Thank you,
Mithadan, for nudging this meandering/maundering thread back on track.
I've said most of what I have to say about the Arkenstone up in post #
77, but I think I concur with
Leaf and
Inzil that Bilbo's love for beautiful things, together with the stone's own enchantment, was quite enough motivation for him to take it. Let's also not forget that the whole treasure - including, if I'm not very mistaken, the Arkenstone - had long been lain on by a dragon, and a dragon's hoard has a glamour that fascinates and awakes covetousness even more than 'normal' gold, does it not?
You know, I find that the whole scene of Bilbo taking the Arkenstone reminds me a bit of Pippin taking the palantír of Orthanc from Gandalf. Two hobbits, two stones wrought with great art in days long past, one scintillating with light, the other dark, but glowing with a heart of fire. And both hobbits grab the shiny mystery, even though both know they shouldn't. Was it just the Took in Bilbo that made him take the Arkenstone?
Now as for keeping the stone secret even after Thorin had claimed it for himself, I originally thought that quite suspicious behaviour, but
Galadriel55 made a valid point that Thorin was showing increasing signs of dragon gold madness at that time, and Bilbo may have been (rightly) afraid that Old Oakenshield would blow up in his face if he learned that Bilbo had found the stone and said nothing. And I think it's fair to assume that Mr Baggins hadn't remained totally untouched by the treasure's glamour himself, as
Mithadan already said.
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Iviriniel, as for Tolkien's first drafts for LotR: it's a while since I read
The Return of the Shadow, Vol. 6 of of
The History of Middle-earth, in which they're all published, but IIRC he started with Bilbo leaving Bag-End for more adventures but no clear idea what these would be. One idea was that Bilbo had used up all his gold and was looking for more, driven by the dragon sickness, but he (=JRRT) found that idea unsatisfying. At some point he decided that the hero wouldn't be Bilbo himself but a younger relative of his (long named Bingo but finally renamed Frodo), accompanied by some of his friends/cousins who also went through some wild name changes, but he still had no idea what the adventure would really be about.
At that point, I think, he sat down to consider which motives he hadn't used up in TH, and, ending up with the Necromancer and the r/Ring, jotted down a note (some time in late '37/early '38, but don't pin me down on it): "The ring - where does it come from? Necromancer?" As we know, that was a fruitful idea, and everything started to gel. He first cnsidered the ring harmless if used for good purposes, but harmful if kept too long, but by and by the ring became the Ring, the One, ash nazg durbathulűk,
Once that was clear, the original version of TH Chapter 5, where Gollum was willing to give Bilbo the Ring, became, of course, untenable, because the Prof's conception of Gollum's character had changed and he realized that Gollum could never have given up his precious. So the original Ch. 5 was explained as being a cover-up by Bilbo. Only in the 1966 edition of TH, IIRC, was that chapter told as it was now, after the change, conceived to have really happened, with Gollum planning to murder Bilbo and "Thief! Baggins! We hates it forever!"
Does that answer any of your questions?
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(x-ed with
Gal55; our dogs are bonkers tonight.)