Hmm, good questions. First I should add that the actual quote reads:
'increased her latent desire for the Sea and for return into the West.'
I find various problematic issues with both
Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn and
The Elessar, and we know that not every idea within these two texts survived revision (noting again, in Tolkien's defense, both are not exactly finished and polished texts), but maybe something else is said that can support this idea?
I don't recall any mention of the ring in RGEO at least, although the following sequence is a
highly compressed account of course: at the end of the First Age Galadriel is banned and replies that she has no wish to sail West -- she passes from Lindon to Eregion and...
Quote:
'But it was impossible for one of the High Elves to overcome the yearning for the Sea, and the longing to pass over it again to the land of their former bliss. She was now burdened with this desire. In the event, after the fall of Sauron, in reward (...) and she returned over the Sea, as is told at the end of The Lord of the Rings.'
See also Appendix F 'Of the Elves', where the yearning for the Sea was an unquiet never to be stilled in the hearts of the Exiles.
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Galadriel's problem here appears to be that she is one of the Tareldar. In note 5 to CG&C (which looks at various notes on the names of Lórien) it is noted:
'... deliberately echoing the name of the golden tree that grew in Valinor, 'For which, as is plain, Galadriel's longing increased year by year to, at last, an overwhelming regret.' But it is also said that Galadriel endeavoured to make Lórien an island of peace an beauty, a memorial of ancient days, and that she was:
'filled with regret and misgiving, knowing that the golden dream was hastening to a grey awakening.'
Perhaps Tolkien meant diminished in measure? in other words, wielding Nenya increased her joy (and that of other Elves), as she could have the power to echo the West in some measure and halt the
swift fading in Middle-earth, from an Elvish perspective... but still it came with a price: a relative diminishing of that joy because Nenya yet increased her desire for the 'real thing', and (ultimately) a growing knowledge that what she had gained would yet be lost.
It's an interesting question. If other passages might connect to this I hope people post them. There might be something else here, in a letter maybe? or
The Lord of the Rings itself perhaps? but I can't think of anything at the moment. Certainly we know the great effect when the Three lose their potency.
This all said,
as yet I'm not convinced I need to go beyond Galadriel's status as High Elven and one of the Etyañgoldi -- and a banned Exile at that -- to explain her growing desire for the Sea (note this factor within the Celeborn from Aman notion too, considering that he did not sail with Galadriel in any event). And Lórien's ultimate fading is already one price (for example) for using Nenya.
Anyway, is CG&C the sole source of this 'great' power of Nenya upon Galadriel?