By saying:
Quote:
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He lives in a hideous house - I cannot tell you how hideous, with hideous pictures.
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...publicly at a meeting of the Tolkien Society, as later reported in a London newspaper. Since he had only been in Edith's room for tea, that remark was not particularly flattering and also not true. The house was simply ordinary - something Auden hadn't expected of so extraordinary a person as Tolkien.
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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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