Gems from the Letters

[Guinevere]

Here is another topical one (from letter 64, written 1944)

The utter stupid waste of war, not only material but moral and spiritual, is so staggering to those who have to endure it. And always was (despite the poets), and always will be (despite the propagandists). But so short is human memory and so evanescent are its generations that in only about thirty years there will be few or no people with that direct experience which alone goes really to the heart. The burnt hand teaches most about fire.

And from letter 81 (1944):

You can't fight the Enemy with his own Ring without turning into an Enemy; but unfortunately Gandalf's wisdom seems long ago to have passed with him into the True West