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Condescend   Listen
verb
Condescend  v. i.  (past & past part. condescended; pres. part. condescending)  
1.
To stoop or descend; to let one's self down; to submit; to waive the privilege of rank or dignity; to accommodate one's self to an inferior. "Condescend to men of low estate." "Can they think me so broken, so debased With corporal servitude, that my mind ever Will condescend to such absurd commands?" "Spain's mighty monarch, In gracious clemency, does condescend, On these conditions, to become your friend." Note: Often used ironically, implying an assumption of superiority. "Those who thought they were honoring me by condescending to address a few words to me."
2.
To consent. (Obs.) "All parties willingly condescended heruento."
Synonyms: To yield; stoop; descend; deign; vouchsafe.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Condescend" Quotes from Famous Books



... declare I get a little weary of this Deity of yours. He neglects his business so flagrantly. He really is rather scandalously much of an absentee. And He would be so welcome if He would condescend to deal a trifle more openly with one, and satisfy one's intelligence and moral sense. If, for instance, He would afford me some information regarding this same psychological moment which I need so badly just now as a peg to hang a theory of casualty upon. I ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... shoes. Canst thou imagine, dull divine, 'Twill gain her love, to make her fine? Hath she no other wants beside? You feed her lust as well as pride, Enticing coxcombs to adore, And teach her to despise thee more. If in her coach she'll condescend To place him at the hinder end, Her hoop is hoist above his nose, His odious gown would soil her clothes.[5] She drops him at the church, to pray, While she drives on to see the play. He like an orderly divine, Comes home a quarter after nine, ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... modifications—with important modifications. And the one point on which I wish to declare my concurrence with Lorenzo Tornabuoni is, that the best policy to be pursued by our friends is, to throw the weight of their interest into the scale of the popular party. For myself, I condescend to no dissimulation; nor do I at present see the party or the scheme that commands my full assent. In all alike there is crudity and confusion of ideas, and of all the twenty men who are my colleagues in the present crisis, there is not one ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... she, and with tears Embalms his name: 'oh, if the ghosts have ears, Or souls departed condescend so low, To sympathise with mortals in their woe, Vouchsafe to lend a gentle ear to me, Whose life is worse than death, since not with thee. What privilege have they that are born great Move than the meanest swain? The proud waves beat With more impetuousness upon high lands, Than on ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... the 30th of March next to come, being Palm Sunday; the number of combatants being limited to thirty on each side; and the fight to be maintained to extremity, since they affectionately make humble suit and petition to your Majesty that you will parentally condescend to waive for the day your royal privilege of interrupting the combat, by flinging down of truncheon or crying of 'Ho!' until the battle shall be utterly fought to ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... don't see what you are talking about. Would you Milton men condescend to send up your to-day's difficulty to Oxford? You have not tried ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... condescend to notice this interruption. He may have guessed I was jealous. All that about the heroic fair boy had been taking an unfair advantage of me, and I think he knew it. For I was of a dark complexion! His narrative went on to describe ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed

... lawsuit. One was a good-humoured old man, but from his wrinkled beardless face looked more like an old woman than a man. I frequently presented both of them with cigars; and though ready to receive them, and I daresay grateful, they would hardly condescend to thank me. A Chilotan Indian would have taken off his hat, and given his "Dios le page!" The travelling was very tedious, both from the badness of the roads and from the number of great fallen trees, which it was necessary ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... 'There is no love but at first sight,'[5] says Disraeli; and, indeed, love at first sight is alone natural to such beings, on whom beauty and talent have been poured out as lavishly as wealth, and who need never condescend to thoughts of their natural needs. It is the love of Romeo and Juliet amidst the gardens of Verona; or rather the love of Aladdin of the wondrous lamp for some incomparable beauty, deserving to be ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... or die, win or lose, what do THEY get? English glory is too genteel to meddle with those humble fellows. She does not condescend to ask the names of the poor devils whom she kills in her service. Why was not every private man's name written upon the stones in Waterloo Church as well as every officer's? Five hundred pounds to the stone-cutters would have served to carve the whole catalogue, and paid ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray

... that good subordinate ornament has ever been rooted in a higher knowledge; and if you are again to produce anything that is noble, you must have the higher knowledge first, and descend to all lower service; condescend as much as you like,—condescension never does any man any harm,—but get your noble standing first. So, then, without any scruple, whatever branch of art you may be inclined as a student here to follow,—whatever you are ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin

... doctrine which inculcates full enjoyment of the passing pleasure of the world, lest death might come and too suddenly end them; and how little poetry had been recited, except as roared forth in the form of bacchanalian choruses. 'And even this Bassus it were worth my while to condescend to, lest the notion might seize him to satirize me upon the public stage. And it was to conciliate him that I lost to him twenty sestertia and a well-favored slave. May it not be that I paid too high a price for his friendship, and hence have ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... realize that you are an ignorant girl who knows nothing of the world, and that it is necessary you should accept my experience, and condescend to be guided by my wishes. You put me in a most unpleasant position this afternoon, forcing me to receive a person whom I have never been introduced to, ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... trusted to time alone to reduce it. Yet Archimedes had so great a mind and such immense philosophic speculations that although by inventing these engines he had acquired the glory of a more than human intellect, he would not condescend to leave behind him any writings upon the subject, regarding the whole business of mechanics and the useful arts as base and vulgar, but placed his whole study and delight in those speculations in which ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... Martlow, "I know you've got it writ up in there——" he jerked his head towards the hall—"that I'm the chief glory of Calderside, but damme if you're not the second best yourself, and I'll condescend to shake your hand if it's only to show you I'm not ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various

... not expected to," said his father. "If you will kindly condescend to hold down the jobs I give you, you can safely leave the high finance of the ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis

... incapable, because generally he is a drunkard, and therefore a beggar, there is no possible barter; and, inasmuch as man does not live on bread alone, for a fried sole is a nice thing for breakfast, so also it must be confessed that the loaves and fishes do not condescend to jump into one's mouth all dressed as they ought to be. Therefore—and this is the zenith of the 'Geelong Advertiser's' practical correspondent—be not perplexed, if the loaves and fishes wont pop fast enough into your mouth ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello

... men claimed that the women helped them a great deal but when the day came for the jubilation after the election, not a woman was invited to sit on the platform or to take part in the jubilee, except in the audience. In one of our suburbs the successful people gave a banquet and they did condescend to invite the women who had helped them win the election to sit in the gallery after the banquet and hear the speeches.... We are to have an election very soon and when I left home to come to this convention our city party was holding meetings ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... dishonourable means. Would you like to see him the tutor to the son of some nobleman? This is the first step to promotion. When he is in that situation, if his pupil should be of an abandoned character and he will condescend to be his pimp and the pander to his vices, laugh at his follies, and flatter his vanity: why, then, should this sprig of nobility hereafter become a minister of state, or a man in power, knowing the servility of his late tutor, and that he will make a willing tool ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... Clorinda wear such an air before, and never had she dreamed that she would so open herself to any fellow-creature. She knew but little of what her sister was capable—of the brilliancy of her charm when she chose to condescend, of the deigning softness of her manner when she chose to please, of her arch- pleasantries and cutting wit, and of the strange power she could wield over any human being, gentle or simple, with whom she came in contact. But if she had not known of these things before, she learned to know them ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... elements of moral science could shield our minds against the force of their irresistible arguments. In the overflowing exuberance of their philanthropy, they take pity of our most lamentable moral darkness, and graciously condescend to teach us the very A B C of ethical philosophy! Hence, if we have deemed it a duty to lay bare their pompous inanities, showing them to be no oracles, and to strip their pitiful sophisms of the guise of a profound philosophy, we trust that no impartial reader will ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... as you and he, who cannot even lie with your eyelids, who will not condescend to cover up a secret by a moment of feigned inanimation, have many voices. He did tell me; but he broke no confidence. He told me, but did not mean to tell me. Now ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... population gave them the sidewalk. It was as though a stately and venerable charger, accustomed for years to graze in a comfortable pasture, were suddenly intruded on by an unsteady and vicious drove of bad manners and low degree. The thoroughbred can only condescend to ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... compelled to come in? Love is the only compelling influence. If no one goes with love, how are these lost ones to know they are loved. Christ brought love down to us; He came down to do it. We must take His love to the low places—"Condescend to men of low estate." I praise my God for opening a door to me never opened to anyone else. I find the theatre stocked with boys of our country. They are not found in churches. I have not sought to get into the so-called "respectable set" but I have told my managers ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation

... in all her moods and vagaries, and Alice does not condescend to explain herself even to her friends. I do not believe that Alice and Brandt have ever spoken on the subject which occupies three minds whenever they two are thrown together. Yet I imagine it would be a relief to May if ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell

... legend had a Chinese origin,—subsequently disguised by Japanese chronology. My Buddhist texts were drawn from Fernand Hu's translation of the Dhammapada, and from Leon Feer's translation from the Thibetan of the "Sutra in Forty-two Articles." An Orientalist who should condescend in a rare leisure-moment to glance at my work might also discover that I had borrowed an idea or two from the Sanscrit ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn

... you enough, Marquis," said the Counsellor as he alighted with difficulty; "but if you would condescend to come and taste my brandy, I would esteem it a ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... suffering hurt to their spiritual life; and they said that they would choose to dwell without the City if he should agree thereto. They begged him therefore, as loving sons speaking to their father, to condescend to go with them some little space outside the City to look for a place convenient wherein to live quietly. Then Gerard assented to their pious prayers, and when the next day dawned he prepared for the journey and taking with him the brothers Wychmann, Reyner, Henry ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis

... the mercy of Almighty God, and lifted up her heart in joyful aspirations and effusions of love, to JESUS and MARY. The sacred and crucified, Humanity of ONE, and the suffering and anguish of the Humanity of the OTHER, seemed to condescend so entirely to her low estate, that the divinity of JESUS, and the measureless love of MARY, His Mother, were folded like a garment around her, and strengthened, and consoled, and brightened her path, as she approached the shadow through which she was to pass. And while May's inmost ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey

... hand, is a something whose function consists in nothing but in being master of the process of production; he is by no means the actual organiser and manager, but simply the owner, who, as such, need not trouble himself about the process of production further than to condescend to pocket the profits. That the undertaker at the same time bears the risks attendant upon production has to be taken into account when we consider the individual undertaker, but not when we consider the institution as such, for we cannot speak of the risk of the body of undertakers as ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... mots rayonnants, the mots de lumiere, he is sadly deficient. But his work (which is nearly as plentiful in verse as in prose) is, as has been said, very interesting to the literary student, because it shows better perhaps than anything else the style of literature which a man, disdaining to condescend to burlesque or bawdry, not gifted with any extraordinary talent, either at prose or verse, but possessed of a certain literary faculty, could then produce with a fair chance of being published and bought. It cannot be said that the result shows great daintiness in Breton's ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... even now an ordained clergyman. "Soon he had no other thought than of his future holy office and he might stay or go where he would, for nothing was for him too good or too bad to remind him of it." "He strolled about one entire summer," Martin tells us, "and did not condescend to the least bit of work but when I was out with the farm hands making hay in the meadows or reaping in the field, it very often happened that he rushed unexpectedly out of the bushes and began preaching to them. This seemed quite right to the lazy folk, they would let their work lie and would ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger

... deception practised by Parsons and his daughter. There were others, however, who did not wish to jump so hastily to a conclusion, and who suggested that they were perhaps trifling with this awful and supernatural being, which, being offended with them for their presumption, would not condescend to answer them. Again, after serious consultation, it was agreed on all hands that if the ghost answered any body at all, it would answer Mr. Kent, the supposed murderer; and he was accordingly requested to go down into the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... turning towards the interior, 'lead round this gentleman's horse; and you, sir, condescend ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson

... his worldly substance, which is God's gift too. Many immense fortunes have been made, not by absolute dishonesty, but in ways to which a man of genius ought to be yet more ashamed than another to condescend; but it does not therefore follow that if a man of genius will do honest work he will not make a fair livelihood by it, which for all good results of intellect and heart is better than a great fortune. But then Shakspere began with doing what he could. He did not consent to starve until the world ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald

... throughout the whole of this transaction [Erskine's], a fundamental mistake, which would suggest that his Majesty had proposed to propitiate the Government of the United States, to consent to the renewal of commercial intercourse; ... as if, in any arrangement, his Majesty would condescend to barter objects of national policy and dignity for permission to trade with another country." The phrase was Canning's, and summarized precisely the jealous attitude towards its own prestige characteristic of the ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... doubt to celebrate my oratory," I said, recovering myself. "But as we do not know how long Mr. Holgate will condescend to continue his compliment we may as well make the most ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson

... my right was indisputable in my own province. The precedence was adjudged in my favour by a decree of the Council, and I found, by the great number of gentlemen who then appeared for me, that to condescend to men of low degree is the surest way to equal those ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz

... now alive, I here tender him my apologies for my conduct to him. He was very rich; he used me very ill. I managed to frighten away his servant who came to attend him after the affair of Warburg, and from that time would sometimes condescend to wait upon the patient, who always treated me with scorn; but it was my object to have him alone, and I bore his brutality with the utmost civility and mildness, meditating in my own mind a very pretty return for all his favours to me. Nor was I the only ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... approximately constant for immense periods of time, and may be called permanent in comparison with human generations; and that, although the leading principles of Logic are perhaps eternal truths, yet upon a detail such as this, the science may condescend to recognise a distinction if it is good for (say) only 100,000 years. That if former generations of plants and animals were not lost, all distinctions of species would disappear, may be true; but they are lost—for the most part beyond hope of recovery; and accordingly the distinction of species ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read

... Weston stood where he was; he could not condescend to so mean an imposition, and he felt pleased to see that Charles Hardy, unlike the others, made no attempt to hide the fact that he had been engaged in conversation, instead of continuing ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder

... a girl to condescend to subterfuge to gain a point. She was often frank to painfulness. To her mind when one wished a favor, the only way was to speak directly and ask for it. She was neither politic nor tactful. She had decided that basket-ball was the one game that was really worth playing. ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird

... "'Will mademoiselle condescend to take my arm?' said Morin, with sulky, and yet humble, uncouthness. I dare say he would have given worlds if he might have had that little hand within his arm; but, though she still kept silence, she shuddered up away from him, ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell

... chagrin under a show of contemptuous incredulity. 'The wench has too fine a conceit of herself!' he blurted out. 'Hark you, sir—this is a fable! I wonder you dare to put it about. A gentleman of the station of my lord Dunborough's son does not condescend ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman

... do we find poverty and piety yoked together in one house. What a mercy it is that piety will condescend to dwell with poverty; sit down at the same dry crust, or sit without it; wear the same patched and threadbare raiment, and not complain; stay in the same circle, endure the same hunger, cold, sickness, and suffering ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell

... a fiery ambition that overleaped every obstacle,7 did not condescend to count the desperate chances of a contest with the Crown. He threw his own weight into the scale with Cepeda. The offer of grace was rejected; and he thus cast away the last tie which held him to his country, and, by the ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... cringe, bareheaded, and the farmeers' women drop innumerable curtseys. From their cushions in the great coach the ladies look down beneficently, and smile on the poorer folk. They buy a yard of ribbon with affability; they condescend to purchase an ounce of salts, or a packet of flower-seeds: they deign to cheapen a goose: their drive is like a royal progress; a happy people is supposed to press round them and bless them. Tradesmen bow, farmers' wives ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... love him." This is wonderful! The more so as we are told that His love toward us is identical with that which He has toward our Lord. Speaking of those who shall believe through His apostles' words, Jesus said, "That the world may know that Thou lovest them even as Thou lovest Me." That God should condescend to think about our planet, which is as a leaf in the forest of being! That He should deign to regard mankind, who, in size at least, are less than a colony of ants that may have built their home at the foot of the Himalaya! That He should pity our race! This were much. But that He should love ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer

... yourself little time to prevent such an event, my lord," said Mowbray; "but things being as I now see them, you shall have what interest I can give you in the affair.—We must stand, however, on more equal terms, my lord—I will condescend so far as to allow it would have been inconvenient for me at this moment to have lost that game, but I cannot in the circumstances think of acting as if I had fairly won it. We must draw stakes, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... general: and I thought it so provoking, that I determined in my own mind that, far from humouring such airs, I would rather not dance at all, than with any one who would seem to think me ready to accept the first partner who would condescend to take me. ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... share the same apartment with herself; for as the remembrance of certain devotional exercises to be gone through, over each bead in her rosary, came to her, she had her doubts if the "blissed St. Pathrick," (who, for reasons best known to herself, was her favorite saint), would condescend to listen to petitions offered from such near proximity to the unbelieving Protestants; not that she thought her mistress was not a most excellent woman, but she was a Protestant, and often had she called upon the blissid St. Patrick, to "bring her dear lady over to the thrue faith." ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale

... knows nothing concerning him, or his fortune, character, peace, or daughter. It is and ought to be dead to private feeling. It must consider nothing but the public benefit: nor must it ever condescend to vary from its ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... at first, then looked mystified. At last he frowned. "You hesitate?—mille tonnerres! Haven't I told you that I will condescend to ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad

... a partner in case Mr. Arlington, after keeping away all the evening, should condescend to ask me? I think ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings

... herself; they were His always, hers never, and provided they redounded to His glory, she asked no more. "I am overwhelmed with astonishment," she writes, "that a God who is loved purely by myriads of millions of souls, should cast His eyes on me, the last of His creatures, and condescend to grant me a share in His love." And again, "If a soul is beautiful, good, or holy, it is with the beauty, the goodness and the holiness of God. Knowing that these attributes belong wholly to Him, she desires that He alone should have the honour of them, wishing no honour or ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"

... paved or not paved at all. Trottoirs are not considered indispensable. The houses are built of wood or brick, generally one-storied, and separated from each other by spacious yards. Many of them do not condescend to turn their facades to the street. The general impression produced is that the majority of the burghers have come from the country, and have brought their country-houses with them. There are ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... haunted by quotations from works of an inexact and even fanciful description; but here,' he added, 'is another: "Othello's occupation's gone." Yes, dear Somerset, it is gone; I am no more a dynamiter; and how, I ask you, after having tasted of these joys, am I to condescend to a less ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

... enough already! He is worth a dozen of her all the same, and is far nicer than I thought at first. It's perfectly absurd to think a man and a girl cannot be in the same house for a week without falling in love with each other. I won't condescend to take the faintest notice of her insinuations. I shall be as nice as I like, and give up snubbing him from this minute. He can be engaged to fifty Mollie Burrells if he likes; that's no reason why I ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... on this object were the occasion of his first appearance as an author. The publication of his book was however, for some time delayed by the urgent remonstrances of his friends, who thought it was beneath the dignity of a nobleman to condescend to write a book. Happily, Tycho determined to brave the opinion of his order; the book appeared, and was the first of a series of great astronomical productions from the ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball

... of the purest affection. It will ever constitute part of my happiness to know that I stand well in your opinion because I am satisfied that you can have no views to answer by throwing out false colors, and that you possess a mind too exalted to condescend to low arts and intrigues ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow

... hearts may be right with God and we be steadfast in His Covenant, that we who are now combining together in a new church of Jesus Christ, may by the purity of our faith and morals become one of those Golden Candlesticks among which the Son of God in way of favor and protection will condescend to walk. And that every member of it thro' imputed righteousness and inherent grace may hereafter be found among that happy Multitude whom the glorious head of the Church, the Heavenly Bridegroome shall present to Himself a glorious church not having spot or ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... Jackal, with an impudent laugh, 'will condescend to take hold of the tip of my brush with your trunk, and so ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... that neither his character nor Ben Jonson's knowledge of human nature is properly understood; for it certainly could not be expected that a man whose spirit glowed to encounter a whole host could, without tarnishing his dignity, if closely pressed, condescend to fight an individual. But as these remarks on courage may be felt by the reader as an invidious introduction of a subject disagreeable to him, we beg to hush it for the present and ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various

... "I will speak soothliness. It was partly because I had prayed for money to buy food and physic: but partly also, because I was afraid of something, and I had asked the good God to keep it away from me. When you said that you and Messire would condescend to come with me, it delivered me from my fear. The good God must have heard me, ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... of the poetic temper too, the queer tricks which the humour of Victor Hugo will condescend to play. I suppose he is by nature the least endowed with a sense of humour of all the men of genius who have ever lived. The poet Wordsworth had more. But like so many poetic natures, whose vivid imagination lends itself to every sort of human reaction, even ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys

... Gladys coolly, as she began to coil her long tresses round her shapely head; 'we must take it for granted, anyhow. And what did he give you in exchange for all your interesting information? Did he condescend to tell you anything ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan

... myself,' rejoined Montoni, 'requires, that I should converse more largely with you upon some points of the subject in dispute. Return with me to Venice, and I will condescend to ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... I didn't condescend to answer, but walked off with my most dignified air, which no doubt was lost upon my cousin, who, I fancy, had almost forgotten my existence before he had closed the hall door behind him, for he was ...
— My New Home • Mary Louisa Molesworth

... don't do that, Mark—don't!" she pleaded. "You might as well go and ask a Jewish Rabbi why he wouldn't let his daughter marry a Christian. Wise and clever as he is in other things, poor Dad is simply a fanatic in this, and—well, if he did condescend to explain, I'm afraid you might mistake what he would think the correct scientific way of putting it, for an insult, and I couldn't bear to think of you quarrelling. You know you're the only two people in the world I—I—Oh dear, what shall ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith

... very benevolent and humble to condescend to instruct the poor classes in raising potatoes and making hasty-pudding. The fact magnifies the ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer

... to leave him, but he could beseech her, and Elizabeth knew full well there was nothing in the world she could refuse to her husband, which he would condescend so far as to entreat; for one loving, grateful word from his lips, she would give him her heart's blood, drop by drop; for one tender embrace, one passionate kiss, she would lay down her life joyfully. But she would not believe in this separation; she would yet escape this unblessed fate—would ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... responsible. As that godly writer, some thirty years later, was writing the story of these transactions, he allowed his pious imagination to cast a halo over the facts; and, therefore, he penned the misleading sentence that the chief concern of the Brethren was that Christ "would condescend to enter into a special covenant with His poor Brethren's people, and take us as his peculiar property." For that statement there is not a shadow of evidence. The whole story of the "special covenant" is a myth. In consulting the Lot the ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... old maxim in the schools, That flattery 's the food of fools; Yet now and then your men of wit Will condescend to take a bit. ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... General Webb when he might wait upon him; he who had commanded the stout old general, who had injured him and sneered at him, who had kept him dangling in his antechamber, who could not even after his great service condescend to write him a letter in his own hand. The nation was as eager for peace, as ever it had been hot for war. The Prince of Savoy came amongst us, had his audience of the queen, and got his famous Sword of Honour, and strove with all ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... work, had I followed my own will; but hitherto have I considered it most for the glory of God, quietly to refrain from outward service, in order to glorify Him by patient submission, till my Lord shall be pleased to condescend to call His servant forth again for active engagements. And then, I know, He will give me grace, cheerfully to go back to the delightful service of pointing sinners to the Lamb of God, and of feeding ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself. Second Part • George Mueller

... adds Berlioz, 'but the theatres have to pay. They will pay until the treasury is empty, and after that the 'Immortals' will have to condescend to give singing lessons (i.e., those who know enough for it), or to sing at public places with accompaniment of one guitar, four candles, and a green carpet. After that we may be able to construct the Temple of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... to the benefit.' I was not such a stranger to the world as to be ignorant that this was the fashionable cant to disguise the insolence of the basest proposal; but I made an effort to suppress my resentment. 'Sir,' cried I, 'the family which you now condescend to favour with your company, has been bred with as nice a sense of honour as you. Any attempts to injure that, may be attended with very dangerous consequences. Honour, Sir, is our only possession at present, and of that last treasure we must be particularly careful.'—I was soon ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith

... my letter to M. le Vicomte d'Ache, in order that he may present it to your Majesty and solicit a favour very dear to my heart—that you will condescend to stay at my house on your way to Paris. Sire, you will find my house open, and, they say, surrounded with barricades, consequences of the ill-usage it has received during their different investigations, ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre

... recognized the noblesse of the Imperial government, and the constitution of society as it had been battled for by the Revolution. At the same time his court was filled with all the great historic names of the country, who returned, no longer avowedly the first in authority, and therefore prompt to condescend, but the first in presumption, and therefore prompt to take offence. The new alliance that was formed was that of the plebeian caste with the noblesse de l'Empire, against which it had been previously so incensed. Notwithstanding all the efforts sincerely ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... residing under the protection of the laws of England, she must be tried by those laws, and must make answer to the commissioners appointed for the purpose. Mary put on all her queenly dignity, and declared that she would never condescend to answer as a subject of the Queen of England, but would only consent to refer their differences to a tribunal of foreign princes. As to her being under the protection of English law, she had come to England of her ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... her forces. If Olga meant to show herself that sort of woman, she should soon know with whom she had to deal. Not but what Lucia would give her the chance first of behaving with suitable loyalty and obedience; she would even condescend to cooperate with her so long as it was perfectly clear that she aimed at no supremacy. But there was only one lawgiver in Riseholme, one court of appeal, ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... When, however, he did condescend to gallop, the distance that separated him from the other ponies was rapidly overhauled. Norah, leaning forward in her stirrups, her face alight with eagerness, urged him on with voice and hand—she rarely, if ever touched him with a whip at any time. Quickly she gained on the ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce

... myths relate, the nymphs obtained the embraces of the gods; by pleasing him and obeying him in all things, lifting up daily pure hands and a thankful heart, if by any means he may condescend to purge thine eyes, that thou mayest see clearly, and without those motes, and specks, and distortions of thine own organs of vision, which flit before the eyeballs of those who have been drunk over-night, and which are called by sophists subjective truth; watching everywhere anxiously and reverently ...
— Phaethon • Charles Kingsley

... not condescend to answer such baseless charges," he stated. "I thought you had sense enough not to believe every little thing you hear. Certainly I expect you not to believe this, and I know you won't on consideration. ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd

... attachments, refused, at first, to lend her countenance to this new passion. It was not till entreated by Abbot, archbishop of Canterbury, a decent prelate, and one much prejudiced against Somerset, that she would condescend to oblige her husband, by asking this favor of him.[*] And the king, thinking now that all appearances were fully saved, no longer constrained his affection, but immediately bestowed the office of cup-bearer on ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... I didn't condescend to answer this. The drumming on the panels stopped and the absurd thunder of it died out in the house. I don't know why precisely then I had the acute vision of the red mouth of Jose Ortega wriggling with rage between his funny whiskers. He ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... Vincent, I suppose. That is so like you. You're always thinking things, always putting that and that together, and doing it quite wrong. You were hopelessly out of it about Vincent. Whether you're wrong or right about Mr. Haviland, I simply shan't condescend to tell you." And having lashed herself into a state of indignation, Audrey went on warmly—"I'm not a child of ten. I won't have my actions criticised. I won't have my motives spied into. I won't be ruled by your miserable ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair

... patching, repartee; 40 And, just as humour rose or fell, By turns a slattern or a belle; 'Tis true she dress'd with modern grace, Half naked at a ball or race; But when at home, at board or bed, 45 Five greasy nightcaps wrapp'd her head. Could so much beauty condescend To be a dull domestic friend? Could any curtain-lectures bring To decency so fine a thing? 50 In short, by night, 'twas fits or fretting; By day, 'twas gadding or coquetting. Fond to be seen, she kept a bevy Of powder'd coxcombs at her levy; The 'squire and captain took their stations, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... got any sleep? But she was not going to back down now—not she. She would look after this detestable little animal if it killed her. She would get a book on baby hygiene and be beholden to nobody. She would never go to father for advice—she wouldn't bother mother—and she would only condescend to Susan in dire extremity. They ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... doctrine, nor so much as the silent sanctioner of any doctrine. Scripture cannot become the author of falsehood,—though it were as to a trifle, cannot become a party to falsehood. And it is made impossible for Scripture to teach falsely, by the simple fact that Scripture, on such subjects, will not condescend to teach at all. The Bible adopts the erroneous language of men, (which at any rate it must do, in order to make itself understood,) not by way of sanctioning a theory, but by way of using a fact. The Bible ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... Jorrocks, before mentioned, he will be a better advocate than you; he knows the law of the case entirely, and better probably than you. He can speak long, loud, to the point, grammatically—more grammatically than you, no doubt, will condescend to do. In the case of Snooks v. Jorrocks he is all that can be desired. And so about dry disputes, respecting real property, he knows the law; and, beyond this, has no more need to be a gentleman than my body-servant has—who, by the way, from constant intercourse with the best ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... at the muddy boots, though it was a task she disliked as much as she could dislike anything. She was rewarded by a gruff "Thank you," and when Geoff came down again in dry clothes, to find the table neatly prepared, and his little sister ready to pour out his tea, he did condescend to say that she was a good child! But even though his toast was hot and crisp, and his egg boiled to perfection, Geoff's pleasanter mood did not last long. He had a good many lessons to do that evening, and ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth

... friendship. As a maiden of the castle once said, provoked by his coldness, "Sir Paul seems to have everything to say to all of us, but nothing to any one of us." He was kind to all with a sort of great and distant courtesy that was too secure even to condescend. And so ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... yourself to set examples of refinement! Now if your beautiful daughter would but make some nobleman happy as his wife! You would come to Europe, no?" and Storri spread his hands in rapture over so much possible good fortune. "Yes, if your lovely daughter would but condescend!" Storri paused, and sighed a sigh ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... "But let's not follow up that philosophy. We're getting into deep water. Let's wade ashore. We'll say whatever is is right, and let it go at that. It will be quite all right for you to offer me a cup of tea, if your kitchen mechanic will condescend. That Chink of mine is having a holiday with my shotgun, trying to bag a brace of grouse for dinner. So I throw ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... school life, and even, on the whole, bracing. What has got rid of it is a kinder and more tender spirit outside. I don't object to showing up bad things at all. By all means put them, if you can, in a clear light, and show their ugliness. Show your shame and disgust if you like, but do not condescend to personal abuse. That only weakens your case, because it merely proves that you have still some of the bully left in you. Be peaceable writers, my dear boys," said Father Payne, expanding in a large smile. "Don't squabble, don't try to scathe, don't ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... I said, was about angels and spirits, whether we need to pray to them to help us, and not to hurt us. St. Paul answers: God, when He was manifested in the flesh of a man, was seen by these angels. And that is enough for us. They saw the Lord God condescend to be born in a stable, to live as a poor man, to die on the cross. They saw that His will to man was love. And they do His will. And therefore they love men, they help men, they minister to men, because they follow the Lord's example, and do the will of their ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley

... into Europe: I therefore most humbly entreated his royal favour, to give order that I should be conducted in safety to Nangasac." To this I added another petition, "that for the sake of my patron the king of Luggnagg, his majesty would condescend to excuse my performing the ceremony imposed on my countrymen, of trampling upon the crucifix: because I had been thrown into his kingdom by my misfortunes, without any intention of trading." When this latter petition was interpreted to the Emperor, he seemed a little surprised; ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift

... Michelangelo stupendous in his fame, that Michelangelo renowned for prudence, that Michelangelo whom all admire, has chosen to display to the whole world an impiety of irreligion only equalled by the perfection of his painting! Is it possible that you, who, since you are divine, do not condescend to consort with human beings, have done this in the greatest temple built to God, upon the highest altar raised to Christ, in the most sacred chapel upon earth, where the mighty hinges of the Church, the venerable priests of our religion, ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... not suit the Treadwell arch of her nose. He thought she looked plain, but he did not realize that in another dress and hat she might have been almost beautiful—that she was, indeed, one of those large-minded, passionately honest women who, in their scorn of pretence or affectation, rarely condescend to make the best of their appearances. To have consciously selected a becoming hat would have seemed to her a species of coquetry, and coquetry, even the most innocent, she held in abhorrence. Her sincerity was not only intellectual; it was of that rarer sort ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... "History of Classical French Literature," pointed out that French novels were under a cloud of suspicion even so far back as the days of Erasmus, in 1525. It was many scores of years thereafter before the self-appointed guardians of French literature esteemed the novel highly enough to condescend to discuss it. ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton

... Captain Mitchell. "Well, that's lucky, or else I would have thought that you went on fooling him for the fun of the thing. And perhaps that was your object. Well, I must say I personally wouldn't condescend to that sort of thing. It is not to my taste. No, no. Blackening a friend's character is not my idea of fun, if it were to fool the greatest ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... not condescend to argue. Neither did I dwell upon the fact that her affection had not reached the point of informing him whether she had a husband, and if so, whether he was alive or dead. This gives me an idea. Suppose I can ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke

... my own, and die so too! (To live and die is all I have to do:) Maintain a poet's dignity and ease, And see what friends, and read what books I please; Above a patron, though I condescend Sometimes to call a minister my friend. I was not born for courts or great affairs; I pay my debts, believe, and say my prayers; Can sleep without a poem in my head, Nor know, if Dennis be alive or dead. Why am I asked what next ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... of the way by sleeping before your sitting-room fire, I never should have doubted you. As it is, I'm sure I'll take off mother directly, and only too appy. I know you'll excuse the precautions of affection, won't you? What a pity, Master Copperfield, that you didn't condescend to return my confidence! I'm sure I gave you every opportunity. But you never have condescended to me, as much as I could have wished. I know you have never liked me, as I have ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... healed by things that excel in cold, so proneness to pride is most efficaciously healed by those things which savor most of abasement. Hence it is said in the Decretals (II, cap. Si quis semel, de Paenitentia): "To condescend to the humblest duties, and to devote oneself to the lowliest service is an exercise of humility; for thus one is able to heal the disease of pride and human glory." Hence Jerome praises Fabiola (Ep. lxxvii ad ocean.) for ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... "that Review always pays well, this is your own cheque, fairly earned; remember I have deprived you of all the glory of the story. For I know Wilkie too well to be able to hope that he will condescend to explain such a mistake in ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner

... the interpreter, "the prince doth condescend to accept. But be sure, whatever else fails, that the ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray

... disdainful air that led him on to victory. A passing enthusiasm for some foreign art or fashion may deceive the world, it cannot impose upon his intimates. He may be amused by a foreigner as by a monkey, but he will never condescend to study him with any patience. Miss Bird, an authoress with whom I profess myself in love, declares all the viands of Japan to be uneatable - a staggering pretension. So, when the Prince of Wales's marriage was celebrated at Mentone by a dinner to ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson

... handshake and how-dy-do 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 both bugs and ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln

... "Will you condescend to listen, Sir Percy?" queried Chauvelin peremptorily, "or shall I call the guard and give up all thoughts ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... in sketching and studying, but he sadly felt the need of instruction, and of money to buy materials. He was merely groping his way as best he might; and he felt that Miss Ludolph could teach him so much, if she would only condescend to the task! He was willing to be a very humble learner at first. If in some way he could only make known his readiness to pick up the crumbs of knowledge that she might be willing out of kindness to scatter in his path, he might expect something ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... appear in his presence, but Don Diego, delighted, presents to him in chains, in the name of this conqueror, these crowned captives, and asks as a favor from this generous prince that he condescend to look upon the hand which has saved ...
— The Cid • Pierre Corneille

... principal head in this group is made an exact likeness of Voltaire. When Dr. Goldsmith saw this picture, he was very indignant at it, and said:—"It very ill becomes a man of your eminence and character, Sir Joshua, to condescend to be a mean flatterer, or to wish to degrade so high a genius as Voltaire before so mean a writer as Dr. Beattie; for Dr. Beattie and his book together will, in the space of ten years, not be known ever to have ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... most severe fighting takes place. But here again it is seldom that any large proportion of either party is slain; for the dense jungle everywhere offers abundant opportunities of concealment to those who condescend to seek its shelter, and there are few, even among the Kayans and Kenyahs, who will fight to the bitter end, if the alternative of ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... awful expanse of water? What a small dot was this great ship on the visible surface! But the ocean itself extended away beyond there, reaching out to the infinite. The dot became a mere speck, undistinguishable beneath a celestial microscope such as the gods might condescend ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... valeting Mr. Ross in his actual work.... For Mr. Ross actually did work now and then, though his chief duty was to make an impression on old Mr. Pemberton, his sons, and the other big chiefs. Still, he did condescend to "put his O. K." on pictures, on copy and proof for magazine advertisements, car cards, window-display "cut-outs," and he dictated highly ethical reading matter for the house organ, which was distributed ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis

... been perused. Mr. Hamilton had bowed his head upon his hands, for he could not speak of comfort; the long years of domestic bliss which had been his portion, made him feel bitterly the trial which the heart of his son was doomed to endure. And how was he to aid? Could he seek Greville, and condescend to use persuasions, arguments to force from him his consent? With clenched hand and knitted brow Percy stood, his thoughts forcibly drawn from the sufferers by the bitter indignation he felt towards the heartless, cruel man who had occasioned ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar

... did as he was requested, putting the quarter-bill of his ship into the hands of his unknown enemy, with an eye that was far too honest to condescend to bestow even a look on a ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... taking any duty. She objects to housekeeping; she calls it domestic slavery, and feels she was intended for higher things. What higher things she does not condescend to explain. One or two wives of my acquaintance have persuaded their husbands that these higher things are all-important. The home has been given up. In company with other strivers after higher things, they live ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome

... immortal translator of Rabelais, in his preface, "have deservedly gained esteem by translating; yet not many condescend to translate but such as cannot invent; though to do the first well, requires often as much genius as to do the latter. I wish, reader, thou mayest be as willing to do the author justice, as I have strove to do ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... had to employ at my own expense a pilot—no steamboat was allowed to go without one—whom I had to pay at the rate of L7 15s. sterling a day. A cook had to be employed for the crew, as none of the sailors could be induced to condescend to be the chef. Two applicants were eventually found. One who was willing to do the cooking at a salary of L3 10s. a day, his chief ability, said he, consisting in boiling rice and fish. Another fellow eventually undertook the job at a salary of L1 ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... were purchased by us, would be put to death, if we were not to buy them. But what should we say, if it should turn out, that we were the causes of those very cruelties, which we affected to prevent? But, if it were not so, ought the first nation in the world to condescend to be ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson

... "though he once roved a careless mountaineer in the Highlands of Scotland," he has not of late enjoyed this advantage. Moreover, he expects no profit from his publication; and whether it succeeds or not, "it is highly improbable, from his situation and pursuits hereafter," that he should again condescend to become an author. Therefore, let us take what we can get and be thankful. What right have we poor devils to be nice? We are well off to have got so much from a man of this Lord's station, who ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... the cap of consideration and joined heads with Hamed and the faithful serviles, thought if I paid twelve doti, out of which three should be of Ulyah quality, that the Sultan might possibly condescend to accept our tribute; supposing he was persuaded by the oratorical words of the "Faithfuls," that the Musungu had nothing with him but the mashiwa (boat), which would be of no use to him, come what ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... they don't. They are persons who have never been bored by the monotony of dressing or have tried to vary it, sometimes beginning at one end, sometimes at the other, but always defeated by the hard fact that a man cannot button his collar until he has put on his shirt. If they condescend so far, they will say, with some truth, that it is a question of weather, and any fool knows that it is not pleasant to get out of a warm bed into a cold bedroom. The matter has been considered from that angle. 'I have been ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren

... express extreme contempt. The richer classes made it their boast that they neither bought nor sold, being supplied (we must suppose) from their estates, and by their slaves and dependents, with all that they needed for the common purposes of life. Persians of the middle rank would condescend to buy, but considered it beneath them to sell; while only the very lowest and poorest were actual artisans and traders. Shops were banished from the more public parts of the towns; and thus such commercial transactions as ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson

... said she, once, to Mr. Salisbury; 'you stop, perhaps, from politeness to me—from compassion to my ignorance; but, though I am ignorant, you do not tire me, I assure you. Did you ever condescend to read the Arabian tales? Like him whose eyes were touched by the magical application from the dervise, I am enabled at once to see the riches of a new world—Oh! how unlike, how superior to that in which I have lived!—the GREAT world, as it ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth

... herself down upon her knees on the floor of the carriage. "There; say that I am forgiven; say that Sophie is pardoned." The little woman had calculated that even should her Julia pardon her, Julia would hardly condescend to ask for the ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

... the Gwalior regiments and contingents which are stationed in the neighbourhood; though the land among them is become minutely subdivided, and they are obliged to seek service or starve. They are all too proud for manual labour, even at the plough. No Bundelkhand Rajput will, I believe, condescend to put ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... deign a look but to show contempt. Men of science they call beggars, and the indigent they reproach for their wretched raggedness. Proud of the property they possess, and vain of the rank they claim, they take the upper hand of all, and deem themselves everybody's superior. Nor do they ever condescend to return any person's salutation, unmindful of the maxim of the wise: That whoever is inferior to others in humility, and is their superior in opulence, though in appearance he be rich, yet in reality he is a beggar:—If a worthless fellow, because of his wealth, treats a learned ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... very advanced age he could condescend to trifle in namby-pamby[520] rhymes, to please Mrs. Thrale and her daughter, he may have, in his earlier years, composed such a ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... technical combinations. The giant of to-day, to my mind, is indisputably Rachmaninoff. He is writing the greatest original music for piano of any living composer. All of his compositions are pianistic and he does not condescend to pander to a trifling public taste. He is a man with a great mind, and, in addition to this, he has a delightful sense of proportion and a feeling for the beautiful, all of which makes him a composer ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke

... skins and less enlightened minds than the slaves that would be taken to the conquered land by the conquerors. How could the slaves thus taken there be allowed to see even their inferiors in the enjoyment of personal freedom? If the State of Arkansas can condescend to be afraid of a few hundred free negroes and mulattoes, and can illustrate its fear by turning them out of their homes in mid-winter, what might not be expected from a ruling caste in a new country, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... Caterina has something to put in them.' 'Oh, it is not worth while—no one cares for me, sir.' 'But, indeed, we do,' replied little Caterina; 'I have something for you, but I am not at all sure you will condescend to accept it. 'Have you indeed, Miss Caterina? I shall feel highly honored; I give you my word that whatever it is, I will accept it joyfully.' 'Very well: only please to remember this, when you see what is ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins

... suspicions were aroused, and he reported the matter to the captain, who, however, made light of it, and said that Almanza had told him that Foster and Ryan had been shipmates with him on a Sydney barque some years before, and that it was only natural that Almanza would relax discipline a little, and condescend to chat for a few minutes with men who had sailed ...
— John Frewen, South Sea Whaler - 1904 • Louis Becke

... remembers many passages in former times—I speak his very words—which incline him to do all that can possibly consist with his honour, to wipe out unkindness between you; and for this desirable object, he is willing to condescend in a degree, which, as you could not have expected, it will no doubt give you great pleasure ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... has my passion been suppressed. Too long have I been obliged to act a studied part, and employ a language foreign to my heart." "I thought," answered Delia, with hesitation, "that you were going to leave the kingdom." "And did my fair one condescend to employ a thought upon me? Did she interest herself in my concern and enquire after my welfare? And how so soon could she have ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin

... was delivered with some marks of anger, which induced me to tell him how the tribunal of the most excellent the Lords chiefs of the Ten is in our country supreme; that it does not do its business unadvisedly, or condescend to unworthy matters; and that, therefore, should those Lords have come to any public declaration of their will, it must be attributed to orders anterior, and to immemorial custom and authority, recollecting that, on former occasions likewise, similar ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... but she recognizes its hopelessness." With the usual bluntness of masculine perception he failed to see that it was impossible for her to ignore what he himself was accustomed to dwell upon at such dreary length. If he was profoundly convinced that there was no hope, she could scarcely condescend to suggest that there might be a glimmer. So the young man continued to be wrapped in the darkness which was largely born of ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam

... assist him with Money, when indeed they design only to give it to themselves; that is, to their own Instruments, which is no more, than to shift it from one hand into another. It will be a favour at the long run, if they condescend to acquaint the King, how they intend to lay out his Treasure. But our Author very roundly tells his Majesty, That at present they will give him no supplyes, because they would be employ'd, to the destruction of his Person, and ...
— His Majesties Declaration Defended • John Dryden

... ever consent to live in a hole like this?" Here the Principal Inhabitant intervened, and poured balm on the wounded spirit of the stranger. He gently reminded him that first impressions are not always to be relied on; and assured him that if he would condescend to take up his abode with us for two or three years, he would never want to live anywhere else. The climate was delicious, the best in the world; it induced a feeling of repose, and bliss, and sweet contentment. ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... pointed to this paragraph which was so convincing and so explicit, that the most exacting jury would have asked for no further evidence. "I have formed a plan which will completely efface all remembrance of that cursed P. F., in case any one could condescend to think of him, after the disgrace we fastened upon him the other evening at the house ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... thereof, saith the Lord God of Israel[8].' This is a prophecy about God's people, but the Jews were told by God to leave something, when they were harvesting, for the poor to glean. Does it not seem wonderful that the mighty Ruler of the universe should condescend to such small things? But nothing is small with him, and we see that his loving care extends to ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church

... into sensibility?" quoth she. "Will you condescend to questions with one whom you despise?—as, indeed," she added with a stinging scorn, "you have ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... wholly help it, and we lose ourselves in wondering why a human being should be so strangely hampered. But if a man displays an odious fault complacently; if he takes mean advantage of other people, and frankly considers people fools who do not condescend to the same devices; if he gives one to understand that he dislikes and despises one; if he reserves a spiteful respect only for those who can beat him with his own weapons; if he is vulgar, snobbish, censorious, unkind, and self-satisfied into the bargain, it is very hard to say what the duty of ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... "Condescend!" echoed the old man with a laugh. "Why, he demanded it last night, even in the first hour of meeting. He was angered that I did not give you up at once. He says you are his already. Oh, he is strange and wild, this youth. There are no reins to ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa

... Mr. Winterfield, for a candor which does honor to us both," he said. "You will hardly expect me—if I may use such an expression—to condescend to justify myself against an accusation which is an anonymous accusation so far as I am concerned. I prefer to meet that letter by a plain proof; and I leave you to judge whether I am still worthy of the friendship to which you have ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins

... only a small part of his estate that Sir Walter could dispose of; but had every acre been alienable, it would have made no difference. He had condescended to mortgage as far as he had the power, but he would never condescend to sell. No; he would never disgrace his name so far. The Kellynch estate should be transmitted whole and entire, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... never of controlling yourself,—such being your notion of freedom, I must yield to you, for you are irresistible. And therefore I have now to enquire into the qualities of a thing of which I do not as yet know the nature. At any rate, will you condescend a little, and allow the question 'Whether virtue is given by instruction, or in any other way,' to be argued upon hypothesis? As the geometrician, when he is asked whether a certain triangle is capable being inscribed in a ...
— Meno • Plato



Words linked to "Condescend" :   stoop to, patronise, patronize, lower oneself, stoop, condescension



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