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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: concrete, actual, and so far as Alden could see, wholesome. It did
not make Jean despise his present life. On the contrary, it
appeared to lend a zest to it, as an interesting episode in the
career of a nobleman. He was not restless; he was not discontented.
His whole nature was at once elated and calmed. He was not at all
feverish to get away from his familiar existence, from the woods and
the waters he knew so well, from the large liberty of the unpeopled
forest, the joyous rush of the great river, the splendid breadth of
the open sky. Unconsciously these things had gone into his blood.
Dimly he felt the premonitions of homesickness for them all. But he
was lifted up to remember that the blood into which these things had
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