“And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of theDark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful andterrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and theSnow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Strongerthan the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!”She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a greatlight that illuminated her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodoseeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terribleand worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly shelaughed again, and lo! she was shrunken; a slender Elf woman, clad in simplewhite, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.”

“And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!”

“And you, Ring-bearer,’ she said, turning to Frodo. ‘I come to you last who are not last in my thoughts. For you I have prepared this.’ She held up a small crystal phial: it glittered as she moved it, and rays of white light sprang from her hand. ‘In this phial,’ she said, ‘is caught the light of Eärendil’s star, set amid the waters of my fountain. It will shine still brighter when night is about you. May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out. Remember Galadriel and her Mirror!’Frodo took the phial, and for a moment as it shone between them, he saw her again standing like a queen, great and beautiful.”

“He left soon afterwards, leaving her alone in the dark room, illuminated time to time by shocking leaps of heat lightning, and she thought, now it will rain, and it never did, and she thought, now he will come, and he never did. She lighted cigarettes, letting them die between her lips, and the hours, thorned, crucifying, waited with her, and listened as she listened: but he was not coming.”

“The Queen has been guillotined, accused of crimes beyond imagining. Last night she appeared to me in a dream, handing me her head.”

“To follow Beauty even when she shall lead you to the verge of the precipice; and though she is winged and you are wingless, and though she shall pass beyond the verge, follow her, for where Beauty is not, there is nothing;”