world-fearing

Updated: June 16, 2025

An obscure dramatist, Milverton, whom we know of, makes one of his characters say, in reply to some world-fearing wretch: "While you, you think What others think, or what you think they'll say, Shaping your course by something scarce more tangible Than dreams, at best the shadows on the stream Of aspen leaves by flickering breezes swayed Load me with irons, drive me from morn till night, I am not the utter slave which that man is Whose sole word, thought, and deed are built on what The world may say of him."

Sir Arthur Helps - Friends in Council — First Series