An American novelist, William Faulkner once wrote “You cannot swim for new horizons, until you lose sight of the shore”, or in Bilbo’s case, the shire. The elderly hobbit went from comfortable to courageous literally overnight. It all began, of course, with stepping over the threshold of his circular door, and embarking on a voyage that would change his life forever. Shortly after that thrill, he encountered hunger, thirst, exhaustion, pain, trolls, goblins, spiders, and finally, a dragon of colossal proportions inside of a mountain filled with gold. And, after all of that excitement, this brave little gentleman had the guts and resolution to speak to the dragon, steal its most valuable possession, and escape with his friends, victorious and a changed man. In the life of the average young adult, courage is made up of speaking to a class of other young adults, not to speak of a dragon. Bilbo’s courage, unexplainable though it appears, gives him the clear and admirable presence of a true