Hotel Belvedere, St. Moritz: December 16, 1901.
I feel a new man now in this fresh mountain air. If I always lived here I might be good for something. What a parable of life! If we could live in the higher world and breathe in its air, what strong, healthy men we should be! I stayed a night once with Westcott, and it seemed to me that he lived and moved and had his being in a higher region, to which I now and then came as a stranger, and he could see habitually, what I sometimes saw, the way of God in human life. I am sure we are meant to have our home in that higher world, and that we only see life sanely, steadily, and in its true proportions, when we view it from that vantage ground. I have always been thankful that I spent that night with Westcott, and thereby gained, not simply fresh inspiration, but a radically new revelation of human life and its possibilities. It gave me an insight into the dignity and the destiny of our common human nature.
You have never been long absent from my thoughts, and at last I have had time and strength to begin to pray for you as I could wish. It is the only way in which I can show my gratitude to you. I don't understand much about prayer, but I think of that strange, bold parable of the unrighteous judge and the widow, and I take my stand on that. I shall not be content until your true self is formed; and I think that God must be very ready to answer the prayer, however imperfect its form may be, of one who loves another more than he can understand. I like St Paul's words: teknia mou ous odino mechris ou morphothe Christos en humin. Only I wish I were not such a worm myself. However, the thought of you compels me to live a better life. If I could only make all my thoughts of you into prayers and actions for you I should be more content.
[Transcriber's note: The Greek phrase in the above paragraph was transliterated as follows: teknia—tau, epsilon, kappa, nu, iota, alpha; mou—mu, omicron, upsilon; ous—omicron, upsilon, final sigma; odino—omega, delta, iota, nu, omega; mechris—mu, epsilon, chi, rho, iota, final sigma; ou—omicron, upsilon; morphothe—mu, omicron, rho, phi, omega, theta, eta; Christos—Chi, rho, iota, sigma, tau, omicron, final sigma; en—epsilon, nu; humin—(rough breathing mark) upsilon, mu, iota, nu]
Don't imitate Uriah Heep with 'Yours most humbly.' I won't stand that nonsense! and you give yourself away just a few lines above, when you assert that you are too proud to confer a favour on me, and read Greek Testament with me. What a funny chap you are! Can't you see, you idiot, what a pleasure you give me? We shall have to compromise, and I'll have to make some concession to your pride. Neither —— nor I know much about your section, but we could help you in your first part papers. Of course, he could do it miles better than I can; but, all the same, you are going to be my pupil. Promise me that you won't make any arrangement with him until you have talked the matter over with me. I'll make some compromise for the sake of your miserable pride, you wretched creature.
Write to me soon again, if it isn't a great bore. I can't recall as much as I could wish of your conversations with me. In fact, I have the unpleasant feeling sometimes that I did too much of the talking! But one or two things that you said to me live in my memory, and make me wish to be more fit to talk to you.
St. Moritz is much as usual. It is a strange little world in itself. The comic and the tragic are blended weirdly together, and nature is unimaginably beautiful. I wish you could see this snow. It has an attraction for me, and I am sure it would have for you. I think you understand more about the meaning of beauty than I do. When I see a magnificent landscape, I want to share the sight with some one else. I feel quite lonely when I am interpreting it alone. I wonder why that is?
To F. J. C.
Hotel Belvedere, St. Moritz: December 21, 1901.
Christmas seems to mean more to me, the longer that I live. I gaze with bewilderment on that stupendous mystery of love—the very God entering into and raising our human nature. My whole conception of the meaning, the possibilities of our common human nature is transformed, as I see that it can become a perfect reflection and manifestation of the Divine nature. 'The Word became flesh, and lodged in us.' The manger at Bethlehem reverses all our human conceptions of dignity and greatness. 'The folly of God is wiser than men.' It is to the humble—to babes—that God can reveal Himself. In them He can find His home.