"Patronising" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prerogatives; His omnipresence and omniscience, extending itself to our most inward thoughts, our secretest purposes, our closest retirements; His watchful providence over all our actions, affairs, and concerns; His faithful goodness, in favouring truth and protecting right; His exact justice, in patronising sincerity, and chastising perfidiousness; His being Supreme Lord over all persons, and Judge paramount in all causes; His readiness in our need, upon our humble imploration and reference, to undertake the arbitration of matters controverted, ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... and Giddy Mounteagle sails into the room with Lady MacDonald. Mrs. Roche feels quite small and insignificant under the stranger's patronising smile. ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... phases of manners. There is the self-complacency that deals with itself like a "truant reader skipping over the harsh places"; the frank discourtesy that finds something vicious in the conventions and "circumstance" of good breeding; the patronising insolence[X] that "with much ado seems to recover your name"; the egoism of discontent that "has an accustomed tenderness not to be crossed in its fancy"; or lastly, that affectation of reticence which is as modern as anything in the book, ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... Stanway and his cronies effusively, the opposing and outraged faction with a certain fine acrimony. 'Good-night, Fred,' said John, throwing a backward patronising glance at Ryley, who had strolled uneasily into the room. The young man paused before replying. 'Good-night,' he said stiffly, and his demeanour indicated: 'Do not patronise me too much.' Fred could not dance, but he had audaciously sat out four ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... the chief of them. Here is my son-in-law, the Luxury of Being a Landowner, who has a stomach shaped like a pear. This is the Luxury of Satisfied Vanity, who has such a nice, puffy face, (The LUXURY OF SATISFIED VANITY gives a patronising nod.) These are the Luxury of Drinking when you are not Thirsty and the Luxury of Eating when you are not Hungry: they are twins and their legs are made of macaroni. (They bow, staggering.) Here are the Luxury of Knowing Nothing, who is as deaf as a post, and the Luxury of ...
— The Blue Bird: A Fairy Play in Six Acts • Maurice Maeterlinck
... magnificent automobile, and to have given superb and uproarious repasts, and to have rendered innumerable women exquisitely unhappy. Whereas he arrived by tube or bus, never offered hospitality of any sort, and was like a cat with women. Hence the attitude of the Quarter was patronising, as if the Quarter had said: "Yes, he is the greatest violinist in Paris and perhaps in the world; but that's ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... silence ensued,—Mrs. Ready smoothed down her ruffled plumes, and said, in a pitying, patronising tone, ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... little wife," repeated the patronising potentate, again patting my hand with an air of understanding all about it, "really an excellent little wife. But you must not let your husband have his own way too much, my dear, and take my advice and insist on his bringing you to town next winter." And ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... respectfully take leave." He moved towards the door and then stopped. "There never had been any excuse for your conduct to me," he added. "It has always been the conduct of a rich and capricious woman who amused herself by patronising ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... The Patronising Persons. 'Um! HOLBEIN again, you see—very curious their ideas of painting in those days. Ah, well, Art has made great progress since ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various
... good, Rod, my boy," he said. "We'll be watching you, you know, and of course the blame will fall on me if you don't. But I have no fears." He laughed in a patronising way that made ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... cigars of peculiar mildness, are vociferously made from all parts of the room. The 'professional gentlemen' are in the very height of their glory, and bestow condescending nods, or even a word or two of recognition, on the better-known frequenters of the room, in the most bland and patronising manner possible. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... one and all; why Pombal failed in Portugal, Aranda in Spain, Joseph II. in Austria, Ferdinand and Caroline in Naples—for these last, be it always remembered, began as humane and enlightened sovereigns, patronising liberal opinions, and labouring to ameliorate the condition of the poor, till they were driven by the murder of Marie Antoinette into a paroxysm of rage and terror—why, above all, Louis XVI., who attempted ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... Collective Wisdom, and give you an omnibus epistle. Now, I recommend a good map, a quiet mind, and as Charley says, Attention.—The bright, clear, frosty morning of the 8th found me at Devonport, and nine o'clock beheld the same egregious individual, well-benjamined, patronising with his bodily presence the roof of the Falmouth coach. A steam ferry-bridge took us across the Hamoaze, which, with its stationed hulks, scattered shipping, and town and country banks, made, as it always makes, a beautiful landscape. At Torpoint ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... somewhat sordid arena of the past. The Examiner complains that he never yet knew an author that had not his admirers. Bunyan and Quarles have passed through several editions and pleased as many readers as Dryden and Tillotson. Even Cowper, timidly appreciative and patronising, wrote of the ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... said Mrs. Bunnett in a cold voice, and patronising. "You have come to bring your husband some ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... This is no "castle building," if there be the least affinity between the results of great things and small ones. If a grocer want a coat he will have it from the tailor who will take sugar and tea in payment, in preference to patronising one who requires pounds shillings and pence, and the owners of land in all countries will take right good care that they derive some sort of revenue from their possessions. I say, I think my premises are no "castle buildings;" ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... are censured. Elsewhere DE QUINCEY certainly shows a glimmering recognition of WORDSWORTH'S great qualities, and that before they had been fully admitted; but everywhere there is an impertinence of familiarity and a patronising self-consciousness that is irritating to any one who reverences great genius and high rectitude. It may be conceded that DE QUINCEY, so far as he was capable, did reverence WORDSWORTH; but his exaggerations of awe and delays bear on the face ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... equipage drove up to Mr Norman's door; and that large lady, with her daughter Bell, accompanied by Mr Newton, made their way up stairs to Mrs Norman's drawing-room. Mrs Combermere was always astoundingly grand and patronising when she honoured Cary with a call; Mrs Combermere liked to call upon folks whom she denominated inferiors—to impress them with an overwhelming idea of her importance. But on the simple-minded literal Cary, this honour ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... Italy, Alfieri and the countess settled at Florence, where the poet died on the 9th of October 1803, and was buried in the church of Santa Croce beneath Canova's vast monument erected at Louise's expense. The countess continued to reside in the house on the Lung' Arno at Florence, patronising men of science and letters and holding nightly receptions, at which all visitors were expected to treat their hostess with the etiquette due to reigning royalty. She died on the 29th of January ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the long-legged flapper and good chum, he was affectionately at his ease. He had petted and tormented her by turns, ever since as a boy of ten he had first seen her, a baby a year old, in his Aunt Marjory's arms. Throughout her turbulent but very cheerful childhood he had been her firm, if patronising, friend. Then as she developed into what Ger had described to Eloquent as "a bit of a gawk," he became more than ever her friend and champion. "Uncle Hilary was so beastly down on Mary;" and Mary, though she did knock things over and say quite extraordinarily ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... her with some sense of family pride. "Upon my word, my dear, you do me credit!" he exclaimed, with a somewhat patronising kindness of tone and manner; "indeed any man might be proud of such a daughter. You are ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... gentleman, in his most condescending and patronising manner, "you remind me of myself ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... the proud spirit of her ancestors seemed to take possession of her as she passed out of their patronising presence. It helped her to hold her head high, and carried her through a trying interview with the most fashionable dressmaker in the city, whither she had slipped away with some little models of children's dresses of ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... kind, but the manner was so patronising that Arthur felt offended. He put back the gun, and said, drily, "I shall have no occasion for the ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... suppressed a sniff. She was one of those people who regard the Church of England with patronising affection, as if it were something that had grown up in their ...
— Reginald • Saki
... head drooping down almost to his knees, looked grimly into the fire. He was paying no attention to what was passing around him. His thoughts were not there? Stebbins, on the other hand, appeared eagerly to watch the dancers. He was dressed with a degree of adornment; and exhibited a certain patronising attitude, as if master of the sports and ceremonies! Men and women went and came, as if paying court to him; and each was kept for a moment in courtly converse, and then graciously dismissed, with all the ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... Walcot had already hired the boy Charles, whom Hope had just dismissed; and if he obtained the horse too, the old servant who knew his way to every patient's door, all the country round—it really would look too like the unpopular man patronising his opponent. Besides, it would be needlessly publishing in Deerbrook that ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... your thoughts; you at length shake hands, and part in a transport of good-humoured old acquaintanceship, and not till you have got a hundred yards away, do you cool down sufficiently to remember that you have made a fool of yourself by patronising an imperfect respectability. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... to scream and scold and John, who acted as master of ceremonies, escorted her with a patronising ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... masters—Italian, French, painting, singing, music, dancing. Laetitia was about two years older than Rosalie. Very pretty in an elegant, delicate fashion, and growing up decidedly beautiful in a sheltered, hothouse, Rossetti type of beauty. Always very affectionate to Rosalie and glad to see her; not patronising in the way she might have been patronising and yet, as the two grew older, patronising in a conscious effort to dissemble ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... father's friend, of course, dismissed him summarily as likely to ruin his business. After that altruistic exploit Stevie was put to help wash the dishes in the basement kitchen, and to black the boots of the gentlemen patronising the Belgravian mansion. There was obviously no future in such work. The gentlemen tipped him a shilling now and then. Mr Verloc showed himself the most generous of lodgers. But altogether all that did not amount to much either in the way of gain or prospects; ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... he said in a patronising tone, as Leonard stopped them, for they would have passed ...
— That Scholarship Boy • Emma Leslie
... not worth speaking about now. I don't think he had any illusions about them himself: yet there was a strain of good-nature and perhaps of weakness in his character which prevented him from shaking himself free from their worthless and patronising attentions, which in those days caused me much secret irritation whenever I stayed with him in either of his English homes. My wife and I like best to remember him riding to meet us at the gate of the Park at Brede. Born master of his sincere impressions, he was also a born horseman. He never ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... is 'only the governess,' and yet has the air of a princess. I'm sure I thought she was 'somebody.' But then, you know, there are persons who don't seem to know their proper place." All this had made Isabel cold and reserved in company; for her high spirit could ill brook the slights and patronising airs of those who in other days would have ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... said to the moping British agent. "You'll soon be managing the bank again and patronising the American bar with the ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... mouth, who commanded a certain exclusive "set" by virtue of being the wife of a dissolute Earl whose house was used as a common gambling resort, found out Mrs. Sorrel sitting among a group of female gossips in a corner, and laid a patronising hand upon ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... those trees slope down the hill, (indicating them with a sweep of the hand, and with all the patronising air of the man who has himself arranged the landscape), "how the mists rising from the river fill up exactly those intervals where we need indistinctness, for artistic effect? Here, in the foreground, a few clear touches are not amiss: but a back-ground without mist, you know! It is simply barbarous! ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... wearing it," said Isabel, with a patronising air, "but I want it as narrow as possible, so it won't interfere with my other rings, and, of course, I can take ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... Agar she had found out for herself. Her father she respected and loved, but she had reached that age wherein we discover that father and mother are but as other men and women. Her mother she loved with that half-patronising affection which is found where a daughter ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... labouring under an impression that she might have been, if something had happened which never did happen, and seemed to have never been particularly likely to come to pass—but it's all the same—was very genteel and patronising indeed. Gruff and Tackleton was also there, doing the agreeable, with the evident sensation of being as perfectly at home, and as unquestionably in his own element, as a fresh young salmon on the top of the ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... parish clerk of Windermere in the sixties, was a rare specimen. By trade an auctioneer and purveyor of Westmorland hams, he was known all round the countryside. He was very patronising to the assistant curates, and a favourite expression of his was "me and my curate." When one of his curates first took a wedding he was commanded by the clerk, "When you get to 'hold his peace,' do you stop, for I have ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... latterly in taming and patronising rats. She kept a vast number of these animals in her pay at Auchans, and they succeeded in her affections the poets and artists she had loved in early life. It does not reflect much credit upon the latter, that her ladyship used to complain of never having met with true gratitude except from four-footed ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... coal-miners of this country, and at the annual slaughter of the innocents, Mr Disraeli announced that it was the intention of the Government to carry on the measure. The statement had already fallen from his lips and he had just entered on another sentence when the intolerable patronising voice broke in, "Hear, hear, hear," "Hear, hear hear," as if a very great personage with too great a consciousness of his own greatness were expressing his approval of the conduct of a little boy. Disraeli stopped dead short ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... home, sir. But she is sure to see you, Master Savile," said the butler, with a sudden and depressing change of manner, from correct impassibility to the conventional familiarity of a patronising ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... suddenly perplexed. "I—I—really don't care to go myself," she went on, when she had given his request a moment's thought. "I know these country people—so touchy and taciturn, always ready to think one is patronising them." ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... surrendered, till the dismembered empire gradually shrank back to its original dimensions. As the fortunes of Babylon rose, those of Nineveh suffered a corresponding depression: Babylon soon became so powerful that Eammanshumusur was able to adopt a patronising tone in his relations with Assur-nirari I. and Nabodainani, the descendants of Tukultiassurbel, who at one time ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... conquered the country they might meet with the Glare of Hatred as they patrolled the streets. The Supercilious Stare unnerved them. There is nothing so terrible to the highly-strung foreigner as the cold, contemptuous, patronising gaze of the Englishman. It gave the invaders a perpetual feeling of doing the wrong thing. They felt like men who had been found travelling in a first-class carriage with a third-class ticket. They became conscious of the size of their hands ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... judges in the late seventeenth and the early eighteenth centuries—and travelled to town by rail. The guard was a pawky Aberdonian, and had evidently been greatly struck by Lord Shand's appearance, for his customary salutation to him, delivered no doubt in a parental and patronising fashion, was: "And fu (how) are ye the day, ma lordie?" His lordship's manner of receiving this greeting is not recorded. Still another anecdote on the same subject is that when still an advocate, it was proposed to make Mr. Shand a Judge of Assize. On ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... money. So Geordie had one day lingered behind the other scholars to tell Grace that the idea of going to school even during the winter quarter must be given up. There was always a manly reticence about the boy which made one feel that words of sympathy would be patronising; but Grace could see what a bitter disappointment it was, though he appeared quite unalterable in his decision that he "belonged to Gowrie," when Grace tried to arrange the matter by an interview with the farmer. He could only claim the boy week by week, and the young teacher did not see the necessity ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... soon as the titter occasioned by the observation had subsided, a little smirking man with red whiskers, sitting at the bottom of the table, who during the whole of dinner had been endeavouring to obtain a listener to some stories about Sheridan, called, out, with a very patronising air, 'Alick, what part of ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... why she called public schools horrid, and she answered in such a disgusted, patronising way, "Oh, nobody who is anybody would ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... And that was something I was afraid of. But you should have heard me talking to Mr. Ross the other day when he made one of his patronising remarks about mere science. I believe that when you work hard at almost anything you ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... extremely flattered!" exclaimed Aunt Charlotte, reddening. "A respectable-looking body, indeed! Well, it's something to know I look respectable. And who was this very patronising old person, pray? Some old nurse or other, I should say, to judge ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... of men who called him plain 'Lushington.' When they were older than he, he felt that they were patronising him; if they were younger, he thought them distinctly cheeky. Occasionally he fell in with a relation, or an old schoolfellow, who addressed him as 'Ned,' or even as 'Eddie,' This made him utterly miserable; in the language of Johnson, ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... my best for you, Tulliver," Mr. Nowell replied, in a patronising tone. "I daresay the young lady will be quite willing to entertain any reasonable proposition you ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... was an excellent discursus on the drama from the time of the morality plays to the time of the Irish Players, and it included references to Euripides, Ibsen, the Noh plays of Japan, Mr. Bernard Shaw (in a patronising manner), Synge and Mr. Masefield; but John felt, when he had read it, that most of it had been written before its author had seen his play. The other notice was less learned, but it left no doubt in the ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... salutary work it may within you. That it passed into the blood of England's middle-class population, and set many heads philosophically shaking, and filled the sails of many a sermon, is known to those who lived in days when Art and the classes patronising our Native Art existed happily upon the terms of venerable School-Dame and studious pupils, before the sickly era displacing Exhibitions full of meaning for tricks of colour, monstrous atmospherical vagaries ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... place in an anthology of his critical beauties. The paper on Hazlitt's Characters of Shakespeare (Hazlitt was an Edinburgh reviewer, and his biographer, not Jeffrey's, has chronicled a remarkable piece of generosity on Jeffrey's part towards his wayward contributor) is a little defaced by a patronising spirit, not, indeed, of that memorably mistaken kind which induced the famous and unlucky sentence to Macvey Napier about Carlyle, but something in the spirit of the schoolmaster who observes, "See this clever boy of mine, and only think how much better I could do it myself." Yet ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... increasing difficulty. For there is little gulf, and that easily bridged, between the very young child and the old man, but between the adolescent and the old it is wide and deep. And she was eager where he was retiring, confident where he was suspicious. With what of pity, lovely but half-patronising too, did she solace him!... Between them lay the gulf not only of a generation but of a different habit of thought, of alien tastes, which not all his passionate clutching or her impatient tenderness could bridge for more than a few moments of clinging ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... distractions that followed the publication of Emilius. He was tolerably content with his present friends. The simplicity of their way of dealing with him contrasted singularly, as he thought, with the never-ending solicitudes, as importunate as they were officious, of the patronising friends whom he had just cast off.[15] Perhaps, too, he was soothed by the companionship of persons whose rank may have flattered his vanity, while unlike Diderot and his old literary friends in Paris, they entered into no competition with him in the peculiar sphere of ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... her friend's look of patronising compassion. Something of the dignity of marriage, the shame lest any third party should share or even witness aught that passes between those two who have now become one—awoke in the young girl's spirit. The feeling was partly pride, yet ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... in the mouth—there was time to admire the designs on the enamelled silver centres of the brass service, and to say something, as usual, about the silver dish for confetti, a masterpiece of Antonio Pollajuolo, whom patronising Popes had seduced from his native Florence to more ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... right to enjoy mythelf after it," he added, looking round in a patronising manner, "and I have. I've not had a better lark, in fact, since Grand ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... dispiriting necessity. He who is condemned to it feels that it sets upon his brow the brand of intellectual inferiority. And that brand of servitude never ceases to burn. In no country and at no time has the laborer had a kindly feeling for the rest of us, for everywhere and always has he heard in our patronising platitudes the note of contempt. In his repression, in the denying him the opportunity to avenge his real and imaginary wrongs, government finds its main usefulness, activity and justification. Jefferson's ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... girl." He made a loud smacking noise with his thick lips. "The finest lump of a girl that I ever..." he was going on with great unction, but for some reason or other broke off. I fancied myself throwing something at his head. "I don't blame you, captain. Hang me if I do," he said with a patronising air. ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... the baroness had yet met, spoke her own tongue properly, had no dimples, and did not try to stroke her hand. She looked on with mingled awe and irritation at the easy manner in which Frau von Treumann treated this great lady. It almost seemed as though she were patronising her. Really these Treumanns were a brazen-faced race; audacious East Prussian Junkers, who thought themselves as good as or better than the best. And this one was not even a true Treumann, but an Ilmas, and of the inferior Kadenstein branch; and the ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... was a tactless performance. "When you know our friend a little better," was not happily said; and even "keep him in good order, for he needs it," might be construed into matter of offence. But I lay it before you in all confidence of your acquittal: was the general tone of it "patronising"? Even if such was the verdict of the lady, I cannot but suppose the blame was neither wholly hers nor wholly mine; I cannot but suppose that Pinkerton had already sickened the poor woman of my very name; so that if I had come with the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in the mirror, he started. Was that really himself? How very delightful! He made sure that no one could see, and then began to make bows to himself in the mirror; he walked up and down the room, observing the stateliness of his gesture; he waved his hands in a lordly and patronising fashion; he turned himself round to look at his back; he was very annoyed that he could not see his profile. He came to the conclusion that he looked every inch a king's son, and his inner consciousness told him that consequently the king's daughter ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... ruler of the province. To patronise the busy town of her own domains, Arras, she ordered from there the hangings that were its specialty. Paris also shared her patronage. She took as husband Otho, Count of Burgundy, and set his great family the fashion in the way of patronising the tapestry looms. ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... of the term. He felt absurdly shy, and he was very much relieved when finally Miss Harriet and Annie took their leave and he had said nothing about the engagement. Miss Harriet said a great deal about his most interesting and improving collection. She was a woman of a patronising turn of mind and she made Von Rosen feel ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the Edinburgh Review from its foundation in October 10th, 1802, till June, 1829; and continued to write for it until June, 1848. He was more patronising in his abuse than either Blackwood or the Quarterly, and on the whole fairer and more dignified; though he was considerably influenced by political bias. In fact, his judgments—though versatile—were narrow, his most ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... organ—which is naturally the more powerful instrument of the two. Should she, however, submit to his extortionate requests, he will deem himself entitled to embitter the rest of her existence with his patronising commendation. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 12, 1890 • Various
... He examined the stone with admiration, and placed it on his finger with complacency. "I require no inducements to promote the interests of science, and the purposes of charity," said the eunuch, with a patronising air. "'Tis assuredly a pretty stone, and, as the memorial of an ingenious stranger, whom I respect, I shall, with pleasure, retain it. You were saying something about a talisman. Are you serious? I doubt not that there are means which might obtain ...
— The Rise of Iskander • Benjamin Disraeli
... of your every limb, my man," said Cuticle, addressing him; "the precision of an operation is often impaired by the inconsiderate restlessness of the patient. But if you consider, my good fellow," he added, in a patronising and almost sympathetic tone, and slightly pressing his hand on the limb, "if you consider how much better it is to live with three limbs than to die with four, and especially if you but knew to what torments both sailors ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... for Gilby. He had about him a good deal of the modern restlessness that cannot endure one hour without work or amusement. He made further efforts to make up to the men; he asked them questions with patronising kindness, he gave them scraps of information upon all subjects of temporary interest, with a funny little air of pompous importance. When by mere force of habit they grew more familiar with him, he would strut up and engage them in long conversations, listen to all they said with consummate ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... gold buttons, velvet cuffs, and light blue silk lining, is quite a demi-official, small-and-early arrangement. It is compatible with a patronising and somewhat superb flirtation in the verandah; nay, even under the pine-tree beyond the Gurkha sentinel, whence many-twinkling Jakko may be admired, it is compatible with a certain shadow of human sympathy and ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... blow extinguished his hopes and his navy at Trafalgar. Peace now exists, and long may it exist! but France is rapidly renewing her navy, taking every opportunity of exercising its strength, and especially patronising the policy of founding those colonies which it idly imagines to be the source of British opulence. But whether the wisdom of Louis Philippe limits the protection of French trade to the benefits which commerce may confer on his vast kingdom, or ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... flannels, a man all but the petticoats—seemed to be absorbed in a little court of the second-rate people of Bonchamp, some whom, as Mrs. Greville and Lady Smithson agreed, they had never expected to meet. She was laughing and talking eagerly, and by and by ran up to Bessie, exclaiming in a patronising tone— ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... up with a smile of patronising pity on his face. It was the smile that touched to life the mass of combustible material that had been accumulating for the last hour in Cameron's soul. Instead of following the boy, he turned with a swift movement ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... gleam of sunshine tried about half-an-hour after—just as I was growing terribly sick of my companion's patronising ways—to get in at the little cabin-window, and failed; but it gave notice that the weather was lifting, and I was glad to go on deck, where the planks soon began to show white patches as the sailors began to use their swabs; but the bustle ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... affably inclined, let fall a remark or two upon the Islands. He opined that they were quaint. The poor man meant well, but was a person slightly above his station, and clipped his words. This gave him a patronising tone, which the Commandant, in his impatience, found offensive. He answered in curt monosyllables, which in turn caused the steward to mistake ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... my uncle had at last begun to grasp the true greatness of his egg, he apparently considered it becoming to drop the tone of half-patronising pity he had previously adopted. "Come," said he, smiling, with a dash of raillery, over his coffee-cup; "admit you are a humbug, you whitened sepulchre of an anticipated chick! Until you found a ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... single degree in the social scale becomes not only a barrier to intercourse, but a sufficient reason for contempt. The squire and his lady spent their days in vain attempts to secure invitations to my Lord's at the Abbey and revenged themselves by patronising the captain, who in his turn nodded to the surveyor but would on no account permit intimacy. The surveyor could not for his life have condescended to enter a farmhouse, and yet was never weary of denouncing as intolerably stuck-up the behaviour of those ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... the same fatal work. Four years older than Clara, weakly pretty, sentimental, conceited, she had a fancy for patronising the clever child, to the end that she might receive homage in return. Poor Grace! She left school, spent a year or two at home with parents as foolish as herself, and—disappeared. Prior to that, Miss Harrop had also passed out of Clara's ken, driven by restlessness ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... an exasperating Naboth's vineyard in the heart of the Newland's property. Neither his person, nor his politics, nor his absence of culture, found favour in Richard Calmady's sight. And to-day, being somewhat on edge, the brewer's large, blustering presence and manner—at once patronising and servile—struck him as peculiarly odious. Image betrayed an evil tendency to emphasise his remarks by slapping his acquaintances upon the back. He was also guilty of supposing a defect of hearing in all persons older than, or in any measure denied the absolute plethora of physical ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... gratified smile). You bet! (With a patronising air.) I hope to get Eileen away from all this as soon as—things pick up a little. (Making haste to explain his connection with the dubious household.) Eileen and I have gone around together for years—went to Grammar and High School together—in ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... people were there—vague shamefaced young men with nothing to say, and confident, satirical, fluent young men with a great deal to laugh at. Most of the older women seemed a shade patronising in tone, and looked as if they had never been there before. On the faces of the young women and the girls could be read the resolution never to ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... Italian travels; and in his "Saturday papers" misses the very obvious chance for a comparison between Dante and Milton such as Macaulay afterwards elaborated in his essay on Milton. Goldsmith, who knew nothing of Dante at first hand, wrote of him with the usual patronising ignorance of eighteenth-century criticism as to anything outside of the Greek and Latin classics: "He addressed a barbarous people in a method suited to their apprehension, united purgatory and the river Styx, St. Paul ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... I, after we had cast anchor, to Larkyns, who had kindly noticed me the first day I came aboard and had been very friendly with me since, patronising me in the way the elder boys of the sixth form sometimes do the younger fellows at school, "we'll sail ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... apparently on the point of saying something that would match these words, but he changed his mind and rejoined simply: "Ah well, it's proper you should go with her, very proper. Do everything that's proper; I go in for that. Excuse my being so patronising. You say you don't know me, but when you do you'll discover what a worship I have ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... become the daughter of a great proprietor, they favourably contrast with those more modish damsels who, the moment they are freed from the Park and from Willis's, begin fighting for silver arrows and patronising ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... fill in the outlines, or to complete the half-told tale, of Shakespeare's Caliban.[43] Kenan's hero is the quondam disciple of Stephano and Trinculo, finished and matured in the corrupt mob-politics of Europe; a caustic symbol of democracy, as Renan saw it, alternately trampling on and patronising culture. Browning's Caliban is far truer to Shakespeare's conception; he is the Caliban of Shakespeare, not followed into a new phase but observed in a different attitude,—Caliban of the days before the Storm, an unsophisticated creature of the island, inaccessible to the wisdom of Europe, and ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... little inner vestry, with its green-cloth table and massive inkstand and registers, and began to unvest mechanically. He got his coat out of the beautiful carved wardrobe, and was folding up his hood and surplice, when the Rector laid a patronising hand on his shoulder. "A good sermon, Graham," he said—"a good sermon, if a little emotional. It was a pity you forgot the doxology. But it is a great occasion, I fear a greater occasion than we know, and you rose to it very well. Last night I had half a mind to 'phone you not to come, and to preach ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... hopeful theory, partly to save an argument; for Mark's reverence for his opinion was confined to scientific matters; and he made up to his own self-respect by patronising the Doctor, and, indeed, taking him sometimes pretty sharply to task on ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... on the pressure from without of the one-idea endowed tribe of Repealers of Unions and Corn-Laws—the practical men of the Mountain genus—the O'Connells, Cobdens, and Brights, who, not yet so fierce as their predecessors of the Robespierre and Clootz dynasty, are so far content with patronising the "strap and billy roller" in factories, instead of carting aristocrats to the guillotine, which may come hereafter, if, as they say, appetites grow with what they feed on. For it is a fact recorded in history, that Robespierre himself was naturally ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... man who howls when bands play "Dixie," the man who wears the Stars and Stripes upon his hat, the man who gambles with the racy-looking stranger underneath the warning smoke-room sign (and stops payment on the cheque by cable), be personally conducted, be anything you like; but if you ever get to patronising people who are sea-sick, if you ever get to being proud of having crossed the ocean oftener than little Kansas City lawyers, ...
— Ship-Bored • Julian Street
... same effect, although Mavis could not rid herself of the impression that he was patronising her. A further thing that prejudiced her against Devitt was his absence of self-possession. While speaking, he gesticulated, moved his limbs, and ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... your first sight of the sea? I've not forgotten mine, though it must have been many years before yours. I suppose I wasn't more than four, and kindly patronising elder brothers and sisters had tried to describe it to me beforehand, but the most I pictured was a very, very big pond, with water as flat and uninteresting as that of most ponds. No one can have any real notion of the sea before seeing it; and it is the same with the prairie. ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... was accordingly placed in his hands; Mr Dallas took it home, and was not slow in discovering its beauties, for in the course of the same evening he despatched a note to his Lordship, as fair a specimen of the style of an elderly patronising gentleman as can well be imagined: "You have written," said he, "one of the most delightful poems I ever read. If I wrote this in flattery, I should deserve your contempt rather than your friendship. I have been so fascinated with Childe Harold, that I have ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... way to Coningsby Castle, in Lancashire, where the Marquess of Monmouth was living in state—feasting the county, patronising the borough, and diffusing confidence in the Conservative party in order that the electors of Dartford might return his man, Mr. Rigby, once more for parliament—our hero halted for the night at Manchester. In the coffee-room ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... facing him on the grey, deserted road. "Before I come with you," he said, in his brief, clipped style, "there is one thing I want to know. Are you patronising me for the sake of philanthropy, or for—some ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... volume of light verse Chesterton wrote of the kind of games that old men with beards would delight in. 'Greybeards at Play' is a delightful set of satirical verses in which the ardent philosopher confers a favour on Nature by being on intimate and patronising terms ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... most of the talking, make most of the plans: if they are not seen, it is because they are in the background; they are either active prominently elsewhere or are high on pedestals. With each other they are mostly or often humorously direct, whereas with men they seem to adopt an ironical or patronising attitude. American women seem also to have a curious power of attracting to themselves other women who admire them and foster their self-esteem. And, for all that I know, these satellites have satellites too. Their federacy almost amounts ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... accompanied by Tom Rockets, I went to the house of a relative of ours in Bloomsbury Square, one of the most fashionable and elegant quarters of London. He and his wife were very grand people, but they had a fancy for patronising celebrities small and great, and having by some chance heard that I had seen a good deal of service, and could talk about what I had seen, they begged I would come and see them, and make their house my home. I took them at their word, though I think they were somewhat astonished when Tom ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... sufficiently that he was no longer a member of the Catholic Church. Further, his preaching at Strassburg had resulted directly in the wholesale destruction of images and altars, and ultimately in the abolition of the Mass in that place. The memorandum went on to affirm that, in patronising such a man the Archbishop was acting in direct disobedience to the Pope and to ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... very patronising, cousin Howel!' he soliloquised; 'but I will go and see how Netta gets on, and how your highness ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... Rosalind discussing Neville.... Messalina coarsely patronising a wood-nymph ... the cat striking her claws into a singing bird.... And poor—and old! Neville was, indeed, six years ahead of Rosalind, but she looked the younger of the two, in her slim activity, ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... the best arm-chair, and was puffing away at a foul pipe into the fireplace. After some little time I said; "Why do actors always wear their hair so long?" Carrie in a moment said, "Mr. Hare doesn't wear long HAIR." How we laughed except Mr. Fosselton, who said, in a rather patronising kind of way, "The joke, Mrs. Pooter, is extremely appropriate, if not altogether new." Thinking this rather a snub, I said: "Mr. Fosselton, I fancy—" He interrupted me by saying: "Mr. BURWIN- Fosselton, if you please," which made me quite forget what I was going ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... a little amazed at first; but she saw that his eyes expressed nothing save honest purpose, and she did not dream of being offended by his kindly patronising words. ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... reverenced John, there was not a particle of obsequiousness in her manner, nor any truckling to his point of view; and she plainly felt nothing of the peculiar sense of discomfort that invariably attacked him, in John's presence. Either she was not conscious of her brother's grossly patronising air, or, aware of it, did not resent it, John having always been so much her superior in age and position. Or was it indeed the truth that John did not try to patronise Polly? That his overbearing nature recognised in hers a certain springy resistance, which was not ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... Brummagem monarch, quite indifferent to his unpopularity. As a matter of fact, some allege that all Lord-Lieutenants are hated by the disloyal section of the populace, and if they go through the farce of currying popularity, they can only do so by largely patronising about a dozen shopkeepers, who eventually curse because yet more has not been spent. But this is altogether too limited ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... to you, you boaster!" Siebenburg shouted contemptuously after the Swiss, and then turned to Biberli and the maid with a patronising question; but the former, without even opening his lips in reply, hastened to the door and, with a significant gesture, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and had frequently regretted it. He had always been fond of his cousin and in that half-amused and rather patronising way in which men of thews and sinews are fond of the weaker brethren who run more to pallor and intellect; and he had always felt that if Eustace had not had to retire to Windles to spend his life with a woman whom from his earliest years he ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... this air of patronising grandeur that Mrs. Bluemits took her guests by the hand, and introduced them to the ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... we read him, we are stirred by a dim sense of indignation against his perpetual tone of smiling, patronising, disenchanted, Olympian pity. The word "pity" is one of his favourite words, and a certain kind of pity is certainly a profound ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... fool! All the boys who are beginning to grow moustaches think like that. They are simpletons who believe that women cannot reason and understand. They regard them as dolls who talk without knowing what they are saying. With a patronising manner they let them go on. He has doubtless read some book he did not understand, whose passages he recites. He proves that God could not create because at the poles bones and frozen plants have been found. Then these lived, and now there ...
— Marie Bashkirtseff (From Childhood to Girlhood) • Marie Bashkirtseff
... she remarked in her patronising way. "Your dress is very pretty. But why is your face so red? One would think you had ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson |
