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
