Letter 81

Letter 81 is the eighty-first letter written by J.R.R. Tolkien and published in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Summary
Christopher had sent back, with regard, a few parts of The Lord of the Rings that his father had sent. Tolkien was satisfied and wanted to send the following parcel, from "Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit" to "The Choices of Master Samwise".

Tolkien reported that lights were expanding in Oxford: windows were being unblacked, street had lights once more, and in spots it was verging on like peacetime brightening. He had seen the Lewises and Charles Williams at an Inklings meeting. Strolling with C.W. almost home they had talked about present ideas of freedom. Having been so manhandled by purposeful publicity, Tolkien said it inferred the individuals who domineered over you ought to talk the same local dialect. Times were restless in spite of uplifting news. English reinforcement was in hard luck up to the eyeballs and there was significantly a greater amount of the thick ahead. The BBC line was that German troops were a diverse accumulation of sutlers and broken men, however they were setting up the bitterest barrier against the finest and best prepared armed forces ever handled. The English, Tolkien said, used to pride themselves on "giving the fallen angel his due" however the press, stooping in the canal, screamed that any German officer holding out urgently was a boozer and besotted aficionado. A grave article in the neighborhood paper genuinely bolstered orderly annihilation of the whole German country in light of the fact that they were poisonous snakes who did not know the distinction in the middle of good and malevolence! In any event in England the article was addressed and the answer printed. The disgusting and insensible miscreant is not yet a manager with force. You can't battle the Enemy with his own Ring without transforming into an Enemy, said Tolkien, yet unfortunately Gandalf's intelligence had gone into the True West.

A late hurricane had cleared and September was gentle once more. Tolkien said he must attempt to get on with Pearl but he had the harvest time craving for something new upon him. He said that he and Christopher must guarantee themselves a perambulation in rugged nation, close to the ocean, where scars of war, felled woods, and bulldozed fields were not plain to see. The Inklings' arranged triumph festivity would be a week in a nation hotel with only lager and talk and no reference to any clock.