what we believe, verbal inspiration, I don't want to go into. I think we just have to accept him the way he is. (COMMENT: For example, he would consider the book of Job myth--not factual but nevertheless pure truth.) I think he said something like that to me about Job or Jonah. But his concept of myth was not the same as Union Seminary's.

You know, he and Dorothy Sayers and Ronald Knox used to get together and play games. They would try to figure out, using the principles of form criticism and biblical criticism, where Sherlock Holmes was born and whether he ever went to college. And I remember they found a scene in one of the Sherlock Holmes stories where he walks his dog past Oxford University, and they reasoned on the basis of typical historical criticism that he must have gone to Oxford. They had a lot of fun with that sort of thing.

Well, I got a letter from C. S. Lewis. I wrote to him in my brashness from Minneapolis--I think it was about in February of 1963, and said, "Could you let me interview you for Decision magazine?" and "Would you prefer that I send you the questions, or would you prefer that I come in person?" I got back a letter. It was on just a little piece of paper, and it was hand written with a quill pen, a steel pen. "Dear Mr. Wirt, I shall be happy to answer any questions if I know the answers, and I'd much rather do it by word of mouth than by pen." signed C. S. Lewis. The letter is now in Clyde Kilby's collection in Wheaton. You wouldn't believe it, but that same afternoon Billy Graham called me. That almost never happens. He called to tell me something or other. So, I said, "By the way, I just got a letter from C. S. Lewis saying that I can interview him in person." And Billy said, "Fine. You can do that during the Paris Crusade." That was the first I knew that I was going to Paris. So that little note was very gracious and friendly toward Billy Graham and the Association.

(The written content and photo in this post are copyright of the Sherwood Wirt Estate and The Portland C. S. Lewis Society.)