'Perhaps', 'Not yet', and 'almost' -- Rereading The Lord of the Rings Fifty Years On

Nowadays I hear people say they are waiting for their Hogwarts letter, which usually is already quite overdue since their eleventh birthday is long gone. I didn't miss my Hogwarts letter. At eleven I got The Lord of the Rings, which suits me far better. 

In The Shadow of the Past we encounter two very telling passages about Frodo just as we begin to get to know him as Bilbo's heir and the Mr. Baggins of Bag End.

For some years he was quite happy and did not worry much about the future. But half unknown to himself the regret that he had not gone with Bilbo was steadily growing. He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams. He began to say to himself: ‘Perhaps I shall cross the River myself one day.’ To which the other half of his mind always replied: ‘Not yet.’

            FR 1.ii.42 (emphasis mine)

 and:

He did not tell Gandalf, but as he was speaking a great desire to follow Bilbo flamed up in his heart– to follow Bilbo, and even perhaps to find him again. It was so strong that it overcame his fear: he could almost have run out there and then down the road without his hat, as Bilbo had done on a similar morning long ago.

            FR 1.ii.62 (emphasis mine)

''Perhaps', 'Not yet' and 'almost'. He thinks of crossing the river and going in search of adventures some day, but doesn't. He burns to follow Bilbo at once, but doesn't. This is Frodo all over, at least to start with. Bilbo knew full well that Frodo's love for the Shire outweighed even his love for him or whatever fantasies of adventure he had cherished at uncle Bilbo's side. In the end it is not -- as we see -- the desire to follow Bilbo, but the desire to save the Shire that moves Frodo to cross that river. When he finally does so, given the mythological resonance of 'crossing the river on a ferry' and given that his parents drowned in this very river, Frodo in a sense dies there and then. For he dies to the Shire. It may be Sam who gazes back across the Brandywine as if leaving 'his old life behind in the mists' (FR 1.v.99), but he will return and reclaim that life. Frodo will not.