The Screwtape Letters by Lewis, C S (z-lib.org).epub

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are under the double blindness of mistaking sexual excitement for charity and ofthinking that the excitement will last.When once a sort of official, legal, or nominal Unselfishness has beenestablished as a rule—a rule for the keeping of which their emotional resourceshave died away and their spiritual resources have not yet grown—the mostdelightful results follow. In discussing any joint action, it becomes obligatorythat A should argue in favour of B's supposed wishes and against his own, whileB does the opposite. It is often impossible to find out either party's real wishes;with luck, they end by doing something that neither wants, while each feels aglow of self-righteousness and harbours a secret claim to preferential treatmentfor the unselfishness shown and a secret grudge against the other for the easewith which the sacrifice has been accepted. Later on you can venture on whatmay be called the Generous Conflict Illusion. This game is best played withmore than two players, in a family with grown-up children for example.Something quite trivial, like having tea in the garden, is proposed. One membertakes care to make it quite clear (though not in so many words) that he wouldrather not but is, of course, prepared to do so out of “Unselfishness”. The othersinstantly withdraw their proposal, ostensibly through their “Unselfishness”, butreally because they don't want to be used as a sort of lay figure on which the firstspeaker practices petty altruisms. But he is not going to be done out of hisdebauch of Unselfishness either. He insists on doing “what the others want”.They insist on doing what he wants. Passions are roused. Soon someone issaying “Very well then, I won't have any tea at all!”, and a real quarrel ensueswith bitter resentment on both sides. You see how it is done? If each side hadbeen frankly contending for its own real wish, they would all have kept withinthe bounds of reason and courtesy; but just because the contention is reversedand each side is fighting the other side's battle, all the bitterness which reallyflows from thwarted self-righteousness and obstinacy and the accumulatedgrudges of the last ten years is concealed from them by the nominal or official“Unselfishness” of what they are doing or, at least, held to be excused by it.Each side is, indeed, quite alive to the cheap quality of the adversary'sUnselfishness and of the false position into which he is trying to force them; buteach manages to feel blameless and ill-used itself, with no more dishonesty thancomes natural to a human.A sensible human once said, “If people knew how much ill-feelingUnselfishness occasions, it would not be so often recommended from thepulpit”; and again, “She's the sort of woman who lives for others—you canalways tell the others by their hunted expression”. All this can be begun even inthe period of courtship. A little real selfishness on your patient's part is often of
less value in the long run, for securing his soul, than the first beginnings of thatelaborate and self-consciousness unselfishness which may one day blossom intothe sort of thing I have described. Some degree of mutual falseness, somesurprise that the girl does not always notice just how Unselfish he is being, canbe smuggled in already. Cherish these things, and, above all, don't let the youngfools notice them. If they notice them they will be on the road to discovering that“love” is not enough, that charity is needed and not yet achieved and that noexternal law can supply its place. I wish Slumtrimpet could do something aboutundermining that young woman's sense of the ridiculous,Your affectionate uncleSCREWTAPE
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The Screwtape Letters
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MAGDALEN COLLEGEJuly 5, 1941
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at his elbow in a moment. Before I
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like. Keep everything hazy in his m
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the imagined mother will ever flow
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meant to ask Him for charity, let t
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The Screwtape LettersMY DEAR WORMWO
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The Screwtape LettersVIMY DEAR WORM
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The Screwtape LettersVIIMY DEAR WOR
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The Screwtape LettersVIIIMY DEAR WO
Page 22 and 23: The Screwtape LettersIXMY DEAR WORM
Page 24 and 25: Your affectionate uncleSCREWTAPE
Page 26 and 27: I see much (indeed more than I like
Page 28 and 29: gives rise to many incongruities: t
Page 30 and 31: are over. A few weeks ago you had t
Page 32 and 33: The Screwtape LettersXIIIMY DEAR WO
Page 34 and 35: ever to act, and, in the long run,
Page 36 and 37: threatens to become a virtue. By th
Page 38 and 39: The Screwtape LettersXVMY DEAR WORM
Page 40 and 41: natural phenomenon is really in our
Page 42 and 43: conduct of the services is also adm
Page 44 and 45: The Screwtape LettersXVIIMY DEAR WO
Page 46 and 47: Your affectionate uncleSCREWTAPE
Page 48 and 49: His real motive for fixing on sex a
Page 50 and 51: The Screwtape LettersXIXMY DEAR WOR
Page 52 and 53: war and peace, it is, from the poin
Page 54 and 55: the age of the waltz, and we now te
Page 56 and 57: The Screwtape LettersXXIMY DEAR WOR
Page 58 and 59: on the more realistic and dynamic g
Page 60 and 61: disadvantages. Nothing is naturally
Page 62 and 63: The Screwtape LettersXXIIIMY DEAR W
Page 64 and 65: used as a convenience. Men or natio
Page 66 and 67: dream how much of his conversation,
Page 68 and 69: The Screwtape LettersXXVMY DEAR WOR
Page 70 and 71: have the better chance to slip in a
Page 74 and 75: The Screwtape LettersXXVIIMY DEAR W
Page 76 and 77: been for the last ten years, and wh
Page 78 and 79: prosperity or middle-aged adversity
Page 80 and 81: The Screwtape LettersXXIXMY DEAR WO
Page 82 and 83: Enemy and courage the Enemy supplie
Page 84 and 85: endured no longer at the very momen
Page 86 and 87: The Screwtape LettersXXXIMY DEAR, M
Page 88: tempters like yourself the greatest
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