J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography

by Humphrey Carpenter

he started his own club. It was called the Apolausticks (‘those devoted to self-indulgence’)

a curious slang, which converted breakfast to brekker, lecture to lekker, the Union to the Ugger, and a sing-song and a practical joke to a sigger-sogger and a pragger-jogger.

Tolkien was more restrained in a poem describing his and Edith’s love for each other, choosing a favourite image to express this: Lo! young we are and yet have stood like planted hearts in the great Sun of Love so long (as two fair trees in woodland or in open dale stand utterly entwined, and breathe the airs, and suck the very light together) that we have become as one, deep-rooted in the soil of Life, and tangled in sweet growth.

I congratulate you. All the long years you have spent on it are justified.

Yet, my gentlehobbits, I give you this toast: To the Hobbits, May they outlast the Sarumans and see spring again in the trees.’