Naomi reminds me that today is Tolkien’s birthday, so here’s a big thank you to the man who gave us so much to read and think about.
Last March I posted this, and since it has been in my brain and heart often since then, it’s worth repeating:
…the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master’s, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo’s side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep.
~~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King, Book II, The Land of Shadow.
