Letter 51

Letter 51 is the fifty-first letter written by J.R.R. Tolkien and published in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Summary
The prior night C.S. Lewis and Tolkien had feasted with C.E.M. Joad at Magdalen College, who had quite recently distributed The Recovery of Belief. Tolkien said that with the exception of his face Joad was exceptionally like an amphibian, and in character firmly took after Mr. Amphibian of Toad Hall. He discovered him clever, sympathetic, and they conceded to numerous major focuses. Joad had been in Russia and detested it. Its "new towns" did not transcend Willesden level, the nation did not "ascend" by any means, and he asserted that in the event that you were in a train and watched out the window, read a book for a couple of hours, then watched out again no doubt the train had not moved by any stretch of the imagination.