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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: when Emile Blondet stayed at Les Aigues, one of those houses which are
never seen but in parts of France where stone is scarce. Bits of
bricks picked up anywhere, cobblestones set like diamonds in the clay
mud, formed very solid walls, though worn in places; the roof was
supported by stout branches and covered with rushes and straw, while
the clumsy shutters and the broken door--in short, everything about
the cottage was the product of lucky finds, or of gifts obtained by
begging.
The peasant has an instinct for his habitation like that of an animal
for its nest or its burrow, and this instinct was very marked in all
the arrangements of this cottage. In the first place, the door and the
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