The Ageless Pendragon, by CS Lewis

Written by a master, copied without his permission...but full credit is given to Dr. Lewis for this powerful bit of literature! Moved me almost to tears when I re-read it today... (However, I cry easy...)

[Taken from That Hideous Strength, the 3rd book in Lewis' Space Trilogy, chap 7 --I believe]

On a sofa before her, with one foot bandaged as if he had a wound, lay what appeared to be a boy, twenty years old.
On one of the long window sills a tame jackdaw was walking up and down. THe light of the fire with its weak reflection, and the light of the sun with its stronger reflection, contended on the ceiling. But all the light in the room seemed to run towards the gold hair and the gold beard of the wounded man.

Of course he was not a boy--how could she have thought so? The fresh skin on his forehead and cheeks and, above all, on his hands, had suggested the idea. But no boy could have so full a beard. And no boy could be so strong. She had expected to see an invalid. Now it was manifest that the grip of those hands would be inescapable, and imagination suggested that those arms and shoulders could support the whole house. Miss Ironwood at her side struck her as a little old woman, shrivelled and pale--a thing you could have blown away.

The sofa was placed on a kind of dais divided from the rest of the room by a step. She had an impression of massed hangings of blue--later, she saw that that it was only a screen behind the man, so that the effect was that of throne room. She would have called it silly if, instead of seeing it, she had been told of it by another. Through the window she saw no trees nor hills nor shapes of other houses; only the level floor of mist, as if this man were perched in a blue tower overlooking the world.

Pain came and went in his face: sudden jabs of sickening and burning pain. But as lightening goes through the darkness and the darkness closes up again and shows no trace, so the tranquility of this countenance swalled up each shock of torture. How could she have thought him young? Or old either? It came over her, with a senstaion of quick fear, that this face showed no age at all. She had (or so she had believed) disliked bearded faces except for old men with white hair. But that was because she had long since forgotten the imagined Arthur of her childhood--and the imagined Solomon too. Solomon--for the first time in many years the bright solar blend of king and lover and magician which hangs about that name stole back upon her mind. For the first time in all those years she tasted the word KING itself with all linked associations of battle, marriage, priesthood, mercy, and power. At that moment, as her eyes first rested on his face, Jane forgot who she was, and where, and her faint grudge against Grace Ironwood, and her more obscure grudge against Mark, and her childhood and her fathers house. It was, of course, only for a flash. Next moment she was once more the ordinary school Jane, flushed and confused to find that she had been staring rudely (at least she hoped that rudeness would be the main impression produced) at a total stranger. But her world was unmade; and she knew that. Anything might happen now.


"Tasted the word KING itself", my goodness folks...if that bit of a sentence doesn't do something for you, nothing will! I LOVE that figure of speech...tasted a word. It makes me want to jump up and down and run up the street yelling..."Have you ever TASTED a word before??? I have! I have!"

Yeah, I get a litte mushy over stuff like that. Words, and sunsets, and flowers, and clouds...and friends.

I have several friends who are not well or are struggling at the moment.

I dedicate this post to my friends who are suffering right now...I am thinking of you, and praying for you.