A Swift Sunrise

[Jim Deutch]

Frodo heard a sweet singing running in his mind: a song that seemed to come like a pale light behind a grey rain-curtain, and growing stronger to turn the veil all to glass and silver, until at last it was rolled back, and a far green country opened before him under a swift sunrise.

This passage has always called to my mind this one from the beginning of Chapter II of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain:

SATURDAY morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and fresh, and brimming with life. There was a song in every heart; and if the heart was young the music issued at the lips. There was cheer in every face and a spring in every step. The locust-trees were in bloom and the fragrance of the blossoms filled the air. Cardiff Hill, beyond the village and above it, was green with vegetation and it lay just far enough away to seem a Delectable Land, dreamy, reposeful, and inviting.

Both seem to refer to a Platonic ideal of peace and contentment. I also really like the way Twain, like Tolkien, links the Vision with Music. What a cool connection!

I would like to suggest that Prof. Olsen's characterization of the idea that Frodo's vision was simply of the hill above Tom's house, in more-or-less real-time, as "pathetic" (in the "miserably inadequate" meaning of the word, I suppose, though he may also have been reaching for the "affecting the emotions" meaning at the same time) is too harsh. The Twain quote shows that this is almost an everyday experience: a vision of a "far country" -- just a place you can see but cannot quickly reach -- as somehow Faerie-like and far more desireable than the ordinary reality of close-by things. I've felt that way myself, many times, and it can be truly magical.

Of course, the Delectable Land is always a bit of a disappointment if you actually go there: it becomes local and mundane once again. But the experience of such a Vision is, while not uncommon, far from mundane, and I feel like Frodo's Vision could well have been of this sort: there is no need to invoke Valinor or anything truly Faerie here at all.