Select a Quote from the Letters of JRRT...

[Eledhwen]

There is so much treasure in the Letters of JRR Tolkien, that I thought it would be a good idea to have a place where people can give their favourite quotes, and those who haven't read the letters can obtain a sample to whet their appetites.:cool:

My first is the full version of my current sig...

Letter 328 "A few years ago I was visited in Oxford by a man whose name I have now forgotten (though I believe he was well-known). He had been much struck by the curious way in which many old pictures seemed to him to have been designed to illustrate The Lord of the Rings long before its time. He brought one or two reproductions. I think he wanted at first simply to discover whether my imagination had fed on pictures, as it clearly had been by certain kinds of literature and languages. When it became obvious that, unless I was a liar, I had never seen the pictures before and was not well acquainted with pictorial Art, he fell silent. I became aware that he was looking fixedly at me. Suddenly he said: 'Of course you don't suppose, do you, that you wrote all that book yourself?'

Pure Gandalf! I was too well aquainted with G. to expose myself rashly or to ask what he meant. I think I said: 'No, I don't suppose so any longer.' I have never since been able to suppose so. An alarming conclusion for an old philologist to draw concerning his private amusement. But not one that should puff any one up who considers the imperfections of 'chosen instruments', and indeed what sometimes seems their lamentable unfitness for the purpose."

What a lovely man!

[Eriol]

What a nice idea! First among many favorite quotes, a quote from Letter 66 to Christopher Tolkien, in the very significant date of May 6th, 1944:

(...) Life in camp seems not to have changed at all, and what makes it so exasperating is the fact that all its worse features are unnecessary, and due to human stupidity which (as 'planners' refuse to see) is always magnified indefinitely by 'organization'. But England in 1917, 1918 was in a poor way, and it is a bit thicker that in a land of relative plenty, you shd. have such conditions. And the taxpayers would like to know where all the millions are going, if the pick of their sons is so treated. However it is, humans being what they are, quite inevitable, and the only cure (short of universal Conversion) is not to have wars -- nor planning, nor organization, nor regimentation. Your service is, of course, as anybody with any intelligence and ears and eyes knows, a very bad one, living on the repute of a few gallant men, and you are probably in a particularly bad corner of it. But all Big Things planned in a big way feel like that to the toad under the harrow, though on a general view they do function and do their job. An ultimately evil job. For we are attempting to conquer Sauron with the Ring. And we shall (it seems) succeed. But the penalty is, as you will know, to breed new Saurons, and slowly turn Men and Elves into Orcs. Not that in real life things are as clear cut as in a story, and we started out with a great many Orcs on our side. . . . . Well, there you are: a hobbit amongst the Urukhai. Keep up your hobbitry in heart, and think that all stories feel like that when you are in them. You are inside a very great story! (...)

[Eledhwen]

A stupendous quote, Eriol!

Here's a little one I find interesting...

"Letter 24, To Stanly Unwin, Publishers, after sending "A Long Expected Party" for appraisal: I am most grateful to your son Rayner; and am encouraged. At the same time I find it only too easy to write opening chapters - and for the moment the story is not unfolding.... I squandered so much on the original 'Hobbit' (which was not meant to have a sequel) that it is difficult to find anything new in that world."
!!!

[Niniel]

Exactly Eledhwen, I liked that so much I almost felt sorry for JRRT and wanted to tell him how it woud end; that he would write LOTR and that so cause happiness for millions of people... I also felt sorry when in read in his later letters how he was desperate to ever finish the Sil; I just hope JRRT is happy with what Chris Tolkien did with all his work. I also liked his ideas about war and the destruction of the natural environment; I'm glad for him that he didn't see what the world has become today.

[Eriol]

Woohoo! Bringing this back to the top, a looooong quote (the letter has to be read in its entirety):

Letter 310; To Camilla Unwin

[Rayner Unwin's daughter Camilla was told, as part of a school 'project', to write and ask: 'What is the purpose of life?']


Dear Miss Unwin,

I am sorry my reply has been delayed. I hope it will reach you in time. What a very large question! I do not think 'opinions', no matter whose, are of much use without an explanation of how they are arrived at; but on this question it is not easy to be brief.

What does the question really mean? Purpose and Life both need some definition. Is it a purely human and moral question; or does it refer to the Universe? It might mean: how ought I to try and use the life-span allowed to me? OR: What purpose/deesign do living things serve by being alive? The first question, however, will find an answer (if any) only after the second has been considered.

I think that questions about 'purpose' are only really useful when they refer to the conscious purposes or objects of human beings, or to the uses of things they design and make. As for 'other things' ther value resides in themselves: they ARE, they would exist even if we did not. But since we do exist one of their functions is to be contemplated by us. If we go up the scale of being to 'other living beings', such as, say, some small plant, it presents shape and organization: a 'pattern' recognizable (with variation) in its kin and offspring; and that is deeply interesting, because these things are 'other' and we did not make them, and they seem to proceed from a fountain of imagination incalculably richer than our own.

Human curiosity soon asks the question HOW: in what way did this come to be? And since recognizable 'pattern' suggests design, may proceed to WHY? But WHY in this sense, implying reasons and motives, can only refer to a MIND. Only a Mind can have purposes in any way or degree akin to human purposes. So at once any question: 'Why did life, the community of living things, appear in the physical Universe?' introduces the Question: Is there a God, a Creator-Designer, a Mind to which our minds are akin (being derived from it) so that It is intelligible to us in part. With that we come to religion and the moral ideas that proceed from it. Of thse things I will only say that 'morals' have two sides, derived from the fact that we are individuals (as in some degree are all living things) but do not, cannot, live in isolation, and have a bond with all other things, ever closer up to the absolute bond with our own human kind.

So morals should be a guide to our human purposes, the conduct of our lives: (a) the ways in which our individual talents can be developed without waste or misuse; and (b) without injuring our kindred or interfering with their development. (Beyond this and higher lies self-sacrifice for love.)

But these are only answers to the smaller question. To the larger there is no answer, because that requires a complete knowledge of God, which is unattainable. If we ask why God included us in his Design, we can really say no more than because He Did.

If you do not believe in a personal God the question: "What is the purpose of life" is unaskable and unanswerable. To whom or what would you address the question? But since in an odd corner (or odd corners) of the Universe things have dedvelopes with minds that ask questions and try to answer them, you might address one of these peculiar things. As one of them I should venture to say (speaking with absurd arrogance, on behalf of the Universe): 'I am as I am. There is nothing you can do about it. You may go on trying to find out what I am, but you will never succeed. and why you want to know, I do not know. Perhaps the desire to know for the mere sake of knowledge is related to the prayers that some of you address to what you call God. At their highest these seem simply to praise Him for being, as He is, and for making what He has made, as He has made it.'

Those who believe in a personal God, Creator, do not think the Universe is in itself worshipful, though devoted study of it may be one of the ways of honouring Him. And while as living creatures we are (in part) within it and part of it, our ideas of God and ways of expressing them will be largely derived from contemplating the world about us. (Though there is also revelation both addressed to all men and to particular persons).

So it may be said that the chief purpose of life, for any of us, is to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks. To do as we say in the Gloria in Excelsis: Laudamus te, benedicamus te, adoramus te, glorificamus te, gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam. We praise you, we call you holy, we worship you, we proclaim your glory, we thank you for the greatness of your splendour.

And in moments of exaltation we may call on all created things to join in our chorus, speaking on their behalf, as is done in Psalm 148, and in The Song of Three Children in Daniel II. PRAISE THE LORD . . . all mountains and hills, all orchards and forests, all things that creep and birds on the wing.

This is much too long, and also much too short -- on such a question.

With best wishes,

J.R.R. Tolkien

[Eledhwen]

That was a really enlightening letter, Eriol. I found this little quote from letter 142 to Robert Murray: The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work' unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like 'religion', to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism....This was written just at the point of publication of The Fellowship of the Ring. The previous few letters are all about what JRRT should call the 3 books and the overall title, and the end of letter 142 reveals his nervousness at the 'hack critics' response to the book.

[Eriol]

Hehe, this must be the most vilified and frowned upon quote of Tolkien's Letters... check the "Finding God in the Lord of the Rings" thread and you'll see it. A thorn on the side of many people.

[Eledhwen]

They can protest 'til they blow a gasket - he still said it!:D

[Eriol]

Ah, but he was "writing to a priest", or "trying to gain brownie points with his priest", or "too educated to really believe that", or "just being kind to the old priest"...

Isn't it obvious?

:rolleyes: :)

[Eledhwen]

Ah, yes! I see clearly now that you have enlightened me. Tolkien was only insincere when talking with priests, saving his genuine opinions for his secular friends and adoring public. ;) I note in the Camilla Unwin letter that T could not resist ending with a little psalm of praise.

That's enough of that. Here's another quote:

letter 241 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.) .... Also 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.

This letter was mainly about Leaf by Niggle (which I love!), but the above quote accurately sums up for me the 'reasoning' behind much of the criticism of the Christian viewpoint.

[Turgon]

Just wanted to share this. It comes from a long letter in which Tolkien discusses various hobbit customs. It's neither deep nor profound - just cracks me up for some reason.

from Letter 214 - To A.C.Nunn

Fortinbras II, one time head of the Tooks and Thain, married Lalia of the Clayhangers in 1314, when he was 36 and she was 31. He died in 1380 at the age of 102, but she long outlived him, coming to an unfortunate end in 1402 at the age of 119. So she ruled the Tooks and the Great Smials for 22 years, a great and memorable, if not universally beloved, 'matriarch'. She was not at the famous Party (SY 1401), but was prevented from attending rather by her great size and immobility than by her age. Her son, Ferumbras, had no wife, being unable (it was alleged) to find anyone willing to occupy apartments in the Great Smials, under the rule of Lalia. Lalia, in her last and fattest years, had the custom of being wheeled to the Great Door, to take the air on a fine morning. In the spring of SY 1402 her clumsy attendant let the heavy chair run over the threshold and tipped Lalia down the flight of steps into the garden. So ended a reign and life that might well have rivalled that of the Great Took.

It was widely rumoured that the attendant was Pearl (Pippin's sister), though the Tooks tried to keep the matter within the family. At the celebration of Ferumbras' accession the displeasure and regret of the family was formally expressed by the exclusion of Pearl from the ceremony and feast; but it did not escape notice that later (after a decent interval) she appeared in a splendid necklace of her name-jewels that had long lain in the hoard of the Thains.

A Conspiracy Unmasked?

:)

[Eledhwen]

I ask you.... Can you think of any other author whose creations have come alive in the way Tolkien's inhabitants of Middle Earth have? I remember reading that letter, Turgon, and I marvelled at the richness of JRRT's creativity. I hesitate to call it imagination - the word seems too weak for what appears, when told, to be a lived-in history. Pearl's story is totally outside of LotR, and yet the detail in it brings us more deeply into the story.

[Arebeth]

Excellent. So even Ian McKellen can say something interessant? Thougt he could just make bad commentaries on DVD's. (Understand, he's a great actor, but why on earth did he have to say such things about people who would have been as good at his place?) Anyway, where can I find Tolkien's letters? I have been looking for them for months.

[BlackCaptain]

"If you wanted to go on from the end of The Hobbit I think the ring would be your inevitable choice as the link. If then you wanted a large tale, the Ring would at once acquire a capital letter; and the Dark Lord would immediately appear. As he did, unasked, on the hearth at Bag End as soon as I came to that point. So the essential Quest started at once. But I met a lot of things along the way that astonished me. Tom Bombadil I knew already; but I had never been to Bree. Strider sitting in the corner of the inn was a shsock, and I had no more idea who he was than Frodo did. The Mines of Moria had been a mere name; and of Lothlorien no word had reached my mortal ears till I came there."

I'm not sure what letter this is, cuz its on the back of the book, but I find this quote amazing. It almost seems like Tolkien was winging it the whole time... I'm not really sure what to say actually

[Eledhwen]

This is the letter you quoted, BC.

It was written in response to Auden's letter to JRRT saying he had been asked to give a talk about LotR on BBC Radio, and would Tolkien supply a few 'human touches' in the form of information about how the book came to be written.

This letter is full of personal information about the Professor, and also gives insights into his love of language, including the languages and literatures he dislikes (which include Shakespeare).

There are almost 7 pages to this letter in my edition, but BC's quote continues...

"Far away I knew there were the Horse-lords on the confines of an ancient Kingdom of Men, but Fangorn Forest was an unforeseen adventure. I had never heard of the House of Eorl nor of the Steweards of Gondor. Most disquieting of all, Saruman had never been revelaed to me, and I was as mystified as Frodo at Gandalf's failure to appear on September 22. I knew nothing of the Palantiri, though the moment the Orthanc-stone was cast from the window, I recognized it, and knew the meaning of the 'rhyme of lore' that had been running in my mind: seven stars and seven stones and one white tree. these rhymes and names will crop up, but they do not always explain themselves. I have yet to discover anything about the cats of Queen Beruthiel. But I did know more or less all about Gollum and his part, and Sam, and I knew that the way was guarded by a Spider."

[Inderjit S]

For a more detailed account of Tolkien's problems in wriitng LoTR, read HoME 6-9. For those of you who thought it wrote itself (As I ddi), be prepare for a suprise as Tolkien alters the story a LOT. Treebeard, briefly take Saruman's role as Gandalf's captor and it took for a long time for Tolkien to devise Aragorn's geneaology to what it became. At first he was a Hobbit! Anyway, my fave. quotes from the letter, these two seem so sweet and poignant, the top one to C.T and bottom to Edith.

All things and deeds have a value in themselves, apart from their 'causes' and 'effects'. No man can estimate what is really happening at the present sub specie aeternitaris. All we do know, and that to a large extent by direct experience, is that evil labours with vast power and perpetual success – in vain: preparing always only the soil for unexpected good to sprout in. So it is in general, and so it is in our own lives. .... But there is still some hope that things may be better for us, even on the temporal plane, in the mercy of God. And though we need all our natural human courage and guts (the vast sum of human courage and endurance is stupendous, isn't it?) and all our religious faith to face the evil that may befall us (as it befalls others, if God wills) still we may pray and hope. I do. And you were so special a gift to me, in a time of sorrow and mental suffering, and your love, opening at once almost as soon as you were born, foretold to me, as it were in spoken words, that I am consoled ever by the certainty that there is no end to this. Probable under God that we shall meet again, 'in hale and in unity', before very long, dearest, and certain that we have some special bond to last beyond this life – subject of course always to the mystery of free will, by which either of us could throw away 'salvation'. In which case God would arrange matters differently!.... Letter #64

Yes I was rather surprised by your card of Sat. morning and rather sorry because I knew my letter would have to wander after you. You do write splendid letters to me, little one; I am such a pig to you though. It seems age[s] since I wrote. I have had a busy (and very wet!) week end. Letter #1

Tolkien being a pig to the love of his life just because he hasn't wrote a letter for some time! And they are so obviously in love, bless.

This letter I love because of Tolkien's standing up to Nazi Germany. And people acccuse Tolkien of being racist.

Thank you for your letter. .... I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Flindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject – which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this son are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride. Letter #30

And this hilarious comment by Tolkien about an proposed adaption of LoTR.

(Glóin not Gimli, but I suppose Gimli will look like his father – apparently someone's idea of a German) Letter 176 LMAO!

Anyway, I love the Letters of Tolkien as they help me understand and know better one of the truly greatest and wisest men of the 20th century.

[Eledhwen]

Great quotes Indy! For me, reading JRRT's letters make me feel like I've been in on some fireside chats, maybe down the pub, while the great man was holding forth.

[Beleg]

From a letter to Christopher Tolkien 11 July 1972,

I never called Edith Lúthien – but she was the source of the story that in time became the chief pan of the Silmarillion. It was first conceived in a small woodland glade filled with hemlocks at Roos in Yorkshire (where I was for a brief time in command of an outpost of the Humber Garrison in 1917, and she was able to live with me for a while). In those days her hair was raven, her skin clear, her eyes brighter than you have seen them, and she could sing – and dance. But the story has gone crooked, & I am left, and I cannot plead before the inexorable Mandos.

Tolkien was in his 80's.

This is what I call love.

[Barliman Butterbur]

There is so much treasure in the Letters of JRR Tolkien, that I thought it would be a good idea to have a place where people can give their favourite quotes, and those who haven't read the letters can obtain a sample to whet their appetites...

Treasures indeed! And since my copy of the Letters just arrived today, I feel like I have received a 50-pound box of See's candies — nay, a 500-pound box!

To start with, something light:

From #28: ...'hobbit talk' amuses me privately (and to a certain degree also my boy Christopher) more than adventures... and from #31: ...I am personally immensely amused by hobbits as such, and can contemplate them eating and making their rather fatuous jokes indefinitely...

(I now remember Treebeard as being very "amused" by hobbits [Pippin and Merry] and now wonder whether or not Treebeard did not at least in some respects represent Tolkien himself. After all, Treebeard certainly voices much of the sentiments Tolkien had about his love of nature and of trees in particular, and his loathing of those who destroy them.)

And something rather heavier. This is from a letter he wrote to his son Michael on the subject of marriage and relations between the sexes. I leave all that out of the quote, but choose passages which to me say something about why there is the general darkness and melancholy expressed in so much of his work:

From #43: ...This is a fallen world. ... The world has been 'going to the bad' all down the ages. ...the 'hard spirit of concupiscence' has walked down every street, and has sat leering in every house, since Adam fell.

Lotho

[Arvedui]

From Letter #186: I do not think that even Power or Domination is the real centre of my story. It provides the theme of a War, about something dark end threatening enough to seem at that time of supreme importance, but that is mainly 'a setting' for characters to show themselves. The real theme for me is about something much more permanent and difficult: Death and Immortality: the mystery of the love of the world in the hearts of a race 'doomed' to leave and seemingly loose it; the anguish in the hearts of a race 'doomed' not to leave it, until its whole evil-aroused story is complete.
Besides that, I love when Tolkien tells of all the surprises he got when writing the Lord of the Rings. as quoted in Letter #163 to W.H. Auden, that Eledhwen quoted.

[Barliman Butterbur]

Letter #151: Frodo is not intended to be another Bilbo. Though his opening style is not un-kin. But he is rather a study of a hobbit broken by a burden of fear and horror — broken down, and in the end made into something quite different.

Lotho