On Beginning Spiritual Work

From a letter C. S. Lewis sent to Arthur Greeves, 15 June, 1930:

"Another fine thing in The Princess and Curdie [by George MacDonald] is where Curdie, in a dream, keeps on dreaming that he has waked up and then finding that he is still in bed. This means the same as the passage where Adam says to Lilith 'Unless you unclose your hand you will never die and therefore never wake. You may think you have died and even that you have risen again: but both will be a dream.'

"This has a terrible meaning, specially for imaginitive people. We read of spiritual efforts, and imagination makes us believe that, because we enjoy the idea of doing them, we have done them. I am apalled to see how much of the change which I thought I had undergone lately was only imaginary. The real work seems still to be done. It is so fatally easy to confuse an aesthetic appreciation with the spiritual life with the life itself--to dream that you have waked, washed, and dressed, and then to find yourself still in bed."