LotR -- Book 1 - Chapter 11 - A Knife in the Dark

[Hilde Bracegirdle]

'…But long before, in the first days of the Northern Kingdom, they built a great watch-tower on Weathertop. Amon Sûl they called it. It was burned and broken, and nothing remains of it now but a tumbled ring, like a rough crown on the old hill's head. Yet once it was tall and fair. It is told that Elendil stood there watching for the coming of Gil-galad out of the West, in the days of the Last Alliance.'

This is also a passage that made the story come alive for me, granted not at the first reading. But I can picture it vividly, and wonder if Gandalf also looked to the West for Frodo, before he was otherwise occupied.

EDIT: Rereading this post, the way the ruin is discribed as being like a rough crown, is a bit like Aragorn himself, untidy and yet significant.