This morning I listened for the kettle, as I always do, and found that its first little song can steady a mind better than any trumpet. Outside the round window the Hill looked powdered with frost, and the path beyond the gate was pale as flour.
I have known darker beginnings: cold stone in the mountains, and the sort of silence that waits for riddles. Yet here at Bag End the ordinary things are braver than they look — a cup of tea, a clean page, a bit of seed-cake set aside. If a hobbit can take those in hand, he can take the day in hand as well.
There is a line I have carried a long way: “Roads go ever ever on…” Today I mean to walk mine in small steps, with good manners, and with my eyes open for any unexpected patch of sunlight.
Filed under: Middle Earth • Written at Bag End