The Veil: Tolkien, Rowling, and the American Civil War

He heard whisperings of things beyond the vail, and with smiles upon his face passed on to the land of eternal freedom. 

—Fernando G. Cartland, Southern Heroes: The Friends in War Time (Cambridge, Riverside Press 1895) (note: “vail” is obsolete for “veil”). 

[E]ither in his dreams or out of them, he could not tell which, Frodo heard a sweet singing running in his mind: a song that seemed to come like a pale light behind a grey rain-curtain, and growing stronger to turn the veil all to glass and silver, until at last it was rolled back, and a far green country opened before him under a swift sunrise. 

—1 J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, in The Lord of the Rings (1954).

[Harry] had just heard something. There were faint whispering, murmuring noises coming from the other side of the veil. 

‘What are you saying’ he said, very loudly, so that his words echoed all around the stone benches.    

     . . . .  

‘Oh come on. You heard them, just beyond the veil, didn’t you?’ [said Luna] 

‘You mean ... [?]’ [said Harry] 

‘In that room with the archway. They were just lurking out of sight, that’s all. You heard them.’ [said Luna] 

—5 J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, in The Harry Potter Series (2003).

Seth Barrett Tillman

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SethBTillman  ( @SethBTillman )

 

PS: My prior post is: Seth Barrett Tillman, Beautiful English Prose and the Reigning Literary Zeitgeist, The New Reform Club (Oct. 1, 2015, 6:52 AM), http://reformclub.blogspot.ie/2015/10/beautiful-english-prose-and-some-self.html