The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien. Christopher Tolkien

he was not convinced. I did however get a dim notion into his head that the ‘Oxford Accent’ (by which he politely told me he meant mine) was not ‘forced’ and ‘put on’, but a natural one learned in the nursery – and was moreover not feudal or aristocratic but a very middle-class bourgeois invention. After I told him that his ‘accent’ sounded to me like English after being wiped over with a dirty sponge, and generally suggested (falsely) to an English observer that, together with American slouch, it indicated a slovenly and ill-disciplined people – well, we got quite friendly. We had some bad coffee in the refreshment room at Snow Hill, and parted.

      I then strolled about my ‘home town’ for a bit. Except for one patch of ghastly wreckage (opp. my old school’s site) it does not look much damaged: not by the enemy. The chief damage has been the growth of great flat featureless modern buildings. The worst of all is the ghastly multiple-store erection on the old site. I couldn’t stand much of that or the ghosts that rose from the pavements; so I caught a tram from the same old corner at which I used to catch it to go out to the playing fields. Down the shabby (much bomb-pocked) Bristol Road to Edgbaston Park Road at 12.15 (half an hour too soon). I won’t weary you with impressions of the ghastly utterly third-rate new school buildings. But if you can imagine a building better than most Oxford colleges being replaced by what looks like a girls’ council school, you’ve got it and my feelings. And apparently the new Head Master’s. In a speech after lunch he hinted (or more than that) that they were pretty foul, and the school would never recover from the blow if something was not done about it. There were about 120 Old Boys (out of 220 asked): many of my vintage. I saw faces I had not seen since I was your age – and to many I could give only initials, not names. All Old Edwardians remember initials. To my complete surprise I found that I was remembered chiefly for rugger-prowess (!!) and my taste in coloured socks. . . . .

      59 From an airgraph to Christopher Tolkien

      5 April 1944 (FS 14)

      I have seriously embarked on an effort to finish my book, & have been sitting up rather late: a lot of re-reading and research required. And it is a painful sticky business getting into swing again. I have gone back to Sam and Frodo, and am trying to work out their adventures. A few pages for a lot of sweat: but at the moment they are just meeting Gollum on a precipice. What a lot of work you put into the typing, and the chapters written out so beautifully! I wish I still had my amanuensis and critic near at hand.

      60 To Christopher Tolkien (airgraph)

      [Christopher had now arrived in South Africa, and was at a camp in the Transvaal.]

      13 April 1944 (FS 15)

      20 Northmoor Road, Oxford

      Dearest: your Airletter of 25 March (?), postmd. 28th, arrived this morning: very welcome. By now you should be getting news from me: have been writing about twice a week. I don’t comment on your letter, though I am v. sorry. Know how you feel! Especially about cancelled leave. Your letter was ‘deur Sensor oopgemak’¹ by the way. You do not seem to have done anything very useful since September! I miss you hourly also, and am lonely without you. I have friends, of course, but can seldom see them. Things a bit easier for me now, though. Helped in the admission of cadets today (as big a bunch as ever), but as far as I can see they will not concem me further this term – joy! I did see C.S.L. & Charles Williams yesterday for almost 2 hours (cut short by having to meet M. & P.² for lunch at 12.20, which proved unobtainable so that we had to return home). I read my recent chapter: it received approbation. I have begun another. Shall have spare copies typed, if possible, & sent out to you. Don’t think there’s more news at moment. . . . . Am actually going out tonight to Magdalen: C.S.L., Warnie³ (writing a book: it’s catching), C.W., David Cecil,⁴ and prob. the Useless Quack (still bearded and uniformed): quite an event for me. . . . . Now I will return to Frodo & Gollum for a brief spell. More tomorrow, when this shall go off. . . . . Saturday 15th. I’m afraid this didn’t get off. I had a very pleasant time on Thurs. All turned up except Cecil, & we stayed until after midnight. The best entertainment proved to be the chapter of Major Lewis’ projected book – on a subject that does not interest me: the court of Louis XIV; but it was most wittily written (as well as learned). I did not think so well of the concluding chapter of C.S.L.’s new moral allegory or ‘vision’, based on the mediæval fancy of the Refrigerium, by which the lost souls have an occasional holiday in Paradise. Yesterday morning I managed to get an hour or two writing, & have brought Frodo nearly to the gates of Mordor. Afternoon lawn-mowing. Mrs. C.⁵ arrived safely from Carmarthen on Thurs. bringing gifts comestible. . . . . I had a pretty wearing time on ‘exercise’ up till 10 p.m. & then supped with the family, & then went to ‘sleep’ at area H.Q. That I did not manage: I had hardly a wink. Post is right on main road: very noisy all night. . . . . M. & I are going to have tea with the Nichol Smiths⁶ today, & I am supping with Elaine,⁷ and others at a small don-party. Quite a week for me. But term begins next week, & proofs of Wales papers⁸ have come. Still I am going to continue ‘Ring’ in every salvable moment. . . . .

      61 From a letter to Christopher Tolkien

      18 April 1944 (FS 17)

      It has been a great event to-day, all your crowd of letters arriving, and much delaying the eating of breakfast. . . . . Your accounts, which were uncensored, distressed but did not surprise me. How it reminds me of my own experience! Only in one way was I better off: wireless was not invented. I daresay it had some potential for good, but it has in fact in the main become a weapon for the fool, the savage, and the villain to afflict the minority with, and to destroy thought. Listening in has killed listening. I can only hope you won’t have any more Altmarks!¹ I was always against your choice of service (on the ground it seems a war behind); but at least it should not later land you often in to the animal horror of the life of active service on the earth – such as trenchlife as I knew it. Even HP² were a Paradise to that and the Altmark not (prob.) much worse. At least at present you are getting an occasional chance to read. I am glad. God bless you. Ðys dógor þu geþyld hafa wéana gehwylces, swá ic þé wéne to.³ If the censor (and you) will permit me to quote an ancient English poet – and I can’t help thinking it comes better from father to son, than from young Béowulf, about your age, to old greybeard Hrothgar! Úre æghwylc sceal ende gebidan worolde lífes: wyrce se þe móte domes laer déaþe.⁴ Cold stern counsel; and much depends on ‘he who may’, and on what you consider to be dóm.

      I am surprised that, tasting and disliking the very opposite, you should also dislike the ‘manners’ of life 150 years ago (nearly) as depicted by Jane [Austen]. Little is left of it all, save a few remnants of table-manners (among a decreasing minority). But actually they made life a lot easier, smoother, and less frictional and dubious; and cloaked or indeed held in check (as table-manners do) the everlasting cat, wolf, and dog that lurk at no great depth under our social skin. . . . .

      I hope to see C.S.L. and Charles W. tomorrow morning and read my next chapter – on the passage of the Dead Marshes and the approach to the Gates of Mordor, which I have now practically finished. Wasted some time on Sunday answering a letter from the Eighth Army (!). I get a good many of the kind, but this one was rather amusingly written. The ‘Regius Professor of English’ was asked to adjudicate on a dispute which was rending the Mess of a certain light A.A. Regt R.A. into a faction-war: how to pronounce the name of the poet Cowper. Big Money hangs on the issue. The letter was from the adjutant (who appeared to have read the poet, even The Task, ‘in his wayward youth’). I can’t help thinking that the Army shows spots of more wit and intelligence – you may one day strike some in your service (mais je le doute). Deeming it below the dignity of a ‘Regius Prof.’ to adjudicate on Big Money, I sent as Delphic an oracular reply as I could, giving the adjt. a good deal more facts, I expect, than he wanted. Not of course that there is any doubt that the poet called himself Cooper (of which his name is merely the older spelling): oup, owp spells oop in English: there are no aups (in Latin value): so stoup, group, soup and formerly also droup, stoup