Churl
10-08-2001, 06:03 PM
As an American still coming to grips with September 11th's tragedies, I found a surprisingly relevant passage in The Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter 3 (Tolkien's words follow):
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(Gildor:) "[...] I think it is not for me to say more -- lest terror should keep you from your journey. For it seems to me that you have set out only just in time, if indeed you are in time. You must now make haste, and neither stay nor turn back; for the Shire is no longer any protection to you."
"I cannot imagine what information could be more terrifying than your hints and warnings," exclaimed Frodo. "I knew that danger lay ahead, of course; but I did not expect to meet it in our own Shire. Can't a hobbit walk from the Water to the River in peace?"
"But it is not your own Shire," said Gildor. "Others dwelt here before hobbits were; and others will dwell here again when hobbits are no more. The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourself in, but you cannot for ever fence it out."
"I know -- and yet it has always seemed so safe and familiar."
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(Gildor:) "[...] I think it is not for me to say more -- lest terror should keep you from your journey. For it seems to me that you have set out only just in time, if indeed you are in time. You must now make haste, and neither stay nor turn back; for the Shire is no longer any protection to you."
"I cannot imagine what information could be more terrifying than your hints and warnings," exclaimed Frodo. "I knew that danger lay ahead, of course; but I did not expect to meet it in our own Shire. Can't a hobbit walk from the Water to the River in peace?"
"But it is not your own Shire," said Gildor. "Others dwelt here before hobbits were; and others will dwell here again when hobbits are no more. The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourself in, but you cannot for ever fence it out."
"I know -- and yet it has always seemed so safe and familiar."