No sooner had I entered the English School [at Oxford] than I went to George Gordon's discussion class. And there I made a new friend. ...His name was Nevill Coghill. I soon had the shcok of discovering that he--clearly the most intelligent and best-informed man in that class--was a Christian and a thorough-going supernaturalist. There were other traits that I liked but found (for I was still very much a modern) oddly archaic; chivalry, honor, courtesy, "freedom," and "gentillesse." One could imagine him fighting a duel. He spoke much "ribaldry" but never "villeinye."
Barfield was beginning to overthrow my chronological snobbery; Coghill gave it another blow. Had something really dropped out of our lives? Was the archaic simply the civilized, and the modern simply the barbaric?
--C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy
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