The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien

Nothing much has happened here since I wrote on Thursday. Weather foul. Cold, windy; roads littered with torn leaves, and broken blossom. It has veered from SW > W > NW > NE. Buchan is at it (as usual).

I wrote in the morning, wasted an afternoon in footling Board Meetings, and wrote again. P. and Mummy went to the Playhouse at 6. I had some brief peace; a late supper with them (about 9). A new character has come on the scene (I am sure I did not invent him, I did not even want him, though I like him, but there he came walking into the woods of Ithilien): Faramir, the brother of Boromir – and he is holding up the ‘catastrophe’ by a lot of stuff about the history of Gondor and Rohan (with some very sound reflections no doubt on martial glory and true glory): but if he goes on much more a lot of him will have to be removed to the appendices – where already some fascinating material on the hobbit Tobacco industry and the Languages of the West have gone. There has been a battle – with a monstrous Oliphaunt (the Mâmuk of Harad) included – and after a short while in a cave behind a waterfall, I think I shall get Sam and Frodo at last into Kirith Ungol and the webs of the Spiders. Then the Great Offensive will burst out. And so with the death of Theoden (by a Nazgûl) and the arrival of the hosts of the White Rider before the Gates of Mordor we shall reach the denouement and the swift unravelling. As soon as I can get the new matter written legibly, I will have it typed and sent to you.

67 From an airgraph to Christopher Tolkien

11 May 1944 (FS 23)

I completed my fourth new chapter (‘Faramir’), which rec’d fullest approbation from C.S.L. and C.W. on Monday morning. I visited church on your behalf. Lunched with Mummy in town. Saw C.S.L. on Tuesday morning. Dined at Pembroke (Rice-Oxley

as guest): boring. McCallum seems to think well of Mick’s work.

Rest of time filled with lectures, house, garden (very exigent just now: lawns, hedges, marrow-beds, weeding) & what can be spared for ‘Ring’. Another chapter proceeding, leading to disaster at Kirith Ungol where Frodo is captured. Story then switches back to Gondor, & runs fairly swiftly (I hope) to denouement. Ithilien (you may remember its situation on the map you made) is revealed as rather a lovely land. I wish I had you here, doing something useful and pleasant, completing the maps and typing.

68 From an airgraph to Christopher Tolkien

12 May 1944 (FS 24)

Spent a morning writing and we are now in sight of Minas Morghul. Gardening in sultry (and properly midday) heat this afternoon. . . . . I have done nothing about getting new copies typed to send to you of fresh chapters, as I am pushing on while there is a chance and cannot wait to make fair copy. . . . . Very much love to you, and all my thoughts and prayers. How much I wish to know! ‘When you return to the lands of the living, and we re-tell our tales, sitting by a wall in the sun, laughing at old grief, you shall tell me then’ (Faramir to Frodo).

69 To Christopher Tolkien

14 May 1944 (FS 25)

20 Northmoor Road, Oxford

Well my dearest, here goes to begin a proper letter again … I did a certain amount of writing yesterday but was hindered by two things: the need to clear up the study (which had got into the chaos that always indicates literary or philological preoccupation) and attend to business; and trouble with the moon. By which I mean that I found my moons in the crucial days between Frodo’s flight and the present situation (arrival at Minas Morghul) were doing impossible things, rising in one part of the country and setting simultaneously in another. Rewriting bits of back chapters took all afternoon!. . . . Fr C.

gave a pretty stirring little sermon, based on Rogation Days (next Mon – Wed) in which he suggested we were all a lot of untutored robots for not saying Grace; and did not suggest but categorically pronounced Oxford to deserve to be wiped out with fire and blood in the wrath of God for the abominations and wickedness there perpetrated. We all woke up. I am afraid it is all too horribly true. But I wonder if it is specially true now? A small knowledge of history depresses one with the sense of the everlasting mass and weight of human iniquity: old, old, dreary, endless repetitive unchanging incurable wickedness. All towns, all villages, all habitations of men – sinks! And at the same time one knows that there is always good: much more hidden, much less clearly discerned, seldom breaking out into recognizable, visible, beauties of word or deed or face – not even when in fact sanctity, far greater than the visible advertised wickedness, is really there. But I fear that in the individual lives of all but a few, the balance is debit – we do so little that is positive good, even if we negatively avoid what is actively evil. It must be terrible to be a priest!. . . .

Monday 4 p.m. . . . . I saw C.S.L. from 10.45 to 12.30 this morning: heard 2 chapters of his ‘Who Goes Home?’

– a new allegory on Heaven and Hell; and I read my 6th new chapter ‘Journey to the Cross Roads’ with complete approval. So far it has gone well: but I am now coming to the nub, when the threads must be gathered and the times synchronized and the narrative interwoven; while the whole thing has grown so large in significance that the sketches of concluding chapters (written ages ago) are quite inadequate, being on a more ‘juvenile’ level. . . . .

I suddenly got an idea for a new story (of about length of Niggle

) – in church yesterday, I fear. A man sitting at a high window and seeing not the fortunes of a man or of people, but of one small piece of land (about the size of a garden) all down the ages. He just sees it illumined, in borders of mist, and things, animals and men just walk on and off, and the plants and trees grow and die and change. One of the points would be that plants and animals change from one fantastic shape to another but men (in spite of different dress) don’t change at all. At intervals all down the ages from Palaeolithic to Today a couple of women (or men) would stroll across scene saying exactly the same thing (e.g. It oughtn’t to be allowed. They ought to stop it. Or, I said to her, I’m not one to make a fuss, I said, but . . .). . . .

Your own dear and loving Father.

70 To Christopher Tolkien

21 May 1944 (FS 26)

20 Northmoor Road, Oxford

My dearest,

I am afraid I have not written for some time. . . . . I have taken advantage of a bitter cold grey week (in which the lawns have not grown in spite of a little rain) to write: but struck a sticky patch. All that I had sketched or written before proved of little use, as times, motives, etc., have all changed. However at last with v. great labour, and some neglect of other duties, I have now written or nearly written all the matter up to the capture of Frodo in the high pass on the very brink of Mordor. Now I must go back to the other folk and try and bring things to the final crash with some speed. Do you think Shelob is a good name for a monstrous spider creature? It is of course only ‘she+lob’ (= spider), but written as one, it seems to be quite noisome. . . . .

Monday 22 May. . . . . It was a wretched cold day yesterday (Sunday). I worked very hard at my chapter – it is most exhausting work; especially as the climax approaches and one has to keep the pitch up: no easy level will do; and there are all sorts of minor problems of plot and mechanism. I wrote and tore up and rewrote most of it a good many times; but I was rewarded this morning, as both C.S.L and C.W. thought it an admirable performance, and the latest chapters the best so far. Gollum continues to develop into a most intriguing character. I was on ‘key duty’ last night and not supposed to retire, but did so at 3.30 a.m. A bit tired this morning. And I have to be on all night at the HQ Post tonight. . . . .

Your own Father.

71 To Christopher Tolkien (airgraph)

25 May 1944 (FS 27)

20 Northmoor Road, Oxford

Dearest Chris, Letters, immensely welcome, have poured in. . . . . I was disposed, at last, to envy you a little; or rather to wish I could be with you ‘in the hills’. There is something in nativity, and though I have few pictorial memories, there is always a curious sense of reminiscence about any stories of Africa, which always move me deeply. Strange that you, my dearest, should have gone back there. . . . . There is not much to report of self since Monday. That night I never slept at all (quite literally): partly owing to deafening traffic (on moldan

on úprodore

): and gave up trying at 6 a.m. I was not frightfully bright at lecture on Tuesday, as a result. Chief reason, however, is absorption in Frodo, which now has a great grip and takes a lot out of me: chapter on Shelob and the disaster in Kirith Ungol has been written several times. Whole thing comes out of the wash quite different to any preliminary sketch! Apart from making a hen-coop and chick-run (I succumbed at last: couldn’t stand the untidy box and jumbled net which did duty on the lawn) I have given most of my energies to that task. Two lectures this morning; and this evening I am taking ‘off’, and going to Magdalen, where there’s supposed to be a full assembly, including Dyson. . . . . I hope you will have some more leave in genuine Africa, ere too long. Away from the ‘lesser servants of Mordor’. Yes, I think the ores as real a creation as anything in ‘realistic’ fiction: your vigorous words well describe the tribe; only in real life they are on both sides, of course. For ‘romance’ has grown out of ‘allegory’, and its wars are still derived from the ‘inner war’ of allegory in which good is on one side and various modes of badness on the other. In real (exterior) life men are on both sides: which means a motley alliance of ores, beasts, demons, plain naturally honest men, and angels. But it does make some difference who are your captains and whether they are ore-like per se! And what it is all about (or thought to be). It is even in this world possible to be (more or less) in the wrong or in the right. I could not stand Gaudy Night.

I followed P. Wimsey from his attractive beginnings so far, by which time I conceived a loathing for him (and his creatrix) not surpassed by any other character in literature known to me, unless by his Harriet. The honeymoon one (Busman’s H.?) was worse. I was sick. . . . . God bless you. Your own Father. Finished 3.45 p.m.: 25 May 1944.

72 To Christopher Tolkien

31 May 1944 (FS 28)

20 Northmoor Road, Oxford

Dearest Chris,

About time I wrote again … On Thursday I dined in college, myself and the three old gents (Drake, Ramsden, and the Bursar

) who were very affable. The Inklings meeting. . . . was very enjoyable. Hugo

was there: rather tired-looking, but reasonably noisy. The chief entertainment was provided by a chapter of Warnie Lewis’s book on the times of Louis XIV (very good I thought it); and some excerpts from C.S.L.’s ‘Who Goes Home?’ – a book on Hell, which I suggested should have been called rather ‘Hugo’s Home’. I did not get back till after midnight. The rest of my time, barring chores in and out door, has been occupied by the desperate attempt to bring ‘The Ring’ to a suitable pause, the capture of Frodo by the Orcs in the passes of Mordor, before I am obliged to break off by examining. By sitting up all hours, I managed it: and read the last 2 chapters (Shelob’s Lair and The Choices of Master Samwise) to C.S.L. on Monday morning. He approved with unusual fervour, and was actually affected to tears by the last chapter, so it seems to be keeping up. Sam by the way is an abbreviation not of Samuel but of Samwise (the Old E. for Half-wit), as is his father’s name the Gaffer (Ham) for O.E. Hamfast or Stayathome. Hobbits of that class have very Saxon names as a rule – and I am not really satisfied with the surname Gamgee and shd. change it to Goodchild if I thought you would let me. I am going to get these 8 new chapters, XXXIII – XL, which you have not read, typed almost at once to send out to you, one at a time at short intervals. . . . . I have done no serious writing since Monday. Until midday today I was sweating at Section Papers:

& took my MSS. to the Press at 2 p.m. today – the last possible day. . . . . Yesterday: lecture – puncture, after fetching fish, so I had to foot it to town and back, and as bike-repairs are imposs. with Denis

ill and working slow, I had to squander afternoon in a grimy struggle, which ended at last in my getting tire off, mending 1 puncture in inner tube, and gash in outer, and getting thing on again. lo! triumphum.

But it’s hard work at a bob!. . . .

Sunday: June 3. . . . . One of the reasons for this second gap since Wednesday is that since I finished setting papers, and before scripts came in, I have been trying to get some chapters typed so that they can be duplicated and sent out to you. I have got two done. A labour at first, as I have not typed for so long. There is little further news of me beyond this Prisca and Mummy went to see Anna Neagle in Emma in the play from Jane Austen, and enjoyed it. I walked home with them, after dining at Pembroke. A poor affair. But it is increasingly heartbreaking as the armies draw near to Rome to hear the crass comments of elderly and stupid old gentlemen. I find the present situation of things more and more distressing. I wonder if you were even able to hear any of the Pope’s words. A propos of that, but concerning another occasion: that you may judge of the atmosphere of tact and courtesy in my beautiful college. I took Rice-Oxley to dine on the second Tuesday in term. The election to the Rectorship of Lincoln had just been announced: the college had elected K. Murray the young Scotch Bursar responsible for the Turl atrocity.

The obvious (and I think proper) person was V. J. Brooke (St Cath’s Censor

); but Hanbury

was also a candidate. Sitting next to me, the Master in a loud voice said: ‘Thank heaven they did not elect a Roman Catholic to the Rectorship anyway: disastrous, disastrous for the college.’ ‘Yes, indeed,’ echoed Dr Ramsden, ‘disastrous.’ My guest looked at me and smiled and whispered ‘models of tact and courtesy!’. . . .

Your own dear Father.

73 From a letter to Christopher Tolkien