People might be interested to know that Tolkien intended to use the old intimate 'thee' in an exchange between Samwise and Rose Gamgee.
In a planned but unpublished last chapter to LotR, set 17 years after Sam and his companions returned to the Shire, and when he receives a letter from King Elessar about the latter's forthcoming visit, we see Sam and Rose when their children have gone to bed:
Master Samwise stood at the door and looked away eastward. He drew Mistress Rose to him, and set his arm about her.
'March the twenty-fifth!' he said. 'This day seventeen years ago, Rose wife, I didn't think I should ever see thee again. But I kept on hoping.'
'I never hoped at all, Sam,' she said, 'not until that very day; and then suddenly I did. About noon it was, and I felt so glad that I began singing. And mother said: "Quiet lass! There's ruffians about." And I said: "Let them come! Their time will soon be over. Sam's coming back." And you came.'
'I did,' said Sam. 'To the most belovedest place in all the world. To my Rose and my garden.' (
The History of Middle-earth: IX. Sauron Defeated, (London: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993), pp. 127-8)
The use of 'thee' in this context adds, in my opinion, a little extra to this tender scene.
