The 18th century had been a time of "Cult of Courtesy", a time that prized delicacy, refinement and exaggerated politeness above all, leading in the words of the British writer Adam Nicolson that "wide swathes of English 18th century life become fragile and dainty, in a way that no age in England, before or since, has managed. ... In some ways, natural human dignity had been sacrificed on the altar of a kind of rococo politeness. ... Acceptable behaviour had become toy-like and it was not long before the anti-heroic fashion for a delicate sensibility ran out of control. Manliness, or even the ability to survive had in fact almost entirely deserted those were suffering from the cult of sensibility". In the 18th-century idea, a man was expected above all to be pleasant and pleasing, and so it was better for a man to lie rather say anything which might offend. By the early 19th century, a tougher, more brooding version of masculinity was starting to come into the vogue and the character of Mr. Darcy exemplifies the trend. Nicolson described the differences between Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy as follows: "Mr. Bingley is a[n 18th century man: handsome, young, agreeable, delightful, fond of dancing, gentlemanlike, pleasant, easy, unaffected and not entirely in control of his own destiny. Darcy is fine, tall, handsome, noble, proud, forbidding, disagreeable and subject to no control but his own. ... Darcy is a 19th-century man, manliness itself, uncompromising, dark and sexy. And it is Darcy, of course, whom the novel ends up loving".