The Silmarillion makes the elves seem more human

[Helkasir]

Elve sto me were always Immortal Humans, eternally youthful and always happy. Sincemy first introduction to tolkien was that Hobbit, I got my first impression of elves by that song in rivendell th Bilbo heard as they entered. You know, "Oh where are you goin', with beards all a waggin'," and I saw them more as a Cherubic race. The Sil changed that view, obviously, but when I look at it I get this feeling that elves don't have a large amount of children, So in the 1st age they were perhaps filled with more fire, that burns away eventually to a cold ember. I always thought of elves as more powerful in the first age; which I still believe they were. The sil made me seem them as super humans, where as LOTR made me see them as elderly wise ones.