Friday 6 June 2014

A backhanded compliment...

An entry from the diary of John Reed, Jun 6th 1951. At this time Reed was a second year undergraduate at Magdalen College Oxford, reading English under C.S. Lewis. After having arisen at 6am to write his essay in time, he reads it to Lewis at his tutorial.

‘Reading it I am forced to improvise so incoherent in places is the style. At one point I have to pause and inform Lewis that the sentence does not have an ending; “That”, he replies, “is a fault which you share with St Paul.”’