The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

by Humphrey Carpenter

  Which did not mean, of course, that Loth was as ignorant as a mere postman ‘passing the time of day’; but that the postman was better read and more learned than a French professor. It may have been true – in Welsh matters. For as a ‘poor country’ even yet Wales has not learnt to associate art or knowledge solely with certain classes. But the Welsh for all their virtues are contentious and often malicious; and they do not always whet their tongues against ‘foreigners’, they often turn the sharp edge upon their own kind (who do not readily forgive). All ‘scholars’ are apt to be quarrelsome, but Welsh scholarship and philology are a faction-fight. My reference on p. 3 to ‘entering the litigious lists’3 was not mere rhetoric, but a necessary disclaimer against belonging to any one of the factions.

  It is said that Sir John M. J. built himself a fine house near Bangor overlooking the Menai Straits, to Mon (Anglesey). But the ‘friendly’ nickname for the inhabitants of that isle is (on the mainland) moch ‘swine’. Some gentry from Beaumaris paid him a visit, and after admiring his house, asked if he was going to give it a name. ‘Yes’, said he, ‘I shall call it Gadara View.’. . . .

  I am now sending you ‘Leaf by Niggle’. I have had a copy made specially to keep if you wish – from the Dublin Review in which it appeared nearly 20 years ago. It was written (I think) just before the War began, though I first read it aloud to my friends early in 1940. I recollect nothing about the writing, except that I woke one morning with it in my head, scribbled it down – and the printed form in the main hardly differs from the first hasty version at all. I find it still quite moving, when I reread it.

  It is not really or properly an ‘allegory’ so much as ‘mythical’. For Niggle is meant to be a real mixed-quality person and not an ‘allegory’ of any single vice or virtue. The name Parish proved convenient, for the Porter’s joke, but it was not given with any intention of special significance. I once knew of a gardener called Parish. (I see there are six Parishes in our telephone book.) Of course some elements are explicable in biographical terms (so obsessively interesting to modern critics that they often value a piece of ‘literature’ solely in so far as it reveals the author, and especially if that is in a discreditable light). There was a great tree – a huge poplar with vast limbs – visible through my window even as I lay in bed. I loved it, and was anxious about it. It had been savagely mutilated some years before, but had gallantly grown new limbs – though of course not with the unblemished grace of its former natural self; and now a foolish neighbour4 was agitating to have it felled. Every tree has its enemy, few have an advocate. (Too often the hate is irrational, a fear of anything large and alive, and not easily tamed or destroyed, though it may clothe itself in pseudo-rational terms.) This foolfn90 said that it cut off the sun from her house and garden, and that she feared for her house if it should crash in a high wind. It stood due east of her front door, across a wide road, at a distance nearly thrice its total height. Thus only about the equinox would it even cast a shadow in her direction, and only in the very early morning one that reached across the road to the pavement outside her front gate. And any wind that could have uprooted it and hurled it on her house, would have demolished her and her house without any assistance from the tree. I believe it still stands where it did. Though many winds have blown since.5 (The great gale in which the dreadful winter of 46–47 ended (on March 17, 1947) blew down nearly all the mighty trees of the Broadwalk in Christchurch Meadows, and devastated Magdalen deer park – but it did not lose a bough.) Also, of course, I was anxious about my own internal Tree, The Lord of the Rings. It was growing out of hand, and revealing endless new vistas – and I wanted to finish it, but the world was threatening. And I was dead stuck, somewhere about Ch. 10 (Voice of Saruman) in Book III – with fragments ahead some of which eventually fitted into Ch. 1 and 3 of Book V, but most of which proved wrong especially about Mordor – and I did not know how to go on. It was not until Christopher was carried off to S. Africa that I forced myself to write Book IV, which was sent out to him bit by bit. That was 1944. (I did not finish the first rough writing till 1949, when I remember blotting the pages (which now represent the welcome of Frodo and Sam on the Field of Cormallen) with tears as I wrote. I then myself typed the whole of that work all VI books out, and then once again in revision (in places many times), mostly on my bed in the attic of the tiny terrace-house to which war had exiled us from the house in which my family had grown up.) But none of that really illuminates ‘Leaf by Niggle’ much, does it? If it has any virtues, they remain as such, whether you know all this or do not. I hope you think it has some virtue. (But for quite different reasons, I think you may like the personal details. That is because you are a dear, and take an interest in other people, especially as rightly your kin.)

  242 From a letter to Sir Stanley Unwin

  28 November 1962

  [The Adventures of Tom Bombadil was published on 22 November.]

  I have so far seen two reviews of ‘Tom Bombadil’: T. Litt. Suppl. and Listener:1 I was agreeably surprised: I expected remarks far more snooty and patronizing. Also I was rather pleased, since it seemed that the reviewers had both started out not wanting to be amused, but had failed to maintain their Victorian dignity intact.

  Still, I remain puzzled, as before: wondering why if a ‘professor’ shows any knowledge of his professional techniques it must be ‘waggery’, but if a writer shows, say, knowledge of law or law-courts it is held interesting and creditable.

  243 To Michael Tolkien

  19 December 1962

  76 Sandfield Road, Headington, Oxford

  Dearest Mick,

  A merry Christmas and God bless you all. I enclose for you a little somewhat that may help, I hope. It is made possible by the unexpected financial success of my verses (never mind the critics). Almost in ‘the red’, I was, as being now practically ‘self-employed’ I usually have to wait until May before ‘A & U’ fork out proceeds for the past year. But they have made me an advance, since ‘T. B.’ sold nearly 8,000 copies before publication (caught on the hop they have had to reprint hastily), and that, even on a minute initial royalty, means more than is at all usual for anyone but Betjeman to make on verse!. . . .

  I am extremely weary after returning to term, amidst other labours (of which T.B. for all its slenderness caused quite a lot of sweat). My Ancrene Wisse also got between covers this week at last, but as it is only a text (with textual footnotes) in extremely archaic M. English, I do not think you would be amused by it. But when the translation of Sir Gawain and Pearl appears (early next year, I hope) you shall have a copy. Then ho! for Númenor and dark and difficult legends. I have also been honoured by a ‘Festschrift’ – a volume of contributions by 22 ‘Anglists’ with a prefatory ode by Auden for my 70th birthday. A plot hatched and carried out by Rayner Unwin & Norman Davis (my successor) of which I knew nothing until a few weeks ago. . . . .

  Well here comes Christmas! That astonishing thing that no ‘commercialism’ can in fact defile – unless you let it. I hope, my dearest, that it will bring you some rest and refreshment in every way, & I shall remember you in communion (as always but specially) and wish that I had all my family beside me in the ancient patriarchal way!

  Your own

  Father.

  244 From a draft to a reader of The Lord of the Rings

  [A fragment at the top of which Tolkien has written: ‘Comments on a criticism (now lost?) concerning Faramir & Eowyn (c. 1963).’]

  Eowyn: It is possible to love more than one person (of the other sex) at the same time, but in a different mode and intensity. I do not think that Eowyn’s feelings for Aragorn really changed much; and when he was revealed as so lofty a figure, in descent and office, she was able to go on loving and admiring him. He was old, and that is not only a physical quality: when not accompanied by any physical decay age can be alarming or awe-inspiring. Also she was not herself ambitious in the true political sense. Though not a ‘dry nurse’ in temper, she was also not really a sol
dier or ‘amazon’, but like many brave women was capable of great military gallantry at a crisis.

  I think you misunderstand Faramir. He was daunted by his father: not only in the ordinary way of a family with a stern proud father of great force of character, but as a Númenórean before the chief of the one surviving Númenórean state. He was motherless and sisterless (Eowyn was also motherless), and had a ‘bossy’ brother. He had been accustomed to giving way and not giving his own opinions air, while retaining a power of command among men, such as a man may obtain who is evidently personally courageous and decisive, but also modest, fair-minded and scrupulously just, and very merciful. I think he understood Eowyn very well. Also to be Prince of Ithilien, the greatest noble after Dol Amroth in the revived Númenórean state of Gondor, soon to be of imperial power and prestige, was not a ‘market-garden job’ as you term it. Until much had been done by the restored King, the P. of Ithilien would be the resident march-warden of Gondor, in its main eastward outpost – and also would have many duties in rehabilitating the lost territory, and clearing it of outlaws and orc-remnants, not to speak of the dreadful vale of Minas Ithil (Morgul). I did not, naturally, go into details about the way in which Aragorn, as King of Gondor, would govern the realm. But it was made clear that there was much fighting, and in the earlier years of A.’s reign expeditions against enemies in the East. The chief commanders, under the King, would be Faramir and Imrahil; and one of these would normally remain a military commander at home in the King’s absence. A Númenórean King was monarch, with the power of unquestioned decision in debate; but he governed the realm with the frame of ancient law, of which he was administrator (and interpreter) but not the maker. In all debatable matters of importance domestic, or external, however, even Denethor had a Council, and at least listened to what the Lords of the Fiefs and the Captains of the Forces had to say. Aragorn re-established the Great Council of Gondor, and in that Faramir, who remainedfn91 by inheritance the Steward (or representative of the King during his absence abroad, or sickness, or between his death and the accession of his heir) would [be] the chief counsellor.

  Criticism of the speed of the relationship or ‘love’ of Faramir and Eowyn. In my experience feelings and decisions ripen very quickly (as measured by mere ‘clock-time’, which is actually not justly applicable) in periods of great stress, and especially under the expectation of imminent death. And I do not think that persons of high estate and breeding need all the petty fencing and approaches in matters of ‘love’. This tale does not deal with a period of ‘Courtly Love’ and its pretences; but with a culture more primitive (sc. less corrupt) and nobler.

  245 To Rhona Beare

  [Answers to the following questions: (1) In the ‘English runes’ used for Anglo-Saxon inscriptions, the rune does not stand for G as it does in The Lord of the Rings. Why not? (2) What happened to Elves when they died in battle?]

  25 June 1963

  76 Sandfleld Road, Headington, Oxford

  Dear Miss Beare,

  The ‘cirth’ or runes in the ‘L.R.’ were invented for that story and, within it, have no supposed historical connexion with the Germanic Runic alphabet, to which the English gave its most elaborate development. There is thus nothing to be surprised at if similar signs have different values. The similarity of shapes is inevitable in alphabets devised primarily for cut[ting] or scratching on wood and so made of lines directly or diagonally across the grain. The signs used in the cirth are nearly [all] to be extracted from the basic pattern, the possibilities being decreased by the avoidance of the juncture of a diagonal with the bottom of an upright (the exceptions are few and limited to cases where as in there is also juncture at the top). They are increased by the repetition on the opposite side of an upright of any diagonal appendage, & by repeating half the basic pattern: hence etc.

  As for the Elves. Even in these legends we see the Elves mainly through the eyes of Men. It is in any case clear that neither side was fully informed about the ultimate destiny of the other. The Elves were sufficiently longeval to be called by Man ‘immortal’. But they were not unageing or unwearying. Their own tradition was that they were confined to the limits of this world (in space and time), even if they died, and would continue in some form to exist in it until ‘the end of the world’. But what ‘the end of the world’ portended for it or for themselves they did not know (though they no doubt had theories). Neither had they of course any special information concerning what ‘death’ portended for Men. They believed that it meant ‘liberation from the circles of the world’, and was in that respect to them enviable. And they would point out to Men who envied them that a dread of ultimate loss, though it may be indefinitely remote, is not necessarily the easier to bear if it is in the end ineluctably certain: a burden may become heavier the longer it is borne.

  I hope you will forgive pencil and a crabbed and not too legible hand. I am (temporarily, I hope) deprived of the use of my right hand and arm, and I am in the early stages of teaching my left hand. Right-handed pens increase the crabbedness, but a pencil accommodates itself.

  Yours sincerely

  J. R. R. Tolkien.

  246 From a letter to Mrs Eileen Elgar (drafts)

  September 1963

  [A reply to a reader’s comments on Frodo’s failure to surrender the Ring in the Cracks of Doom.]

  Very few (indeed so far as letters go only you and one other) have observed or commented on Frodo’s ‘failure’. It is a very important point.

  From the point of view of the storyteller the events on Mt Doom proceed simply from the logic of the tale up to that time. They were not deliberately worked up to nor foreseen until they occurred.fn92 But, for one thing, it became at last quite clear that Frodo after all that had happened would be incapable of voluntarily destroying the Ring. Reflecting on the solution after it was arrived at (as a mere event) I feel that it is central to the whole ‘theory’ of true nobility and heroism that is presented.

  Frodo indeed ‘failed’ as a hero, as conceived by simple minds: he did not endure to the end; he gave in, ratted. I do not say ‘simple minds’ with contempt: they often see with clarity the simple truth and the absolute ideal to which effort must be directed, even if it is unattainable. Their weakness, however, is twofold. They do not perceive the complexity of any given situation in Time, in which an absolute ideal is enmeshed. They tend to forget that strange element in the World that we call Pity or Mercy, which is also an absolute requirement in moral judgement (since it is present in the Divine nature). In its highest exercise it belongs to God. For finite judges of imperfect knowledge it must lead to the use of two different scales of ‘morality’. To ourselves we must present the absolute ideal without compromise, for we do not know our own limits of natural strength (+grace), and if we do not aim at the highest we shall certainly fall short of the utmost that we could achieve. To others, in any case of which we know enough to make a judgement, we must apply a scale tempered by ‘mercy’: that is, since we can with good will do this without the bias inevitable in judgements of ourselves, we must estimate the limits of another’s strength and weigh this against the force of particular circumstances.fn93

  I do not think that Frodo’s was a moral failure. At the last moment the pressure of the Ring would reach its maximum – impossible, I should have said, for any one to resist, certainly after long possession, months of increasing torment, and when starved and exhausted. Frodo had done what he could and spent himself completely (as an instrument of Providence) and had produced a situation in which the object of his quest could be achieved. His humility (with which he began) and his sufferings were justly rewarded by the highest honour; and his exercise of patience and mercy towards Gollum gained him Mercy: his failure was redressed.

  We are finite creatures with absolute limitations upon the powers of our soul-body structure in either action or endurance. Moral failure can only be asserted, I think, when a man’s effort or endurance falls short of his limits, and the blame decreases as
that limit is closer approached.fn94 Nonetheless, I think it can be observed in history and experience that some individuals seem to be placed in ‘sacrificial’ positions: situations or tasks that for perfection of solution demand powers beyond their utmost limits, even beyond all possible limits for an incarnate creature in a physical world – in which a body may be destroyed, or so maimed that it affects the mind and will. Judgement upon any such case should then depend on the motives and disposition with which he started out, and should weigh his actions against the utmost possibility of his powers, all along the road to whatever proved the breaking-point.

  Frodo undertook his quest out of love – to save the world he knew from disaster at his own expense, if he could; and also in complete humility, acknowledging that he was wholly inadequate to the task. His real contract was only to do what he could, to try to find a way, and to go as far on the road as his strength of mind and body allowed. He did that. I do not myself see that the breaking of his mind and will under demonic pressure after torment was any more a moral failure than the breaking of his body would have been – say, by being strangled by Gollum, or crushed by a falling rock.

  That appears to have been the judgement of Gandalf and Aragorn and of all who learned the full story of his journey. Certainly nothing would be concealed by Frodo! But what Frodo himself felt about the events is quite another matter.

  He appears at first to have had no sense of guilt (III 224–5);1 he was restored to sanity and peace. But then he thought that he had given his life in sacrifice: he expected to die very soon. But he did not, and one can observe the disquiet growing in him. Arwen was the first to observe the signs, and gave him her jewel for comfort, and thought of a way of healing him.fn95 Slowly he fades ‘out of the picture’, saying and doing less and less. I think it is clear on reflection to an attentive reader that when his dark times came upon him and he was conscious of being ‘wounded by knife sting and tooth and a long burden’ (III 268) it was not only nightmare memories of past horrors that afflicted him, but also unreasoning self-reproach: he saw himself and all that he done as a broken failure. ‘Though I may come to the Shire, it will not seem the same, for I shall not be the same.’ That was actually a temptation out of the Dark, a last flicker of pride: desire to have returned as a ‘hero’, not content with being a mere instrument of good. And it was mixed with another temptation, blacker and yet (in a sense) more merited, for however that may be explained, he had not in fact cast away the Ring by a voluntary act: he was tempted to regret its destruction, and still to desire it. ‘It is gone for ever, and now all is dark and empty’, he said as he wakened from his sickness in 1420.