"Condescension" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... enough of this," said Mademoiselle, and she looked from one to the other of us with a condescension that was not wholly displeasing. Then, fixing her eyes on my ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... brutality with the unscrupulous Borgia craft would have given as a result only a more refined cruelty; but if this was the case Cardinal Ippolito II. completely deceived his contemporaries and has left the reputation (through the pen of his panegyrist Mureto) of the utmost affable condescension and magnificent patronage of men of genius. He was himself a dilettante; and it was his ambition to pose as the most cultured and brilliant of the great cardinals of his day. Ippolito I. had been a boon companion of Leo X. in his hunting parties at the Villa La Magliana, but ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... Hunger got the victory over pride of rank, and his boat-steering majesty had to take his grub out of our kid, and eat with his jack-knife. Yet the man was ill at ease all the time, was sparing of his conversation, and kept up the notion of a condescension under stress of circumstances. One would say that, instead of a tendency to equality in human beings, the tendency is to make the most of inequalities, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... she knew herself to be worse than any one knew her—appeared gathering in one cloud, until she sickened at her own likeness. For beside it rose another image—and such an one! Yet there was a time when she had thought it a great sacrifice and condescension that Nathanael should be ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... utmost politeness to Pillerault, and much disdainful condescension to the bankrupt; he had thought over his part, studied the shades of his demeanor, and ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... still looked fixedly into his, with such blank panic that a sudden movement might really have killed her. He saw it all; she! there at his mercy. Tears swam and he trembled. Ah! the gracious lady! what divine condescension! what ineffable courtesy! But the artist in him was awakened almost at the same moment; his looks wandered in spite of her piteous candour and his own nothingness. Sandro the poet would have fallen on his face with an "Exi a me, nam peccator sum." ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... not want payment in any form. I did not want condescension and patronizing thanks. I did not want anything—that was it. Up to now, the occupants of the big house and I had been enemies, open and confessed. I had, so far as possible, kept out of their way and ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... said Evelyn. "I'm so glad." And she smoothed Henrietta's forehead with a pretty gesture full of sweetness, but with a touch of condescension in it. She had listened already to so many passionate declarations about herself (one that very afternoon) that she was not so much impressed by Henrietta's as most younger sisters would have been. Still she could not ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... do as his Hareem, or whether 'I make myself big before my master,' like some French ladies he has seen? I tell him I will do so if Iskender Bey will get him his warak (paper), whereupon he picks up the hem of my gown and kisses that, and I civilly expostulate on such condescension to a woman. Yussuf is quite puzzled about European women, and a little shocked at the want of respect to their husbands they display. I told him that the outward respect shown to us by our men was our veil, and explained how superficial the difference was. ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... mixture of boldness, satire, and simplicity in the manner in which Miss Vernon pronounced these words. My knowledge of life was sufficient to enable me to take up a corresponding tone as I expressed my gratitude to her for her condescension, and my extreme pleasure at having met with them. To say the truth, the compliment was so expressed, that the lady might easily appropriate the greater share of it, for Thorncliff seemed an arrant country bumpkin, awkward, shy, and somewhat sulky withal. He shook hands with me, ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the deputies, standing and uncovered on his entrance, were to sit down, put on their hats, and rise again, following with deference all the movements of the prince. Some restless and exaggerated minds considered this condescension unworthy of a sovereign assembly. The deputy Grangeneuve required that the words sire and majesty should be replaced by the "more constitutional and finer" title of king of the French. Couthon strongly enforced this motion, and proposed that a simple fauteuil ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... her ladyship's desired arrangements. What an invaluable acquaintance at such a moment for Lady Bellair! Mrs. Montgomery Floyd, very rich and very anxious to be fashionable, was intoxicated with the flattering condescension and anticipated companionship of Lady Bellair. At first Lady Bellair had quietly suggested that they should travel together to Northumberland. Mrs. Montgomery Floyd was enchanted with the proposal. Then Lady Bellair regretted that her servant was very ill, and that she ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... the premises, in a small house, surrounded with half an acre of garden, chiefly filled with gooseberry-bushes, and perambulated by means of four straight gravel walks. Mr and Mrs Drummond were invited, and accepted the invitation, which was considered by the Tomkinses as a great mark of condescension. As a specimen of Mr Tomkins's poetical talents, I shall give his invitation to Mr Drummond, written in the very ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... consultation;) and down sat the two conveyancers and the two attorneys. I devoutly wish I had time to describe the scene at length; but greater events are pressing upon me. The two conveyancers fenced with one another for some time very guardedly and good-humoredly: pleasant was it to observe the conscious condescension of Mortmain, the anxious energy and volubility of Frankpledge. When Mr. Mortmain said anything that seemed weighty or pointed, Quirk looked with an elated air, a quick triumphant glance, at Gammon; who, in ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... with distance, even coldly, and with the air of condescension. There was no necessity to thank me at all, and ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... I have left. Know that it is not in your power to do so, even with the aid of others; for it is there by the command of God, for the instruction of the people. By His just and inexorable judgment I was condemned to the dreadful fires of Purgatory for forty years on account of my condescension to the will of some of the nuns. I thank you and those who joined in so many prayers to the Lord for me; all of which He was pleased in His mercy to accept as suffrages for me, and especially the Seven Penitential Psalms, which were such a relief!" And then, with ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... with giving our author these exterior marks of respect only, but he honoured him by a Latin distich in his praise, which is printed before Milton's Latin poems. Milton no doubt was highly pleased with such extreme condescension and esteem from a person of the Marquis of Villa's quality; and as an evidence of his gratitude, he presented the Marquis at his departure from Naples, his eclogue, entitled Mansus; which, says Dr. Newton, is well worth reading among his Latin poems; so that it may be reckoned ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... don't smother me. Did you think I'd dare to show my face, Aunt Rhody, without the gayest neckerchief in Europe? Why, I waited over in New York just to see that it was safe. Oh, don't smother me, I say." The dogs came bounding in, and he greeted them with much the same affectionate condescension, caressing them as they sprang upon him, and pushing away the one that licked his face. When the overseer ran in hastily to shake his hand, there was no visible change in his manner. He greeted black and white with a courtesy which marked the ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... Mast.' Like nearly all the other Cambridge men of my acquaintance Dana was very much my senior, and like the rest he welcomed my literary promise as cordially as if it were performance, with no suggestion of the condescension which was said to be his attitude towards many of his fellow-men. I never saw anything of this, in fact, and I suppose he may have been a blend of those patrician qualities and democratic principles which made Lowell anomalous even to himself. He is part of the anti-slavery history ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... your condescension. For your own interests I ask you in the future to forget me, and never to recognize me in whatever ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... pretended to be exceedingly jocular and familiar with his pupils, but was really always on the alarm for his dignity. His great delight was to impress the freshmen with an idea of his abilities and his condescension. "Always come to me, Mr ——, if you find any difficulties in your reading—I shall be most happy to assist you." This language, repeated to all in turn, was, not unnaturally, literally understood by the matter-of-fact John Brown; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... standing proudly in her eighteenth-century dignity, watching the rest of the world scramble in a helter-skelter rush for modern trivialities. Its old walls are in pleasing harmony with the colonial mansions poised on little hillocks, from which they look down on you with benevolent condescension and invite you to climb the long flights of steps that lead to their very hearts, grand but hospitable, which you do in a glow of high-pitched ambition, as if you were scaling an arduous but fascinating intellectual height. Having reached the summit, you ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... my surprise, I found I had another friend in these dark days; I mean the poet. Contemptible as was my plight, and mean as was the cabin I hid in, when he heard I was ill, he came more than once to see me. It suited him to make a mighty to do about it, as if his condescension must heal me on the spot. Yet the kindness that was in him, and the wonder he afforded me, made up for all these airs ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... is not by thy own thoughtfulness or endeavor that thou receivest this, but by the mere condescension of heavenly grace and divine regard; that so thou mayest advance in virtues and greater humility, and prepare thyself for future conflicts, and labor with the whole affection of thy heart to keep close to Me, and serve Me ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... which the same author again declares to have been the Romance, and not the Teutonic; although one would imagine that, had they at all understood this latter tongue, they could not but have used it upon this occasion, in return for the condescension ...
— Account of the Romansh Language - In a Letter to Sir John Pringle, Bart. P. R. S. • Joseph Planta, Esq. F. R. S.
... were reversed. Steptoe having repeated the role of Mrs. Courage, Letty imitated him as best she could in getting the purchase for her bow and catching his air of high-bred condescension. ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... Amelia's condescension quite turned Jack's head; and when he went upstairs to dress, he squinted at his lordship's best clothes, all neatly laid out for him on the bed, with inward satisfaction at having ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... of the phrase, but he had uttered it deliberately, had been secretly practising it all through the interminable hour at the luncheon-table. Now that it was spoken, he shivered at its note of condescension. In such cases one was almost sure to overdo...But Anna ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... reflections on his death were set forth in a sermon at Mayfair chapel. "He had no great parts (pray mind, this was the parson said so, not I), but he had great virtues; indeed, they degenerated into vices: he was very generous, but I hear his generosity has ruined a great many people: and then his condescension was such, that he kept very ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... aroused sympathy, the more so, as he felt himself that he might have been making an incomparably better use of his time. In his eyes, there was sometimes visible a desire to join some interesting conversation or group, but he was kept back by the thought, "Would it not be a very great condescension on his part? Would it not be familiar? And would he not thereby lose his importance?" And in consequence of such reflections, he always remained in the same dumb state, uttering from time to time a few monosyllabic sounds, and thereby earning ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... between Wycherley and Pope, between the representative of the age that was going out and the representative of the age that was coming in, between the friend of Rochester and Buckingham and the friend of Lyttelton and Mansfield. At first the boy was enchanted by the kindness and condescension of so eminent a writer, haunted his door, and followed him about like a spaniel from coffee-house to coffee-house. Letters full of affection, humility, and fulsome flattery were interchanged between ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... him that there was in the manner of Mrs. Frostwinch something of condescension, as if the Faith Healed was a sort of upper servant. He had himself not outlived the ingenuous period wherein a youth feels that the preservation of truth in the world depends upon his not covering his impressions, and he was ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... by a nod from the middy, who lay back in the stern-sheets of the cutter. It was a nod that might have meant anything—condescension, friendliness, or a hint to keep his distance; but it did not trouble the lad, who trudged along the pier to fulfil his mission, and was soon after in the rugged, ill-paved main street, where he in sight of the naval group from the sloop, evidently busy buying and loading up with ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... said Antonio, "for I was prepared for him; and once, when he drew his sword against me, I pulled out a pistol and pointed it in his face. He grew pale as death, and from that hour treated me with all kinds of condescension. It was only pretence, however, for the affair rankled in his mind; he had determined upon revenge, and on being appointed to the command of the army, he was particularly anxious that I should attend him to the camp. Mais je lui ris au nez, made the sign of the cortamanga—asked ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... Denmark hight Rolf Krake, and was the most famous of all kings of olden times; moreover, he was more mild, brave and condescending than all other men. A proof of his condescension, which is very often spoken of in olden stories, was the following: There was a poor little fellow by name Vog. He once came into King Rolf's hall while the king was yet a young man, and of rather delicate growth. ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... in a chaise and four, drawing bridle at the palace-doors of German princes; queens of song and dance had followed him like sheep, and paid his tailor's bills. And to behold him now, seeking small loans with plaintive condescension, sponging for breakfast on an art-student of nineteen, a fallen Don Juan who had neglected to die at the propitious hour, had a colour of romance for young imaginations. His name and his bright past, seen through the prism of whispered gossip, had gained ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... or the least Declaration of War, fallen upon my little Dog, according to pristine Custom, without any honourable Regard to Size, Interest or Number. However the good Lady, who, by the Privilege of her Sex, must be allow'd the most competent Judge of Inequalities, out of an Excess of Condescension and Goodness, came running to the Relief of oppressed poor Tony; and, in courtly Language, rated her own oppressive Dogs for their great Incivility to Strangers. The Dogs, in the Middle of their insulting Wrath, obey'd the Lady with a vast deal ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... families of the place grouped in front of a cafe in the centre of the Corso, she ventured to stop and talk with them. She was politely greeted by the head of the family, an old gentleman, who was at first overwhelmed with surprise at her condescension; but she quite understood how to put him at his ease, and the longer she sat and talked with him, the more enchanted he became, so that it was with a real pride and happiness that he introduced her to the ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... the Republican candidate. The Republicans won, although the district was overwhelmingly Democratic, and Murray joined the Republican Party. He worked in the district where Jake Hess ruled. Like other even greater men, Jake became arrogant and treated the gang under him with condescension. Murray resented this and resolved that he would humble the Boss by supporting Roosevelt as a candidate for the Assembly. Hess protested, but could not prevent the nomination and during the campaign he seems to have supported the candidate whom ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... kind of tender and gentle irony, which had something admiring and complimentary about it, which took away any sense of vexation or of baffled curiosity. It was simply as though their concern lay elsewhere; they joined in anything with a frank delight, not with any touch of condescension. They were even more kindly and affectionate than others, because they did not seem to have any small problems of their own, and could give their whole attention and thought to the person they were with. These inscrutable ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... passionately devoted attachment to his person; that, with the greatest of human beings, use is in all but unconquerable power; and that he who so loftily tossed aside the seemingly most dangerous assaults of flattery, the blandishment of dames, the condescension of princes, the enthusiasm of crowds—had still his weak point, upon which two or three humble besiegers, and one unwearied, though most frivolous underminer, well knew how to direct their approaches. It was a favorite saw of his own, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... treats all artists, male and female, in the same friendly and unaffected manner. There is never the least soupcon of condescension in the one case or flirtation in the other, but in both a lively and often unexpectedly well-informed interest in the play or other artistic performance of the occasion, and in the actors' or actresses' personal records. The nationality of the artist ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... for each set, so's to speak. Gush all you want to over an aristocrat. Be thankful for advice and always SO glad to see 'em. With the poor relations you can ease up on the gush and maybe condescend some. Town folks expect condescension and superiority; give it to 'em. When it comes to scum, why—well, any short kind of a bow and a 'Mornin' 'll do for them. 'Course the Lord, in His infinite mercy, made 'em, same as He did potato bugs, but it's necessary to keep ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... access of dignity, who bows with an elevated and ascending heart: there is nothing loftier, nothing less allied to abject behavior, than this grand lowliness. The worm, because it is low, cannot be lowly; but man, uplifted in token of supremacy, may kneel in adoration, bend in courtesy, and stoop in condescension. Only a great pride, that is, a great and reverential repose in one's own being, renders possible a noble humility, which is a great and reverential acknowledgment of the being of others; this humility in turn sustains ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... wheat-field we pass through, and we pause to note their graceful movements and glossy coats. I have seen no bird walk the ground with just the same air the crow does. It is not exactly pride; there is no strut or swagger in it, though perhaps just a little condescension; it is the contented, complaisant, and self-possessed gait of a lord over his domains. All these acres are mine, he says, and all these crops; men plow and sow for me, and I stay here or go there, and ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... of eyes that providence had been pleased to place in my head. To those who pleased me not, I was little better than a Cerberus whom it was very difficult to pass; whilst to others, I was all easiness and condescension, ushering them straight to the sanctum sanctorum, in which, behind a desk covered with letters and papers, stood—for he never sat down to his desk—the respectable individual whose lawful commands to obey and whose secrets to keep I had pledged myself ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... extended her hand to Ned, who, after kissing it, retired from the audience chamber delighted with the kindness and condescension of Elizabeth. When he had left, the queen ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... clasp of his hand and the cordial glow of his smile. He was always responsive; he stood always on the same level, high or low, with his companion of the moment: he was as incapable of looking up as he was of looking down; he was equally without reverence and without condescension. It was the law of his nature that he should give himself emphatically to the just ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... they entered the house. They were received in a private parlour, which was filled with objects of art and devotion. Very blandly did the good wife of the vicar greet them, yet with business-like condescension. ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... been obliged to supply the wood without remuneration. "I am," he proudly declared, "neither your servant nor the servant of him who sent you here. If I cry out to the Lebanon the heavens open and the logs lie here on the shore of the sea." He went on to say that if, of his condescension, he now procured the timber Wenamon would have to provide the ships and all the tackle. "If I make the sails of the ships for you," said the prince, "they may be top-heavy and may break, and you will perish in the sea when Amon thunders ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... your father was born, and before." Master Philip nods graciously in response to Scipio's delighted bow. "And Harvey," my aunt rattles on. "Have you any new mares to surprise us with this year, Harvey?" Harvey not being as overcome with Mrs. Grafton's condescension as was proper, she turns again ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... no foundling child, but a descendant of the Emperor Valens, of the stock of the Valentinois, founders of the cities of Valence in France, and Valencia in Spain, rightful heirs to the Empire of the East. If we suffer Mahmoud on the throne of Byzantium, it is out of pure condescension, and for lack of funds ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... creatures; his ears were assaulted by obscene language, spoken as to an equal; he saw the ugliest side of humanity, and the blackest phases of savagery. Yet through it all, sharing these experiences with no trace of condescension, his soul ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... hath greatly honored his unworthy servant by entering under his roof," said the old Hebrew. "This condescension of the great Persian conqueror is a favor of such a magnitude that it shall never ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones
... the chief, his son and daughter, and his son-in-law came on board the Resolution, and the three last-mentioned were invited to the Discovery, with a view to their detention there till the deserters should be brought back—an act of high-handed injustice of which, one would suppose, no amount of condescension and familiarity on the part of the English was likely to ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... extending his hand in easy condescension, "you're well come, for you're just in time to hear the latest; the deal's on—an A. 1 sure thing this time. Aurora showed me the papers to-day. We're in for it now—government contracts, state houses, battle monuments, graveyards; we've got 'em all, ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... thanked his Majesty for his great condescension and retired, while the King and his courtiers went into the orchard and picked golden apples and plums and peaches from golden boughs, and marvelled at the wonderful thing that had ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... a very attractive lady, brilliantly dressed. She has a dainty wallet hanging from her wrist. Augustus hastily covers up his toilet apparatus with The Morning Post, and rises in an attitude of pompous condescension. ...
— Augustus Does His Bit • George Bernard Shaw
... perceived that the captain was positive, and that his threats were disregarded, did all that a man could do who could not help himself. He vowed vengeance in his own mind, and then, with an air of condescension, observed: "Upon those conditions, Mynheer Kloots, your ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... seemingly in profit or seemingly in loss in regard to the Emperor Napoleon, to send this Epistle to Emperor Napoleon, and require instantly an armistic under the condition, that he is desirous to make immediately, with condescension, a treaty of Peace, to hear the "Messo di dio," the messenger of God, spoken of by the prophets of the Old and New Testament as well as by the prophets of the succeeding ages of the Christian Era, and to fulfil the will of the Most High for the welfare of nations. Amongst ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar
... sure," replied his highness, who sat down and played for an hour, and then there was so much thanking, complimentary acknowledgement of condescension on his part, etcetera, and the ladies appeared so flattered when he spoke to them. The next day it was discovered that a slight mistake had occurred, and that, instead of being a prince, he had only come to Geneva along with a Russian prince, and that the ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... man is all condescension, hoping forgiveness! His spirit has yielded to Almighty power; he no longer craves for property in man; no, his coarse voice is subdued into softest accents. He whispers "coloured man," as if the merchandise changed as his thoughts are brought in contact ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... the hearts of our good people far and near, that we had obtained thus much from them. Our strife seemed now at an end; there was much relenting in some of their spirits, when they saw our condescension, our charity, our compassion. We overlooked all past offences. We kept the public fast with them ... and my father preached with them on following peace with holiness, and I concluded with prayer." [Footnote: History of Harvard, ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... of existence, 'which,' says Clarendon, 'was a life by night more than by day, in all the liberties that nature could desire and wit invent,' it was astonishing how extensive an influence he had in both Houses of Parliament. 'His rank and condescension, the pleasantness of his humours and conversation, and the extravagance and keenness of his wit, unrestrained by modesty or religion, caused persons of all opinions and dispositions to be fond of his company, and to imagine that ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... was extended to him with gracious condescension even before he had finished speaking. He pressed the hand respectfully to his lips and made the mental remark that it was bony. Madame de Lionne was a blonde with too fine a skin and a ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... there she was, gazing pensively forth from the cabin window. He guessed the mistress was out for once—presumably at the concert. His heart beat faster as he came to a standstill, yet the reminder that she was a lady's maid brought an involuntary note of condescension into his voice. ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... the sacrificial death of every impulse, every admiration, every lightness of heart, every bubble of laughter. Or—which to a mind like Robert's was as bad—if he did not punish for these things, it was because they came not within the sphere of his condescension, were not worth his notice: of sympathy could be ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... inhabitant had not seen a devotion like the Bishop's and Eleanor's. There was in it no condescension on one side, no strain on the other. The soul that through fulness of life and sorrow and happiness and effort had reached at last a child's peace met as its like the little child's soul, that had ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... Jefferson, and greeted her with a soft indescribable grace, and after a few minutes' conversation permitted herself to be introduced to a few of the group around the little American. That perfect ease of manner, which held not a vestige of condescension, soon exerted its charm. One after another drew near that envied circle, anxious to pick up some stray pearl of speech from those lovely lips. The women forgot to be envious, because she never for one moment forgot or ignored them. Even gouty Mrs Masterman ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... This great condescension of the doctor draws upon him much good-will from his audience; and it is ten to one but if any of them be troubled with an aching tooth, his ambition will prompt him to get it drawn by a person who has had so many princes, kings, and emperors under ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... "I found her going over her dresses for the tenth time and brought her along.... However does she get that air of condescension! Look at her over there playing the grand lady in her pretty frock for the benefit of these children. Little Snob! She didn't get ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... the young. This must be the hardest part of all—to see around them friends, each "a happy mother of children," little ones responding to affection with the sweet caresses of childhood, whilst any advances that they, their aunts or cousins, may make are met with indifference or condescension. My cousin Fanny was no exception. She was as proud as Lucifer; yet she went through life—the part that I knew of—bearing the pity of the great majority of ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... schoolboy in Edmondstone House, if he had ventured to speak in such a way, would have been beaten with a fives bat. But Priscilla was a girl and, as Frank understood, girls are not beaten. He answered her with kindly condescension. ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... the big, bright room showed me many strangers. All were servants, however, for the grand people had not yet come down to play their little game of condescension. A band from Clermont-Ferrand was making music, but the ball was to be opened by the marquise and her guests, who were to honour their servants by dancing the first dance with them. Each noble lady was to select ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... week; his linen was limp and discolored; and his clothes, which were of foreign cut, had once been shapely and fashionable, but were now seedy beyond belief. The hat he held in one hand was a monument of shabbiness; but his habitual stoop had the air of having been acquired by a constant courtly condescension. He was as lean as his own walking-cane, and his air of condescending gentility put a strange emphasis on his shabby clothes, and made them ten times as noticeable as they would have been without it. And yet at ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... result of His own act? Does it not imply that He was not merely born, but came, choosing to be born just as He chose to die? In what sense can we understand the Apostle's view that it was an infinite and stupendous act of condescension in Christ to 'be found in fashion as a man,' unless we believe that by His own will and act He came forth from the Father and entered into the world, just as by His own will and act He left the world and went ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... one delighted breath; after which, Bea ornamented him with a rose-bud, in token of her thanks, Kittie beamed untold gratitude upon him, and Kat remarked with condescension: "You can be a first-rate trump, when you take ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... p. 246. Kepler holds Osiander entirely responsible for this preface. Bertrand, in his Fondateurs de l'astronomie moderne, gives its text, and thinks it possible that Copernicus may have yielded "in pure condescension toward his disciple." But this idea is utterly at variance with expressions in Copernicus's own dedicatory letter to the Pope, which follows the preface. For a good summary of the argument, see Figuier, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... acknowledged to excel; and her stories[8] and anecdotes were a source of delight to her friends. She was devotedly pious, and singularly benevolent: she was liberal in sentiment, charitable to the indigent, and sparing of the feelings of others. Every circle was charmed by her presence; by her condescension she inspired the diffident; and she banished dulness by the brilliancy of her humour. Her countenance, it should be added, wore a pleasant and animated expression, and her figure was modelled with the utmost elegance of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... assignment of duties and privileges. We may agree at once in deploring the exclusion of women from any rights and opportunities which are not inconsistent with a wise division of labor, and that patronizing air of superiority shown toward them by so many men-a condescension not incompatible with tenderness and chivalry. Theirs has been the repressed and petted sex. Yet there are no adequate grounds for supposing that men are, on an average, really abler or saner or more reasonable naturally than women; that they are, ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... to move his friend McClellan, with whom he soon quarreled. Each now sought in his own way to control the President, though neither understood Lincoln's character. From McClellan, Lincoln endured much condescension of a kind perilously near impertinence. To Stanton, Lincoln's patience seemed a mystery; to McClellan—a vain man, full of himself—the President who would merely smile at this bullyragging on the part of one of his subordinates seemed indeed a spiritless creature. Meanwhile Lincoln, ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... memory of these pains, if that could be bought, and from the anticipation of their recurrence. Amongst the pains of labour, a leading one next after the necessity of unintermitting muscular effort, is the oppression of people's superciliousness or of their affected condescension in conversing with one whom they know to be a working mechanic. From this oppression it is, from this oppression whether open or poorly disguised, that I seek to be delivered. It taints my pleasure: it spoils my holiday. And if by being dressed handsomely, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... foreign importation, and could not by any violent process be ingrafted upon the national trunk, which drew its strength from centuries of national life, history, and tradition. That this peasantry, whom the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy of culture had been wont to regard with half-pitying condescension, were the real representatives of the Norse nation; that they had preserved through long years of tyranny and foreign oppression the historic characteristics of their Norse forefathers, while the upper classes had ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... fault; William had, so to speak, only to wave his beard and she was at his feet. But if the hirsute feature of this story leaves me cold it is easy enough to enjoy and admire the rest. The Firebraces, spoken of here as "The Family," are most admirably drawn. Never has the condescension of county people to those less exalted in birth been described with more delightful irony. True that some of the Firebraces kicked over the traces and married whom they listed, but the family as a whole was rooted deep enough to stand shocks which would have devastated ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various
... a mile Nurse No. 1 handed the child over to Nurse No. 2 with a lofty condescension, as who should say, "You suffice for porterage; I, the superior artist, reserve myself for emergencies." No. 2 received the invaluable bundle with ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... our amity. It is the creditor who exhausts beseechings on His debtor, so much does He wish to 'agree with His adversary quickly.' The tender pleading of the Apostle was but a faint echo of the marvellous condescension of God, when he, 'in God's stead, besought: 'Be ye reconciled ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... not at that time proved the superiority of our soldiers over the French; and the unreflecting multitude were not to be persuaded that an invasion could only be effected by numerous and powerful fleets. A general alarm was excited; and, in condescension to this unworthy feeling, Nelson was appointed to a command, extending from Orfordness to Beachy Head, on both shores—a sort of service, he said, for which he felt no other ability than what might ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... her beautiful hats, delicate kid gloves, and all the et cetera which go to make up the toilet of a modern young lady. Others liked her fresh, frank manner and sympathy with them and their interests. Indeed, she was so nearly on their own level as to age that there was no room for condescension on this account; while, as to position, where was there ever an American girl of any age who acknowledged to social inferiority? Katie alone felt, though she could hardly explain it, the want of something in her new teacher which had been peculiarly ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow
... and theology, we can only conjecture. But even in this little pamphlet there are anecdotes and details which would repay the notice of a social historian as curious in his research and as studious in his condescension as Macaulay. ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... excited the vizir's curiosity, and he said to him, "Sire, I beg your majesty to have the condescension to tell me what the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... with gracious condescension. Had he not baptized her? Did she not owe her name to him? Had he ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... his way to his favourite tavern now, to smoke his pipe—which it was beneath his dignity to do in public—and drink his glass amongst his cronies, but he stopped to exchange the time of day with Bunning, whom he regarded with patronizing condescension, as being a lesser light than himself. And having remarked that this was a fine evening, after the usual fashion of British folk, who are for ever wasting time and breath in drawing each other's attention to obvious ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... horrid spectacle of judges examining the prisoner against himself; seducing him, by fraud, into treacherous conclusions against his own head; using the terrors of their power for extorting confessions from the frailty of hope; nay (which is worse), using the blandishments of condescension and snaky kindness for thawing into compliances of gratitude those whom they had failed to freeze into terror? Wicked judges! barbarian jurisprudence!—that, sitting in your own conceit on the summits of social wisdom, have yet failed to learn the first principles of criminal justice—sit ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... talent, Edgar," he said, with a touch of condescension, "Good talent—especially for criticism—and will some day make your mark in that line if you will stick to it and let these weird stories alone. We must have fewer of the stories in future and more critiques, ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... universal concern of religion, both sexes, and all ranks, are equally interested. The truly catholic spirit of christianity accommodates itself, with an astonishing condescension, to the circumstances of the whole human race. It rejects none on account of their pecuniary wants, their personal infirmities, or their intellectual deficiencies. No superiority of parts is the least recommendation, nor is any depression of fortune the smallest objection. ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... the group in the back sitting room was made up of the regular guests. He shook hands with them all, including Miss Snowden, who greeted him with queenly condescension, and little Mrs. Tidditt, who jerked his arm up and down as if it was a pump handle, and affirmed that she was glad to see him, adding, as an after thought, "Even if I did see ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... brought me that he was past hopes; upon which, I prevailed with myself to go and see him, partly out of commiseration, and I confess, partly out of curiosity. He knew me very well, seemed surprised at my condescension, and made me compliments upon it as well as he could in the condition he was. The people about him said he had been for some time delirious; but when I saw him, he had his understanding as well as ever I knew, and spoke ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... being really supremely independent of everyone; although his body seemed so helpless one got the impression that his soul was thoroughly aloof, untouched. When he laughed at the efforts of the grown-ups to please him it was a sublime condescension, that was all. When something failed to please him he was recalled to the things of this world and set up a loud wail, which filled Ishmael with anxiety, though Vassie and the nurse remained unaccountably calm. The baby evidently was of their opinion, because he ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... no condescension in the gentle voice and smile for even my sensitiveness to detect. I had never been addressed as Mr. Allen before; and this of itself would have confused me sometimes, but now I forgot myself in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... to the British interests in India, which were and are in the utmost disorder, and in the utmost peril, most humbly requested his Majesty not to dissolve the Parliament during the course of their very critical proceedings on that subject. His Majesty's gracious condescension to that request was conveyed in the royal faith, pledged to a House of Parliament, and solemnly delivered from the throne. It was but a very few days after a committee had been, with the consent and concurrence ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Ineffable condescension, divine humility, uniting for all ages the law of service and kindly ministration; bidding men to do likewise, and to ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... his chair back from his writing-table and gazed with kindly condescension at the chief clerk as he stood before it ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... in, and the crown of his head high. He was infinitely good-natured, met everybody on an equality, without abasement or condescension. He was modest, never pushed himself to the front, and was always ready to listen. A talented performer who can listen well, is sure to be loved. And yet when Brahms went forward to play, there was just a suggestion of indifference to his ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... my words be ever hereafter spoken of again or no. So that I have the same neither better nor worse force over him that I had before, if he should not do his part. And the peace between us was this: Says he after all, well, says he, I know you will expect, since there must be some condescension, that it do become me to begin it, and therefore, says he, I do propose (just like the interstice between the death of the old and the coming in of the present king, all the time is swallowed up as if it had never been) so our ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... familiarity. He told of places where under-gardeners had trembled at his looks, where there were meres and swanneries, labyrinths of walk and wildernesses of sad shrubbery in his control, till you could not help feeling that it was condescension on his part to dress your humbler garden plots. You were thrown at once into an invidious position. You felt that you were profiting by the needs of dignity, and that his poverty and not his will consented to your ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Twinkleton, rising with a gracious condescension: 'say not incumbrance. Not so, by any means. I cannot permit you to ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... "The condescension is in the offer, Natasha," replied Colston, flushing with pleasure and glancing towards Radna the while. Radna answered with an almost imperceptible sign of consent, and Colston went on: "If it were in ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... his chances. "Very well," he said at last, with condescension, "thou art a willful baggage but I 'll give thee thy way! Only make the big ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins |
