J.R.R. Tolkien: If anguish were visible

If anguish were visible, almost the whole of this benighted planet would be enveloped in a dense dark vapour....

        --J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973), in a letter, April 1944
    Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, ed. Humphrey Carpenter with the assistance of Christopher Tolkien