man-of-the-worldliness

Updated: May 5, 2025

But though this man-of-the-worldliness may have affected the extent and quantity of his philosophical work, it did not touch the quality of it. It may be contended that Mansel was on the whole rather intended for a critic or historian of philosophy than for an independent philosophical teacher; and in this he would but have exhibited a tendency of his century.

George Saintsbury - A History of Nineteenth Century Literature (1780-1895)

But if it be possible to put the finger on a single note, it is one distinguishing Sydney Smith widely from Fuller himself, bringing him a little nearer to Voltaire, and, save for the want of certain earnestness, nearer still to Swift the perfect facility of his jokes, and the casual, easy man-of-the-worldliness with which he sets them before the reader and passes on.

George Saintsbury - A History of Nineteenth Century Literature (1780-1895)