A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-18

by Joseph Loconte

“War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all,” he explains. “But I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”31

“For the Fascist, everything is in the State, and nothing human or spiritual exists, much less has value, outside the State.”

haunted by the memory of Eden: take away this fundamental idea, and their moral vision collapses.

The serene and pacific Rivendell is a vision, perhaps, of the world as it ought to be, but not as we actually find it. “There are in fact things with which it cannot cope,” Tolkien said, “and upon which its existence nonetheless depends.”

Indeed, the Will to Power remained a permanent feature of the human predicament.

“that one ever-present Person who is never absent and never named.”