"Give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the world." - Archimedes
Many people have wanted to move the world, and lacked that place to stand outside of it. J.R.R. Tolkien solved the problem with Middle Earth: a place outside this world but still near enough to touch it. And through that he moved our imaginations, where we can see civilizations that are beautiful and kind instead of merely efficient, civilizations that grow from compatibility with the natural surroundings. He built a world in which the forest-dwellers write with scripts shaped in the flowing lines of trees and leaves, where mountain-dwelling miners chisel writing with the crystalline angle of minerals, and where to all of them the beauty and integrity matter. Living among these peoples, even simply in our imaginations, gives us the place to stand to see our own world more clearly.
Memory eternal to Professor Tolkien!
d. 2 Sept 1973
