During the week it is out of the question. My ordinary day is as follows. Called (with tea) 7.15. After bath and shave I usually have time for a dozen paces or so in Addison’s walk (at this time of year my stroll exactly hits the sunrise) before chapel at 8. ‘Dean’s Prayers’—which I have before described to you—lasts about quarter of an hour. I then breakfast in common room with the Dean’s Prayers party … which is joined punctually by J. A. Smith at about 8.25. I have usually left the room at about 8.40, and then saunter, go to the stool, answer notes etc till 9. From 9 till 1 is all pupils—an unconscionable long stretch for a man to act the gramaphone in. At one Lyddiatt or Maureen is waiting for me with the car and I am carried home. My afternoons you know. Almost every afternoon as I set out hillwards with my spade, this place gives me all the thrill of novelty. The scurry of the waterfowl as you pass the pond, and the rich smell of autumnal litter as you leave the drive and strike into the little path, are always just as good as new. At 4.45 I am usually driven into College again, to be a gramaphone for two more hours, 5 till 7. At 7.15 comes dinner. On Tuesday, which is my really shocking day, pupils come to me to read Beowulf at 8.30 and usually stay till about 11, so that when they have gone and I have glanced round the empty glasses and coffee cups and the chairs in the wrong places, I am glad enough to crawl to bed. Other standing engagements are on Thursday when a man called Horwood (another English don) comes and reads Dante with me, every second Monday when the College literary society meets. When you have thrown in the usual irregular dinner engagements you will see that I am lucky when I have two evenings free after dinner. The only exception to this programme (except of course Saturday when I have no pupils after tea) is Monday when I have no pupils at all. I have to employ a good deal of it in correcting transcripts done by B. Litt. pupils, and other odd jobs. It has also become a regular custom that Tolkien should drop in on me of a Monday morning and drink a glass. This is one of the pleasantest spots in the week.
C. S. Lewis an seinen Bruder Warnie, 17. November 1931, aus: C. S. Lewis, ed. by Walter Hooper, Collected Letters, Vol. Two, HarperCollins, 2004.
