An Englishman goes home to escape restraint: an Italian goes out.

But the northern man, who lives much in public, learns as a child to conceal what he feels, to be silent, to wear an indifferent look; whereas the man of the south, who hides nothing when the doors of his house are shut, can hide but little when he meets his enemy in the way.

He laughs when he is pleased, and scowls when he is not, threatens when he is angry, and sheds tears when he is hurt, with a simplicity that too often excites the contempt of men accustomed to suffer or enjoy without moving a muscle.
Privacy favours the growth of individual types, differing widely from each other; the destruction of it makes people very much alike.
Marcello's mother asked herself whether she had done well in rearing him as a being apart from those amongst whom he must spend his life.
And yet, as she looked at him, he seemed to be so nearly the ideal of which she had dreamt throughout long years of loving care that she was comforted, and the shadow passed away from her sweet face.

He had answered that she could do nothing that was not right; she prayed that his words might be near the truth, and in her heart she was willing to believe that they were almost true.

Had she not followed every good impulse of her own good heart?
Had she not tried to realize literally for him the most beautiful possibilities of the Christian faith?
That, at least, was true, and she could tell herself so without any mistaken pride.