From Tolkien's THE BOOK OF LOST TALES.

Iluvatar, the Creator, contemplates men and elves, which he calls Eldar or fairies in this early work, a sort of rough draft for the Silmarillion.

"'Behold I love the world, and it is a hall of play for Eldar and Men who are my beloved. But when the Eldar come, they will be the fairest and most lovely of all things by far; and deeper in the knowledge of beauty, and happier than Men. But to Men I will give a new gift, and a greater.' Therefore he devised that Men should have a free virtue whereby within the limits of the powers and substances and chances of the world they might fashion and design their life beyond even the original Music of the Ainur that is as fate to all things else."

A little further...

"Now Iluvatar knew that Men set amid the turmoils of the Ainur would not be ever of a mind to use that gift in harmony with his intent, but therein he said, 'These too in their time shall find that all they have done, even the ugliest of deeds or works, redounds at the end only to my glory, and is tributary to the beauty of my world.' Yet the Ainur say that the thought of Men is at times a grief even to Iluvatar; wherefore if the giving of that gift of freedom was their envy and amazement, the patience of Iluvatar at its misuse is a matter of the greater marvelling to both Gods and Fairies."

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