[mware]

It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy. How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. . .Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something. . .There’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.

[ConservativeDude]

I add only this: how much poorer would we be had Tolkien not lived, not finished LOTR, had he gone lazy on us, had he not witnessed to Lewis, had he not singlehandedly rescued Beowulf from the trash heap of academia, etc., etc., etc.

Truly, that was a life well-lived.