dilletantes

Updated: July 14, 2025

There can be no disputing the fact that these two working together, and perhaps superinduced by other compelling influences, do bring about a condition the upshot of which is prostitution. Such supine reports as those of the Consumers' League, an organization of well-disposed dilletantes, and of superficial purposes, give no insight into the real estate of affairs.

Myers Gustavus - History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I: Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times

Let me add, however, that if these women were a little riotous during the Easter holidays, they are dilletantes only. In this city no female professors of immorality and open libertinage, disgraceful at once, and pernicious to society, are permitted to range the streets in quest of prey; to the horror of all thinking people, and the ruin of all heedless ones.

Hester Lynch Piozzi - Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I