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Copywork
About This Passage
This is one of the funniest and most humbling pictures in the book. A hunting dog has a wonderful day in the field, racing after the birds, thrilled to be at its master's side — and Lewis imagines the dog concluding from all this joy that it must understand guns. Of course it understands nothing of the kind; it is simply carried along by its love for its master and its happy instincts. Screwtape's point is that the young man is exactly the same: he feels at home among these wise, good people and assumes he must belong by his own merit, when in fact he is being lifted far above his own level by love and by their kindness. Copying this sentence is a small lesson in humility — it trains a writer to laugh gently at the gap between how much we enjoy a thing and how little we may actually understand or deserve it.
He is like a dog which should imagine it understood fire-arms because its hunting instinct and love for its master enable it to enjoy a day’s shooting!
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
In your own words, tell the story of Screwtape's twenty-fourth letter to Wormwood. What small fault does the girl have, what bigger sin does Screwtape want the man to grow it into, and how does he plan to twist the gift of good friends into Spiritual Pride?
Discussion Questions
- Screwtape spots the girl's small fault: an 'untroubled assumption that the outsiders who do not share this belief are really too stupid and ridiculous,' which Lewis compares to a child sure that only her family's fish-knives are 'real.' Why is it both unkind and mistaken to assume that people who differ from you must be foolish, and how can such a small, smug habit grow into a serious pride? Use Screwtape's words to Wormwood to defend your reading.
- In an earlier letter Screwtape kept an indefensible belief 'silent, uninspected, and operative,' since it could not survive examination; here he wants to keep a 'sly self-congratulation' running and 'never allow him to raise the question, What, precisely, am I congratulating myself about?' How do these two letters together show that the devils depend on keeping things unexamined, and why must the man's pride be hidden from his own honest questions? Use details from this letter and the earlier one to Wormwood to develop your answer.
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Having to do with the soul, faith, or religious life.
Item 2
Fussy about small rules and showing off knowledge.
Item 3
A person let into a secret group or special knowledge.
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Critical Thinking
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