Legate, that last line you mention comes from the 1943 letter, so it looks like the book/translation you have compressed several bits of the last letters into one.
Bethberry, thanks for the research! Those books sound similar to The Wind in the Willows, don't they?!
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'Mercy!' cried Gandalf. 'If the giving of information is to be the cure of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering you. What more do you want to know?' 'The whole history of Middle-earth.. .'
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