Helen, re: no mention of the Hobbits in New England. Perhaps not, but two weeks ago I toured a museum which depicted the "pit houses" of the Indian clans of the West Coast and they were certainly very warm, comfortable and 'smial-like." Also, eastern European immigrants to the Canadian prairiers, for that first winter faced without a house, built homes in hillsides. Just imagine!
I appreciate
Seraphim's and davem's defense of the art of pipeweed, the emphasis on art. One of the most delightful traits of this description of the Shire is, to me, the manner in which hobbits appear to appreciate leisure, a lost habit in our hurried times of the Seventh Age.
I would like to add an observation on the point which
Heren Istarion and Fordim are discussing. As idyllic as Shire-life is presented here, it is a life I am not completely comfortable with, for the reason which Fordim has pointed out: the Hobbits' dislike of any book which required thoughtful interpretation of tangled threads. There is a view here of their simplicity which makes me feel it is an incomplete or untried goodness.
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there in that pleasant corner of the world they plied their well-ordered business of living, and they heeded less and less the world outsider where dark things moved, until they came to think that peace and plenty were the rule in Middle-earth and the right of all sensible folk. They forgot or ignored what little they had ever known of the Guardians, and of the labours of those that made possible the long peace of the Shire. There were, in fact, sheltered, but they had ceased to remember it.
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"A cloistered virtue is no virtue," I think Milton wrote. And before him we have Job, whose virtues were tested and tested again before they were finally proven true. To Fordim's points about the hobbits' conformity and acquisitiveness--wonderful thoughts on
mathoms there!--I would add an ignorance of evil which, to me, limits the attractiveness of their haven. Often in Tolkien I see this sense that goodness must be parcelled off from evil, in Melian's girdle and then in Elessar's final decree that access to The Shire be restricted (yet even this did not ensure the hobbits' open survival to our own day). I'm not sure what to make of this, but it inclines me towards Fordim's thoughts on the lurking possibility of 'co-dependence' of good and evil, that they cannot be separated but must have knowledge of each other. Even Frodo's desire to save the Shire represents his effort to take on the job on behalf of the hobbits rather than allow them to make the horrendous discovery which Job and Frodo himself makes.
One other point which intrigues me relates to the issue of history. The Hobbits appear to have forgotten their history and the elves are "concerned almost entirely with their own history, in which Men appear seldom and Hobbits are not mentioned at all." Here we have the selectivity of historical record which demonstrates its lack of authoritative voice: each race will have its own perspective and way of remembering. Rather like what I think we are all doing here, giving voice to our own various thoughts, the diversity giving form to a more complete picture than any one of us can, at least initially, make.
EDIT: About this issue of the correct stewardship of the land, and the felling of Ents, there is something in a later chapter which suggests that not all was peaceful in the hobbits' use: The Bonfire Glade in the Old Forest represents a time when the hobbits attacked the trees in the Old Forest. I side with
Fordim that the hobbits are neither perfect nor idyllic, but contain within themselves aspects which we need to consider carefully.
And cross posting with
Durelin, who seems to have anticipated me in wondering about the ignorance or loss of their sense of history.