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	In writing to each other hobbits use elaborate salutations and closings that
express the attitude of the sender to the recipient with a degree of precision
and candor not used in human correspondence.  Because English lacks
words for expressing such sentiments briefly, precision would require
explanations so long as to break the mood.

Most-loved and condescended-to younger brother!

	We have been in Gondor six months now, but this is honestly
my first chance to send you a letter.  Ferdogam Bender who brought this years
waggon load of pipeweed and beer for the King has agreed to take back letters
for all the hobbits in Ithilien.  Maybe it is better to have waited six months
and not have to take back a lot of what I would have said sooner.
First I'll tell you how things are here, and then I'll tell you what has happened,
and then I'll tell you how your sister has taken it all.

	What is a Maid of Honor:  Some hobbits thought I would have to sew
the Queen's clothes and do other things like that, but that's not it at all.
She has servants to do all those things.  Mostly we keep her company.  On
most days we go to her apartment and sit around and eat and tell stories
and play games like croquet and entertain visitors.  Some of us go with
the Queen when she takes trips either with the King or by herself.  I have
been to Harad once, and I hope she will take me to Rohan with her next month.
I'll tell you about Harad later.  Once or twice a week we go to the King's
court and hear them talk about matters of state.  Of course, on most days,
the King eats in court and we all go.

	The Queen is beautiful and somewhat sad.  Maybe all the elves are sad.
She knows an enormous amount, and when she saw me trying to learn to read
elvish, she said she would help me, and now she gives me a lesson two times
a week.  She is also teaching me to speak it, even though the only other elf
in Gondor is Legolas who spends most of his time with the dwarves.
When we are practicing elvish, she tells me many things about places the
elves have been and things they have done.  It seems to me that they didn't
do as much as I would do if I had their powers and could lived as long.
Elves don't do anything but play without a very good reason, and most of the
time there isn't a good enough reason.  Maybe hobbits and men would be the
same if we were as old as most of the elves, but I don't think so.

	When I told the Queen about when we tried to go to Rivendell, she told
me that the elves had put on a spell on it so no-one could find it and that
we were very lucky to have been able to get away without wandering around forever
in those ravines.  She said the spell probably wasn't in exact tune for
hobbit children since it was mainly designed for men and orcs and hobbits
were too low to the ground.  She didn't tell me how to get around the spell,
but putting what she told me together with what Legolas did, I think maybe
we could do it.  When I get back to the Shire maybe we can try if the
Explorer's Smial still wants to.

	The King is magnificent.  He is always settling disputes - men have
many, many disputes - and organizing expeditions to the frontiers and
giving fiefs to loyal lords.  He writes lots of letters and messengers are
always running in and out.  

	One of the things that makes the King go is Gandalf's Prophecy.
When Gandalf went away to the West, and they asked him why he didn't stay,
he said that is work was done and that the Fourth Age was the Age of Men
and that the other speaking peoples would slowly disappear.  Well the
Elves are almost all gone to the West, the trolls and dragons are almost
all killed, the dwarves have hardly any children, but there are still
plenty of orcs to the east of Mordor, and where does that leave us hobbits.
The King is very nice to us, but yet he seems to expect us to disappear.
Somebody has to ask him about it.  I asked the Queen, and she said that the
hobbits would certainly not disappear while the King was alive and while
she was alive.  Part of the King's mind may be shown by his not letting
men ever go into the Shire, and his men don't look very kindly on hobbits
going out of it except to bring the pipeweed and beer to Ithilien, and to
come to Court when summoned.  I think we hobbits have to know a lot more
about Middle Earth than we do, because I don't want us to disappear, and
I don't know any other hobbit that does either.