"Worldling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... under the sculptor's thumb, the face of the century becomes transformed and insensibly loses its seriousness; the formal expression of the courtier at first becomes the cheerful physiognomy of the worldling, and then, on these smiling lips, their contours changed, we see the bold, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... there! Ideals need not 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 ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... person, so sweet in disposition, with so pure and saint- like an expression, should be in this dark and heathenish condition! But there was infinite comfort in the thought that this precious soul to be saved had fallen into her hands, and not into those of some worldling like Miss Starbrow herself, or, worse still, of a downright freethinker like her own daughter. After having made her first survey of Fan's mind, finding nothing there except that queer farrago of Scripture lessons which had never been explained to her, and were now nearly forgotten, it ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... light of my old friend's fine cold symmetry they presented mere success in amusing as the refuge of conscious ugliness. Already, at hungry twenty-six, Gravener looked as blank and parliamentary as if he were fifty and popular. In my scrap of a residence—he had a worldling's eye for its futile conveniences, but never a comrade's joke—I sounded Frank Saltram in his ears; a circumstance I mention in order to note that even then I was surprised at his impatience of my enlivenment. As he had never before heard of the ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... Heaven instructed through earth's mute, symbolic forms, Drinking wisdom with his senses, which the higher nature warms; Saw that purer knowledge mingled with the worldling's base alloy, And the passions' foul impression stamped upon his face ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... 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 ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... 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 and talked to him only—and only about her grotesque and ugly self—and ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... not all riches and joy, however. The Master has told us that we shall have "much tribulation." What then? Are we worse off than the unbelievers? Do they escape the tribulation? It is easy to prove that the Christian has the advantage of the worldling, for, while both have worries and tribulation without fail, the one has a little joy along with these—nay, much joy if you choose—which, however, will end with life, if not before; while the other has joy unspeakable and full of glory, ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... tops of 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 place ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... apparent indirectness of such a tale as that of 'Poticoushka,' the peasant conscript, is of vastly more value to the world at large than all his parables; and 'The Death of Ivan Ilyitch,' the Philistine worldling, will turn the hearts of many more from the love of the world than such pale fables of the early Christian life as "Work while ye have the Light." A man's gifts are not given him for nothing, and the man who has the great gift of dramatic ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... ambiguity. "That is easily said. You are a priest, I am a worldling; what to you would mean but little, to me would be the rending of the core of life. My father can not undo what he has done; he can not piece together and make whole the wreck he has ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... 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
... pleasanter companion. She quickly carried the conversation into the past, and was content to be a listener; indeed, with a hostess far removed in type from herself it was the only safe role to play. The conversation was full of pitfalls for this charming and dutiful worldling, and Rachael was too clever to ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... 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
... parents—urged a dissolute and anaemic aristocrat—blue blood and a gold lining. Her grandfather, a strong unsilent sheep-rancher, was against this inept decadent and converted to his view that saintly worldling, the gorgeous Cardinal Camperioni. A neo-futurist of the most bizarre type prances through the pages upon his head, causing enough "tumult" to satisfy any one. So why drag in Pan? Miss VALLINGS can tell a story, cannot keep down the volume of her ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 1, 1919 • Various
... "eye hath 459:3 not seen nor ear heard." Paul and John had a clear apprehension that, as mortal man achieves no worldly honors except by sacrifice, 459:6 so he must gain heavenly riches by forsaking all worldli- ness. Then he will have nothing in common with the worldling's affections, motives, and aims. Judge not the 459:9 future advancement of Christian Science by the steps already taken, lest you yourself be condemned for fail- ing to take ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... 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 a Juggernaut made of gold and jewels, ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... that a mere sense of the beautiful will often confer the clearest perceptions of the real nature of moral excellence. You may hear the devoted worldling, or the selfish sensualist, giving the highest and most inspiring lessons of self-renunciation, self-sacrifice, and devotedness to God. Their lessons, truthful and impressive, because dictated by a keen and exquisite perception ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... 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 ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... 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, And float with ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... If it is my wife you are laughing at, Uncle Philip, let me tell you this is the wrong place. I'd rather a thousand times have her as she is, than armed with the cunning and suspicions of a hardened old worldling like you." ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... it please God to remove her also, but a 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, and demands were made which they had ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... such a lover of pleasure as herself. Her cousin said, "Oh, Mary, give up the world for my sake. I am lost! Oh, Mary, give it up!" Soon she died, poor girl, just awakened enough to see and feel herself hopelessly lost—a dying worldling. No one was near to point her to the Saviour, so she departed as she had liked to live, without salvation. Mary wept at the remembrance of that solemn scene, and said she could never forget it. "Well," I said, "and ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... nothing more than warm friend. Once for a moment he tried to believe that his feeling was merely a desire for her spiritual good, that his attitude was that which it was proper for a priest to feel toward a beautiful and frivolous worldling; but the pretense was too ghastly, and he abandoned it with a shudder of disgust. He had moments, too, when he said to himself frankly, in defiance or in sorrow as the mood might be, that he loved her; but for the most part he tried to keep the assumption of ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... in some lull of life, Some Truce of God which breaks its strife, The worldling's eyes shall gather dew, Dreaming in throngful city ways Of winter joys his boyhood knew; And dear and early friends—the few Who yet remain—shall pause to view These Flemish pictures of old days; Sit with me ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... 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 Mary with her babe on the ass) from ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to see a worldling die. As I went into the hall I saw its floor was tessellated, and its wall was a picture-gallery. I found his death-chamber adorned with tapestry until it seemed as if the clouds of the setting sun had settled in the room. The man had given forty years to the world—his wit, his ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... 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, and see with one look ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... 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 atonement for his past sins ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... 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 to ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... nothing to say when the soul hath spoken all! What need of words in the passionate and early intercourse of love! There is no oral language that can satisfy or meet the requisitions of the stricken heart. Speech, the worldling and the false—oftener the dark veil than the bright mirror of man's thoughts—is banished from the spot consecrated to purity, unselfishness, and truth. The lovely and beloved Ellen learnt, before a syllable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... an eye To speculation and the worldling's dreams; Others, who seek from nature no reply, Nor read the ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... develop into a hard-headed, practical man of the world or a successful man of business. You are keen and shrewd. The world is a very matter-of-fact thing to you. You cannot think of anything else beyond money-making and pleasures and worldly affairs. You are a "worldling of the world," very clever, rich, and a master along your own lines. But spiritually you are an imbecile, worse than a baby. This is the Objective Mind—the "deepest immersed in matter, literally made of the dust." "It is the brain of ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... and again," cries the soul, "O thou miserable halfhearted shallow worldling!" And the creature tries again, and, doing better, gets a very slight warmth about the heart; and, doing it again, gets a little comfort, and so, gradually progressing in the way of true love which is all giving, ...
— The Romance of the Soul • Lilian Staveley
... 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 ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... himself the Son of Man, and the Son of God, the Brother of the Faithful. From this declaration came the brotherhood and sisterhood of the church of Christ, so that no matter what be the rank or position of the worldling redeemed by the blood of Christ, he becomes an equal shareholder in love, and is recognized as a partaker in the fellowship of ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... But after this 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 ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... stand ready to sustain the truth." This is a maxim worthy Dr. Johnson; but the experience of life shows that such high moral independence is rare. Most men will speak out, and even vindicate the truth, sometimes. But the worldling will stand mute, or evade its declaration, whenever his interests are to be unfavorably ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... he is not the one to say it, for no three years of my life can come up 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 of doors without first getting into a hat and ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... work and care and turmoil, make it possible for people to be their true selves and to know each other. To-day we had discovered that Nature reveals herself only to the open mind and heart; to all others she is deaf and dumb. The worldling who seeks her never sees so much as the hem of her garment; the egotist, the self-engrossed man, searches in vain for her counsel and consolation; the over-anxious, fretful soul finds her indifferent and incommunicable. We may seek her far and wide, with minds intent upon other things, ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... and that, were it sanctioned by God, it would disturb the order established in 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 the ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... has a long history behind him on which we cannot now enter at any length. As a child, the little worldling, it was observed, took much after his secular father, but much more after his scheming mother. He was already a self-seeking, self-satisfied youth; and when he became a man and began business for himself, no man's business ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... is lean and blanched and grey-haired. She wears gold spectacles, which stand out oddly against the thin whiteness of her face; she is still a handsome, distinguished woman, who can have, when she chooses, a most gracious manner. As I, worldling and jester though I am, for some mysterious reason have found favour in the lady's eyes, she manifests this graciousness whenever we foregather. Ergo, I like Lady Kynnersley, and would put myself to much inconvenience in order to ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... 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, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... 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
... time-passer, giving to the world the result of tired brain and over-wrought nerves; consequently, I sacrificed inclination to necessity, and have left my muse alone. However,"—and he was once more the worldling,—"I have reserved to myself the right to criticise; and when I see a young man of talent enter the field of letters, I conclude he is like a man about to marry, either a great hero or a ...
— The Writer, Volume VI, April 1892. - A Monthly Magazine to Interest and Help All Literary Workers • Various
... Heaving between this World and Worlds beyond, Don Juan, when the midnight hour of pillows Arrived, retired to his; but to despond Rather than rest. Instead of poppies, willows Waved o'er his couch; he meditated, fond Of those sweet bitter thoughts which banish sleep, And make the worldling ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... 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
... 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 ...
— 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
... 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 ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... 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 which we find in most parody—which we find in all American ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... worldling dare to say: "For them why should we grieve? But paupers—came they to our shores, Want, sickness, death to leave?" Each active arm, jail of power and health, And each honest heart was ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... her 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
... asked May, while the indignant blood flushed her cheeks, and her impulse to say something sharp and mortifying to the young worldling's pride, was strong within her; but she thought of the mild and lowly Virgin, and the humility of her DIVINE SON, and added, in a quiet tone, "Uncle Stillinghast will certainly expect you to ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... position he now occupies. There is a decided incongruity between Theodore as a man—as Theodore, in fine—and the dear fellow as the intellectual agent, confidant, complaisant, purveyor, pander—what you will—of a battered old cynic and dilettante—a worldling if there ever was one. There seems at first sight a perfect want of agreement between his character and his function. One is gold and the other brass, or something very like it. But on reflection I can enter into ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... 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 possible. Even sincere Christians do not seem to have been ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... carriage, capacious in intellect, erudite as a Benedictine, agile as an Acrobat, daring as Scaevola, persuasive as Alcibiades, skilled in all manly pastimes, familiar with the philosophies of the scholar and the worldling, an orator, a musician, a courtier, a linguist,—such was the celebrated Cagliostro. In his abilities, he was as capricious as Leonardo, and as subtle as Macchiavelli; but he was without the magnanimity of the one, or the crafty prudence ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... like bread; While factious heads with open coil And force, first make, then share, the spoil; To Horeb then Elias goes, And in the desert grows the rose. Hail crystal fountains and fresh shades, Where no proud look invades, No busy worldling hunts away The sad retirer all the day! Hail, happy, harmless solitude! Our sanctuary from the rude And scornful world; the calm recess Of faith, and hope, and holiness! Here something still like Eden looks; Honey in woods, ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... Paradoxus all these qualities are displayed in their greatest perfection. How exquisitely does that work arrest and embody the undefined and vague shadows which flit over an imaginative mind. The cold worldling may not comprehend it; but it will find a response in the bosom of every youthful poet, of every enthusiastic lover, who has seen an Ornithorhynchus Paradoxus by moonlight. But we were yet to learn that he possessed the comprehension, the judgment, and the fertility of mind indispensable ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the life of an unpretending Christian man, whose highest aim was to discharge his duties, as such, in the position in which God had placed him, I am aware there is nothing particularly interesting, or congenial, to the feelings or taste of the worldling. By "the worldling" I mean a man, or woman, who—perhaps without deliberately weighing things as they exist, and regardless of the future—is content with the short-lived pleasures and advantages of this world. But I cannot better describe the worldling than in the language of ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... 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 ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton
... 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 that during his long tenure ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... broiling."—Webster's Dict. "Beef'steak, s. a slice of beef for broiling."—Treasury of Knowledge. "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 to another, as to its Subject."—Johnson's ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... myself cannot believe in their actual occurrence. For three years I was the victim of a diabolical delusion, and every night—God grant it was a dream—I, a poor country priest, led the life of the lost, the life of the worldling and the debauchee. A single chance of too great complacency went near to destroy my soul; but at last, with God's aid and my patron saint's, I exorcised the evil spirit which had gained possession of me. Till then my life was double, and the counterpart by night was utterly ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... sweet wine, and gleaming gems of many a lovely hue: and they 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 ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... I'm all out of my element. I don't mind the work so much as I do the people. They despise me as a worldling, and I don't like being despised." For the moment, it was the old Phebe who was speaking. "Don't tell," she begged. "I'd rather die than have them know it at home. How long are you going ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... great services; he was heir presumptive to a marquisate, so long as his uncle, Lord Dagnall, now past seventy, did not take it into his head to marry; and there was his brilliant career at Oxford, his good looks and all the rest of it. Constance had a strong dash of the worldling in her mixed character. She had been brought up with Italian girl friends of the noble class, in whom the practical instincts of a practical race were closely interwoven with what the Englishman thinks of as Italian "romance" or "passion." She had ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 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 ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... the happy possessor of this secret does not on the one hand go about saying to himself that all around him is maya, is a dream, a phantasm of the desert sands counterfeiting the waters and the woods of Eden. He is as much alive in human life as the worldling is, and more. He cordially loves his dear ones; he is the open-hearted friend, the helpful neighbour, the loving and loyal citizen and subject, the attentive and intelligent worker in his daily path of duty. Time with its contents is full of reality and value to him. He does not ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... this precious hour, I would not, if I had the power, Exchange a worldling's life of ease, Whom all around him seek to please. I have no other friend beside, But here I safely may confide. Suspicion ne'er the bosom stains, Which ...
— Vignettes in Verse • Matilda Betham
... accumulate regular trade libraries if we like, from which a young student can learn the ins and outs of all professions and commercial ventures, their temptations or advantages, and their relation, as well, to the mysterious workings of love. What a possession for a would-be-well-equipped worldling! ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... 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 ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... 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, yet, ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... act brought an Indian attack upon the emigrant train, and here "Rosalie" displayed the archest heroism and the pinkest and most distracting self-possession, in marked contrast to the giddy worldling who, having accompanied her apparently for comic purposes best known to himself, cowered abjectly under wagons, and was pulled ignominiously out of straw, until Red Dick swept out of the wings with a chosen ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... criticisms of society and its types of folly or of vice, full of force and colour, yet general in their intention, for, except at the poet who had affronted his uncle, "le bon Regnier" struck at no individual. Most admirable, amid much that is admirable, is the picture of the old worldling Macette, whose veil of pretended piety is gradually dropped as she discourses with growing wantonness to the maiden whom she would lead in the way she should not go: Macette is no unworthy elder of the family of Tartufe. Regnier confesses freely the ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... To the 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, sitting serene and holy, the conqueror of sin and sorrow, ...
— The Way of Peace • James Allen
... one else can. And oh! how different the two 'courses' of the godly man and the worldling look, in their relative importance, when seen from this side, as we are advancing towards them, and from the other as we look back upon them! Pleasures, escape from pains, ease, comfort, popularity, quiet lives—all these things seem very attractive; and God's will often seems very hard and very ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... to mourn and rejoice, and this is to justify wisdom. These two are the pulse of a Christian. According as he finds his grief and joy, so is he. All of you have these affections, but they are not right placed. They are not pitched upon suitable objects. The worldling hath no other joy but carnal mirth, no other grief but that which is carnal, these are limited within the bounds of time. Some loss, or some gain, some pleasure or pain, some honour or dishonour, these ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... fatal threshold Dives relinquishes his 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 ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... are thy days! How sweet thy repose! How calm thy rest! Thou slumberest upon the earth more soundly than many a miser and worldling upon his bed of down. And the reason is—that thou hast a gracious God and an easy conscience. A stranger to all care, thou awakest only to resume thy play, or ask for food ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... the flowers of the field. But nature and its feelings are rooted in the heart of the warrior and the statesman, as well as in that of the tenderest maid who tends the sheep or milks the lowing kine; the difference alone is that many things besides find place within the worldling's bosom, while her breast is one sweet and gentle storehouse for God and for ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... still a dreamer, and will one time know, and feel, that your life is but a dream. Yet you call this fiction: you stave off the thoughts in print which come over you in reverie. You will not admit to the eye what is true to the heart. Poor weakling, and worldling, you are not strong enough to ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... now famous lady who as a girl had known Mrs. Procter well, "made friendly company yesterday to a lonely meal, and brought back memories of Mr. Kinglake's kind spoiling of a raw young woman, and of the wit, the egregious vanity, the coarseness, the kindness, of that hard old worldling our Lady of Bitterness." In the presence of one man, Tennyson, she laid aside her shrewishness: "talking with Alfred Tennyson lifts me out of the earth earthy; a visit to Farringford is like a retreat ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... come before the world as the messengers of glad tidings—of unity and peace? We profess to do it, whilst discord, enmity, hatred, and persecution are in our hearts and on our tongue. The atheist and the worldling live in harmony, whilst the children of Christ carry on their unholy warfare one against the other. Strange anomaly! Can we not call upon our people to love their God with all their hearts—and their neighbours as themselves? Can we not strive by our own good example to teach them how to do ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... niece alluded to had been from her birth a special object of her holy aunt's interest. The idol of her mother, no pains had been spared for the cultivation of her mind and the formation of her character; yet, notwithstanding all, she bade fair to turn out a frivolous worldling, unless arrested by Almighty grace. She was but fifteen when introduced to the gay circles of fashion, in which her personal attractions and brilliant accomplishments particularly fitted her to shine. Flattered ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... worldly, or worldlings, is supposed to be incurring the righteous anger of the good. But is it not improperly using a term of implied reproach? For, although the world may be too much with us, and a worldling may be a being not filled to the brim with the deeper qualities or the highest aims, still he is a man necessary to the day, the hour, the sphere which must be supplied with people fitted to its needs. So with a woman in society. She must be a worldling in the best ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... 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 ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... 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 delightfulest flattery; while, in the intervals between ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... fisherman gnawed his moustache ruefully. This idle worldling could assume, occasionally, a whimsical helplessness of expression, with an air of aggrieved and childlike candor, somewhat baffling to the stern ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... was a matter of course that such comparisons were excessively 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 youthful Maurice to the stadholderate expressly to foil the plots of Leicester, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... unite upon the broad basis of a common loyalty to Christ? To what purpose is this overlapping and conflict? The reluctant tribute of the ancient sceptic—"See how these Christians love one another"—has become the modern worldling's cynical and familiar jibe; and when to the spectacle of Christian disunion is added the observation that professing Christians of all denominations appear to differ from other men, for the most ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... 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 ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... faithful and adequate presentation of what he saw. He spoke what he knew, and testified what he had seen. His accent of conviction was unmistakable. When men see the professed prophet of the Unseen and Eternal as keen after his own interests as any worldling, shrewd at a bargain, captivated by show, obsequious to the titled and wealthy; when they discover the man who predicts the dissolution of all things carefully investing the proceeds of the books in which he publishes his predictions—they ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... spoilt 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. He is less often corrupt ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... 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 before, the spectre ...
— 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
... an Hour, but a whole Day to shew it in: I say, he puts great difference between these, and that other sort that say, When will the Sabbath be gone, that we may be at our worldly business. {29e} The first he calleth a Blessed man, but brandeth the other for an unsanctified worldling. And indeed, to delight ourselves in Gods service upon his Holy days, gives a better proof of a sanctified Nature, than to grudge at the coming, and to be weary of the holy duties of such dayes, as ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... say it so badly; and I know it, because, as I tell you, Peter and I are just the same sort at heart. I've been teasing him, pretending to be a worldling, but foreign travel and entertaining in London are just about as unsuited to me as to Peter. I—I'm glad"—she uttered a quick, little sob—"that I—I played my part well while it all lasted; but you know it wasn't so much me as my looks ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... Lord went to be "guest with a man that is a sinner," and He changed the sinner into a saint. The worldling found wings. The stone became flesh. Gentle emotions began to stir in a heart hardened by heedlessness and sin. Restitution took the place of greed. The home of the sinner became the temple of the Lord. "To-day is salvation come ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett |
