I send also the preliminary chapter of Foreword to the whole: ‘Concerning Hobbits’, which acts as a link to the earlier book and at the same time answers questions that have been asked.
112 To Katherine Farrer
[A postcard, apparently written on 30 November 1947, using the system of runes employed in The Hobbit; a transcription will be found on p. 441. Mrs Farrer, a writer of detective stories, was married to the theologian Austin Farrer, then Chaplain of Trinity College, Oxford. She had apparently asked Tolkien to sign her copy of The Hobbit.]
113 To C.S. Lewis
[The exact circumstances behind this letter are not clear, but it seems that Tolkien and Lewis had been corresponding about criticisms that Tolkien had made of a piece of Lewis’s work read aloud to the Inklings. This may have been part of Lewis’s English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, in the Oxford History of English Literature (‘OHEL’) series, which is referred to in the letter.]
Septuagesima 1948
My dear Jack,
It was good of you to write in return. But you write largely on ‘offence’; though surely I amended ‘offended’ in my letter to ‘pained’? Pained we cannot help being by the painful. I knew well enough that you wd. not allow pain to grow into resentment, not even if (or still less because) that may be a tendency of your nature. Woe to him, though, by whom the temptations come. I regret causing pain, even if and in so far as I had the right; and I am very sorry indeed still for having caused it quite excessively and unnecessarily. My verses and my letter were due to a sudden very acute realization (I shall not quickly forget it) of the pain that may enter into authorship, both in the making and in the ‘publication’, which is an essential part of the full process. The vividness of the perception was due, of course, to the fact that you, for whom I have deep affection and sympathy, were the victim and I myself the culprit. But I felt myself tingling under the half-patronizing half-mocking lash, with the small things of my heart made the mere excuse for verbal butchery.
I have been possessed on occasions (few, happily) with a sort of furor scribendi, in which the pen finds the words rather than head or heart; and this was one of them. But nothing in your speech or manner gave me any reason to suppose that you felt ‘offended’. Yet I could see that you felt – you would have been hardly human otherwise –, and your letter shows how much. I daresay under grace that will do good rather than harm, but that is between you and God. It is one of the mysteries of pain that it is, for the sufferer, an opportunity for good, a path of ascent however hard. But it remains an ‘evil’, and it must dismay any conscience to have caused it carelessly, or in excess, let alone wilfully. And even under necessity or privilege, as of a father or master in punishment, or even of a man beating a dog, it is the rod of God only to be wielded with trepidation. There may have been one or two of my comments that were just or valid, but I should have limited myself to them, and expressed them differently. He is a savage physician who coats a not wholly unpalatable pill with a covering of gall!
But as for your feelings about me as a ‘critic’, whether exercising the function wisely or foolishly. I am not a critic. I do not want to be one.fn10 I am capable on occasion (after long pondering) of ‘criticism’, but I am not naturally a critical man. I have been partly and in a sense unnaturally galvanized into it by the strongly ‘critical’ tendency of the brotherhood. I am not really ‘hyper-critical’. For I am usually only trying to express ‘liking’ not universally valid criticism. As a rule I am in fact merely lost in a chartless alien sea. I need food of particular kinds, not exercise for my analytical wits (which are normally employed in other fields). For I have something that I deeply desire to make, and which it is the (largely frustrated) bent of my nature to make. Without any vanity or exaggerated notion of the universal importance of this, it remains a fact that other things are to me less important. I am sure that most of them are a great deal more important to the world. But that does not help my situation. I think this prevents me from being a critic worth considering, as a rule; and it probably makes me at my worst when the other writer’s lines come too near (as do yours at times): there is liable to be a short circuit, a flash, an explosion – and even a bad smell, one ingredient of which may be mere jealousy. Still, it would be fairer to say of me not that I tend to be imprisoned in my own taste, so much as to be burdened with my own small but peculiar ‘message’. In fact, suffering (for a variety of reasons, not all blameworthy) from ‘suppressed composition’. Indeed a savage creature, a soreheaded bear (if I can liken myself to anything so large), a painful friend. But God bless you for your goodness. And instead of confessing as sinful the natural and inevitable feeling of pain and its reactions (I am sure never unresisted, and immediately), do me the great generosity of making me a present of the pains I have caused, so that I may share in the good you have put them to.
I do not know if I make myself clear. But I suppose that it is in our power, as members of Christ, to make such gifts effectively. In the simplest case: if a man has stolen something from me, then before God I declare it a gift. That is, of course, a simple way of making use of a wrong, and getting rid of the sting, but that is not the direct object (or it would not be effective); for it seems to me probable that such a gift has effect on the culprit’s situation before God, and in any case in any true desire to ‘forgive’ the desire that that should be so must be present. It would be wonderful when summoned to judgement, to answer innumerable charges of wrongdoing to one’s brethren, to find unexpectedly that many were not going to be preferred at all! And indeed that instead one had a share in the good made of one’s evil. And no less wonderful for the giver. An eternal interaction of relief and gratitude. (But the culprit must be sorry. Otherwise I suppose in the terrible realms of doom the coals of fire would burn intolerably).
(What happens when the culprit is genuinely repentant, but the sufferer is deeply resentful and witholds all ‘forgiveness’? It is a terrible thought, to deter anyone from running the risk of needlessly causing such an ‘evil’. Of course, the power of mercy is only delegated and is always exercised with or without cooperation by Higher Authority. But the joys and healing of cooperation must be lost?)
While I was thinking of all this, I came across a passage dealing with the charming relations between G. M. Hopkins and his ‘pen-friend’ Canon Dixon. Two men starved of ‘recognition’. Poor Dixon whose History of the Church of England (and whose poems) received but a casual glance, and Hopkins unappreciated in his own order. H. seems clearly to have seen that ‘recognition’ with some understanding is in this world an essential part of authorship, and the want of it a suffering to be distinguished from (even when mixed with) mere desire for the pleasures of fame and praise. Dixon was rather bowled over by being appreciated by Hopkins; and much moved by Burne-Jones’ words (said to H. who quoted them) that ‘one works really for the one man who may rise to understand one’. But H. then demurred, perceiving that Burne-Jones’ hope can also in this world be frustrated, as easily as general fame: a painter (like Niggle) may work for what the burning of his picture, or an accident of death to the admirer, may wholly destroy. He summed up: The only just literary critic is Christ, who admires more than does any man the gifts He Himself has bestowed. Then let us ‘bekenne either other to Crist’. God keep you.
I write only because I find it easier so to say such things as I really want to say. If they are foolish or seem so, I am not present when they fall flat. (My whispering asides are most often due to sheer pusillanimity, and a fear of being laughed at by the general company.)
This requires no answer. But as for yourself: rest in peace, as far as I am any ‘critic’ of behaviour. At least you are the fautlest freke1 that I know. ‘Loudness’ did you say?2 Nay! That is largely a self-defensive rumour put about by Hugo. If it has any basis (for him), it is but that noise begets noise. We are safe in your presence and presidency from contention, ill will, detraction, or accusations without evidence. Doubtless, as you say, I hav
e as a member of the brotherhood a right to criticize, an3 I please. But I shall not lightly forget my vision of the wounds; and I shall be deterred from rash dispraise, for myself. Indeed, I do not really think that for any man valuable ‘criticism’ is usually to be attained hot on the spot: it is then too mixed with mere reaction. Let us listen again more patiently. And let me beg of you to bring out OHEL, with no coyness.
But I warn you, if you bore me, I shall take my revenge. (It is an Inkling’s duty to be bored willingly. It is his privilege to be a borer on occasion). I sometimes conceive and write other things than verses or romance! And I may come back at you. Indeed, if our beloved and esteemed physician is to pose us with problems of the earth as a dynamo, I can think of other problems as intricate if more petty to present to his notice – if only for the malicious delight of seeing Hugo (if present), slightly heated with alcohol, giving an imitation of the intelligent boy of the class. But Lord save you all! I don’t find myself in any need of practising forbearance towards any of you – save on the rarest occasions, when I myself am tired and exhausted: then I find mere noise and vulgarity trying. But I am not yet so hoar (nor so refined) that that has become a permanent state. I want noise often enough. I know no more pleasant sound than arriving at the B. and B.4 and hearing a roar, and knowing that one can plunge in.
Yours
J.R.R.T.
As you see, I have delayed nearly a week in sending this. Re-reading it, I do not think it will do any harm. And in any case, I send it lest you shd. think that my recent absences from the Inklings are in any way connected. I have missed three: one because I was desperately tired, the others for domestic reasons – the last because my daughter (bless her! always mindful of Thursdays) was obliged to go out that evening.
114 From a letter to Hugh Brogan
7 April 1948
[Brogan, then a schoolboy, had written to Tolkien praising The Hobbit and asking for more information about the world it described.]
I am glad you enjoyed ‘the Hobbit’. I have in fact been engaged for ten years on writing another (longer) work about the same world and period of history, in which at any rate all can be learned about the Necromancer and the mines of Moria. Only the difficulty of writing the last chapters, and the shortage of paper have so far prevented its printing. I hope at least to finish it this year, and will certainly let you have advance information. I wrote long ago (and passed the proofs a year ago) another (short) work on a rather different period: Farmer Giles of Ham. I don’t know what, beyond paper, is holding it up, but it should appear this autumn or winter. But it will not satisfy any curiosity about the older world. I am afraid you would not find any information about that in ordinary works of reference, since I possess all the documents, and publishers won’t publish them. What you really require is The Silmarillion, which is virtually a history of the Eldalië (or Elves, by a not very accurate translation) from their rise to the Last Alliance, and the first temporary overthrow of Sauron (the Necromancer): that would bring you nearly down to the period of ‘The Hobbit’. Also desirable would be some maps, chronological tables, and some elementary information about the Eldarin (or Elvish) languages. I have got all those things, of course, and they are known in a small circle which includes my sons (all once at the Dragon School).1 If I can find some time and way of reproducing them, or part of them, say in typescript, and you remain interested in this little-explored region of pre-history, I will let you have some of the documents.
115 To Katherine Farrer
[Mrs Farrer had apparently expressed a desire to read The Silmarillion and related manuscripts.]
15 June [year not given; possibly 1948]
Merton College, Oxford
Dear Mrs Farrer,
I am sorry that I have been so long in replying and so may have seemed ungrateful, when I was really very touched by your kind letter – and also excited. For though I have (in the cracks of time!) laboured at these things since about 1914, I have never found anyone but C.S.L. and my Christopher who wanted to read them; and no one will publish them. I have spent what time I could spare since you wrote in collecting out of the unfinished mass such things as are more or less finished and readable (I mean legible). You may find the ‘compendious history’ or Silmarillion tolerable – though it is only really half-revised.
The long tales out of which it is drawn (by ‘Pengolod’)1 are either incomplete or not up to date.
The Fall of Gondolin
The Lay of Beren and Lúthien (verse)
The Children of Húrin
I am distressed (for myself) to be unable to find the ‘Rings of Power’, which with the ‘Fall of Númenor’ is the link between the Silmarillion and the Hobbit world. But its essentials are included in Ch. II of The Lord of the Rings. That book would, of course, be easier to write, if the Silmarillion were published first!
I will bring you round some unique MSS. some time to-day.
Thank you for your remembrance in prayer.
Yrs sincerely
Ronald Tolkien.
116 From a letter to Allen & Unwin
5 August 1948
[The artist Milein Cosman had been chosen to illustrate Farmer Giles of Ham, and the publishers had asked Tolkien for his opinion of some specimen drawings, which Miss Cosman had only provided after many delays.]
I am not for myself much interested in the fashionableness of these drawings, or in their resemblance to Topolski or Ardizzone. I find their lack of resemblance to their text more marked. This is a definitely located story (one of its virtues if it has any): Oxfordshire and Bucks, with a brief excursion into Wales. The places in it are largely named, or fairly plainly indicated. There is no attempt by the illustrator to represent any of this. The incident of the dog and dragon occurs near Rollright, by the way, and though that is not plainly stated at least it clearly takes place in Oxfordshire.
The giant is passable – though the artist is a poor drawer of trees. The dragon is absurd. Ridiculously coy, and quite incapable of performing any of the tasks laid on him by the author. I cannot help wondering why he should be so fatuously looking over his right shoulder SE when an obvious if sketchy dog is going off NW. In defiance of the fact that the dog happily did not come on the head end first, but turned his own tail as soon as he came on the dragon’s. The Farmer, a large blusterer bigger than his fellows, is made to look like little Joad at the end of a third degree by railway officials. He would hardly have used as a cowshed the shambling hut at which the miller and parson are knocking. He was a prosperous yeoman or franklin.
I gather you do not share my sentiments. Well, if you think that illustrations of this sort, wholly out of keeping with the style or manner of the text, will do, or will for reasons of contemporary taste be an advantage, I am so far in your hands. But are you ever going to induce Miss C. to impart such finish as will not exhaust her or make her too unhappy – in fact to finish the job? And when do you expect to get this book out?
117 From a letter to Hugh Brogan
31 October 1948
I managed to go into ‘retreat’ in the summer, and am happy to announce that I succeeded at last in bringing the ‘Lord of the Rings’ to a successful conclusion. Also, it has been read and approved by Rayner Unwin, who (the original reader of ‘The Hobbit’) has had time to grow up while the sequel has been made, and is now here at Trinity. I think there is a chance of it being published though it will be a massive book far too large to make any money for the publisher (let alone the author): it must run to 1200 pages. However length is no obstacle to those who like that kind of thing. If only term had not caught me on the hop again, I should have revised the whole – it is astonishingly difficult to avoid mistakes and changes of name and all kinds of inconsistencies of detail in a long work, as critics forget, who have not tried to make one – and sent it to the typists. I hope to do so soon, and can only say that as soon as I have a spare copy you shall have the loan of one, plus a good deal of explanatory matter, alphabets, history, ca
lendars, and genealogies reserved for the real ‘fans’. I hope this may be possible soon, so that you could have it during the Christmas holidays; but I cannot promise. This university business of earning one’s living by teaching, delivering philological lectures, and daily attendance at ‘boards’ and other talk-meetings, interferes sadly with serious work.
118 To Hugh Brogan
[A note of Christmas greetings, not dated but possibly written at Christmas 1948. It is in a form of Angerthas or dwarf-runes close to that used in The Lord of the Rings but not identical, and in two versions of Fëanorian script, the first using tehtar (marks above the consonants) to indicate vowels, the second with vowels represented by full letters. For a transcription, see p. 442].
119 From a letter to Allen & Unwin
28 February 1949
I have not time to type [Farmer Giles] again, and I don’t think it is really necessary. I am finding the labour of typing a fair copy of the ‘Lord of the Rings’ v. great, and the alternative of having it professionally typed prohibitive in cost. . . . . I believe that after 25 years service I am shortly going to be granted a term of ‘sabbatical’ leave, partly on medical grounds. If so, I may really finish a few things.
The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien Page 18