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A Letter to Sarah written to his goddaughter in 1945. Lewis refers to a 6 week old baby living at his home. During the war, children were often evacuated from London to the country to protect them from German air raids. The Lewis household took in many of these evacuees. Recall that Lewis later began The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe with evacuation of the Pevensie children from London to Professor Kirke's country home.

Magdalen College
Oxford
February 11th, 1945

My dear Sarah—Please excuse me for not writing to you before to wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year and to thank you for your nice card which I liked very much; I think you have improved in drawing cats and these were very good, much better than I can do. I can only draw a cat from the back view like this. I think it is rather cheating, don't you? because it does not show the face which is the difficult part to do. It is a funny thing that faces of people are easier to do than most animals' faces except perhaps elephants and owls. I wonder why that should be! The reason I have not written before is that we have had a dreadfully busy time with people being ill in the house and visitors and pipes getting frozen in the frost. All the same I liked the frost (did you?): the woods looked really lovely with all the white on the trees, just like a picture to a story. But perhaps you were in London. I suppose it was not so nice there. We now have a Baby, about 6 weeks old, living in the house. It is a very quiet one and does not keep any of us awake at night. It is a boy. We still have our old big dog, he is eight years old. I think this is as much for a dog as 56 is for a man—you find this out by finding what is seven times the dog's age. So he is getting rather grey and very slow and stately. He is great friends with the two cats, but if he sees a strange cat in the garden he goes for it at once. He seems to know at once whether it is a stranger or one of our own cats even if it is a long way off and looks just like one of them. His name is Bruce. The two cats are called "Kitty-Koo" and "Pushkin". Kitty-Koo is old and black and very timid and gentle but Pushkin is gray and young and rather fierce. She does not know how to velvet her paws. She is not very nice to the old cat. I wonder how you are all getting on? Are you at school now and how do you like it? It must be about half way through term by now, I should think. Do you keep a "calendar" and cross off the days till the end of term? I am not going to post this till tomorrow because I want to put in a "book-token". You take it to a book-shop and they give you a book instead of it. This is for a kind of Christmas present, only it is very late. Now I have written you a letter you must write me one—that is, if you like writing letters but not otherwise. I used to like it once but I don't much now because I have so many to write, but my Brother does some of them for me on his typewriter which is a great help. Have you seen any snow-drops yet this year? I saw some two days ago. Give my love to the others—and to yourself.
Your affectionate god-father, C.S. Lewis

The Kilns
Headington Quarry, Oxford
19/3/56

Dear Mary,

A line in haste about the bits underlined in your letter (which I enclose for reference). Don't be too easily convinced that God really wants you to do all sorts of work you needn't do. Each must do his duty "in that state of life to which God has called him". Remember that a belief in the virtues of doing for doing's sake is characteristically feminine, characteristically American, and characteristically modern: so that three veils may divide you from the correct view! There can be intemperance in work just as in drink. What feels like zeal may be only fidgets or even the flattering of one's self-importance. As MacDonald says "In holy things may be unholy greed". And by doing what "one's station and its duties" does not demand, one can make oneself less fit for the duties it does demand and so commit some injustice. Just you give Mary a little chance as well as Martha!
Yours, Jack

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