Grahame and the Inklings

Re-reading The Wind in the Willows recently for the first time in many years, I was taken with what I should have noticed long ago: How powerfully influential it was on the Inklings, especially Lewis and Tolkien. I knew of course that they loved it, but it worked its way into their imaginations in ways that I hadn’t really noticed.

For instance, consider this passage from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader:

It would be nice, and fairly nearly true, to say that “from that time forth Eustace was a different boy.” To be strictly accurate, he began to be a different boy. He had relapses. There were still many days when he could be very tiresome. But most of those I shall not notice. The cure had begun.

Now look at this from the chapter “Wayfarers All,” in which Rat’s imagination and will are captured by the Adventurer, a seafaring rat from whose influence Mole can only with difficulty tear him away:

Presently the tactful Mole slipped away and returned with a pencil and a few half-sheets of paper, which he placed on the table at his friend’s elbow.

“It’s quite a long time since you did any poetry,“ he remarked. ”You might have a try at it this evening, instead of — well, brooding over things so much. I’ve an idea that you’ll feel a lot better when you’ve got something jotted down — if it’s only just the rhymes.”

The Rat pushed the paper away from him wearily, but the discreet Mole took occasion to leave the room, and when he peeped in again some time later, the Rat was absorbed and deaf to the world; alternately scribbling and sucking the top of his pencil. It is true that he sucked a good deal more than he scribbled; but it was joy to the Mole to know that the cure had at least begun.

Consider also the book’s feasts, especially the one that occurs when the near-frozen Rat and Mole stumble upon the house of Mr. Badger:

When at last they were thoroughly toasted, the Badger summoned them to the table, where he had been busy laying a repast. They had felt pretty hungry before, but when they actually saw at last the supper that was spread for them, really it seemed only a question of what they should attack first where all was so attractive, and whether the other things would obligingly wait for them till they had time to give them attention. Conversation was impossible for a long time; and when it was slowly resumed, it was that regrettable sort of conversation that results from talking with your mouth full. The Badger did not mind that sort of thing at all, nor did he take any notice of elbows on the table, or everybody speaking at once…. He sat in his armchair at the head of the table, and nodded gravely at intervals as the animals told their story; and he did not seem surprised or shocked at anything, and he never said, “I told you so,” or, “Just what I always said,” or remarked that they ought to have done so-and-so, or ought not to have done something else. The Mole began to feel very friendly towards him.

This is the very pattern for hobbit-feasts, including (in tone) the one in the house at Crickhollow after the four hobbit-friends have escaped the Black Riders and crossed the Brandywine, or (in substance) the one they enjoy when they have been rescued from Old Man Willow and taken to the house of Tom Bombadil. The particular joy of solid plain food and a big fire after great toil and fear is described by Grahame in a way that evidently captured Tolkien’s imagination.