Mabel Tolkien introduced her eldest son to two of his strongest loves--the Catholic church and the study of language--before she succumbed to diabetes in November, 1904. She left her orphaned sons under the guardianship of her close friend and confessor, Father Francis Xavier Morgan. "I first learned charity and forgiveness from him," Tolkien recalled in a letter to his son Michael, published in
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, many years later, "and in the light of it pierced even the 'liberal' darkness out of which I came." Morgan provided Tolkien with a father figure and helped finance his studies at King Edward's School in Birmingham and at Oxford University.
Tolkien's passion for languages expanded while he attended King Edward's School. It was an ardor he developed early and kept throughout his life, exploring tongues that were no longer spoken and creating languages of his own. Latin and Greek were important parts of the curriculum, and Tolkien excelled at both. Not satisfied with studying just these, he also taught himself some Welsh, Old and Middle English, and Old Norse, with the encouragement and assistance of several of his teachers.
This is a free page. This page contains 177 words. This
biography contains 5,302 words (approx. 18 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Biography with our J. R. R. Tolkien Access Pass.
