You say 'Faeries' & I say 'Fairies'

[davem]

I want to reply to LMP properly later, but just for now

Originally Posted by H-I

It is not explained what are those Evils. Now, vague impression I have that Lesser is Vanity, and gifted person is rarely vain, but the Greater should be Pride/Arrogance, and here gifted person is in greater peril. Yes? No?

What interested me in this comment was that it interprets the evils allegorically - which, given Tolkien's clear statement in the LotR foreword, Tolkien 'cordially disliked'. But in the Smith essay he writes:

The Great Hall is evidently in a way an 'allegory' of the village church;

So he acknowledges that allegory may well be present. So, did he consciously write it as an allegory, or did he only realise he'd written an allegory 'after the fact'?