The Space Trilogy: Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength

by C.S. Lewis

Moreover, he knew nothing yet well enough to see it: you cannot see things till you know roughly what they are.

What you call remembering is the last part of the pleasure, as the crah is the last part of a poem. When you and I met, the meeting was over very shortly, it was nothing. Now it is growing something as we remember it. But still we know very little about it. What it will be when I remember it as I lie down to die, what it makes in me all my days till then—that is the real meeting. The other is only the beginning of it.

“What are you so afraid of, Ransom of Thulcandra?” it said. “Of you, Oyarsa, because you are unlike me and I cannot see you.” “Those are not great reasons,” said the voice. “You are also unlike me, and, though I see you, I see you very faintly. But do not think we are utterly unlike.

“Yes,” said Oyarsa, “but one thing we left behind us on the harandra: fear. And with fear, murder and rebellion. The weakest of my people does not fear death. It is the Bent One, the lord of your world, who wastes your lives and befouls them with flying from what you know will overtake you in the end.

“You are guilty of no evil, Ransom of Thulcandra, except a little fearfulness. For that, the journey you go on is your pain, and perhaps your cure: for you must be either mad or brave before it is ended.