The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

by Humphrey Carpenter

  Forgive me for running on! Also forgive the use of a typewriter. I have been, and still am suffering from rheumatism in the right arm, which seems to object much less to typing than to writing. Thank you again for your letter.

  [The draft ends here. At the top, Tolkien has written, not very legibly, a note in pencil:]

  No one knew whence they (Ents) came or first appeared. The High Elves said that the Valar did not mention them in the ‘Music’. But some (Galadriel) were [of the] opinion that when Yavanna discovered the mercy of Eru to Aulë in the matter of the Dwarves, she besought Eru (through Manwë) asking him to give life to things made of living things not stone, and that the Ents were either souls sent to inhabit trees, or else that slowly took the likeness of trees owing to their inborn love of trees. (Not all were good [words illegible]) The Ents thus had mastery over stone. The males were devoted to Oromë, but the Wives to Yavanna.

  248 To Sir Stanley Unwin

  [Allen & Unwin were to publish a paperback consisting of Tolkien’s lecture ‘On Fairy-stories’ and his short story ‘Leaf by Niggle’.]

  5 October 1963

  76 Sandfield Road, Headington, Oxford

  Dear Sir Stanley,

  On Fairy-stories; Leaf by Niggle.

  In Rayner’s absence I venture to send you the items required from me for the paper-back just for a glance, perhaps, before they go forward. I should like to have your approval (or censure) especially of the Introductory Note. . . . .

  While I was composing the note it occurred to me that it might be suitable to have a common title, such as I have suggested: Tree and Leaf, with reference to the passage at the top of page 73 in the Essay,1 and to the key-word effoliation at the end, p. 84.2 But this is probably an unnecessary emphasis of what I have said in the note.

  I am afraid that I am falling more and more behind with things that I should do; but it has not been a good year. It was not until the end of August that I got relief from the trouble with my shoulder and right arm. I found not being able to use a pen or pencil as defeating as the loss of her beak would be to a hen.

  With very best wishes,

  Yours sincerely

  Ronald Tolkien.

  249 From a letter to Michael George Tolkien

  16 October 1963

  [Written by Tolkien to his grandson from the Hotel Miramar in Bournemouth.]

  I have had three rather exhausting experiences since Monday. On Monday I visited an ‘admirer’ who wrote to me & proved to be living nearly next door to this hotel. But she also proved to be stone-deaf (inoperable & incurable), though highly intelligent & well-read. (Name Elgar, husband distantly related to Edward E.) Conversation by writing pad is defeating. Yesterday in the middle of lunch I had to rescue an old lady (staying with us) who was choking with a whiting-bone, and get her to a doctor. Then in the afternoon entertain another deaf old lady! Almost the last of the children of the great Sir James Augustus Henry Murray of the Dictionary.1 (His living descendants are now more than 100.) She is on mother’s side a Ruthven and has been researching for years into the Gowrie conspiracy. As my knowledge of Scottish History is v. small I find it difficult to follow who murdered whom, or why – the general trend of Scots history. I hope you can read this! I cannot write decently without a proper table or with a ball-point.

  250 To Michael Tolkien

  1 November 1963

  76 Sandfield Road, Headington, Oxford

  Dearest M.

  Thank you for writing – also at length! I do not think you have inherited a dislike of letter-writing from me, but the inability to write briefly. Which inevitably means seldom in your life (and in mine). I think we both like writing letters ad familiares; but are obliged to write so much in the way of ‘business’, that time and energy fail.

  I am very sorry that you feel depressed. I hope this is partly due to your ailment. But I am afraid it is mainly an occupational affliction, and also an almost universal human malady (in any occupation) attaching to your age. . . . . I remember clearly enough when I was your age (in 1935). I had returned 10 years before (still dewy-eyed with boyish illusions) to Oxford, and now disliked undergraduates and all their ways, and had begun really to know dons. Years before I had rejected as disgusting cynicism by an old vulgarian the words of warning given me by old Joseph Wright. ‘What do you take Oxford for, lad?’ ‘A university, a place of learning.’ ‘Nay, lad, it’s a factory! And what’s it making? I’ll tell you. It’s making fees. Get that in your head, and you’ll begin to understand what goes on.’

  Alas! by 1935 I now knew that it was perfectly true. At any rate as a key to dons’ behaviour. Quite true, but not the whole truth. (The greater part of the truth is always hidden, in regions out of the reach of cynicism.) I was stonewalled and hindered in my efforts (as a schedule B professor on a reduced salary, though with schedule A duties) for the good of my subject and the reform of its teaching, by vested interests in fees and fellowships. But at least I did not suffer as you have: I was never obliged to teach anything except what I loved (and do) with an inextinguishable enthusiasm. (Save only for a brief time after my change of Chair in 1945 – that was awful.)

  The devotion to ‘learning’, as such and without reference to one’s own repute, is a high and even in a sense spiritual vocation; and since it is ‘high’ it is inevitably lowered by false brethren, by tired brethren, by the desire of moneyfn99 The precious wine must (in this world) have a bottle,fn100 or some less worthy substitute. For myself, I find I become less cynical rather than more – remembering my own sins and follies; and realize that men’s hearts are not often as bad as their acts, and very seldom as bad as their words. (Especially in our age, which is one of sneer and cynicism. We are freer from hypocrisy, since it does not ‘do’ to profess holiness or utter high sentiments; but it is one of inverted hypocrisy like the widely current inverted snobbery: men profess to be worse than they are.). . . .

  You speak of ‘sagging faith’, however. That is quite another matter. In the last resort faith is an act of will, inspired by love. Our love may be chilled and our will eroded by the spectacle of the shortcomings, folly, and even sins of the Church and its ministers, but I do not think that one who has once had faith goes back over the line for these reasons (least of all anyone with any historical knowledge). ‘Scandal’ at most is an occasion of temptation – as indecency is to lust, which it does not make but arouses. It is convenient because it tends to turn our eyes away from ourselves and our own faults to find a scape-goat. But the act of will of faith is not a single moment of final decision: it is a permanent indefinitely repeated act > state which must go on – so we pray for ‘final perseverance’. The temptation to ‘unbelief’ (which really means rejection of Our Lord and His claims) is always there within us. Part of us longs to find an excuse for it outside us. The stronger the inner temptation the more readily and severely shall we be ‘scandalized’ by others. I think I am as sensitive as you (or any other Christian) to the ‘scandals’, both of clergy and laity. I have suffered grievously in my life from stupid, tired, dimmed, and even bad priests; but I now know enough about myself to be aware that I should not leave the Church (which for me would mean leaving the allegiance of Our Lord) for any such reasons: I should leave because I did not believe, and should not believe any more, even if I had never met any one in orders who was not both wise and saintly. I should deny the Blessed Sacrament, that is: call Our Lord a fraud to His face.

  If He is a fraud and the Gospels fraudulent – that is: garbled accounts of a demented megalomaniac (which is the only alternative), then of course the spectacle exhibited by the Church (in the sense of clergy) in history and today is simply evidence of a gigantic fraud. If not, however, then this spectacle is alas! only what was to be expected: it began before the first Easter, and it does not affect faith at all – except that we may and should be deeply grieved. But we should grieve on our Lord’s behalf and for Him, associating ourselves with the scandalizers not with the saints, not crying ou
t that we cannot ‘take’ Judas Iscariot, or even the absurd & cowardly Simon Peter, or the silly women like James’ mother, trying to push her sons.

  It takes a fantastic will to unbelief to suppose that Jesus never really ‘happened’, and more to suppose that he did not say the things recorded of him – so incapable of being ‘invented’ by anyone in the world at that time: such as ‘before Abraham came to be I am’ (John viii). ‘He that hath seen me hath seen the Father’ (John ix); or the promulgation of the Blessed Sacrament in John v: ‘He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life’. We must therefore either believe in Him and in what he said and take the consequences; or reject him and take the consequences. I find it for myself difficult to believe that anyone who has ever been to Communion, even once, with at least right intention, can ever again reject Him without grave blame. (However, He alone knows each unique soul and its circumstances.)

  The only cure for sagging of fainting faith is Communion. Though always Itself, perfect and complete and inviolate, the Blessed Sacrament does not operate completely and once for all in any of us. Like the act of Faith it must be continuous and grow by exercise. Frequency is of the highest effect. Seven times a week is more nourishing than seven times at intervals. Also I can recommend this as an exercise (alas! only too easy to find opportunity for): make your communion in circumstances that affront your taste. Choose a snuffling or gabbling priest or a proud and vulgar friar; and a church full of the usual bourgeois crowd, ill-behaved children – from those who yell to those products of Catholic schools who the moment the tabernacle is opened sit back and yawn – open necked and dirty youths, women in trousers and often with hair both unkempt and uncovered. Go to Communion with them (and pray for them). It will be just the same (or better than that) as a mass said beautifully by a visibly holy man, and shared by a few devout and decorous people. (It could not be worse than the mess of the feeding of the Five Thousand – after which [Our] Lord propounded the feeding that was to come.)

  I myself am convinced by the Petrine claims, nor looking around the world does there seem much doubt which (if Christianity is true) is the True Church, the temple of the Spiritfn101 dying but living, corrupt but holy, self-reforming and rearising. But for me that Church of which the Pope is the acknowledged head on earth has as chief claim that it is the one that has (and still does) ever defended the Blessed Sacrament, and given it most honour, and put it (as Christ plainly intended) in the prime place. ‘Feed my sheep’ was His last charge to St Peter; and since His words are always first to be understood literally, I suppose them to refer primarily to the Bread of Life. It was against this that the W. European revolt (or Reformation) was really launched – ‘the blasphemous fable of the Mass’ – and faith/works a mere red herring. I suppose the greatest reform of our time was that carried out by St Pius X:1 surpassing anything, however needed, that the Council2 will achieve. I wonder what state the Church would now be but for it.

  This is rather an alarming and rambling disquisition to write! It is not meant to be a sermon! I have no doubt that you know as much and more. I am an ignorant man, but also a lonely one. And I take the opportunity of a talk, which I am sure I should now never take by word of mouth. But, of course, I live in anxiety concerning my children: who in this harder crueller and more mocking world into which I have survived must suffer more assaults than I have. But I am one who came up out of Egypt, and pray God none of my seed shall return thither. I witnessed (half-comprehending) the heroic sufferings and early death in extreme poverty of my mother who brought me into the Church; and received the astonishing charity of Francis Morgan.3 But I fell in love with the Blessed Sacrament from the beginning – and by the mercy of God never have fallen out again: but alas! I indeed did not live up to it. I brought you all up ill and talked to you too little. Out of wickedness and sloth I almost ceased to practise my religion – especially at Leeds, and at 22 Northmoor Road.4 Not for me the Hound of Heaven, but the never-ceasing silent appeal of Tabernacle, and the sense of starving hunger. I regret those days bitterly (and suffer for them with such patience as I can be given); most of all because I failed as a father. Now I pray for you all, unceasingly, that the Healer (the Hcelend as the Saviour was usually called in Old English) shall heal my defects, and that none of you shall ever cease to cry Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.5

  * * *

  I have got over my complaints for the present and feel as well as my old bones allow. I am getting nearly as unbendable as an Ent. My catarrh is always with me (and will be) – it goes back to a nose broken (and neglected) in schoolboy Rugby. The excellent Doctor Tolhurst6 urges me to take no drugs or assistants – except those occasionally prescribed specifically by a doctor: sc. when a special infection lodges in the weak areas liable to assault. . . . .

  I am interested to hear what you say about M[ichael] G[eorge]7 and ‘Anglo-Saxon’. I shall await further news. I cannot (of course) understand why Anglo-Saxon should seem difficult – not to people able to learn any language (other than their own) at all. It is certainly not harder than German, and vastly simpler than say mod. French. And as for Latin or Greek! All the same I can remember old Oliver Elton (once a famous Eng. Lit. scholar but also a ‘linguist’ who translated Russian) writing to me after a broadcast I made in the 30’s,8 saying that I seemed to understand the language, which he himself found more difficult than Russian. Quite incomprehensible to me; but it does seem that ‘A-S’ is a kind of ‘touchstone’ distinguishing the genuine linguists (the students and lovers of Language) from the utilitarians. I hope M.G. is in the former class. But he has enough other talents.

  Don’t speak to me about ‘Income Tax’ or I shall boil over. They had all my literary earnings until I retired. And now, even with the concession (which I am sure Mr Callaghan9 would soon revoke) that Earned Income does not pay Surtax (within my limits of earning), I am being mulcted next January of such a sum as will cripple my desire to distribute some real largesse to each of you. However, I will do something. . . . .

  A pity I did not make good and strike my orebearing vein before 39!10 But better late than never. . . . .

  251 To Priscilla Tolkien

  [Written four days after the death of C. S. Lewis.]

  26 November 1963

  76 Sandfield Road, Headington, Oxford

  Dearest,

  Thank you so much for your letter. . . . . So far I have felt the normal feelings of a man of my age – like an old tree that is losing all its leaves one by one: this feels like an axe-blow near the roots. Very sad that we should have been so separated in the last years; but our time of close communion endured in memory for both of us. I had a mass said this morning, and was there, and served; and Havard and Dundas Grant1 were present. The funeral at Holy Trinity, the Headington Quarry church, which Jack attended, was quiet and attended only by intimates and some Magdalen people including the President. Austin Farrer read the lesson. The grave is under a larch in the corner of the church-yard. Douglas (Gresham)2 was the only ‘family’ mourner. Warnie was not present, alas! I saw Owen Barfield, George Sayer and John Lawlor3 (a good mark to him), among others. Chris, came with us. There will be an official memorial service in Magdalen on Saturday at 2.15 p.m.

  It was very sweet of you my dearest to write. . . . .

  God bless you.

  Daddy.

  252 From a letter to Michael Tolkien (draft)

  [Not dated; November or December 1963]

  I am sorry that I have not answered your letters sooner; but Jack Lewis’s death on the 22nd has preoccupied me. It is also involving me in some correspondence, as many people still regard me as one of his intimates. Alas! that ceased to be so some ten years ago. We were separated first by the sudden apparition of Charles Williams, and then by his marriage. Of which he never even told me; I learned of it long after the event.1 But we owed each a great debt to the other, and that tie with the deep affection that it begot, remains. He was a great man of whom the cold-blooded official o
bituaries only scraped the surface, in places with injustice. How little truth there may be in literary appraisals one may learn from them – since they were written while he was still alive. Lewis only met Williams in 1939, and W. died early in 1945. The ‘space-travel’ trilogy ascribed to the influence of Williams was basically foreign to Williams’ kind of imagination. It was planned years before, when we decided to divide: he was to do space-travel and I time-travel. My book was never finished,2 but some of it (the Númenórean-Atlantis theme) got into my trilogy eventually.

  Publication dates are not a good guide. Perelandra is dated 1943, but does not belong to that period. Williams’ influence actually only appeared with his death: That Hideous Strength, the end of the trilogy, which (good though it is in itself) I think spoiled it. Also I was wryly amused to be told (D. Telegraph) that ‘Lewis himself was never very fond of The Screwtape Letters’ – his best-seller (250,000). He dedicated it to me. I wondered why. Now I know – says they.

  253 From a letter to Rayner Unwin

  23 December 1963

  [It had been agreed that the new paperback (see no. 248) should be given the title Tree and Leaf. Rayner Unwin asked if Tolkien could suggest a suitable drawing of a tree for the cover, perhaps taken from a mediæval manuscript.]

  I am pleased that you approve of the suggested title. Mediæval MSS are not (in my not very extensive experience) good on trees. I have among my ‘papers’ more than one version of a mythical ‘tree’, which crops up regularly at those times when I feel driven to pattern-designing. They are elaborated and coloured and more suitable for embroidery than printing; and the tree bears besides various shapes of leaves many flowers small and large signifying poems and major legends.1. . . .