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Originally Posted by Bêthberry
Wouldn't that more precisely be ₤?
But seriously (I always give reverence to Serious Cat), was Milton in it for the money? I seem to recall something about justifying the ways of God to man. Or the visionary Blake? Why must you assume the money would be the only motivator? It certainly wasn't uppermost in Tolkien's mind.
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"No one but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money."
-- Dr. Samuel Johnson (1704-1789)
Not saying this was necessarily Tolkien's case, as writing was his hobby for most of his life, not his vocation; however, based on his letters, he was certainly happy when those royalty checks began to come in regularly from Rayner & Unwin.
"If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' is worth any number of old ladies." -- William Faulkner (1897-1962)
The above quote has nothing whatsoever to do with Tolkien; I just found it amusing.
As far as the original premise of this thread, I believe Tolkien inferred that he would like others to add to his comsology, but as in many of his quotes he has proven to be elusively vague and infuriatingly contradictory. If you look at his early career, he was certainly interested in joint projects (with Lewis and the Inklings, for instance, and earlier with his schoolmates), but as he grew older he became more conservative and protective of his works, until at the end he only trusted his son, Christopher, with his corpus. I believe the entire idea of others working in tandem on his creation atrophied as he did.
Now it is merely conjecture. One might as well ask whether balrogs have wings. *winks*