Hobbit Feet

[Tinuviel87]

In my obsessive Tolkien research, I have come across something that has been nagging at me. From all the evidence (in books) that I have found, nowhere does it say or show that Hobbits have excessively large feet. In the picture drawn by Tolkien at the very end of The Hobbit, "The Hall at Bag End, Residence of B. Baggins Esquire" Bilbo has rather average looking feet. Also, in letter 25, "To the Editor of the Observer" Tolkien says,

And I protest that my Hobbit did not live in Africa and was furry, except about the feet. Nor indeed was he like a rabbit. He was a prosperous, well-fed young bachelor of independent means...deliberate insults to his size and feet, which he deeply resented. His feet, if conviently clad and shod by nature, were as elegant as his long, clever fingers.

This is the closest thing I found to a description of Hobbit feet, if I have missed something please let me know.
Anyhow, if I am correct in my thinking that Tolkien never intended for Hobbits to have abnormally large feet, then I wonder where this notion is derived from, considering that now we commonly associate Hobbits with large feet.
I would deeply aprreciate any evidence from the Letters or any Tolkien works to prove me right or wrong...I sort of liked the idea of Hobbits with big feet...
~Tinuviel

[ April 23, 2003: Message edited by: Tinuviel87 ]