A gentler Lewis

Even CS Lewis got tired of the fighting words and culture wars of his day. He wrote The Abolition of Man in 1943, lambasting secularists as "men without chests"; he followed with the dystopian novel That Hideous Strength in 1945; but by 1953, as Peter Brown recalls, Lewis looked uncomfortable in his own debating club because of the "directness of argument that bordered on rudeness--even browbeating" that was popular among young men at Oxford at the time. Brown saw Lewis as "a subdued figure, sitting low and long in an armchair, by no means the center of attention" and "ill at ease". Brown sensed that Lewis "was caught in his own reputation." Much happier was his glimpse of Lewis exuberantly expounding Milton in a majestic lecture room. He had a peace and confidence about him as a Christian apologist that was nourished by late-night talks with old friends and visits to the countryside. See Peter Brown's memoir Journeys of the Mind chapter 26.