Welcome again to Lent with Niggle. This is the fourth installment. Did you miss the first, second, or third installment? No problem, here are the links:
Lent with Niggle – First Installment
Lent with Niggle – Second Installment
Lent with Niggle – Third Installment
You have not read the story yet? Again, no problem. Read it for free here:
J.R.R. Tolkien: Leaf by Niggle
As far as the story line goes, here is where we are at in this fourth week of Lent:
Niggle goes on his final journey and ends up in the ‘Workhouse’, given that he comes equipped with – well, nothing, in fact. There he is left alone for the most part and has to follow instructions on every aspect of his existence. This existence, once he has recovered from his illness, consists in work and rest, all by himself with no time outside, and all windows pointing inward.
Being Niggle – that is to say, a man who would be inclined to much distraction, ‘niggling’ away his time by obsessing about details and worrying about all kinds of things – his Workhouse time teaches him, very slowly, to plan the work and work the plan, as they say. He learns to be quite useful and efficient, to pick up and put down a work at the ring of a bell, and to stop fretting about anything and everything. In short, it teaches him how to become master of his time as well as his thoughts. Thus, Niggle learns to derive a degree of satisfaction from his productivity – “bread instead of jam.“
Finally, after a short episode of exceedingly exhausting, mindless labor, Niggle is ordered to rest completely. Lying on his bed in the dark, he becomes aware of a conversation going on, seemingly nearby. New Voices are talking – about him:
‘Now the Niggle case,’ said a Voice, a severe voice, more severe than the doctor’s.
‘What was the matter with him?’ said a Second Voice, a voice that you might have called gentle, though it was not soft – it was a voice of authority, and sounded at once hopeful and sad. ‘What was the matter with Niggle? His heart was in the right place.’
‘Yes, but it did not function properly,’ said the First Voice. ‘And his head was no screwed on tight enough: he hardly ever thought at all. Look at the time he wasted, not even amusing himself! He never got ready for his journey. He was moderately well off, and yet he arrived here almost destitute, and had to be put in the paupers’ wing. A bad case, I’m afraid. I think he should stay some time yet.’
‘It would not do him any harm, perhaps,’ said the Second Voice. ‘But, of course, he is only a little man. He was never meant to be anything very much; and he was never very strong. Let us look at the Records. Yes. There are some favorable points, you know.’
‘Perhaps,’ said the First Voice; ‘but very few that will really bear examination. (…) It is your task, of course, to put the best interpretation on the facts. Sometimes they will bear it. What do you propose?’
‘I think it is a case for a little gentle treatment now,’ said the Second Voice.
Niggle thought that he had never heard anything so generous as that Voice. It made Gentle Treatment sound like a load of rich gifts, and a summons to a King’s feast. Then suddenly Niggle felt ashamed. To hear that he was considered a case for Gentle Treatment overwhelmed him, and made him blush in the dark. (…) Niggle hid his blushes in the rough blanket.
There was a silence. (…)
‘Well, I agree,’ Niggle heard the First Voice say in the distance. ‘Let him go on to the next stage. Tomorrow, if you like.’

What we see in this part of the story is Niggle’s time in Purgatory, and a sort of judgment at the end of it. The punishment fits the crime – having been a niggler in life who endlessly worried and fretted about things in his thoughts and complained – mostly under his breath – about his lot, he has to learn how to use his time and his thoughts well. A bit of laziness also needed to be weeded out, it would seem. And while he had been reasonably ‘well endowed’ when he started out, he ended up completely unprepared when his time came: He was spiritually destitute. All this proves that life offered Niggle lessons he did not learn, and opportunities he did not take. He ended up worse off than necessary, apparently.
But while life in the Workhouse is far from easy or pleasant for Niggle, it teaches him all those lessons he missed in life, preparing him for the next stage. Had he been more deliberate in life, one gets the impression his time in the Workhouse would have been both shorter and less disagreeable, if not been avoided it altogether. Of course, it also could have been much worse.
All this the Voices reflect on. To me, they represent two qualities of God, if you will: The First Voice represents the Just God, the Second Voice the Merciful God. It is our free choice in life which of them we wish to meet first and foremost when our time comes, as we learn from St. Faustina.
If this does not make us think…