The First Meeting

Tuesday 11 May 1926, late afternoon ...

“Tolkien managed to get the discussion round to the proposed English Prelim. I had a talk with him afterwards. He is a smooth, pale, fluent little chap – can’t read Spenser because of the forms – thinks the language is the real thing in the school – thinks all literature is written for the amusement of men between thirty and forty – we ought to vote ourselves out of existence if we were honest – still the sound-changes and the gobbets are great fun for the dons. No harm in him: he only needs a smack or so. His pet abomination is the idea of ‘liberal’ studies. Technical hobbies are more in his line.”

"All my road before me" (Diary of C.S. Lewis 1922-1927)