{"id":36779,"date":"2021-10-13T19:31:11","date_gmt":"2021-10-13T18:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jrrtestate.wpengine.com\/cartas\/letter-to-carole-batten-phelps-a-reader-autumn-1971\/"},"modified":"2022-02-23T15:15:54","modified_gmt":"2022-02-23T15:15:54","slug":"letter-to-carole-batten-phelps-a-reader-autumn-1971","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.tolkienestate.com\/es\/cartas\/letter-to-carole-batten-phelps-a-reader-autumn-1971\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter to Carole Batten-Phelps, a reader, autumn 1971"},"content":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section fb_built=\u00bb1″ _builder_version=\u00bb4.6.1″ _module_preset=\u00bbdefault\u00bb background_color=\u00bb#2f3534″ custom_margin=\u00bb||||false|false\u00bb custom_padding=\u00bb0px||0px||false|false\u00bb animation_direction=\u00bbtop\u00bb border_width_bottom=\u00bb1px\u00bb border_color_bottom=\u00bb#4e5956″ saved_tabs=\u00bball\u00bb global_colors_info=\u00bb{}\u00bb][et_pb_row _builder_version=\u00bb4.5.6″ _module_preset=\u00bbdefault\u00bb custom_padding=\u00bb20px||20px||false|false\u00bb global_colors_info=\u00bb{}\u00bb][et_pb_column type=\u00bb4_4″ _builder_version=\u00bb4.5.6″ _module_preset=\u00bbdefault\u00bb global_colors_info=\u00bb{}\u00bb][et_pb_text module_class=\u00bbyoastBC\u00bb _builder_version=\u00bb4.5.6″ _module_preset=\u00bbdefault\u00bb text_font=\u00bb|||on|||||\u00bb text_text_color=\u00bb#9f8d60″ link_text_color=\u00bb#9f8d60″ text_orientation=\u00bbcenter\u00bb global_colors_info=\u00bb{}\u00bb]Home<\/a><\/span><\/span>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=\u00bb1″ _builder_version=\u00bb4.6.1″ _module_preset=\u00bbdefault\u00bb background_color=\u00bb#383e3c\u00bb background_enable_image=\u00bboff\u00bb custom_padding=\u00bb50px||50px||false|false\u00bb global_colors_info=\u00bb{}\u00bb][et_pb_row _builder_version=\u00bb4.5.6″ _module_preset=\u00bbdefault\u00bb global_colors_info=\u00bb{}\u00bb][et_pb_column type=\u00bb4_4″ _builder_version=\u00bb4.5.6″ _module_preset=\u00bbdefault\u00bb global_colors_info=\u00bb{}\u00bb][et_pb_text _builder_version=\u00bb4.6.1″ _dynamic_attributes=\u00bbcontent\u00bb _module_preset=\u00bbdefault\u00bb header_text_align=\u00bbcenter\u00bb header_text_color=\u00bb#ffffff\u00bb header_font_size=\u00bb60px\u00bb header_letter_spacing=\u00bb8px\u00bb width=\u00bb72%\u00bb module_alignment=\u00bbcenter\u00bb header_font_size_tablet=\u00bb40px\u00bb header_font_size_phone=\u00bb\u00bb header_font_size_last_edited=\u00bbon|tablet\u00bb header_letter_spacing_tablet=\u00bb1px\u00bb header_letter_spacing_phone=\u00bb\u00bb header_letter_spacing_last_edited=\u00bbon|tablet\u00bb global_colors_info=\u00bb{}\u00bb]@ET-DC@eyJkeW5hbWljIjp0cnVlLCJjb250ZW50IjoicG9zdF90aXRsZSIsInNldHRpbmdzIjp7ImJlZm9yZSI6IjxoMT4iLCJhZnRlciI6IjwvaDE+In19@[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=\u00bb1″ _builder_version=\u00bb4.5.6″ _module_preset=\u00bbdefault\u00bb background_color=\u00bb#f7f7f1″ global_colors_info=\u00bb{}\u00bb][et_pb_row _builder_version=\u00bb4.5.6″ _module_preset=\u00bbdefault\u00bb global_colors_info=\u00bb{}\u00bb][et_pb_column type=\u00bb4_4″ _builder_version=\u00bb4.5.6″ _module_preset=\u00bbdefault\u00bb global_colors_info=\u00bb{}\u00bb][et_pb_text _builder_version=\u00bb4.9.4″ text_font_size=\u00bb20px\u00bb text_line_height=\u00bb1.6em\u00bb link_text_color=\u00bb#9f8d60″ width=\u00bb66%\u00bb width_tablet=\u00bb100%\u00bb width_phone=\u00bb\u00bb width_last_edited=\u00bbon|tablet\u00bb module_alignment=\u00bbcenter\u00bb locked=\u00bboff\u00bb global_colors_info=\u00bb{}\u00bb]<\/p>\n

\u2018You speak of \u2018a sanity and sanctity\u2019 in the L.R. \u2018which is a power in itself\u2019. I was deeply moved. Nothing of the kind had been said to me before.\u2019<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=\u00bb1″ _builder_version=\u00bb4.5.6″ _module_preset=\u00bbdefault\u00bb global_colors_info=\u00bb{}\u00bb][et_pb_row _builder_version=\u00bb4.6.1″ width=\u00bb50%\u00bb width_tablet=\u00bb80%\u00bb width_phone=\u00bb\u00bb width_last_edited=\u00bbon|tablet\u00bb locked=\u00bboff\u00bb global_colors_info=\u00bb{}\u00bb][et_pb_column type=\u00bb4_4″ _builder_version=\u00bb4.3.4″ global_colors_info=\u00bb{}\u00bb][et_pb_text _builder_version=\u00bb4.9.4″ text_line_height=\u00bb1.9em\u00bb quote_font=\u00bb||||||||\u00bb module_alignment=\u00bbcenter\u00bb global_colors_info=\u00bb{}\u00bb]<\/p>\n

Dear Miss Batten-Phelps,<\/p>\n

I am sorry that your letter (written on August 20th) was delayed in reaching me, and has then again waited so long for an answer. I am harassed by many things and the endless \u2018business\u2019 of my affairs; and I am in constant anxiety owing to my wife\u2019s failing health\u2026<\/p>\n

I was much interested in your references to M.R. Ridley. We of course knew one another well at Oxford \u2026 Not until I got your letter did I learn that he had done me the honour of placing the works of his old colleague in the ranks of \u2018literature\u2019, and gaining me intelligent and well-equipped readers. Not a soil in which the fungus-growth of cults is likely to arise. The horrors of the American scene I will pass over, though they have given me great distress and labour. (They arise in an entirely different mental climate and soil, polluted and impoverished to a degree only paralleled by the lunatic destruction of the physical lands which Americans inhabit.) \u2026<\/p>\n

I am very grateful for your remarks on the critics and for your account of your personal delight in The Lord of the Rings. You write in terms of such high praise that [to] accept it with just a \u2018thank you\u2019 might seem complacently conceited, though actually it only makes me wonder how this has been achieved – by me! Of course the book was written to please myself (at different levels), and as an experiment in the arts of long narrative, and of inducing \u2018Secondary Belief\u2019. It was written slowly and with great care for detail, & finally emerged as a Frameless Picture: a searchlight, as it were, on a brief episode in History, and on a small part of our Middle-earth, surrounded by the glimmer of limitless extensions in time and space. Very well: that may explain to some extent why it \u2018feels\u2019 like history; why it was accepted for publication; and why it has proved readable for a large number of very different kinds of people. But it does not fully explain what has actually happened. Looking back on the wholly unexpected things that have followed its publication \u2013 beginning at once with the appearance of Vol. I \u2013 I feel as if an ever darkening sky over our present world had been suddenly pierced, the clouds rolled back, and an almost forgotten sunlight had poured down again. As if indeed the horns of Hope had been heard again, as Pippin heard them suddenly at the absolute nadir of the fortunes of the West. But How? and Why?<\/p>\n

I think I can now guess what Gandalf would reply. A few years ago I was visited in Oxford by a man whose name I have forgotten (though I believe he was well-known). He had been much struck by the curious way in which many old pictures seemed to him to have been designed to illustrate The Lord of the Rings long before its time. He brought one or two reproductions. I think he wanted at first simply to discover whether my imagination had fed on pictures, as it clearly had been by certain kinds of literature and languages. When it became obvious that, unless I was a liar, I had never seen the pictures before and was not well acquainted with pictorial Art, he fell silent. I became aware that he was looking fixedly at me. Suddenly he said: \u2018Of course you don\u2019t suppose, do you, that you wrote all that book yourself?\u2019<\/p>\n

Pure Gandalf! I was too well acquainted with G. to expose myself rashly, or to ask what he meant. I think I said: \u2018No, I don\u2019t suppose so any longer.\u2019 I have never since been able to suppose so. An alarming conclusion for an old philologist to draw concerning his private amusement. But not one that should puff any one up who considers the imperfections of \u2018chosen instruments\u2019, and indeed what sometimes seems their lamentable unfitness for the purpose.<\/p>\n

You speak of \u2018a sanity and sanctity\u2019 in the L.R. \u2018which is a power in itself\u2019. I was deeply moved. Nothing of the kind had been said to me before. But by a strange chance, just as I was beginning this letter, I had one from a man, who classified himself as \u2018an unbeliever, or at best a man of belatedly and dimly dawning religious feeling\u2026but you\u2019, he said, \u2018create a world in which some sort of faith seems to be everywhere without a visible source, like light from an invisible lamp\u2019. I can only answer: \u2018Of his own sanity no man can securely judge. If sanctity inhabits his work or as a pervading light illumines it then it does not come from him but through him. And neither of you would perceive it in these terms unless it was with you also. Otherwise you would see and feel nothing, or (if some other spirit was present) you would be filled with contempt, nausea, hatred. \u201cLeaves out of the elf-country, gah!\u201d \u201cLembas \u2013 dust and ashes, we don\u2019t eat that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course The L.R. does not belong to me. It has been brought forth and must now go its appointed way in the world, though naturally I take a deep interest in its fortunes, as a parent would of a child. I am comforted to know that it has good friends to defend it against the malice of its enemies. (But all the fools are not in the other camp.) With best wishes to one of its best friends.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Home<\/a><\/span><\/span>\u2018You speak of \u2018a sanity and sanctity\u2019 in the L.R. \u2018which is a power in itself\u2019. I was deeply moved. Nothing of the kind had been said to me before.\u2019Dear Miss Batten-Phelps, I am sorry that your letter (written on August 20th) was delayed in reaching me, and has then again waited so long for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":33981,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-36779","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nLetter to Carole Batten-Phelps, a reader, autumn 1971 - The Tolkien Estate<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tolkienestate.com\/es\/cartas\/letter-to-carole-batten-phelps-a-reader-autumn-1971\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"es_ES\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Letter to Carole Batten-Phelps, a reader, autumn 1971 - The Tolkien Estate\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u2018You speak of \u2018a sanity and sanctity\u2019 in the L.R. \u2018which is a power in itself\u2019. 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