The Patience of the Ents

In J. R. R. Tolkien's The Two Towers, the ancient tree-creatures called Ents have a saying that stops Pippin cold: "I am not going to be hasty." Treebeard, their eldest, explains that Ents never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say — and they take days, sometimes longer, simply to decide whether a thing is worth doing.…