A brief list of things JRRT thought were too short:

  • The Lord of the Rings. Reporting the opinion of fans
  • Out of the Silent Planet, when he was trying to persuade a publisher to pick it up.
  • A letter to Christopher. Who hasn’t closed a letter this way?
  • “Farmer Giles of Ham”. I agree completely.
  • Hobbit legs. No argument here, unless I were contracting with one to dig a hole.
  • Time

That last one is by far the dominant use of the phrase in LotR. Everyone from Bilbo to Aragorn uses it. That’s consistent with a story about the end of the Third Age, just before all the faerie elements departed. It’s also how the phrase is used in “The Fall of Arthur”.

For verification, the phrase “too short” does not appear in The Silmarillion. Elves never think time is too short, unless a mortal is there to remind them. Smith of Wootton Major caught the attitude from them, so the phrase doesn’t appear in his story either.

Curiously, the phrase doesn’t seem to be in “Leaf by Niggle”. (I don’t have an electronic copy of that story so I can’t be sure.) Perhaps it’s because Niggle never knew how short his time was actually going to be.