Last
revised April 26, 2008
In
Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings,
the Elves are said to be extremely beautiful; their faces and voices,
their music and laughter, their relations with each other.
And
they are wise, their wisdom is beyond us. They are magical, or it seems
to us to be magic, but it is really their superior knowledge and
technique.
They
are graceful, they can walk in the forest without the slightest sound,
as if they were gliding. They are immortal, in the sense that they may
live forever, but they may also be killed.
They
are joyful, but their joy is laid through with keen sadness, a sadness
that comes of the most painful memories of their history, interwoven
with the wonderful ones. For often being very old, their personal
recollections go back far.
In
spite of their advanced intelligence relative to us, they can never be
sure of the course of their future.
Why
are they so beautiful? Why don’t they grow old and
die?
They
say that we evolved from lesser beings, our ‘apelike ancestors’. If that
isn’t too fantastic, then I suppose it may also be true that one day we
will be
Elves.