Quotation from: The Little Lady of the Big House

Written by: Jack London

And yet, he was just turned forty was clear-eyed, calm-hearted,
hearty-pulsed, man-strong; and yet, his history, until he was thirty,
had been harum-scarum and erratic to the superlative. He had run away
from a millionaire home when he was thirteen. He had won enviable
college honors ere he was twenty-one and after that he had known all
the purple ports of the purple seas, and, with cool head, hot heart,
and laughter, played every risk that promised and provided in the wild
world of adventure that he had lived to see pass under the sobriety of
law.