206 From a letter to Rayner Unwin

[At the end of March 1958, Tolkien visited Holland at the invitation of the Rotterdam booksellers Voorhoeve en Dietrich; his travelling expenses were paid by Allen & Unwin. He attended a 'Hobbit Dinner' at which he gave a speech. One item on the menu was 'Maggot Soup', an intended allusion to Farmer Maggot's mushrooms in The Lord of the Rings.]

8 April 1958

Since I had the remarkable, and in the event extremely enjoyable, experience in Holland by the generosity of 'A. and U.', I think some kind of report would be proper. I have had time to simmer down a bit, and recover some sense of proportion. The incense was thick and very heady; and the kindness overwhelming. My journey was very comfortable, and the reservations magnificent: the outward boat was packed, and the train from L[iverpool] Street went in two pans. I arrived in cold mist and drizzle, but by the time I had found my way to Rotterdam the sun was shining, and it remained so for two days. Ouboter of V[oorhoeve] and D[ietrich] was waving a Lord of the Rings and so easy to pick out of the crowd, but I did not fit his expectations, as he confessed (after dinner); my 'build-up' by letter had been too successful, and he was looking for something much smaller and more shy and hobbit-like.

(I thought he was charming and intelligent; but he was still a little upset about the hilarity caused by 'maggot-soup' on the Menu. It was, of course, mushroom soup; but he said he would not have chosen the name if he had known 'all the names of the English vermins'.) I met a representative of Het Spectrum, and saw a good deal of the depressing world of ruined and half-rebuilt Rotterdam. I think it is largely the breach between this comfonless world, with its gigantic and largely dehumanised reconstruction, and the natural and ancestral tastes of the Dutch, that has (as it seems) made them, in R[otterdam] especially, almost intoxicated with hobbits ! It was almost entirely of hobbits that they spoke.

At 5.30 on Friday I faced quite a large concourse in an assembly hall. Apparently over 200 (largely ordinary people) had paid to be present, and many had been turned away. Professor Harting was even more astonished than I was. The dinner was cenainly 'abundant and prolonged': the latter, because the speeches were interleaved between the courses. In the event they were all in English; and all but one quite sensible (if one deducts the high pitch of the eulogy, which was rather embarrassing). The exception was a lunatic phycholog, but the able chairman held him to five minutes. My final reply was I hope adequate, and was I believe audible; but I need not dwell on it. It was partly a parody of Bilbo's speech in Chapter I.

In this home of 'smoking', pipe-weed seems specially to have caught on. There were clay pipes on the table and large jars of tobacco – provided, I believe, by the firm of Van Rossem. The walls were decorated with Van Rossem posters over-printed Pipe-weed for Hobbits: In 3 qualities: Longbottom Leaf, Old Toby, and Southern Star. V. Rossem has since sent me pipes and tobacco ! I carried off one of the posters. You might like to see it. ....

I cannot thank you enough for providing me with this short but memorable expedition – the only one I am likely to get after all out of my 'leave' – and for gently pressing me to go.