Quote:
Originally Posted by Letter #43, emphasis original
For very nearly three years I did not see or write to my lover. It was extremely hard, painful and bitter, especially at first...But I don't think anything else would have justified marriage on the basis of a boy's affair; and probably nothing else would have hardened the will enough to give such an affair (however genuine a case of true love) permanence. On the night of my 21st birthday I wrote again to your mother – Jan. 3, 1913. On Jan. 8th I went back to her, and became engaged, and informed an astonished family.
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Now, that is incredibly romantic! And it makes me wonder whether such challenges actually make love stronger; test it; or perhaps some combination of the two (allowing it to mature properly, in a way - like the "new think" in horticulture which says you shouldn't stake trees, in order that their root systems can be strengthened by the wind. "New" being rather ironic here, obviously...). Certainly Tolkien seems to have believed that it was more than a test: "however genuine a case of true love".
It also makes my situation look a little less daunting...
