Will someone assist me in answering the first question below? Once I figure out an answer for the first question, I should be able to answer the other two.
"Hobbits are an unobtrusive but very ancient people, more numerous formerly than they are today; for they love peace and quiet and good tilled earth: a well-ordered and well-farmed countryside was their favorite haunt. They do not and did not understand or like machines more complicated than a forge-bellows, a water-mill, or a hand-loom, though they were skillful with tools. Even in ancient days they were, as a rule, shy of 'the Big Folk,' as they call us, and now they avoid us with dismay and are becoming hard to find. They are quick of hearing and sharp-eyed, and though they are inclined to be fat and do not hurry unnecessarily, they are nonetheless nimble and deft in their movements. They possessed from the first the art of disappearing swiftly and silently, when large fol whom they do not wish to meet com blundering by; and this art they have developed until to Men it may seem magical. But Hobbits have never, in fact, studied magic of any kind, and their elusiveness is due solely to a professional skill that heredity and practice, and a close friendship with the earth, have rendered inimitable by bigger and clumsier races."
Q: Why do you suppose the Hobbits were more numerous in ancient times than today? What then is the author philosophically saying about people and their environment? What subtle inferences are made about man?
A: ?
5 answers
A: Hobbits were more numerous in ancient times than today because they love peace and quiet and farmland. Today, much farmland has been taken over by streets, highways, malls, office buildings and houses. A lot of our peace and quiet is gone. The author is thus philosophically trying to get a point of human domination over nature across. In addition, the author makes several subtle inferences about man by referring to humans as "The Big Folk" and "bigger and clumsier races."