When I first read that statement, I connected it to the earlier claim in the text that 'The “War of the Rings” is, as it were, a breaking out again of the “Wars of the Jewels”, though in a different mode.' But on thinking about it again, I'm inclined to link it to a different part of the text:
Quote:
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The Silmarils were made by Feänor, greatest of the Elves, and chief of all craftsmen, originally with no motive but the making of beauty. [...] For Feänor became obsessed with love of these jewels, his “own works”, and guarded them jealously, seldom permitting anyone else to look at them.
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The Silmarils
began as a work of pure beauty; but they
became obsessively possessed, jealously guarded, "symbols and instruments of power" that had to be controlled. The Rings, from the Three to the One, fell into the latter category from the start - they may have been beautiful, but their purpose was power. Is it going too far to say that, in a world where the One was never forged, the Three might have been worn openly as symbols of their wielders' authority? If their intended bearers were Celebrimbor, Galadriel, and Gil-Galad, that's a potent show of the Might of the Noldor.
hS