C.S. Lewis on Sehnsucht
Surprised by Joy (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: 1955), 238.
I believe (if the thing were at all worth recording) that the old stab,
the old bittersweet, has come to me as often and as sharply since my
conversion as at any time of my life whatever. But I now know that the
experience, considered as a state of my own mind, had never had the
kind of importance I once gave it. It was valuable only as a pointer to
something other and outer. While that other was in doubt, the pointer
naturally loomed large in my thoughts. When we are lost in the woods
the sight of a signpost is a great matter. He who first sees it cries,
"Look!" The whole party gathers round and stares. But when we have
found the road and are passing signposts every few miles, we shall not
stop and stare. They will encourage us and we shall be grateful to the
authority that set them up. But we shall not stop and stare, or not
much; not on this road, though their pillars are of silver and their
lettering of gold.
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