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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Europeans by Henry James: quietly cogitative habit observed to himself, that curiosity,
pushed to a given point, might become a romantic passion;
and he certainly thought enough about this charming woman
to make him restless and even a little melancholy. It puzzled
and vexed him at times to feel that he was not more ardent.
He was not in the least bent upon remaining a bachelor.
In his younger years he had been--or he had tried to be--
of the opinion that it would be a good deal "jollier" not to marry,
and he had flattered himself that his single condition was something
of a citadel. It was a citadel, at all events, of which he had
long since leveled the outworks. He had removed the guns from
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