W. Somerset Maugham
speaker
1,790 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Sep 2026
last heard 8 Sep
W. Somerset Maugham’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.
Appearances
It is one of those dispensations of Providence which
The design whereof is wrapped in profoundest obscurity.
The good young man is perhaps not without excuse for his existence.
But society is without excuse for permitting it.
At his time of life to be good is an insult to humanity.
Goodness is proper to the aged.
It is their sole glory.
Why should this milky stripling bring it into disrepute?
Why should he be permitted to defile with the fat of his sleek ears?
Locks a crown intended to adorn the grizzled powder
Of his elders.
A young man may be manly, gentle, honorable, noble, tender, and true.
And nobody will ever think of calling him a good young man.
Your good young man is commonly a sneak, and is very nearly allied to that other social pest, the nice young lady.
As applied to the immature male of our kind, the adjective good seems to have been perverted from its original and ordinary significance.
And to have acquired a dislogix one.
It is a term of reproach and means as nearly as may be, characterless.
That anyone should submit to have it applied to him is proof of the essential cowardice of virtue.
We believe the direst ill afflicting civilization is the good young man.
The next diarist is his natural and appointed mate, the nice young lady.
Showing 1201–1220 of 1,790 · page 61 of 90
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