He had been tied with so short a rope in his youth that he had now a mortal grudge against family discipline.

He had been known to say, within the limits of the family, that, light-headed as he was, the honor of the name was safer in his hands than in those of some of it's other members, and that if a day ever came to try it, they should see.

His talk was an odd mixture of almost boyish garrulity and of the reserve and discretion of the man of the world, and he seemed to Newman, as afterwards young members of the Latin races often seemed to him, now amusingly juvenile and now appallingly mature.

In America, Newman reflected, lads of twenty-five and thirty have old heads and young hearts, or at least young morals; here they have young heads and very aged hearts, morals the most grizzled and wrinkled.
"What I envy you is your liberty," observed M.de Bellegarde, "your wide range, your freedom to come and go, your not having a lot of people, who take themselves awfully seriously, expecting something of you.

I live," he added with a sigh, "beneath the eyes of my admirable mother." "It is your own fault; what is to hinder your ranging ?" said Newman.
"There is a delightful simplicity in that remark! Everything is to hinder me.