The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Man of the World, by Annie Payson Call

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: A Man of the World

Author: Annie Payson Call

Release Date: May 19, 2010 [EBook #32421]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MAN OF THE WORLD ***

Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Richard J. Shiffer and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

A Man of the World

BY

ANNIE PAYSON CALL

_Author of_

"Power Through Repose," "As a Matter of Course," "The Freedom of Life"

BOSTON

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY

1906

COPYRIGHT, 1905,

BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.

_All rights reserved_

Published October, 1905

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

A MAN _of the_ WORLD

I

There are two worlds in the minds of men: the one is artificial,
selfish, and personal, the other is real and universal; the one is
limited, material, essentially of the earth, the other supposes a kind
of larger cosmopolitanism, and has no geographical limits at all; it is
as wide as humanity itself, and only bounded by the capacity for
experience, insight, and sympathy in the mind and heart of man. A true
man of the world, therefore, is not primarily of it,--a true man of the
world must know and understand the world; and in order to do so, he
should be able at any time to get it into perspective.

Charles Dickens says that by a man who knows the world is too frequently
understood "a man who knows all the villains in it." It is of course, by
gentlemen, also understood that a man who knows the world knows all its
manners and customs, and can adapt himself to them easily and entirely,
wherever he may be. But this external polish does not preclude the
idea, even among so-called well-bred men, that a man who knows the world
knows all the villains in it, and such a man may be more or less of a
villain himself, provided he has the cleverness and the ingenuity to
hide his villainy. To a certain extent the appearance of virtue has been
always more or less of a necessity in the world, but the moral standards
in social, professional, and business life are inconsistent and mixed.