Living by faith includes the call to something greater than cowardly self-preservation.

People remember Longfellow wrote Hiawatha, quite forget he was a Professor of Modern Languages!

Bilbo saw that the moment had come when he must do something.

Evidently we look so much alike that your desire to make an incurable dent in my hat must be excused.

Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!" “But no living man am I!

Each of us embodies, in a particular tale and clothed in the garments of time & place, universal truth and everlasting life.

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it. And he is bound up with the fate of the Ring. My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many - yours not least.