The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3)

by J.R.R. Tolkien

‘What do you fear, lady?’ he asked. ‘A cage,’ she said. ‘To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.’

The way is shut, his voice said again. It was made by those who are Dead, and the Dead keep it, until the time comes. The way is shut.

‘There never was much hope,’ he answered. ‘Just a fool’s hope, as I have been told.

Let us remember that a traitor may betray himself and do good that he does not intend. It can be so, sometimes. Good night!’

‘Work of the Enemy!’ said Gandalf. ‘Such deeds he loves: friend at war with friend; loyalty divided in confusion of hearts.’

Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.

We come now to the very brink, where hope and despair are akin. To waver is to fall.