in memoriam

Bilbo Baggins called it a party, but it was really a variety of entertainments rolled into one. Practically everyone living near was invited. A very few were overlooked by accident, but as they turned up the all same, that did not matter. Many people from other parts of the Shire were also asked; and there were even a few from outside the borders. Bilbo met the guests (and additions) at the new white gate in person. He gave away presents to all and sundry — the latter were those who went out again by a back way and came in again by the gate. Hobbits give presents to other people on their own birthdays. Not very expensive ones, as a rule, and not so lavishly as on this occasion; but it was not a bad system. Actually in Hobbiton and Bywater every day of the year it was somebody's birthday, so that every hobbit in those parts had a fair chance of getting at least one present at least once a week. But they never got tired of them.

On this occasion the presents were unusually good. The hobbit-children were so excited that for a while they almost forgot about eating. There were toys the like of which they had never seen before, all beautiful and some obviously magical. Many of them had indeed been ordered a year before, and had come all the way from the Mountain and from Dale, and were of real dwarf-make.

—The Lord of the Rings, Book I: “A Long-Expected Party”

Happy eleventy-third, Professor.

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A Thought In Rememberance

As all things come to an end, even this story, a day came at last when they were in sight of the country where Bilbo had been born and bred, where the shapes of the land and of the trees were as well known to him as his hands and toes. Coming to a rise he could see his own Hill in the distance, and he stopped suddenly and said:

Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;

Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.

Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.

Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.

Gandalf looked at him. "My dear Bilbo!" he said. "Something is the matter with you! You are not the hobbit that you were."

—The Hobbit, Chapter 19: “The Last Stage”

Tolkien’s contributions to my life had also made me a different person… “Not the hobbit that I used to be…” His works provided me with a greater understanding of the transcendent, not simply the high aspects of organized Christianity but in the sanctification of the ordinary facets of family life, work and recreation. I have found great meaning in the example of Tolkien’s works (the sanctification of myth) that embody this Augustinian principle.

“[If philosophers] have said aught that is true and in harmony with our faith, we are not only not to shrink from it, but claim it for our own use from those who have unlawful possession of it.”

—St. Augustine, City of God, “On Christian Duty”

TomBombadil
Who is Tom Bombadil? An essay by Eugene Hargrove