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Much has been written about J.R.R. Tolkien.
Many have covered the important aspects of his life:
To add to these would be the critical facts of his love of the Catholic Faith, his marriage and the subsequent birth of his children; and his respect of nature.
Childhood:
Tolkien's Catholic Faith came from his mother. He was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa in 1892 and was one of two brothers born to Mabel and Arthur Tolkien. When Tolkien was three, the family decided to move back to England. Arthur Tolkien had to stay on in South Africa due to work commitments and was to follow his wife and sons shortly after. But this never came to be; he contracted rheumatic fever and died within weeks. He was buried in Bloemfontein.
Hardship now hit the Tolkien family and they ended up living in a small cottage in Sarehole, rural Birmingham. It was in this location, climbing in trees and playing in the local area, that Tolkien's love of nature was born; and the origins of the Shire took seed in his heart.
Due to their poor finances, Mabel Tolkien took to educating the children herself. She was capable in Latin, German and French and had other artistic abilities. At an early age John Ronald Ruel Tolkien displayed a love of books and languages; and became enamoured of fables and fairy stories, especially those involving dragons.
At this time Mabel Tolkien started her journey into the Catholic Church. She was baptized and was immediately cut off by her family. Any financial assistance she had received from both her own family and that of her late husband now ceased. She suffered persecution and life was a struggle without any monetary aid, but she never faltered in her love of the Church and her loyalty to her new found faith.
The stress of this hardship and lack of money took its toll; and consequently lead to her bad health. Tolkien was baptized as was his brother and after several moves into the city to find good schooling, Mabel Tolkien brought her family to Birmingham Oratory where she became good friends with the local parish Priest, Father Francis Xavier Morgan. Her health continued to deteriorate and after much suffering she slipped into a coma, and died. The year was 1904 and Tolkien was 12.
Tolkien and his brother were moved to live with their aunt, but Father Francis became a father-figure to the boys and showed them much care and love. Tolkien writes of Father Francis;
" A guardian who had been a father to me, more than most real fathers. " [Letters p.53].
Tolkien learned much about his faith under Father Francis and developed his keen sense of charity, mercy and forgiveness. He read many of the lives of the Saints and received excellent teaching on Scripture and Doctrine.
The sorrow of his mothers death remained with him for the rest of his life and his faith became a deep source of spiritual and emotional consolation.
Tolkien understood the impact of the sacrifice from his mother in passing on the faith to him, Later he wrote;
" When I think of my mother's death, worn out with persecution, poverty, and largely consequent, disease, in the effort to hand on to us small boys the Faith, ... and remember the tiny bedroom... where she died alone, too ill for viaticum, I find it very hard when my children stray away [from the Church]. " [Letters p.353-354]. [Viaticum = Eucharist].
” My own dear mother was a martyr indeed, and it was not to everybody that God grants so easy a way to his great gifts as he did to Hilary and myself, giving us a mother who killed herself with labour and trouble to ensure us keeping the Faith. ” [Tolkien: A Biography p.39].
He was;
" ...grateful for having been brought up [since I was eight] in a Faith that has nourished me and taught me all the little that I know; and that I owe to my mother, who clung to her conversion and died young, largely through the hardships of poverty resulting from it. " [Letters p.172].
The loss of his mother left him with a profound sense of fear and instability and this sense of nostalgia and sorrow is clearly evident in his writing. But his faith is what supported him and his writing always contained a deeper hope and joy; and a belief that the darkness is only a passing thing.
Though Tolkien suffered loss in his life, hope always dwelled in his heart that in the end;
" ...all tears will be wiped away. " [Rev 21:4].
In his schooling Tolkien excelled especially in the philological disciplines and was able to speak Latin and Greek fluently at the age of 15. Between 1906 and 1911 he privately taught himself Old Norse, Old English and Gothic and also started inventing languages and writing poems.
In 1910 Tolkien won a scholarship at Exeter College in Oxford. He started studying classic languages but soon changed to English Philology and Old Norse. His studies were paid for by Father Francis.
By the charity of Father Francis, Tolkien and his brother found themselves residing close to the Oratory [their aunt was less than loving towards the boys]. It was 1908, Tolkien was 17 and he was soon to meet his future wife. He meet a young girl, Edith, living downstairs at the same residence. She also was an orphan and they became close friends, eventually falling in love. They kept their courtship secret. [Go here to read about Tolkiens time at Birmingham Oratory].
Father Francis soon learned of the relationship with Edith and upset at the deception forbade Tolkien from seeing the young woman until he was 21 at which time he could make his own choices. Tolkien and his brother were moved down the road to another residence.
John Ronald Ruel Tolkien carried a deep appreciation and love towards Father Francis, and felt he owed a lot to the Priest. For a time Tolkien obeyed his guardians request and promised not to continue seeing Edith; but he suffered and recorded his feelings in his diary;
" Depressed and as much in dark as ever.....God help me. Feel weak and weary. " [Tolkien: A Biography p.50].
Eventually he faltered and the two meet secretly once more. But Edith had accepted the request of Father Francis and decided to move to Cheltanham to be with a friend.
Once again news of their meetings came to the Priest and once again he made his worries for his 'adopted' son clear; he would cut off his university studies if he continued to lie and disobey. They were not to see each other again until Tolkien was 21, he could then choose what he wanted. Tolkien's diary entries displayed his thoughts once more;
" God help me. Saw Edith at midday but would not be her. I owe all to Fr F. and so must obey .... Last night prayed I would see E. by accident. Prayer answered. Saw her at 12.55 at the Prince of Wales. Told her I could not write and arranged to see her off on Thursday fortnight. " [Tolkien: A Biography p.51].
[Fr.F = Father Francis, read more about him here]
In the 3 years of study that came, Tolkien never again disobeyed Father Francis's request and remained without contact from Edith. Not once did he write nor attempt to see her. Later he wrote of this time;
" I had to choose between disobeying and grieving [or deceiving] a guardian who had been a father to me, more than most real fathers....and 'dropping' the love-affair until I was twenty -one. I don't regret my decision, though it was very hard on my lover. But that was not my fault. She was perfectly free and under no vow to me, and I should have no just complaint...if she had got married to someone else. For nearly three years I did not see or write to my lover. It was extremely hard, painful and bitter, especially at first....but I don't think anything else would have justified marriage on the basis of a boy's affair; and probably nothing else would have hardened the will enough to give such an affair permanence [however genuine a case of true love]. " [Letters p.53].
One can see here the seeds of Aragorn and Arwens' heroic love [and also that of Beren and Lúthien from the Silmarillion]. Tolkien was told by his foster-father he could only continue his relationship with Edith when he was ready and had passed into manhood [21yrs]; in the same way Aragorn, is also told by his Elven foster-father, Elrond that he can only have Arwen when he is ready.
What followed were years of separation for Aragorn and Arwen, where their love is proven, and is in some way, a romanticised reflection of Tolkien's own trial of love for Edith.
Tolkien's love of mediaeval literature fed him with a highly romantic idea of love and life. Charles Mosley [who studied Tolkien] once wrote;
" Of course nobody is unaffected by what one reads. If you spend your day reading books and poems from a world where women are honoured, put on a pedestal - worshipped even - where the chief male virtues are courage, and honesty, and honour and generosity, you will in the end come to think in those terms [and may suffer no harm]. " [M&M p.31].
Coupled with Tolkien's foundation of Christian virtue and characteristics, it is not hard to see why he obeyed Father Francis's edict, and in fact took it as a way of virtue, sanctification and indeed even providence to prove their love through fire.
Mosley also writes,
" These are the values, unfashionable, perhaps inconceivable, now, held by many in Tolkien's generation, and by not a few in later ones. They are the values that lie at the heart of the fictions of Middle-earth. " [M&M p.32].
Tolkien studied at Oxford and was a good student, though not fantastic. This was mainly due to some apathy and laziness on Tolkien's part. He majored in Classics but was more interested in creating his own languages than actually attending his philosophy classes. He took classes in 'Old Norse, festivity and classical philology'. Neglecting his lectures in Greek and Latin, Tolkien turned his energies to his invented languages.
Of his time in study he later wrote,
" Certainly I have never been nourished by English literature ... for the simple reason that I have never found much there in which to rest my heart [or heart and head together]. " [Letters p.172].
When the 3 years of exile from Edith was up and Tolkien was 21, he immediately wrote to her and after a few other details were ironed out, they resumed their relationship.
In 1915 Tolkien graduated with exceptional marks and received First Class Honour's from Oxford College. After his graduation, he was drafted into the army, but before setting out for France in July 1916, he married Edith on March the 22nd.
War:
The following months Tolkien spent fighting in the Battle of the Somme where allied forces lost twenty thousand men on the first day. Almost all of his old school friends were killed during the war; but Tolkien miraculously survived the battle, was sent home and hospitalized in November 1916 because of trench fever.
While convalescing from the War he started work on the oldest parts of his Middle-earth stories which later formed the historical background of his two major works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. These background stories, that he called the Book of Lost Tales, would later be published as the Silmarillion.
It was primarily an outlet for him to express his passion for languages, particularly his own invented ones.
From the horrors Tolkien witnessed in the war, one can see the how this shaped the themes of war and conflict in the Lord of the Rings. Humphrey Carpenter in his biography talks of the “ animal horror of war ” that Tolkien witnessed and how it shaped his psyche. [Tolkien: A Biography p.91].
Tolkien tried to have certain writings of the Book of Lost Tales [started during WWI] published but was turned down.
In November 1917 his first son, John, was born.
Professional Life:
After the war he started working as a junior staff member for the Oxford English Dictionary.
In 1920, Tolkien worked as a Reader in English Language at Leeds University and in 1924 he was appointed professor at Leeds University.
In the following years Tolkien worked on several projects, among them a translation of 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' and a 'Middle-English Dictionary'.
In 1925 he started lecturing at Oxford University. He would remain there for the rest of his professional career.
During this time his other children were born. Michael in 1920, Christopher in 1924 and Priscilla in 1929.
Inklings:
From his interest in Old Norse, Tolkien formed a group at Oxford who were interested in Icelandic myths and sagas. They called it the CoalBiters, which is an english-ized version of an old Norse word Kolbítar, which referred to those who huddle so close to the fire in winter that they 'bite the coals'.
It was in this group that Tolkien met C.S. Lewis and their friendship would become very strong. Tolkien would have an enormous effect of Lewis and vice versa. In fact, in a conversation that lasted until 4am in the morning Tolkien and Chesterton [another well known Christian writer and Oxford Academic] helped in Lewis' conversion to Christianity.
They would later form a literary society called The Inklings and would influence each other’s works over the next decades. Tolkien would read poems, stories and chapters of the Hobbit, Book of Lost Tales and Lord of the Rings to his Inkling-colleagues as he progressed. C.S. Lewis was instrumental in providing Tolkien with support and encouragement in his writings.
Tolkien: " Friendship with Lewis compensates for much, and besides giving constant pleasure and comfort has done me much good from the contact with a man at once honest, brave, intellectual - a scholar, a poet, and a philosopher - a lover, at least after a long pilgrimage, of Our Lord. " [M&M p.60, The Inklings, Carpenter p.52].
Of his early setbacks in trying to have his writings published Tolkien later wrote,
" The Silmarillion was offered for publication for years, and turned down. Good may come of such blows. The Lord of the Rings was the result. " [Letters, p231-232].
In 1928 Tolkien wrote the first pages of The Hobbit. While sitting at his desk the words came from with-in him as he scribbled, 'in a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit'. He later said he did know why but that the words just came up out of him.
He continued to write the Hobbit and add to his writings about the mythology of Middle-earth.
In 1937 The Hobbit was finished and published. It was a huge commercial success and lauded by the critics. The publishers Allen and Unwin demanded a sequel and in 1938 Tolkien began work on The New Hobbit, which would eventually become his greatest success and one of the highest selling books of all time : The Lord of the Rings.
Over the next 16 years he worked on The Lord of the Rings and soon discovered that it would not be a mere children’s book like The Hobbit was, but that it would form the climax of all his former writings about Middle-earth.
In 1954 the first two volumes The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers were published, The Return of the King followed in 1955. The trilogy was an instant success. Over the next 20 years it was translated into all the major languages of the world and became immensely popular.
Tolkien was understandably worried about how the book would be received.
Tolkien: " I am dreading the publication, for it will be impossible not to mind what is said. I have exposed my heart to be shot at. " [Letters p.172].
The books were an instant success with readers, but critics were divided as to whether the work was brilliant or childish. But more and more, literary scholars and critics alike, have warmed to the scope, nature and themes contained in the Lord of the Rings.
[see here for a timeline of Tolkien's life].
Respect for Nature:
Tolkien's love of nature began as a child in the semi-rural region of Sarahole. He climbed in the trees near by his house and enjoyed walks in the fields. Later he witnessed the destruction of this homely land as industry slowly encroached; many trees were cut down or burnt to make way for factories, plants, foundries and machines.
He saw the small villages in rural England transform into industrial cities where men became numbers and products were mass produced merely for greed or war. The surrounding green and idyllic fields and meadows were turned into metal workshops and were continually overshadowed by billowing smoke that flowed day and night.
This engendered in Tolkien a distrust for most automation and industrial advancement. This also was fueled by his experience in World War I, where he saw the horrific destruction and power these machines and metallic objects could wield and inflict.
His comment;
“ I am [obviously] much in love with plants and above all trees, and always have been; and I find human maltreatment of them as hard to bear as some find ill-treatment of animals. " [Letters p.220] in a letter to a correspondent, is deepened by his words to a friend while walking in the woods close to his home where he said,
" Think of the power of a forest on the march... " [Celebration p.5] referring to an uprising of Trees against their cullers.
Religion:
Through all his writings, career, and personal aspects of his life, Tolkien remained faithful to his Catholic Faith. He did mention he passed through a period of apathy in his dedication to his faith during the early years of his first son's life. But he never waivered in his belief and returned to what he knew to be the truth and only Love that would give him fulfillment in life.
He was well read in the works of St Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas and the philosophies of Aristotle and Plato, Dante and Eliot.
The following are a collection of quotes that illustrate the depth of Tolkien's Catholic faith and how he saw and understood everything in his life in reference to it. These a but a few of the in-depth thoughts that Tolkien shared with his children and those who wrote to him.
Faith & Morals:
George Sayer, a personal friend of Tolkien, to Joseph Pearce:
" He [Tolkien] wrote to me years later, a letter in which he stated that he attributed anything good or beautiful in his writing to the influence of Our Lady, 'the greatest influence in my life'. He meant it. " [Celebration p.10-11].
Tolkien: “ I am a Christian [which can be deduced from my stories] and am in fact a Roman Catholic. The latter 'fact' [Catholic] perhaps cannot be deduced; though one critic [by letter] asserted that the invocations of Elbereth, and the character of Galadriel as directly described [or through the words of Gimli and Sam] were clearly related to Catholic devotion to Mary.
Another saw in waybread [lembas] = viaticum [Eucharist] and reference to its feeding the will and with it being more potent when fasting, a derivation from the Eucharist. [that is, far greater things may colour the mind in dealing with the lesser things of a fairy-story]. ” [Letters p.288]. [Tolkien argued this was in fact the purpose of Myth, to reflect Truth and draw one to it. See Truth and Myth]
" It takes a fantastic will to unbelief to suppose that Jesus never really 'happened' " [Letters p.338].
Tolkien: " You speak of 'sagging faith'... In the last resort faith is an act of the will, inspired by love. Our love may be chilled and our will eroded by the spectacle of the shortcomings, folly, and even sins of the Church and its ministers, but I do not think that one who has had faith goes back over the line for these reasons. 'Scandal' at most is an occasion of temptation - as indecency is to lust, which it does not make but arouses. It is convient because it finds a scape-goat... The temptation to 'unbelief' [which really means rejection of Our Lord and His claims] is always there within us. Part of us longs to find an excuse for it outside of us. The stronger the inner temptation the more readily shall we be 'scandalized' by others. " [M&M p.192-193, Letters p.337].
Tolkien: " So morals should be a guide to our human purposes. the conduct of our lives: [a] the ways in which our individual talents can be developed without waste or misuse; and [b] without injuring our kindred or interfering with their development. [Beyond this and higher lies self-sacrifice for love]. " [Letters p.399].
Tolkien: " Actually I am a Christian and indeed a Roman Catholic, so that I do not expect "history" to be anything but a "long defeat" - though it contains [and in legend may contain more clearly and movingly] some samples or glimpses of final victory." [Letters p.255].
Tolkien: " Not that one should forget the wise words of Charles Williams, that it is our duty to tend the accredited and established altar, though the Holy Spirit may send the fire down somewhere else. God cannot be limited [even by his own foundations] - of which St Paul is the first & prime example - and may use any channel fir His grace. " [Letters p.339 - footnote].
Tolkien: " Even to love our Lord and to call him Lord is a grace , and may bring more grace. Nonetheless, speaking institutionally, and not of individual souls, the channel must eventually run back into the ordained course, or run into the sands and perish. Besides the Sun there may be Moonlight [even enough to read by]; but if the Sun were removed there would be no Moon to see. What would Christianity now be if the Roman Catholic Church had in fact been destroyed. " [Letters p.339 - footnote].
Tolkien: " I owe a great deal to being treated, surprisingly for the time, in a more rational way. Fr Francis obtained permission for me to retain my scholarship at King Edwards School and continue there, and so I had the advantage of a [then] first rate school and that of a 'good Catholic home' - 'in excelsis': virtually a junior inmate of the Oratory house, which contained many learned Fathers [largely 'converts']. Observance of religion was strict. " [Letters p.395].
Tolkien: " As a man whose childhood was darkened by persecution I find this hard but charity must cover a multitude of sins " [Letters p.395].
Catholic website Zenit;
" He once told an audience of Oxford dons, when it was rather unpopular to be open about one's religious beliefs, that as much as he loved his academic specialty, philology, it was unnecessary for salvation. " [Zenit.org - article here].
The Church:
Regarding the changes that the Second Vatican Council brought into the Church.
Tolkien: " I think there is nothing to do but pray, for the Church, the Vicar of Christ, and for ourselves; and meanwhile exercise the virtue of loyalty, which indeed only becomes a virtue when one is under pressure to desert it. " [Letters p.393].
Regarding trends in the Church.
Tolkien: " The 'protestant' search backwards for 'simplicity' and directness - which, of course, though it contains some good or at least intelligible motives, is mistaken and indeed vain. Because 'primitive Christianity' is now and in spite of all 'research', will ever remain largely unknown; because 'primitiveness' is no guarantee of value, and is and was in great part a reflection of ignorance.
Grave abuses were as much an element in Christian 'liturgical' behaviour from the beginning as now [St Paul's strictures on Eucharistic behaviour are sufficient to show this!] Still more because 'my church' was not intended by Our Lord to be static or remain in perpetual childhood; but to be a living organism [likened to a plant], which develops and changes in externals by the interaction of its bequeathed divine life and history - the particular circumstances of the world into which it is set. ” [Letters p.394].
Tolkien continues with his analogy for the Church and vain searches for 'primitive' Christianity.
Tolkien: " There is no resemblance between the 'mustard seed' and the full grown tree. For those living in the days of its branching growth the Tree is the 'thing', for the history of a living thing is part of its life, and the history of a divine thing is sacred. The wise may know that it began with a seed, but it is in vain to try and dig it up, for it no longer exists, and the virtue and powers that it had now reside in the Tree.
Very good: but in husbandry, the authorities, the keepers of the Tree, must look after it, according to such wisdom as they possess; prune it, remove cankers, rid it of parasites, and so forth. [with trepidation, knowing how little their knowledge of growth is!]. But they will certainly do harm, if they are obsessed with the desire of going back to the seed or even to the first youth of the plant when it was [as they imagine] pretty and unaflicted by evils. " [Letters p.394].
On the danger of modernism in the Church:
Tolkien: " The other motive [now confused with the primitivist one, even in the mind of any one of the reformers]: is 'aggiornamento': bringing up to date: that has its own grave dangers, as has been apparent throughout history. " [Letters p.394].
On his belief in the Catholic Church.
Tolkien: “ I myself am convinced by the Petrine claims, nor looking around the world does there seem much doubt which [if Christianity is true] is the True Church, the temple of the Spirit; dying but living, corrupt but holy, self-reforming and rearising. But for me that Church of which the Pope is the acknowledged head on earth has a chief claim that is the one that has [ and still does] ever defended the Blessed Sacrament, and given it most honour, and put it [as Christ plainly intended] in the prime place. " [Letters p.339].
Communion:
Regarding his love of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.
Tolkien: “ Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament.... There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth, and more than that: Death: by the divine paradox, that which ends life, and demands the complete surrender of all, and yet by the taste [or foretaste] of which alone can give you what you what you seek in your earthly relationships [love, faithfulness, joy] be maintained, or take on the complexity of reality, of eternal endurance, which every man's heart desires. " [Letters p.53-54].
Regarding the Blessed Sacrament and his children.
Tolkien: " But I fell in love with the Blessed Sacrament from the beginning - and by the Mercy of God have never fallen out again: but alas! I indeed did not live up to it. I brought you all up ill and talked to you too little. Out if wickedness and sloth I almost ceased to practice my religion - especially at Leeds, and at 22 Northmoor Rd.
Not for me the Hound of Heaven, but the never-ceasing silent appeal of the Tabernacle, and the sense of starving hunger. I regret those days bitterly [and suffer for them with such patience as I can be given]; most of all because I failed as a father. Now I pray for you all, unceasingly, that the Healer [the Hælend as the Saviour was called in Old English] shall heal my defects, and that none of you shall ever cease to cry 'Benedictus qui venit nomine Domini' - [Blessed in He who comes in the name of the Lord]. " [Letters p.340].
Tolkien: " I find it for myself hard to believe that anyone who has ever been to Communion, even once, with at least the right intention, can ever reject Him without grave blame. [However, He alone knows each unique soul and its circumstances]. " [Letters p.338].
Regarding keeping up ones faith.
Tolkien: " The only cure for sagging or fainting faith is Communion. Though always Itself, perfect and complete and inviolate: the Blessed Sacrament does not operate completely and once for all in any of us. Like the act of Faith it must be continuous and grow by exercise. Frequency is of the highest effect. Seven times a week is more nourishing than seven times at intervals. " [Letters p.338].
Regarding leaving the Church due to scandal.
Tolkien: " ...but I now know enough about myself to be aware that I should not leave the Church [which for me would mean leaving allegiance to Our Lord] for any such reasons: I should leave because I did not believe..... I should deny the Blessed Sacrament, that is: call Our Lord a fraud to His face....." [Letters p.337-339].
Prayer & Adoration:
Regarding seeing his Guardian Angel in prayer:
Tolkien: " It also reminded me of a sudden vision I had not long ago when spending half and hour in St Gregory's before the Blessed Sacrament. I perceived or thought of the Light of God and in it suspended one small mote, glittering white... And the ray was the Guardian Angel of the mote: not a thing interposed between God and the creature, but God's very attention itself, personified... a real [finite] person. " [Letters p.99].
Tolkien: “ I pray for you - because I have a feeling [more a certainty] that God, for some ineffable reason which to us may seem like humour, is so curiously ready to answer the prayers of the least worthy of his supplicants - if they pray for others. I do not of course mean to say that He only answers the prayer of the unworthy [who ought not expect to be heard at all], or I should not now be benefiting by the prayers of others. " [Letters p.401].
Tolkien believed firmly in the power of prayer. He and Edith attributed the healing of a heart ailment of one of their children to prayer. [www.christianitytoday.com, article here].
Marriage:
Regarding the modern idea of love and sex in the Western world:
Tolkien: " Its weakness is of course, that it began as an artificial courtly game, a way of enjoying love for its own sake without reference to [and indeed contrary to] matrimony. Its centre was not God, but imaginary Deities, Love and the Lady. It still tends to make the Lady a kind of guiding star or divinity.. This is, of course, false and at best make-believe. The woman is another fallen human-being with a soul in peril. But combined and harmonized with religion ... it can be very noble... One result of that is to make young folk look for 'love' that will keep them always nice and warm in a cold world, without any effort of theirs; and the incurably romantic go on looking even in the squalor of the divorce courts. " [M&M p.48-50, Letters p.48-49].
Regarding the sacrifice needed in marriage.
Tolkien: " However, the essence of a fallen world is that the best cannot be attained by free enjoyment, or by what is called 'self-realization' [usually a nice name for self-indulgence, wholly inimical to the realization of other selves]; but by denial, by suffering. Faithfulness in Christian marriage entails that: great mortification... No man, however truly he loved his betrothed and bride as a young man, has lived faithful to her as a wife in mind and body without deliberate conscious exercise of the will, without self-denial.
Too few are told that - even those brought up in the Church. Those outside seem seldom to heard of it. When the glamour wears off, or merely works a bit thin, they think they have made a mistake, and that the real soul-mate is still to find. The real soul-mate too often proves to be the next sexually attractive person to come along... " [M&M p.50, Letters p.51-52].
Regarding true love.
Tolkien: " In such great inevitable love, often love at first sight, we catch a vision, I suppose, of marriage as it should have been in an un-fallen world. In this fallen world we have as our only guides; prudence, wisdom [rare in youth, too late in age], a clean heart, and fidelity of will... " [M&M p.50, Letters p.51-52].
Tolkien's marriage to Edith wasn't without trouble and they passed through trials. But they remained faithful to each other and God. [M&M p.52-53].
Later in Life:
After retiring in 1959, Tolkien spent most of his time working on his languages and writing about Middle-earth’s history before the War of the Ring.
In 1971 Edith died, aged 82, and, one year later, Tolkien returned to Oxford and resided at his old college. He received an honorary doctorate from Oxford University and was named a Commander of the British Empire.
When Tolkien was visiting friends in the sea-side town of Bournemouth in August 1973 he fell ill and died on September the 2nd, aged 81.
Tolkien lived a humble and simple life:
Tolkien: " I am a hobbit, [in all except size]. I like gardens, trees and un-mechanised farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain food... " [Letters p.288].
He did not like the attention that the Lord of the Rings brought him, but he always wrote back to those who had written to him with comments or questions regarding his works.
His son Christopher continued to edit many of Tolkien's works after his death. He poured through the huge amount of manuscripts and papers his father had left. He has published almost everything Tolkien has ever written about Middle-earth.
The most famous work that has been posthumously published by Christopher Tolkien is The Silmarillion, a book about the earliest days of Elves and Men in Middle-earth.
