The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

by Humphrey Carpenter

  [1 August] I hear that there is just coming out First Whispers of the Wind in the Willows; and the reviews seem favourable. It is published by Kenneth Grahame’s widow, but it is not, I gather, notes for the book, but stories (about Toad and Mole etc.) that he wrote in letters to his son. I must get hold of a copy, if poss. I’m afraid I have made a great mistake in making my sequel too long and complicated and too slow in coming out. It is a curse having the epic temperament in an overcrowded age devoted to snappy bits!

  78 From a letter to Christopher Tolkien

  12 August 1944 (FS 43)

  It is longer than I meant to leave since my airgr. of Aug. 8 … I read your letters carefully, and of course as is quite right you open your rather troubled heart to us; but do not think that any detail of your exterior life, your friends, acquaintance, or the most minor events, are not worth writing or of interest. I am glad that you are finding it (at times) easier to rub along. I shouldn’t worry too much, if the process sometimes seems to be a declension from the highest standards (intellectual and aesthetic, at any rate, not moral). I don’t think you are in the least likely permanently to decline upon the worse; and I should say that you need a little thickening of the outer skin, if only as a protection for the more sensitive interior; and if you acquire it, it will be of permanent value in any walk of later life in this tough world (which shows no signs of softening). And of course, as you already discover, one of the discoveries of the process is the realization of the values that often lurk under dreadful appearances. Urukhai is only a figure of speech. There are no genuine Uruks, that is folk made bad by the intention of their maker; and not many who are so corrupted as to be irredeemable (though I fear it must be admitted that there are human creatures that seem irredeemable short of a special miracle, and that there are probably abnormally many of such creatures in Deutschland and Nippon – but certainly these unhappy countries have no monopoly: I have met them, or thought so, in England’s green and pleasant land). All you say about the dryness, dustiness, and smell of the satan-licked land reminds me of my mother; she hated it (as a land) and was alarmed to see symptoms of my father growing to like it. It used to be said that no English-born woman could ever get over this dislike or be more than an exile, but that Englishmen (under the freer conditions of peace) could and usually did get to love it (as a land; I am saying nothing of any of its inhabitants). Oddly enough all that you say, even to its detriment, only increases the longing I have always felt to see it again. Much though I love and admire little lanes and hedges and rustling trees and the soft rolling contours of a rich champain, the thing that stirs me most and comes nearest to heart’s satisfaction for me is space, and I would be willing to barter barrenness for it; indeed I think I like barrenness itself, whenever I have seen it. My heart still lingers among the high stony wastes among the morains and mountain-wreckage, silent in spite of the sound of thin chill water. Intellectually and aesthetically, of course; man cannot live on stone and sand, but I at any rate cannot live on bread alone; and if there was not bare rock and pathless sand and the unharvested sea, I should grow to hate all green things as a fungoid growth. . . . .

  I am absolutely dry of any inspiration for the Ring and am back where I was in the Spring, with all the inertia to overcome again. What a relief it would be to get it done. How I miss you on that count alone! I forgot to make a note of when I sent the MSS. off, but I suppose it must have been about a month ago and you may soon be getting it. I shan’t send any more until I know your next address, though the subsequent chapters are better. I shall be very eager to know what you think of them. This book has come to be more and more addressed to you, so that your opinion matters more than any one else’s.

  79 From a letter to Christopher Tolkien

  22 August 1944 (FS 45)

  [A reply to Christopher’s comments on Kroonstad, where he was stationed, and on Johannesburg.]

  Kroonstad is the real product of our culture, as it now lives and is; Jo’burg (in its good spots) is what it would like to be, but only can be in special economic circumstances which are quite unstable and impermanent. In England, and there less than in most other European countries, it has up to now been softened and concealed by the relics of a former age (not confined to ruinous buildings). There will be a good many Kroonstads, architecturally, morally, and mentally, in this land in ten to twenty years time, when the Portal Houses, ‘temporary’, are blistered and bent like rotting tin mushrooms but nothing else is forthcoming. As in the former dark age, the Christian Church alone will carry over any considerable tradition (not unaltered, nor, it may be, undamaged) of a higher mental civilization, that is, if it is not driven down into new catacombs. Gloomy thoughts, about things one cannot really know anything [of]; the future is impenetrable especially to the wise; for what is really important is always hid from contemporaries, and the seeds of what is to be are quietly germinating in the dark in some forgotten corner, while everyone is looking at Stalin or Hitler, or reading illustrated articles on Beveridge (‘The Master of University College At Home’) in Picture Post. . . . .

  This morning I lectured, and found the Bird and Baby1 closed; but was hailed in a voice that carried across the torrent of vehicles that was once St Giles, and discovered the two Lewises and C. Williams, high and very dry on the other side. Eventually we got 4 pints of passable ale at the King’s Arms – at a cost of 5/8. . . . . I hope to see the lads tomorrow; otherwise life is as bright as water in a ditch. . . . .

  Here I am at the best end of the day again. The most marvellous sunset I have seen for years: a remote pale green-blue sea just above the horizon, and above it a towering shore of bank upon bank of flaming cherubim of gold and fire, crossed here and there by misty blurs like purple rain. It may portend some celestial merriment in the morn, as the glass is rising.

  80 From an airgraph to Christopher Tolkien

  3 September 1944 (FS 46)

  [On G. K. Chesterton.]

  P[riscilla]. . . . has been wading through The Ballad of the White Horse for the last many nights; and my efforts to explain the obscurer parts to her convince me that it is not as good as I thought. The ending is absurd. The brilliant smash and glitter of the words and phrases (when they come off, and are not mere loud colours) cannot disguise the fact that G. K. C. knew nothing whatever about the ‘North’, heathen or Christian.

  81 To Christopher Tolkien

  [Christopher had moved to a camp at Standerton in the Transvaal.]

  23–25 September 1944 (FS 51)

  20 Northmoor Road, Oxford

  My dearest,

  We have had another airgraph from you this morn, just on the eve of your departure to Standerton. . . . . I am pleased that the Chapters meet with your approval. As soon as I get them back, I’ll send the next lot; which I think are better (Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit; Faramir; The Forbidden Pool; Journey to the Crossroads; The Stairs of Kirith Ungol; Shelob’s Lair; and The Choices of Master Samwise). . . . . There is not much more Home news. Lights are steadily increasing in Oxford. More and more windows are being unblacked; and the Banbury Road now has a double row of lamps; while some of the side-roads have ordinary lamps. I actually went out to an ‘Inklings’ on Thursday night, and rode in almost peacetime light all the way to Magdalen for the first time in 5 years. Both Lewises were there, and C. Williams; and beside some pleasant talk, such as I have not enjoyed for moons, we heard the last chapter of Warnie’s book and an article of CSL, and a long specimen of his translation of Vergil.1 I did not start home till midnight, and walked with C. W. part of the way, when our converse turned on the difficulties of discovering what common factors if any existed in the notions associated with freedom, as used at present. I don’t believe there are any, for the word has been so abused by propaganda that it has ceased to have any value for reason and become a mere emotional dose for generating heat. At most, it would seem to imply that those who domineer over you should speak (natively) the same language – which in the last resort is all that
the confused ideas of race or nation boil down to; or class, for that matter, in England. . . . . The western war-news of course occupies a good deal of our minds, but you know as much about it as we do. Anxious times, in spite of the rather premature shouting. The armoured fellows are right in the thick of it, and (I gather) think there is going to be a good deal more of the thick yet. I cannot understand the line taken by BBC (and papers, and so, I suppose, emanating from M[inistry] O[f] I[nformation]) that the German troops are a motley collection of sutlers and broken men, while yet recording the bitterest defence against the finest and best equipped armies (as indeed they are) that have ever taken the field. The English pride themselves, or used to, on ‘sportsmanship’ (which included ‘giving the devil his due’), not that attendance at a league football match was not enough to dispel the notion that ‘sportsmanship’ was possessed by any very large number of the inhabitants of this island. But it is distressing to see the press grovelling in the gutter as low as Goebbels in his prime, shrieking that any German commander who holds out in a desperate situation (when, too, the military needs of his side clearly benefit) is a drunkard, and a besotted fanatic. I can’t see much distinction between our popular tone and the celebrated ‘military idiots’. We knew Hitler was a vulgar and ignorant little cad, in addition to any other defects (or the source of them); but there seem to be many v. and i. 1. cads who don’t speak German, and who given the same chance would show most of the other Hitlerian characteristics. There was a solemn article in the local paper seriously advocating systematic exterminating of the entire German nation as the only proper course after military victory: because, if you please, they are rattlesnakes, and don’t know the difference between good and evil! (What of the writer?) The Germans have just as much right to declare the Poles and Jews exterminable vermin, subhuman, as we have to select the Germans: in other words, no right, whatever they have done. Of course there is still a difference here. The article was answered, and the answer printed. The Vulgar and Ignorant Cad is not yet a boss with power; but he is a very great deal nearer to becoming one in this green and pleasant isle than he was. And all of that you know. Still you’re not the only one who wants to let off steam or bust, sometimes; and I could make steam, if I opened the throttle, compared with which (as the Queen said to Alice) this would be only a scent-spray. It can’t be helped. You can’t fight the Enemy with his own Ring without turning into an Enemy; but unfortunately Gandalf’s wisdom seems long ago to have passed with him into the True West. . . . .

  The NW gale in the ‘Straits of Dover’ has passed, and we are back in a mild September day with a silver sun gleaming through very high mottled clouds moving still fairly fast from the NW. I must try and get on with the Pearl and stop the eager maw of Basil Blackwell.2 But I have the autumn wanderlust upon me, and would fain be off with a knapsack on my back and no particular destination, other than a series of quiet inns. One of the too long delayed delights we must promise ourselves, when it pleases God to release us and reunite us, is just such a perambulation, together, preferably in mountainous country, not too far from the sea, where the scars of war, felled woods and bulldozed fields, are not too plain to see. The Inklings have already agreed that their victory celebration, if they are spared to have one, will be to take a whole inn in the country for at least a week, and spend it entirely in beer and talk, without reference to any clock! … God be with you and guide you in all your ways. All the love of your own

  Father.

  82 From an airgraph to Christopher Tolkien

  30 September 1944 (FS 52)

  We three have just come back through the rainy end of a golden day, from a v. poor production at Playhouse of ‘Arms and the Man’, which does not wear well. I saw the good lady (in the theatre with C. Williams) who is typing Ring and have hopes of more to send soon. I don’t think I should write any more, but for the hope of your seeing it. At moment I’m engaged in revision, as I can’t get on without having back stuff fresh in mind. Do you remember chapter ‘King of the Golden Hall’? Seems rather good, now it is old enough for a detached view.

  83 From a letter to Christopher Tolkien

  6 October 1944 (FS 54)

  It has been rather an unusually interesting week. You know how, even if you are not hard up, the finding of a forgotten bob in an old pocket gives you a curious feeling of wealth. I am not referring to the fact that I netted about £51 from my vacation labours on Cadets, though that wasn’t too bad. But to the fact that I am a week up. Term does not begin today but next week! It has given me a wonderful (if fictitious and later to be paid for) sense of leisure. . . . . On Tuesday at noon I looked in at the Bird and B. with C. Williams. There to my surprise I found Jack and Warnie1 already ensconced. (For the present the beer shortage is over, and the inns are almost habitable again). The conversation was pretty lively – though I cannot remember any of it now, except C.S.L.’s story of an elderly lady that he knows. (She was a student of English in the past days of Sir Walter Raleigh. At her viva she was asked: What period would you have liked to live in Miss B? In the 15th C. said she. Oh come, Miss B., wouldn’t you have liked to meet the Lake poets? No, sir, I prefer the society of gentlemen. Collapse of viva.) – & I noticed a strange tall gaunt man half in khaki half in mufti with a large wide-awake hat, bright eyes and a hooked nose sitting in the corner. The others had their backs to him, but I could see in his eye that he was taking an interest in the conversation quite unlike the ordinary pained astonishment of the British (and American) public at the presence of the Lewises (and myself) in a pub. It was rather like Trotter at the Prancing Pony,2 in fact v. like. All of a sudden he butted in, in a strange unplaceable accent, taking up some point about Wordsworth. In a few seconds he was revealed as Roy Campbell (of Flowering Rifle and Flaming Terrapin). Tableau! Especially as C.S.L. had not long ago violently lampooned him in the Oxford Magazine, and his press-cutters miss nothing. There is a good deal of Ulster still left in C.S.L. if hidden from himself. After that things became fast and furious and I was late for lunch. It was (perhaps) gratifying to find that this powerful poet and soldier desired in Oxford chiefly to see Lewis (and myself). We made an appointment for Thursday (that is last) night. If I could remember all that I heard in C.S.L.’s room last night it would fill several airletters. C.S.L. had taken a fair deal of port and was a little belligerent (insisted on reading out his lampoon again while R.C. laughed at him), but we were mostly obliged to listen to the guest. A window on a wild world, yet the man is in himself gentle, modest, and compassionate. Mostly it interested me to learn that this old-looking war-scarred Trotter, limping from recent wounds, is 9 years younger than I am, and we prob. met when he was a lad, as he lived in O[xford] at the time when we lived in Pusey Street (rooming with Walton the composer,3 and going about with T. W. Earp, the original twerp, and with Wilfrid Childe4 your godfather – whose works he much prizes). What he has done since beggars description. Here is a scion of an Ulster prot. family resident in S. Africa, most of whom fought in both wars, who became a Catholic after sheltering the Carmelite fathers in Barcelona – in vain, they were caught & butchered, and R.C. nearly lost his life. But he got the Carmelite archives from the burning library and took them through the Red country. He speaks Spanish fluently (he has been a professional bullfighter). As you know he then fought through the war on Franco’s side, and among other things was in the van of the company that chased the Reds out of Malaga in such haste that their general (Villalba I believe) could not carry off his loot – and left on his table St. Teresa’s hand with all its jewels. He had most interesting things to say about the situation at Gib, since the war (in Spain). But he is a patriotic man, and has fought for the B. Army since. Well, well. Martin D’Arcy5 vouches for him, and told him to seek us out. But I wish I could remember half his picaresque stories, about poets and musicians etc. from Peter Warlock to Aldous Huxley. The one I most enjoyed was the tale of greasy Epstein (the sculptor) and how he fought him and put him in hospital for a week. However it is
not possible to convey an impression of such a rare character, both a soldier and a poet, and a Christian convert. How unlike the Left – the ‘corduroy panzers’ who fled to America (Auden among them who with his friends got R.C.’s works ‘banned’ by the Birmingham T. Council!). I hope to see this man again next week. We did not leave Magdalen until midnight, and I walked up to Beaumont Street with him. C.S.L.’s reactions were odd. Nothing is a greater tribute to Red propaganda than the fact that he (who knows they are in all other subjects liars and traducers) believes all that is said against Franco, and nothing that is said for him. Even Churchill’s open speech in Parliament left him unshaken. But hatred of our church is after all the real only final foundation of the C of E – so deep laid that it remains even when all the superstructure seems removed (C.S.L. for instance reveres the Blessed Sacrament, and admires nuns!). Yet if a Lutheran is put in jail he is up in arms; but if Catholic priests are slaughtered – he disbelieves it (and I daresay really thinks they asked for it). But R.C. shook him a bit. . . . .