Amory’s return to Princeton demonstrates how much he has matured. Returning to the site of the happiest point of his youth, he is able to feel nostalgia while not wanting to relive what he experienced there. Amory, for the first time, recognizes that his time has passed, and that the new generation of students will find their own ways to reject tradition. His final assertion of self-knowledge demonstrates that his quest to become a “personage” is (at least partially) complete.