The Great Divorce

by C.S. Lewis

‘Well, I don’t see what all the talk is about,’ said the Hard-Bitten Ghost. ‘It’s as good as any other park to look at, and darned uncomfortable.’

‘I know all about that,’ said the Ghost. ‘Same old lie. People have been telling me that sort of thing all my life. They told me in the nursery that if I were good I’d

‘But who are “They”? This might be run by someone different?’ ‘Entirely new management, eh? Don’t you believe it! It’s never a new management.

‘Anyway,’ said the Ghost, ‘who wants to be rescued? What the hell would there be to do here?’

‘Not at the moment,’ said the Hard-Bitten Ghost. ‘But I never saw one of those bright mornings that didn’t turn to rain

‘Go away!’ squealed the Ghost. ‘Go away! Can’t you see I want to be alone?’ ‘But you need help,’ said the Solid One. ‘If you have the least trace of decent feeling left,’ said the Ghost, ‘you’ll keep away. I don’t want help. I want to be left alone. Do go away. You know I can’t walk fast enough on those horrible spikes to get away from you. It’s abominable of you to take advantage.’ ‘Oh, that!’ said the Spirit. ‘That’ll soon come right. But you’re going in the wrong direction. It’s back there—to the mountains—you need to go. You can lean on me all the way. I can’t absolutely carry you, but you need have almost no weight on your own feet: and it will hurt less at every step.’

‘I’d rather die.’ ‘But you’ve died already. There’s no good trying to go back to that.’ The Ghost made a sound something between a sob and a snarl. ‘I wish I’d never been born,’ it said. ‘What are we born for?’ ‘For infinite happiness,’ said the Spirit. ‘You can step out into it at any moment…’

They ought to have warned us. I’d never have come. And now—please, please go away!” ‘Friend,’ said the Spirit. ‘Could you, only for a moment, fix your mind on something not yourself?’

‘Where are ye going?’ said a voice with a strong Scotch accent.

‘Son,’ he said, ‘Your love—all love—is of inexpressible value to me. But it may save precious time’ (here he suddenly looked very Scotch) ‘if I inform ye that I am already well acquainted with these biographical details. In fact, I have noticed that your memory misleads you in one or two particulars.’

‘It means that the damned have holidays—excursions, ye understand.’

‘For those that will take them. Of course most of the silly creatures don’t. They prefer taking trips back to Earth.

‘Then those people are right who say that Heaven and Hell are only states of mind?’ ‘Hush,’ he said sternly. ‘Do not blaspheme. Hell is a state of mind—ye never said a truer word. And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind—is, in the end, Hell. But Heaven is not a state of mind. Heaven is reality itself. All that is fully real is Heavenly. For all that can be shaken will be shaken and only the unshakeable remains.’

‘Well, Sir,’ I said, ‘That also needs explaining. What do they choose, these souls who go back (I have yet seen no others)? And how can they choose it?’ ‘Milton was right,’ said my Teacher. ‘The choice of every lost soul can be expressed in the words “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.” There is always something they insist on keeping even at the price of misery. There is always something they prefer to joy—that is, to reality. Ye see it easily enough in a spoiled child that would sooner miss its play and its supper than say it was sorry and be friends. Ye call it the Sulks. But in adult life it has a hundred fine names—Achilles’ wrath and Coriolanus’ grandeur, Revenge and Injured Merit and Self-Respect and Tragic Greatness and Proper Pride.’