I recommend Letter 328 for those who have the Letters. I will quote one
paragraph:
"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 a 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 acquanted with pictorial Art, he fell
silent. I became aware that he was looking fixedly at me. Suddenly
he said: 'Of course you don't suppose, do you, that you wrote all the book
yourself?'
"Pure
Gandalf!"
________________________________________
"‘I think he was a silly little man,' said Councillor Tompkins. ‘Worthless, in fact; no use to Society at all.'
"‘Oh, I don't know,' said Atkins, who was nobody of importance, just a schoolmaster. ‘I am not so sure: it depends on what you mean by use .'
"‘No practical or economic use,' said Tompkins. . . .
. . .
"‘It is proving very useful indeed,' said the Second Voice. ‘As a holiday, and a refreshment. It is splendid for convalescence; and not only for that, for many it is the best introduction to the Mountains. It works wonders in some cases. I am sending more and more there. They seldom have to come back.'"
