[Brian] I'm here at The Wade Center on a rainy day
to take a look at letters that
C. S. Lewis wrote to my grandfather in the 1950s.
[Dr. Carnell] I wrote letters to Lewis
and I got replies.
[Brian] My grandfather donated
the letters here some time ago,
but this is the first time I've 
been able to make the trip
to see them for myself.
[Dr. Carnell] One was about losing my faith in reason.
So, I wrote to Lewis and he said...
[Brian reading] "Your letter finds me
in the middle of exams"
"and an adequate reply is impossible. "
"This skepticism about reason undercuts itself."
[Dr. Carnell] The other letter I wrote to him,
I asked him about the nature of myth
and his precise definition of myth in 'Miracles.'
He had a footnote in 'Miracles'
and I wanted to see what he meant by that.
[Brian reading] "This is not a
rationalistic approach to miracles."
[Dr. Carnell] His writing was not easy to read
but, you know, it was decipherable.
[Brian reading] "Dear Mr. Carnell, you pay a wholly undeserved compliment to my erudition"
"by supposing that my debts to modern theologians might be too complicated to sort out."
[Dr. Carnell] Very thoughtful...
Very clearly reasoned out.
He didn't answer anything flippantly.
[Brian] Here's one dated December 10, 1958.
So, my grandfather would have been
 working  on his dissertation at the 
University of Florida at this point.
Among other things, he was writing 
about Lewis' use of the German word 
'sehnsucht' to describe spiritual longing.
"I think it is there in bits of the Odyssey,
in Pindar, in some of the choruses of Euripides."
Is that how you say it? "Euripides"?
"Poets have said more about it than philosophers."
[Dr. Carnell] I was pleased at his
mastery of so many intellectual issues
and his ability to write for the ordinary reader.
