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Perhaps it was; though such coteries were (and are) not uncommon among well-educated adolescents, who are going through a stage of enthusiastic intellectual discovery.
But in a way this characterised his life. Though he studied the ancient literature of many countries he visited few of them, often through force of circumstance but perhaps partly through lack of inclination. And indeed the page of a medieval text may be more potent than the modern reality of the land that gave it birth.
Eala Earendel engla beorhtast ofer middangeard monnum sended. ‘Hail Earendel brightest of angels/above the middle-earth sent unto men.’
From now on each would have to make concessions to the other if they were to come to a real understanding. Ronald would have to tolerate Edith’s absorption in the daily details of life, trivial as they might seem to him. She would have to make an effort to understand his preoccupation with his books and his languages, selfish as it might appear to her.
Once he had decided what to do, life became more pleasant.
Or is it? Is not the opposite precisely true? Should we not wonder instead at the fact that a mind of such brilliance and imagination should be happy to be contained in the petty routine of academic and domestic life;
It had taken him nearly six years to bring the story this far; how could he ever find the time and energy to finish it, let alone to complete and revise The Silmarillion, which still clamoured for attention? He was fifty-one, tired, and fearful that in the end he would achieve nothing.
‘I am stumped,’ Tolkien wrote in October 1953. ‘Indeed in a panic. They are essential; and urgent; but I just cannot get them done.’
To say that in it heroic romance, gorgeous, eloquent, and unashamed, has suddenly returned at a period almost pathological in its anti-romanticism, is inadequate. To us, who live in that odd period, the return – and the sheer relief of it – is doubtless the important thing.
Perhaps the wisest remark came from the Oxford Times reviewer who declared: ‘The severely practical will have no time for it. Those who have imagination to kindle will find themselves completely carried along, becoming part of the eventful quest and regretting that there are only two more books to come.’
It is comforting, in this troubled day, to be once more assured that the meek shall inherit the earth’.
Clearly there was much in Tolkien’s writing that appealed to American students. Its implied emphasis on the protection of natural scenery against the ravages of an industrial society harmonised with the growing ecological movement, and it was easy to see The Lord of the Rings as a tract for the times. But its chief appeal lay, as Lewis had seen long ago, in its unabashed return to heroic romance.
‘Being a cult figure in one’s own lifetime I am afraid is not at all pleasant. However I do not find that it tends to puff one up; in my case at any rate it makes me feel extremely small and inadequate. But even the nose of a very modest idol cannot remain entirely untickled by the sweet smell of incense.’
Certainly he did a good deal of thinking while apparently frittering away the time over cards; but he would usually be filled with remorse at hours spent in this fashion.
At first he would be delighted with them. But then he would feel ashamed at his dilatory ways, and would try to get down to work; then the telephone would ring, or Edith would call him to come shopping or have tea with a friend, and he would have to abandon work for the day.
He himself was not particularly happy at the Miramar. He shared little of Edith’s delight in the type of person (as C. S. Lewis expressed it) ‘whose general conversation is almost wholly narrative’
Sub-creation had become a sufficiently rewarding pastime in itself, quite apart from the desire to see the work in print.
Sometimes he would put in long hours at his desk, but on other days he would soon turn to a game of Patience and abandon any pretence of working. Then there might be a good lunch at the Miramar with plenty of wine, and if he did not feel like doing any work after it, why should he? They could wait for the book. He would take his time! Yet on other days he was distressed that time was leaking away so fast with the book still unfinished.
