"Worldling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the mysteries of the west wing. This is my world; downstairs I am a different creature—taciturn, harsh, and prone to sarcasm. Ask Mr. Drummond what he thinks of me; but I never could endure a good young man—especially that delicious compound of the worldling and the saint—like the Reverend Archibald. See here, my dear: here I am never captious or say ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... began talking to Freda; he was so kind and so natural even in his loudness, that Freda felt as if she would rather trust him with every secret of her heart, than the polished worldling who had ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... disgusting experience an urgent desire of promotion sprang up in his breast. This fighter by vocation resolved in his mind to seize showy occasions and to court the favourable opinion of his chiefs like a mere worldling. He knew he was as brave as any one and never doubted his personal charm. It would be easy, he thought. Nevertheless, neither the bravery nor the charm seemed to work very swiftly. Lieutenant Feraud's engaging, careless truculence ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... an entertaining companion, polished in manners, refined, intelligent, highly educated and witty; but a mere worldling, caring for the pleasures and rewards of ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... know, that our greatest men can also be our best men, and that freedom of thought is not incompatible with sincere religion. Those who knew Bunsen well, know how that deep, religious undercurrent of his soul was constantly bubbling up and breaking forth in his conversations, startling even the mere worldling by an earnestness that frightened away every smile. It was said of him that he could drive out devils, and he certainly could, with his solemn, yet loving voice, soften hearts that would yield to no other appeal, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... cares and quiv'ring fears, Anxious sighs, untimely tears, Fly, fly to courts, Fly to fond worldling's sports; Where strain'd sardonic smiles are glozing still, And Grief is forced to laugh against her will; Where mirth's but mummery, And sorrows ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... shameless. I came to pay my respects to a philosopher, and I find a sordid worldling. Look at me! I am a man of the largest needs, spiritual and physical, yet I make my pittance of four hundred and fifty suffice, and never grumble. Perhaps you aim at an income equal ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... with an abundance of good-nature, was simply a man of his time, troubled with no scruples that stood in the way of his success. Margaret, with a finer nature than either of them, stifling her scruples in an atmosphere of worldly-mindedness, was likely to go further than either of them. Even such a worldling as Carmen understood this. "I do things," she said to Mrs. Laflamme—she made anybody her confidant when the fit was on her—"I do things because I don't care. Mrs. Henderson does the same, but she ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... certain exaggerations of design characteristic rather of the period than the man—notably with the two figures to the left of the foreground. The Christ in His meekness is too little divine, too heavy and inert;[37] the Pontius Pilate not inappropriately reproduces the features of the worldling and viveur Aretino. The mounted warrior to the extreme right, who has been supposed to represent Alfonso d'Este, shows the genial physiognomy made familiar by the Madrid picture so long deemed to be his portrait, but which, as has already been pointed out, represents much more probably ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... to enjoy molasses-candy pulls and popcorn around the big open fire on Saturday nights, or impromptu masquerades, when the school raided the trunks in the attic for costumes. After a few weeks' time, the most spoiled little worldling lost her consciousness of calls outside of "bounds," and surrendered to the spirit of the ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... accomplishments, but when I questioned her as to her treatment of the negroes in general belonging to the estates, would say little on the subject, and shook her head; in it was plain that, like most females living in the south, she was a pampered worldling, entirely engrossed by principles of self-interest, and little regarding the welfare of her dependents, if not, as I have before observed, very severe towards them. She died prematurely, from the effects of one of those ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... afterwards William. For this Drake calls him "a meer worldling and an odious time-server." He is said, however, to have exacted an oath from William that he would rule Normans and Saxons alike. Afterwards he excommunicated William for disregarding his oath, but William is said to have bought ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock
... "As he must suffer in case of the fall of merchandize, he is entitled to the corresponding gain if merchandize rises."—Wayland's Moral Science, p. 258. "He is the worshipper of an hour, but the worldling for life."—Maturin's Sermons, p. 424. "Slyly hinting something to the disadvantage of great and honest men."—Webster's Essays, p. 329. "'Tis by this therefore that I Define the Verb; namely, that it is a Part of Speech, by which something is apply'd ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... faithful attachment to the scapegrace seemed to preserve her from the particular regrets Captain Welsh supposed to occupy her sinner's mind; so that, after some minutes of the hesitation and strangeness due to our common recollections, she talked of him simply and well—as befitted her situation, a worldling might say. But she did not conceal her relief in escaping to this quaint little refuge (she threw a kindly-comical look, not overtoned, at the miniature ships on the mantelpiece, and the picture of Joseph leading ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... but a worldling! And think, good Lord, if that this world is hell, What wonder if poor souls whose lot is fixed here, Meshed down by custom, wealth, rank, pleasure, ignorance, Do hellish things in it? Have mercy, Lord; Even for my sake, and ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... sufficient to bar him forever from polite society. For what he gazed upon was not the lovely Pinky of other days, but a very fat, untidy, ugly black woman in a calico Mother Hubbard dress. The face, while good-natured, was wrinkled with age and dissipation; indeed, worldling that he was, Mr. Gibney saw at a glance that Pinky had grown fond of her gin. From the royal lips a huge ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... To see no other verdure than its own; To feel no other breezes than are blown Through its tall woods with high romances blent: Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment For skies Italian, and an inward groan To sit upon an Alp as on a throne, And half forget what world or worldling meant. Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters; Enough their simple loveliness for me, Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging: Yet do I often warmly burn to see Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing, ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... with them the day before the first Newmarket meeting. He had a soft spot for Sylvia, always saying to Lennan as he went away: "Charmin' woman—your wife!" She, too, had a soft spot for him, having fathomed the utter helplessness of this worldling's wisdom, and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... often the case that the true humility of Christ is not understood. It was not in having a low opinion of his own character and claims, but it was in taking a low place in order to raise others to a higher. The worldling seeks to raise himself and family to an equality with others, or, if possible, a superiority to them. The true follower of Christ comes down in order ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... millions and Lazarus his rags. The poor man is as rich as the richest and the rich man is as poor as the pauper. The creditor loses his usury and the debtor is acquitted of his obligation. The proud man surrenders his dignity, the politician his honors, the worldling his pleasures. James Nelson Burnes, whose life and virtues we commemorate to-day, was a man whom Plutarch might have described and Vandyke portrayed. Massive, rugged and robust, in motion slow, in speech serious and deliberate, grave in aspect, serious in demeanor, ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... the godless, make it most natural to take it as here referring to the final close of the probation of life. That conclusion appears to be strengthened by the contrast which in subsequent verses is drawn between this 'end' of the worldling, and the poet's hopes for himself of divine guidance in life, and afterwards of being taken (the same word as is used in the account of Enoch's translation) by God into His presence and glory—hopes whose exuberance it is hard to confine within the limits of any changes ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... entertainments and magnificence of the great city. Everybody was flattering him and spoiling him, she was sure. Was he not looking to some great marriage, with that cunning uncle for a Mentor (between whom and Laura there was always an antipathy), that inveterate worldling, whose whole thoughts were bent upon pleasure and rank and fortune? He never alluded to—to old times, when he spoke of her. He had forgotten them and her, perhaps had he not forgotten other ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of whom he had not a few, brought various charges against him. It was said that he was a worldling with an undue leaning to notabilities. And indeed in every gathering, social or ecclesiastical, the track of the Dean's conversation sufficiently indicated the relative importance of the persons present. Others declared ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... are a transport to the soul if we take them as they are, but that become a torment and an abomination if we water them down. And it is just because Christianity itself is so distinctive, so outstanding, so boldly pronounced a thing, that we insist on its being unadulterated. Even a worldling feels that a Christian, to be tolerable, must be out and out. The man who waters down his religion is like the shivering bather who, feeling the cold, cold waters tickling his toes, cannot muster up the courage to plunge; he is like the man ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... creation; and if it be not sanctioned by God, do you expect to hear truth? Can events be foretold, events which have not yet assumed a body to become subject to mortal inspection, can they be foreseen by a vicious worldling, who pampers his appetites by preying on ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... The metropolitan worldling struck a match and held it up. This was on the order of strategy. He wished to see Banneker's face. To his relief it did not look angry or even stern. Rather, it appeared thoughtful. Banneker was considering impartially the matter of ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... until the erratic Magdalena sought for itself a new channel, was the chief port between Barranquilla and the distant Honda. There had been neither family custom nor parental hopes to consider among the motives which had directed him into the Church. He was a born worldling, but with unmistakable talents for and keen appreciation of the art of politics. His love of money was subordinate only to his love of power. To both, his talents made access easy. In the contemplation of a career in his early years he had hesitated ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... undervalue the sterling worth of the genuine Christian, because it is blended with some obvious, or even some glaring incongruities. Let us equally beware of attributing undue value to the good qualities of the worldling, and thus annihilate the distinction between the natural and ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... and lingering seeks thy shrine On him but seldom, power divine, Thy spirit rests! Satiety And sloth, poor counterfeits of thee, Mock the tired worldling. Idle hope And dire remembrance interlope To vex the feverish slumbers of the mind: The bubble floats ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... returned to our hotel rooms I explained the matter to her. I do not remember now where I had acquired my own sinful knowledge, but that night I faced "Aunt Susan" from the pedestal of a sophisticated worldling. ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... him in these thoughts, and the decision was firmly made—a worldling became a servant of the church;—the young artist took leave of the world, ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... knew no bounds. Fancying Thurnall a merely mean and self-interested worldling, untouched by those higher aspirations which stood to him in place of a religion, he imagined him making every possible use of his power; and longed to escape to the uttermost ends of the earth from his old tormentor, whom the very sea would not put ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... worldling as ever sought to hide his emotions; but he could not suppress an exclamation of rapture, nor an expression of triumph, which lit up his face as nothing had ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... was her self-armour against the bolts of the Philistines. What worldling would not have read mania in much that was spoken by this sane woman? Yet, indeed, if we were all to find the power to give expression to our inmost thoughts, madness and sanity would have to change places in ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... She then, with characteristic earnestness and affection, inquires after her sister's spiritual state. "Oh if you are a child of God, how great is your happiness; you can think of death without fear. The troubles and griefs of life do not distress you as they do the poor worldling, who looks only to the enjoyments of this life for comfort. If a Christian, you have sweet foretastes of that joy which is unspeakable and inconceivable by mortals. Though a sinner still, you feel that your sins are pardoned, ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... Yes, and not only was that final victory thus won by Him, but He arrived at it by a path full of the conflicts which threaten faith. He "endured the contradiction of sinners against Himself" (ver. 3). Year by year, day by day, from the Pharisee, from the worldling, from the leaders of religion, from the inconstant crowd, He had "contradiction" to endure—sometimes even from "the men of His own household." He was challenged to prove His claims; He was insulted over His ...
— Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews • Handley C.G. Moule
... no false entrapping baits, To hasten too, too hasty Fates, Unless it be The fond credulity Of silly fish, which worldling like, still look Upon the bait, but never on the hook; Nor envy, unless among The birds, for ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... how it blooms in the blear dayfall, That flower of passionate wistful song! How it blows like a rose by the iron wall Of the city loud and strong. How it cries "Nay, nay" to the worldling's way, To the heart's clear dream how it whispers, "Yea; Time comes, though ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... first of all into touch with the problem of life rather than the solution. If the gentle, patient words of the saint are the utterance of one who has suffered, so also are the bitter protests of the disappointed worldling. The fashion of the experience may be the same in each case. It is faith that makes the lesson different. It is a want of faith that makes us expect the lower in life to explain the higher, the outward ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth
... put in sharply. Listening, she had started to mock, the cynic and worldling being hot in her, but, looking at the speaker, somehow, she ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... II.'s grand falconer, who was doubtless a personage of no small social rank. Vesalius was well off in worldly things; somewhat fond, it is said, of good living and of luxury; inclined, it may be, to say, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," and to sink more and more into the mere worldling, unless some shock should awake him from ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... scope in life. She had read her Carlyle and Ruskin, and in her calling she was an enthusiast. But, in the words of the Elizabethan poet, she was perhaps 'unacquainted still with her own soul.' She imagined herself a Radical; she was in truth a tyrant. She preached Ruskin and the simple life; no worldling ever believed more fiercely in the gospel of success. But, let it be said promptly, it was success for others, rarely or never for herself; she despised the friend who could not breast and conquer circumstance; as for her own case, there were matters much more interesting to think of. ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... worldling craves, And greatness need ambitious knaves, The lover of his maiden raves; O Lord! I ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... of the Corinthian offender is much in point, as showing how the strict discipline of the Church must have availed to make Christianity unpopular with the mere worldling. ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... qualities; his probable motives for now behaving as he was doing, and the influence of the present tragedy upon his future as a painter. It would either destroy him or it would be the fire out of which he would rise a master; he would degenerate into a heartless worldling, which he might very well do, for he was fond of society, or he might become a gloomy recluse, and produce pictures which the multitude would never know were painted with tears and blood. "Of course, I don't mean literally; the idea is rather disgusting; ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... be abandoned because they are not full-realised; and, were we in stern mood, it would be possible to declare that this lady had abandoned them more definitely than her poet had, since he at all times was frankly a worldling. Witty as she has become, there still remain in her, I fear, some traces of the poor pretty thoughtful thing. . . . To sum up, for this "tear" also we have but semi-sympathy; and Browning is again not at his best when he makes the ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... And as I let myself criticize, I saw more clearly. The scales fell from my eyes. I realized that I had been nothing less than blind in regard to Marcus Harding. I saw him now as he was, a victim of egomania, a worldling, tyrannical, falsely sentimental, and unfaithful steward, a liar—perhaps even an unbeliever. His whole desire—I knew it now—was not to be good, but to be successful. His charity, his pity for the poor, his generosity, his care for his ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Confident of the favor and protection of God, and rooted in His love, they despise all pain and the threats of men; and in the midst of the battle of life they rejoice in a peace of mind and soul of which the worldling cannot dream. The pasture in which they feed, the banquet of which they partake are nothing else than the love and friendship of God which nourishes and refreshes their spirits when to every mortal eye they seem destitute, abandoned and ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... in black, no one would have recognized the notorious Lia d'Argeles, who, only the evening before, had driven round the lake, reclining on the cushions of her victoria, and eclipsing all the women around her by the splendor of her toilette. Nothing now remained of the gay worldling but the golden hair which she was condemned to see always the same, since its tint had been fixed by dyes as indelible as the ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... Etherington. "Since we are condemned to shock each other's eyes, it is fit the good company should know what they are to think of us. You are a philosopher, and do not value the opinion of the public—a poor worldling like me is desirous to stand fair with it.—Gentlemen," he continued, raising his voice, "Mr. Winterblossom, Captain MacTurk, Mr.—what is his name, Jekyl?—Ay, Micklehen—You have, I believe, all some notion, that ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... starry wing, that canst not soar, Confused power, still seeking, still unblest; For ever clutching to a braggart breast The hope portentous and the worldling's lore. Furiously futile, with a raucous roar Thy dizzy moments mock th' eternal quest; To feverish ends, by factions fierce distrest, Toiling, ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... death-beds and skulls; the angel is to be developed by vituperating this world and exalting the next; and by this double process you get the Christian—"the highest style of man." With all this, our new-made divine is an unmistakable poet. To a clay compounded chiefly of the worldling and the rhetorician, there is added a real spark of Promethean fire. He will one day clothe his apostrophes and objurgations, his astronomical religion and his charnel-house morality, in lasting verse, which will stand, like ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... deal it was not because she was the daughter of a rich man. To her, however, he seemed to be posing as a conqueror of heiresses, indifferent to the pain he might inflict upon any girl silly enough to be captivated by his good looks and good manners,—a breaker of tacit engagements, and a wicked worldling. So she rose very stiffly, and said that she neither knew nor cared to know what he meant, and was obliged to leave him, and so went away, and left him extremely puzzled and disconcerted by the behavior of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... are no false entrapping baits To hasten too too hasty fates Unles it be The fond credulitie Of silly fish, which, worldling like, still look Upon the bait, but never on the hook; Nor envy, 'nless among The birds, for price of ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton
... true Christian cannot mourn long; and as the tears of agony would force themselves down her cheek, and her feelings almost overpower her, she flew to her bible and in its gracious promises to the afflicted, found that support and consolation, the mere worldling can neither judge of, nor taste. Some delay, though no actual doubt, as to ultimately obtaining her pension, had caused inconvenience, as all their ready money had been absorbed in the alterations of their house, though they had observed the utmost economy, ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... free city its wayward exiles. France, in her distress, has found an asylum here for its helpless nobles and expelled philosophers. I willingly take my hat off to brave little Switzerland, where Royal Duke, proscribed patriot, mad enthusiast, bold agnostic, and tired worldling can all find an inviolate asylum under the majestic shadows of its mountains—by the shores of its dreaming lakes!" Alan Hawke dropped suddenly from the clouds as the practical Miss Genie led the way to the breakfast rendezvous, cheerfully demonstrating her own bold ideas of social ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... 1811, the year of his marriage,[M] to that of his death, in 1852, she received from him the continual homage of a lover; away from her, no matter what were his allurements, he was ever longing to be at home. Those who love as he did wife, children, and friends will appreciate, although the worldling cannot, such commonplace sentences as these:—"Pulled some heath on Ronan's Island (Killarney) to send to my dear Bessy"; when in Italy, "got letters from my sweet Bessy, more precious to me than all the wonders I can see"; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... to the world as his portion, and that man has chosen the Saviour as his: but, in point of fact, he who has chosen the inferior object prosecutes it with the greater zeal. The superior energy of the worldling in the acquisition of gains is employed to rebuke the Christian for his slackness in winning the true riches. This is the main lesson of ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... from the eyes of worldlings because they understand not the spiritual things of God, nor see how we can find peace in this bitterness which so repels those whose only thought is of themselves, and of their own pleasures. In very truth," our Blessed Father continued, "the worldling may notice in the rosebed of religion only the loveliness of the flowers, and the sweetness of their perfume, but these conceal many a thorn. The crosses of community life are hidden because the sisters of this congregation have by interior mortification to make up ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... listen, and drink, and admire, and think there is no bliss beyond it. But when the eager eyes grow dim, and the ears are dulled, and the taste has departed, the tired heart demands rest, and the world has none for it. A worn-out worldling, whom the world has ceased to charm, is one of the most ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... CONSTANTINE. 2. To the emperor—a mere worldling—a man without any religious convictions, doubtless it appeared best for himself, best for the empire, and best for the contending parties, Christian and pagan, to promote their union or amalgamation as much as ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... when, as more often happens, a man disbelieving in reason and out of humour with his world, abandons his soul to loose whimseys and passions that play a quarrelsome game there, like so many ill-bred children. Nevertheless, compared with the worldling's mental mechanism and rhetoric, the sensualist's soul is a well of wisdom. He lives naturally on an animal level and attains a kind of good. He has free and concrete pursuits, though they be momentary, and he has sincere satisfactions. ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... exasperating. It was fresh enough too in men's memory that the Earl in his Netherland career had affected sympathy with the strictest denomination of religious reformers, and that the profligate worldling and arrogant self-seeker had used the mask of religion to cover flagitious ends. As it had indeed been the object of the party at the head of which the Advocate had all his life acted to raise the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... diplomacy, been consoled for worldly disadvantages, and been a good and even uxorious husband. But she evidently did not love him, though an admirable, patient, provident wife; and her daughter did love him—love him as well even as she loved her mother; and the hard worldling would not have accepted a kingdom as the price of that little fountain of pure and ever-refreshing tenderness. Wise and penetrating as Lumley was, he never could thoroughly understand this weakness, as he called it; for we never know men entirely, ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... whom he serves, and of that perfect law he obeys. Little as they may love the ways of religion in their own secret hearts, they cannot help confessing that there is a God, and that they ought to serve him. But a worldling, and still more, an unfaithful Christian, just helps people to forget there is such a Being, and makes them think either that religion is a sham, or that they may safely go on despising it. I have heard it said, Ellen, that Christians are the only Bible some people ever read; ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... on top, which he said Mistress Hortense had brought back as of the latest French fashion. The blackamoor drew close the iron shutters; for, though those in the world must know the ways of the world, worldling practices were a sad offence to New England. Shoving the furnishings aside, M. Picot picked from the armory rack two slim foils resembling Spanish rapiers and prepared to give me my lesson. Carte and tierce, low ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... fourteen. The philosophy of obedience and of the subjection of reason to authority was early taught him, and he sought to live from within, hearing only the divine law, as the worshipers of Cybele heard only the flutes. His twin brother Eustace was an active worldling, and soon he followed him to court as page to the Queen, but delighted more and more in wandering apart and building air castles. For a time he was entirely swayed, and his life directed, by a Jesuit Father, who taught him the crucifix and ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... "it has a pathetic air of loneliness—pathetic and yet not exactly sorrowful. It knows nothing but its own pure, brave, silent life. It is only pathetic to a worldling—worldlings like us. How fallen we must be to find a life desolate because it has only ...
— Lodusky • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... her dress and appearance a very worldling—and even braver in looks and apparel than many he had seen in the cities—seemed, in spite of all his precautions, to have fallen short of the hotel and been precipitated upon him! Yet under the influence of some odd abstraction he was affected by it less than he could have believed. ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... enough, in the story of the Countess of Essex's sordid crime. Donne's temper at the time is still clearly that of a man of the world. His jest at the expense of Sir Walter Raleigh, then in the Tower, is the jest of an ungenerous worldling. Even after his admission into the Church he reveals himself as ungenerously morose when the Countess of Bedford, in trouble about her own extravagances, can afford him no more than L30 to pay his debts. The truth is, to be forty and a failure is ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... when his privacy was invaded by some patronizing, loud-voiced nouvelle-riche with a low-bred physiognomy that no millions on earth could gild or refine, and manners to match; some foolish, fashionable, would-be worldling, who combined the arch little coquetries and impertinent affectations of a spoilt beauty with the ugliness of an Aztec or an Esquimau; some silly, titled old frump who frankly ignored his tea-making wife and daughters ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... experience of old Jocunda, and the downright way with which she sometimes spoke of things as a trooper's wife must have seen them, were repressed and hushed, down, as the imperfect faith of a half-reclaimed worldling,—they could not be allowed to awaken her from the sweetness of so blissful a dream. In like manner, when Lorenzo Sforza became Father Francesco, he strove with earnest prayer to bury his gift of individual reason in the same grave with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... conflicts and buffetings of the enemy, wrought in him a great purity of heart, and prepared him for most extraordinary heavenly communications. The conversion of count Oliver, or Oliban, lord of that territory, added to his spiritual joy. That count, from a voluptuous worldling, and profligate liver, became a sincere penitent, and embraced the order of St. Benedict. He carried great treasures with him to mount Cassino, but left his estate to his son. The example of Romuald had also such an influence on Sergius, his father, that, to make ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... it a rotten place," said the elderly worldling. "I wouldn't live in it myself for twenty thousand ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... the gay courtier and worldling sneered at the religion of market women and scullerymaids, he had little cause to scoff when he met the Protestants {208} in debate at the town hall of his city, or ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... guilty of any offence. The prosperous man of the world, who thinks himself entitled to use all his own for his own sole gratification, will hear of these things with incredulity, and pity Ellis and Nash as enthusiasts, who foolishly sacrifice themselves for a whim; but we greatly doubt if the worldling's proudest or most luxurious hour gives one-half the true satisfaction which these men enjoy in the midst of their ragged adherents, under the blessed hope of rescuing them from destruction in this ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various
... may believe, who are fully conscious of the reasons why Shakespeare could fill the Elizabethan pit with the rough London apprentices and the Elizabethan boxes with superfine gallants and courtiers; why he has been a delight equally to the worldling, to whom always "the play's the thing," and to the sedate scholar, who has perchance never set foot in a theatre, and to whom a play is a dramatic poem printed in a book. Yet the reason is simple. It is because Shakespeare's gifts are numerous ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... little gratuitous. But, no, no, you didn't mean; it any way, I can make allowances. Ah, did you but know it, how much pleasanter to puff at this philanthropic pipe, than still to keep fumbling at that misanthropic rifle. As for your worldling, glutton, and coquette, though, doubtless, being such, they may have their little foibles—as who has not?—yet not one of the three can be reproached with that awful sin of shunning society; awful I call it, for not seldom it presupposes a still ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... come and find me standing From the worldling's joy apart, Outside of its mirth and folly, With ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... intellectually individual as Hugo or Charlotte Bronte? Mark Twain would yield to the spirit of contempt which destroys parody. All those who hate authors fail to satirise them, for they always accuse them of the wrong faults. The enemies of Thackeray call him a worldling, instead of what he was, a man too ready to believe in the goodness of the unworldly. The enemies of Meredith call his gospel too subtle, instead of what it is, a gospel, if anything, too robust. And it is this vulgar misunderstanding ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... one to overstate the possibilities of sanctification in his eager grasp after holiness, than to understate them in his complacent satisfaction with a traditional unholiness. Certainly it is not an edifying spectacle to see a Christian worldling throwing stones ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... these things with supreme tenderness. It was here that Marian had lived for so many months—alone most likely for the greater part of the time. He had a fixed idea that the man who had stolen his treasure was some dissipated worldling, altogether unworthy so sacred a trust. The room had a look of loneliness to him. He could fancy the long solitary hours in this ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... the forest pines In the name of the Highest called to prayer, As the muezzin calls from the minaret stair. Through ceiled chambers of secret sin Sudden and strong the light shone in; A guilty sense of his neighbor's needs Startled the man of title-deeds; The trembling hand of the worldling shook The dust of years from the Holy Book; And the psalms of David, forgotten long, Took the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... a tumult of emotions as were the hearts of two women whom he left behind him. Yet the idea of emotion on his aunt's part would never have occurred to him; and of the other, he knew nothing. Countess Caroline was past mistress in the worldling's art of subtle, refined, undiscoverable patronage, snobbery, indifference—insult if you will. With apparently exactly the same quiet voice and manner, she could warm the soul of a Royal Duchess with ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... worldling, who is beginning to aspire towards higher things, the saint, such as a sweet St. Francis of Assisi, or a conquering St. Anthony, is a glorious and inspiring spectacle; to the saint, an equally enrapturing sight is that of the sage, ...
— The Way of Peace • James Allen
... Torrens was three-doors off his father's Baronetcy and Pensham Steynes. This may have had its weight with Juliet. Miss Dickenson candidly admitted that she herself would have been influenced; but then, no doubt she was a worldling. Mr. Pellew admired the candour, discerning in it exaggeration to avoid any suspicion of false pretence. He did not suspect himself of any undue leniency to this lady. She was altogether too passee to ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... foresight of that misery, attendant on a life of debauchery, which is, in fact, the offspring of prodigality, our author has, in the scenes before us, attempted the reformation of the worldling, by stopping him as it were in his career, and opening to his view the many sad calamities awaiting the prosecution of his proposed scheme of life; he has, in hopes of reforming the prodigal, and at the same time deterring the rising generation, whom Providence may have ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... whose dangerous knowledge was being tasted, as a novelty, yet by them. Inwardly he smiled at the susceptibilities of the youths he came across; he saw mirrored in them the youth of every other corner and nationality of the globe. Worldling though he was, he was capable of very wise reflections, and was given to moralizing in a sort of way. He never made it a premeditated point to draw any unschooled youth into wrong; he did not seek to make any innocent one the victim ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... not asked for churches and services; they really do not care for anything of the kind—whether they ought is another matter. If the clergy choose to supply them, that is well and worthy. But they should understand their relation to the impenitent worldling, which is precisely that of a physician without a mandate from the patient, who may not be convinced that there is very much the matter with him. The physician may have a diploma and a State certificate authorizing him to practise, but if the patient do not ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... Cross warmed to the young sinner; and it required no great effort of the wily Stevens to win from him the history, not only of all its own secrets and secret hopes—for these were of but small value in the eyes of the worldling—but of all those matters which belonged to the little village to which they were trending, and the unwritten lives of every dweller in ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... more than that," thought the astute worldling. "Alain's widow has a face for tragedy, the address of an ingenue, and the tout en semble ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... man whom the time makes great, By some disgrace of chance or blood, God fails not to humiliate; Not these: but souls, found here and there, Oases in our waste of sin, Where everything is well and fair, And Heav'n remits its discipline; Whose sweet subdual of the world The worldling scarce can recognise, And ridicule, against it hurl'd, Drops with a broken sting and dies; Who nobly, if they cannot know Whether a 'scutcheon's dubious field Carries a falcon or a crow, Fancy a falcon on the shield; Yet, ever careful not to hurt God's honour, who creates success, Their ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... and aristocratic character to their name. The "de Fontanges l'Hommadieu" were, however, only known to their neighbors, after the Western fashion, by their stepfather's name,—when they were known at all—which was seldom. For the boy was unpleasantly conceited as a precocious worldling, and the girl as unpleasantly complacent in her role of ingenue. The household was completely dominated by Mrs. Randolph. A punctilious Catholic, she attended all the functions of the adjacent mission, and the shadow of a black soutane at twilight gliding through the wild ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... seeks thy shrine, On him but seldom, Power divine, Thy spirit rests. Satiety, And sloth, poor counterfeits of thee, Mock the tired worldling. Idle Hope, And dire Remembrance, interlope, And vex the feverish slumbers of the mind: The bubble floats before: the spectre stalks ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... we came to a mosque, where he entered and prayed a two-bow prayer; after which he said, 'O my God and my Lord and Master, the secret that was between me and Thee Thou hast discovered unto Thy creatures and hast brought me to shame before the worldling. How then shall life be sweet to me, now that other than Thou hath happened upon that which is between Thee and me? I conjure Thee to take my soul to Thee forthright.[FN471] So saying, he prostrated himself, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... pernicious excess: I am sure, at least, that I was unable to keep pace with him." With Shelley study was a passion, and the acquisition of knowledge was the entrance into a thrice-hallowed sanctuary. "The irreverent many cannot comprehend the awe—the careless apathetic worldling cannot imagine the enthusiasm—nor can the tongue that attempts only to speak of things visible to the bodily eye, express the mighty emotion that inwardly agitated him, when he approached, for the first time, a volume which he believed to be replete with the recondite ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... party is dull, from a mere worldling's point of view. But it's a glorious field for the student of human nature. And here's an opportunity for exceptional research—something quite off the beaten track. The admirer of you and all your works is the lovely Miss Craven, and I assure ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... charming wife. For eight months in the year they lived at Vore, not unvisited by Philosophers; for four they kept open house in Paris. Both were good natured, charitable, and benevolent. Among the Philosophers Helvetius held the place of the rich and clever worldling, so often found in ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... pearl and two diamonds. Esperance, who had never had any jewellery except a gold chain that her mother's aunt had left her and the little ring her father had given her for her first communion, found herself, in one day, possessor of two ornaments which the most fastidious worldling would not have disdained. She put the ring immediately on her first finger, since it was a little loose for the ring finger, and looked at herself in the glass, arranging a lock of hair with the ringed hand, raising an eyebrow and laughing delightedly ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... late and lingering seeks thy shrine, On him but seldom, Power divine, 10 Thy spirit rests! Satiety And Sloth, poor counterfeits of thee, Mock the tired worldling. Idle Hope And dire Remembrance interlope, To vex the feverish slumbers of the mind: 15 The bubble floats before, the spectre ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... great speculation had fail'd; And ever he mutter'd and madden'd, and ever wann'd with despair; And out he walk'd, when the wind like a broken worldling wail'd, And the flying gold of the ruin'd woodlands drove thro' ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... within Red with free chase and heather-scented air, Pulsing full man; can Arthur make me pure As any maiden child? lock up my tongue From uttering freely what I freely hear? Bind me to one? The wide world laughs at it. And worldling of the world am I, and know The ptarmigan that whitens ere his hour Woos his own end; we are not angels here Nor shall be: vows—I am woodman of the woods, And hear the garnet-headed yaffingale Mock them: my soul, we love but while we may; And therefore is my love ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... also read "Lear" and "Henry VIII," and being delightfully ignorant I had the great interest of reading the same period (Henry VIII) in Holinshed, and in finding Katharine's and Wolsey's speeches there! Then I have tried a little Ben Jonson and Lord Chesterfield's letters. What a worldling, and what a destroyer of a young mind that man was. Can you tell me how the son turned out? I cannot find any information about him. The language is delightful, and I wish I could remember any of his expressions.... ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... work and invention, imagination and aspiration have been bestowed upon us, in order that we may fulfil these things. For what do these qualities, as a whole, betoken? Not the conqueror, not the statesman, not the worldling, and not the man of business; it is a narrow and trivial misuse of all faculty for us to pretend to represent these types among the nations. They betoken the labourers of the spirit; and far as we are from being a nation ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... shores of Christianity to the beggarly elements of the world can do so only on the transporting barges of Satan. As a tree is known by its fruits, so is a true follower of Christ. The fruit borne by a Christian is directly opposite in its nature to the fruit borne by the worldling. It is not the profession merely that produces the separation, but it is the manner of life. The Son of God is the great exemplar of Christianity. Just what true Christian principles did in him will in the very nature of things do for all ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... to Gilian, was a vault, a cavern of melancholy, with only the flicker of the coal to light it up in patches. These old men sighing were its ghosts or hermits, and he himself a worldling fallen invisible among their spoken thoughts. To him the Cornal no longer spoke directly; he was thinking aloud the thoughts alike of the General and himself—the dreams, the actions, the joys, the bitterness of youth. He sat back in his ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... recognised by France, Spain, Scotland, Sicily, and Cyprus; Urban VI, in Rome, by Italy, Austria, and England. The County Venaissin was ravaged by wars and the pests that come in their train. At length the Avignonnais, who had not enjoyed greater peace under their anointed rulers than under worldling Counts, rose against Pierre de Luna, the "Anti-pope" Benedict XIII, who fled. From that time no Pontiff entered the gates, and the city was administered by papal legates. In later days, in spite of the sacred character of its rulers and his own undoubted orthodoxy, Louis XIV seized Avignon several ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... you were to oblige me to attend your sermons, as you have compelled me to read your pamphlet, the congregation would never believe that a man powdered and adorned like any worldling, could be in the right against a man dressed out in a large hat, with straight hair,* and a mortified countenance, although the gospel, speaking of the pharisees of other times, who were unpowdered, says that when one fasts he must ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... when godly persons mingle freely with the impious,—especially if this intercourse originates from mere motives of ambition or worldly expediency,—the former will be much more ready to sink to the level of the worldling than to raise the worldling ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... He had been petted and admired by women during the ten years of his widowhood, favoured and a favourite everywhere. He had made up his mind deliberately to marry this penniless girl. Looked at from a worldling's point of view, it would seem, at the first glance, an utterly disadvantageous alliance: but Dr. Rylance had an eye that could sweep over horizons other than are revealed to the average gaze, and he told himself that so lovely a woman ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... the fulness of my heart, agree with those that speak in favor of Messer Simone dei Bardi. It is the native, intimate, and commendable wish of a man to abolish his enemies—I speak here after the fashion of the worldling that I was, for the cell and the cloister have no concern with mortal passions and frailties—and Messer Simone was in this, as in divers other qualities, of a very manly disposition. He thought in all honesty that it would be very good for him to be the ruler of Florence, ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... that there are but a few jokes which they may tolerate, and a small number of delights into which they may enter. Doubtless many a cheerful soul likes to meet such of the clergy, in order that the worldling may feel the contrast of liberty with bondage, and demonstrate by bombardment of wit and humor, how intellectually thin are the walls against which certain forms of skepticism and fun offend. Eugene Field did not belong to these. He called them "a tribe which do unseemly ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... wrote "The Virginians." On the south side of the Square there is a row of three-storied brick houses. Thackeray lived in one of these houses for nine years. They were the years when honors and wealth were being heaped upon him; and he was worldling enough to let his wants keep pace with his ability to gratify them. He was made of the same sort of clay as other men, for his standard of life conformed to his pocketbook and he ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... and for her company, for indeed she is a daughter of Heth and hath the portion of her people, is heiress to the Earl of Monteith, and whaso-ever marries her will succeed to what money there is and will be an earl in his own richt. A fine prize for an avaricious and ambitious worldling. ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... pleasant to walk in the garden, and many of the guests did so. The Abbe took his daily walk there even when it rained. He might have been the host by his manner, and was certainly the ruling spirit. Even Legrand seemed a little afraid of him and treated him with marked respect. The Abbe was a worldling, a lover of purple and fine linen and of the people who lived in them; he was therefore especially attentive to Jeanne St. Clair, knowing that she belonged to one of the noblest families in the land. With him Jeanne took her daily walk in the garden, and had little need to say much, for ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... secret to a soul—not even to Susan. Nobody but Robert ever knew the reason for the journey to Plymouth. His interpretation of God's designs turned out to be nearer the truth than that of his father; for Susan, the worldling, as Michael thought her to be, became a devoted wife, and made Robert a happy husband to the end ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... new acquaintance, and not one to interest you. We only meet in the Lord; I do not visit Albion Villa; her mother is an amiable worldling." ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... contributions. It was a cent contribution, and we found it very difficult, under the contagious influence of the hum from the Amen corner, not to rise and go forward and deposit a cent. If anything could extract the pennies from a reluctant worldling, it would be the buzzing of this tune. It went on and on, until the house appeared to be drained dry of its cash; and we inferred by the stopping of the melody that the preacher's salary was secure for the time being. On inquiring, we ascertained ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to these in happiness, and not even those splendid years of childhood that grow brighter as they recede were more full of delights. The delights are simple, it is true, and of the sort that easily provoke a turning up of the worldling's nose; but who cares for noses that turn up? I am simple myself, and never tire of the blessed liberty from all restraints. Even such apparently indifferent details as being able to walk straight out ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim |
