Yorkshire Almanac Tolkien recalls the genesis of Lúthien and Beren in 1919, as Edith danced amidst ‘hemlocks’ at Roos in Holderness

25 December 1963: Tolkien recalls the genesis of Lúthien and Beren in 1919, as Edith danced amidst ‘hemlocks’ at Roos in Holderness

Christie’s. 2002. Autograph Letter signed “J.R.R. Tolkien” to Nancy Smith. Oxford, “Christmas Day” 1963. Online: Christie’s. Get it:

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

I came eventually and by slow degrees to write The Lord of the Rings to satisfy myself: of course without success, at any rate not above 75 But now (when the work is no longer hot, immediate, or so personal) certain features of it, and espec. certain places still move me very powerfully. The heart remains in the description of Cerin Amroth (end of Vol. I, Bk ii ch. 6), but I am most stirred by the sound of the horses of the Rohirrim at cockcrow; and most grieved by Gollum’s failure (just) to repent when interrupted by Sam: this seems to me really like the real world in which the instruments of just retribution are seldom themselves just or holy; and the good are often stumbling blocks.

The business began so far back that it might be said to have begun at birth. Somewhere about 8 years old I tried to write some verses on a dragon – about which I now remember nothing except that it contained the expression a green great dragon. But the mythology (and associated languages) first began to take shape during the 1914-18 War. The Fall of Gondolin (and the birth of Earendil) was written in hospital and on leave after surviving the “Battle of the Somme” in 1916. The kernel of the mythology, the matter of Lúthien Tinúviel & Beren arose from a small woodland glade filled with “hemlocks” (or other white umbellifers) near Roos in the Holderness peninsular – to which I occasionally went when free from regimental duties while in the Humber Garrison in 1919.

Nothing has astonished me more (and I think my publishers) than the welcome given to the L.R. But it is, of course, a constant source of consolation and pleasure to me. And, I may say, a piece of singular good fortune, much envied by some of my contemporaries. Wonderful people still buy the books, and to a man “retired” that is both grateful & comforting.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Letter_to_Nancy_Smith_(Christmas_1963)
The article in Diplomat
Tolkien in East Yorkshire
Timeline
Tolkien in Leeds
Father Christmas Letters
The Clerke’s Compleinte – The Gryphon – December 1922

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27 July 1822: An inquest at York finds that John Furnel of the Queen’s Regiment of Foot died of flogging and resulting illness

5 July 1858: The view from the tower of Beverley Minster

26 April 1867: In a requiem to Hull’s whaling industry, the Diana sails into port at the end of its fateful Arctic voyage

23 April 1642: Having promised parliament to safeguard for it Hull’s crucial arsenal, John Hotham tells it how today he shut the gates of Hull to Charles I

11 July 1787: Advertisement for The Commercial and Mathematical Academy, Hull

18 January 1966: Barbara Castle (Lab.) swings the Hull North by-election with a bridge over the Humber, convincing Harold Wilson that he has the momentum to win a general election

29 September 1704: Deeds, conveyances, and wills in the West Riding must henceforth be publicly registered in Wakefield to be considered valid

29 May 1934: Maurice Wilson of Bradford begins his solo ascent of Everest, equipped with some knowledge of yoga, a small tent, three loaves of bread, two tins of porridge and a camera

24 September 1862: Having bet his shirt on blockade-running to the Confederates, Hull mayor Zachariah Pearson tells of his ruin by Lombard Street and Abraham Lincoln

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This remarkable testimony is from the drawn-out bankruptcy process, but Pearson had resigned as mayor at the beginning of October 1862, and his reputational ruin was achieved a week before, when on 24 September 1862 he filed for bankruptcy (Sheffield Independent 1862/10/02). (Some secondary sources give 23 September. Why?)

The shipowner Stefanos Xenos believed that Pearson was lured into the clutches of the City of London, not because of any possible benefit to either Xenos’ Greek & Oriental Steam Navigation Company or for Pearson’s business, but simply to generate revenues for the bankers involved:

Mr. Zachariah Pearson had, at that time, no steamers mortgaged to Messrs. Overend, Gurney, and Co. except the Chersonese, which was already paid off. Knowing that his credit was good at Hull, with Smith Brothers, his bankers, the great capitalists sent for and asked him to buy a portion of my fleet.
“I cannot,” said Mr. Pearson.
“You will not be asked to pay any cash,” said Edwards; “you need only give your acceptances.”
“I am already overworked,” said Pearson.
“It will be a good thing for you, Pearson,” said the official assignee.

Mr. Pearson still hesitated; in fact, he did not like to enter into the transaction at all. They, however, talked him over, and he at last agreed to meet Edwards at the office of Messrs. Crowder and Maynard, the solicitors, in order to complete the transaction at once, as Messrs. Overend, Gurney, and Co. were most anxious to have the bills that day. On the way to Coleman Street, Mr. Pearson began to change his mind, so that when he had arrived at the solicitors’ office, he told Edwards that he was not at all inclined to carry out the transaction. On hearing this Edwards looked terribly disappointed, and after a short silence said, “Pearson, come and speak with Mr. Gurney.” On their arrival at Lombard Street, Pearson went into the little room facing Birchin Lane, whilst the adviser went direct to Mr. H.E. Gurney to give him counsel in the matter.

After the lapse of a short time both the capitalist and the disposer of the capital entered the room where Pearson was.

“Now, friend Pearson, what is the matter again?” said Mr. Gurney. A further debate on the subject ensued, and after a short time they brought Pearson round again, and then Mr. Gurney said to him: “Friend Pearson, I will give you, on the spot, a cheque for £500, if you will sign the acceptances and complete the business to-day. Bois, draw a cheque for £500 for Mr. Pearson.”

The cheque was handed to Mr. Zachariah Pearson. The official assignee gave him his word of honour that he had nothing to fear on account of this noble transaction. Mr. Henry John Barker, the favourite, secundus, of Mr. David Ward Chapman, was also regaled with a cheque, in compensation for his trouble in drawing the bills of exchange. Edwards and Pearson returned at once to the lawyers’, where he signed the mortgages and accepted the bills. Edwards then took the acceptances, and, like a Don Cossack, started with them for the “Corner House,” where arrangements had been previously made to discount them with some melting-house.

“This is my death-warrant,” sighed poor Pearson.

“Not at all. It’s all right,” said Edwards, his smooth face irradiated with a smile.

Oh, glorious English “All right!” How multitudinous are your meanings – how complex your significations!

Scarcely had Pearson left the lawyers’ when Edwards hastened after him.

“Hallo! I say, Pearson,” cried out the smoothfaced worthy, “what are you going to give me for this capital job I’ve done for you?”

“Capital job!” said Pearson; “I call it my ruin. I have no trade to employ all these steamers. It will be my ruin, I say.”

“Not at all, not at all. All right, I tell you. You have to thank me for putting you in the hands of Overend, Gurney, and Co. They will make you one of the greatest men in England.”

This modern Rhadamanthus called into play all his eloquence and logic to prove to Zachariah Pearson that his share of the transaction was worth £1,000.

Poor Zachariah Pearson! I have it from his own lips that the same day he gave Edwards a cheque for £1,000, double the bonus he had himself received. Verily, verily, Mr. Edwards knew how to trim his sails so as to catch the wind from whatever point it blew.

The intrigues of that “Corner House” were more than fiction would dare to fancy. As a sequel to the above transaction, I shall here mention that Mr. Edwards pressed, and even worried, Mr. Pearson to take a brother of his (Edwards’s) into partnership. Entangled as Pearson was in the Lombard Street meshes, he resolutely declined this honour, exhibiting in his refusal more determination than I had shown on a somewhat similar occasion.

Whatever commissions the above-named two gentiluomini, Barker and Edwards, were paid for the job, were added, of course, to the price of the steamers.

It is said that Bishop Roquette was the original of Molière’s Tartuffe. Can any one tell me, in this Lombard Street comedy, amongst so many, which is the real Tartuffe?

“What does all this mean?” I said to my bookkeeper, Ross, when, having returned to my office in despair, I told him of the breaking up of our line.

“It means,” he said, looking up from his desk, and speaking in a low voice – “it means, perhaps, that they want money themselves.”

I asked whether he had any grounds to think they did want money.

“Yes,” he said; “it’s the opinion of Mr. March, Edwards’s confidential clerk. In making up the books this year, and going through the accounts, he came to the conclusion that the firm is in want of means – they are not right. But, pray, do not speak of it; do not mention my name.”
(Xenos 1869)

The fraud perpetrated by Docherty on Pearson with the connivance of Barker is a precursor of the Nigerian Article 419 scam, which you will know from your inbox. Do read the entire chapter on Zachariah Pearson and the “evil hour” in which he came under the influence of Henry Barker. For context for Pearson, Xenos et al, read W.T.C. King’s excellent history of the London discount market (King 1972).

The Pease family (as in Messrs. Pease (and Hoare?)) were implicated in the failure of Overend, Gurney and Company, which led directly to the great financial panic of 1866 and indirectly to the Reform Act 1867. OGC was the last UK bank to fail until Northern Rock in 2007, one of whose directors was Nicola Pease:

What [the statement announcing the appointment of Nicola Pease as the FTSE 250 company’s chairwoman] omitted to mention was Ms Pease’s role as a non-executive director at Northern Rock from 1999 right up to the effective collapse of the bank in September 2007. Northern Rock, of course, became a byword for financial mismanagement. Footage of anxious savers queueing round the block in the first run on a British bank since Victorian times were beamed around the world. Shareholders were wiped out; 2,500 people lost their jobs; taxpayers had to foot the bill for a nationalisation that the National Audit Office would say later could cost as much as £2 billion. MPs on the Treasury select committee found Northern Rock’s directors to be “the principal authors” of the debacle, pursuing “a reckless business model which was excessively reliant on wholesale funding” (Hosking 2019/11/12).

Plus ça change?

Which proclamation by Abraham Lincoln? I’ve read somewhere that Pearson was prepared to offend Hull’s traditional abolitionism in order to get its cotton mills going again.

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