Barbarius quoted The Space Trilogy by C. S. Lewis
Lewis was a very impressionable man, and this was abetted by his great generosity and capacity for friendship. The unpayable debt that I owe to him was not 'influence' as it is ordinarily understood, but sheer encouragement. He was for long my only audience. Only from him did I ever get the idea that my 'stuff' could be more than a private hobby. But for his interest and unceasing eagerness for more I should never have brought The Lord of the Rings to a conclusion. We neither of us expected much success as amateurs, and actually Lewis had some difficulty in getting Out of the Silent Planet published. And after all that has happened since, the most lasting pleasure and reward for both of us has been that we provided one another with stories to hear or read that we really liked - in large parts.
J.R.R. Tolkien
— The Space Trilogy by C. S. Lewis (Page 720)
This afterword, presented without further comment, is the last text on the last page of this book, and it is such a beautiful honouring of friendship between two writers who simply enjoyed each other's stories.
