221 From a letter to the First Assistant Registrar, Oxford University

[Following Tolkien's retirement, the Board of the Faculty of English sent an appreciation of his 'long and invaluable service', and expressed 'its regret that it will not in future have the benefit of your wise advice and unsparing help in its deliberations. It wishes at the same time to express its sense of the distinction which your wide, meticulous, and imaginative scholarship has brought to the faculty and to the University.']

24 November 1959

I am deeply grateful to the Board of the Faculty of English for the extremely generous terms in which they have addressed me. My only misgiving is that they present a picture of a professor far superior to the one that has retired. However, conscious merit is no doubt a solace and support, but there is nonetheless a peculiar pleasure in receiving honours and compliments one doesn't deserve. One result of retirement that I never expected is that I actually miss the meetings of the Board. Not, of course, the agenda, but the gathering together of so many dear friends.