Why is Renan unable to confide in his mother despite his "tender regard," and what does this specific inability reveal about the nature of the challenges he faces?

From the book

ecollection of the peaceful, happy life which I had led year after year. I had been happy, and I had been poor with her. A thousand details of this very poverty, which absence made all the more touching, searched out my very heart. At night I was always thinking of her, and I could get no sleep. My only consolation was to write her letters full of tender feeling and moist with tears. Our letters, as is the usage in religious establishments, were read by one of the masters. He was so struck by the tone of deep affection which pervaded my boyish utterances that he showed one of them to M.…

o much time with her every day. He often said that a man's worth is to be measured by the respect he pays to his mother. He gave us excellent advice upon this head which I never failed to follow, as, for instance, never to address her in the second person singular, or to end a letter without using the word respect . This created a connecting link between us. My letter was shown to him on a Friday, upon which evening the reports for the week were always read out before him. I had not, upon that occasion, done very well with my composition, being only fifth or sixth. "Ah!" he said, "if the…

ove had absorbed in me all the other affections of which I was capable, and which God did not bring into play within me. Moreover, there existed between my mother and myself many ties arising from a thousand impalpable details which can be better felt than described. This was the most painful part of the sacrifice which God required of me. I have hitherto only spoken to her about Germany, and that is enough to make her very unhappy. I tremble to think of what will happen when she knows all. Her tender caresses go to my very heart, as do her plans for my future, of which she is ever talking to…

detract from anything like breadth of view, and fetter the independence. Beule often used to banter me upon this score. He was somewhat attached to me, and was anxious to render me a service, though I had not done the equivalent for him. Upon a certain occasion I voted against him in favour of some one who had been very ill-natured towards me, and he said to me afterwards: "Renan, I shall play some mean trick upon you; out of impartiality you will vote for me." While I have been very fond of my friends, I have done very little for them. I have been as much at the disposal of the public as of…

nd this after having just left my mother, my native Brittany, and a life gilded with so many pure and simple affections. Here I am alone in the world, and a stranger to it. Good-bye for ever to my mother, my little room, my books, my peaceful studies, and my walks by my mother's side. Good-bye to the pure and tranquil joys which seemed to bring me so near to God; good-bye to my pleasant past, good-bye to those faiths which so gently cradled me. Farewell for me to pure happiness. The past all blotted out, and as yet no future. And then, I ask myself, will the new world for which I have…