Joseph Conrad lets a little cynicism slip through in Lord Jim:
"Jim's father [the parson] possessed such certain knowledge of the Unknowable as made for the righteousness of people in cottages without disturbing the ease of mind of those whom an unerring Providence enables to live in mansions."

Talking about Stein, a rich, old merchant who had gone exploring when he was younger: "There were very few places in the Archipelago he had not seen in the original dusk of their being, before light (and even electric light) had been carried into them for the sake of better morality and -- and -- well -- the greater profit, too."