I suspect if you replace 'man' with 'human' and 'manliness' with 'humanliness' it might an easier read for you. The original author in the thirties was was writing in the style which was deemed 'proper' at the time, and I am sure that if they were alive today they would agree that 'women' are just as susceptible to 'spectatoritis' as men are.
For the original book, yeah; the quotes from there don't really bother me, and I read 19th-c stuff pretty frequently. It's this blog which bothers me more; it seems to be going out of its way to inject phrases like "manly 'philosophy of leisure'" when just "philosophy of leisure" would do. But I suppose it is the raison d'etre of the blog...
