"Menial" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... boast that Birney Holds not the tyrant's rod, Nor binds in chains and fetters, The image of his God; No vassal, at his bidding, Is doomed the lash to feel; No menial crouches near him, ...
— The Liberty Minstrel • George W. Clark
... cases of necessity and urgent campaigns, he was simple and frugal, toiling with painstaking care in menial offices as much as the rest. He trudged beside the soldiers and ran beside them, not taking a bath nor changing his clothing, but helping them in every labor and choosing absolutely the same food as they had. Often he would send to distinguished ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... anything menial in any kind of work from cleaning a stable up! The menial things are the evasions of work—tricks by which men are cheated out ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... homage, make thy prayer, cringe to each ruler of the day. I care for Jove less than nothing; let him do, let him lord it for this brief span, e'en as he list, for not long shall he rule over the gods. But no more, for I descry Jove's courier close at hand, the menial of the new monarch: beyond all [doubt] he has come to announce to us ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... Chang-lung at once jumped into the water. In a moment he had returned with the shoe and was handing it to the old man, when the latter requested him to put it on his foot for him. This was asking him to do a most menial act, which most men would have scornfully resented; but Chang-lung, pitying the decrepit-looking old stranger, immediately knelt on the ground and carefully fastened the dripping shoe on to ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... remained attached to Eustace's service, while the trusty Englishman, John Ingram, performed the more menial offices. Time sped away at the court of Bordeaux; the gallant Du Guesclin was restored to liberty, after twice paying away his ransom for the deliverance of his less renowned brethren in captivity, and Enrique of Trastamare, returning to Castile, ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... proper angle, their bangles jingling, their right hands carried raised in a most affected manner. Their social ease was remarkable, especially in contrast with the awkwardness of the lower poverty-stricken or menial castes. The latter drew one side to let us pass, and stared. Our chiefs' sons, on the other hand, stepped springingly and beamingly forward; spat carefully in their hands (we did the same); shook hands all down the line: exchanged a long-drawn "moo-o-ga!" with each ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... an array of logs nicely notched and ready for our building operations on the morrow, and we were all tired, for after the buildings had been staked out we all fell in and helped with the logging—all but von Schoenvorts. He, being a Prussian and a gentleman, couldn't stoop to such menial labor in the presence of his men, and I didn't see fit to ask it of him, as the work was purely voluntary upon our part. He spent the afternoon shaping a swagger-stick from the branch of jarrah and talking with Miss La Rue, who had sufficiently unbent ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... an agency for almost every branch of employment not actually menial, from curates to lady's-maids, and the place of business was a large one. There were two entrances, and two distinct compartments, at the opposite ends of the building; but a broad, long counter ran the whole length of it, and a person at one end could see the applicants at the other as they stood ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... his hand with energy on the table, and darting a look of fiery indignation from his eye, "Sir, you were this night trepanned—yes, sir, vilely, shamefully trepanned—I repeat the expression—into the performance of a menial office—an office so degrading, so offensive, so unbecoming the rank, the station, and the habits of gentlemen, my very blood recoils when I only ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... essences, to dispute with the disbeliever on gnomes—a paradox will be the darling of his bosom for a month, and a good chimera be his bedfellow by night and theme by day for a year. He is fickle, and casts off his menial mistress at an hour's notice—his mind never weds any of the strange, fantastic idealities, which he woos for a time so passionately—deep disgust succeeds to the strongest attachment for them—he is as great a rake among the wayward "rebusses ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various
... uncle, with the bracketed note in red ink, "see Debbrook, Daybrook, Debbers, and Debs." Yes! this gaunt, half-crazy, overworked peasant, content to rake the dead leaves before the rolling chariots of the Beverdales, was her grandfather; that poorly clad girl in the cottage, and even the menial in the scullery of this very house that might be HERS, were her COUSINS! She burst into a laugh, and then refolded the ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... are driven away by the heat; as soon as the sun gets low in the heavens, they return to their post, and either pass the day on neighbouring roofs whilst they bake, cook, wash and dry the linen; or, if they have slaves to attend to such menial occupations, they sew and ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... very firm idea of her own standing as a princess. Had she not earlier in the day impressed Maizie? And now, was this stranger, even though she were a queen, to demand menial service of one of royal blood? Suzanna thought not. So she said ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... good literary education in the high school at Muncie, Indiana, and was a young woman of taste and refinement. Could she marry a butler? To be near her hero, she herself had just now been willing to undertake a menial position. But she had then imagined him to be a person of importance. This stage in her cogitations led her to the reflection that her feelings were unworthy of her. Had her regard for Asbury Fuller been all due to the belief that he was a person of importance, merely the worship ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... the fact that it put off the evil hour of lessons, partly that he imparted into the process a purely imaginative and romantic element gathered from his latest novel-reading. In this he was usually assisted by one or two school-fellows on their way to school, who always envied him his superior menial occupation. To go to school, it was felt, was a common calamity of boyhood that called into play only the simplest forms of evasion, whereas to take down actual shutters in a bona fide store, and wield a real broom that raised a ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... from Edinburgh, on the expedition to England, having the command of a troop of horse, not complete, in number about forty.[355] His military talents were well known, for he had distinguished himself in several campaigns in Flanders.[356] But, as he took into the field only his menial servants, no very important posts were entrusted to him; and his career appears not to have been signalized by any remarkable military exploits. In short, it may be truly said of him as of Dr. Donne by Izaak Walton, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... among whom we find scavengers, vermin-eaters, executioners, basket-makers, musicians, and professional burglars, probably represent the remnants of a Dravidian tribe crushed out of recognition by the invading Aryans and condemned to menial and degrading occupations. Sir G. Grierson has thrown out the picturesque suggestion that they are the ancestors of the European gypsies and that Rom or Romany is nothing more than a variant of Dom. In the ironical language of ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... lunch. And twenty minutes after making this decision she was sitting in the anteroom of a suite of theatrical offices in the Empire Theater building. The girl in attendance had, as usual, all the airs little people assume when they are in close, if menial, relations with a person who, being important to them, therefore fills their whole small horizon. She deigned to take in Susan's name and the letter. Susan seated herself at the long table and with the seeming of calmness that always veiled her in her hours of greatest agitation, turned over ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... like such weather as well as summer; but having Tom Purdie to do this office reconciles me to it. I cannot cleik with John, as old Mrs. Mure [of Caldwell] used to say. I mean, that an ordinary menial servant thus hooked to your side reminds me of the twin bodies mentioned by Pitscottie, being two trunks on the same waist and legs. One died before the other, and remained a dead burden on the back of ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... at the library door—and, pale as the tenant of a tomb, a menial entered upon tiptoe. His looks were wild with terror, and he spoke to me in a voice tremulous, husky, and very low. What said he?—some broken sentences I heard. He told of a wild cry disturbing the silence of the night—of the gathering together of the household—of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... happened to be there—there was always one at least—and observed in suave accents, "Please, sir, can I have a paper?" Whereupon, he, taking a scrap of paper, would write upon it, "J. O. Jones (or A. B. Smith or C. D. Robinson) left gymnasium at such-and-such a time". And, by presenting this to the menial who opened the door to you at your house, you went in rejoicing, and all ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... fine are more often resorted to than other punishments nowadays, probably because very few of the Siems possess jails for the reception of criminals. The condemned one in a criminal case frequently serves his time by working for the Siem as a menial servant. The above description, which is based on the account given by the Rev. W. Lewis, with some modifications, may be taken as the usual form of ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... shut him up in the Pyramid of Cheops, in the great chamber where the sarcophagus is. Thence we will lead him out when we give our feasts. He shall ripen our corn for us and do menial work. ...
— Selections from the Writings of Lord Dunsay • Lord Dunsany
... masters have refused to grant their serfs their freedom, who thus, though rolling in riches, remain with the chains of slavery round their necks, liable at any moment to be called back and compelled to do their lord's bidding, even in the most menial capacity. They have the general faults of slaves, being cringing, cunning, and delighting in falsehood; but they are intelligent, kind-hearted, and merry, and honest when property is entrusted to their ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... charms and her resistance increased.—I have caught myself in a raging fit, sometimes vowing I would have her, and, at others, jealous that, to secure herself from my attempts, she would throw herself into the arms of some menial or inferior, whom otherwise she would not ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... them had warned Mr. Alcott of this ending to his experiment. But all were kindly as they saw the family take up life bravely in Concord again, with even fewer necessities and comforts than before. Both Mr. and Mrs. Alcott did whatever work they could find to do, thinking nothing too menial if it provided food and clothing for their family. Naturally the education of the children was rather fragmentary and insufficient, but it developed their own powers of thinking. Through the pages of their diaries in which they wrote regularly, and ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... exacting the performance of any menial or degrading task, as well as for hazing, was court-martial and possible dismissal, the yearling generally succeeded in getting the work done without giving orders or making demands, so the plebes could ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... the soul of the man whip through the livery of the menial like a knife, and Henry, stumbling forward with a working face, clasped that hand proudly in his strong white one: only he dropped on one knee to do it, as if to show that, though gentlemen might be pleased to show him kindness ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... "cleared the decks for action," as he called it, which meant putting away the tea, butter, sugar, and bread in a cupboard, and folding up the table cloth. Poor George! he had no false pride to forbid such menial offices; he had not the brag about him which would have led another to stand on the staircase and howl "Gyp" till every one far and near should be made aware that he had had a meal which required clearing away. No; he was only a gamekeeper's ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... demanded a calm and skilful judgment, and in almost every instance, the decision was characterized by remarkable good sense and equity. In most of the colonies the men who are intrusted with local control, a few years since were either slaves in America, or employed in menial tasks which it was almost hopeless they could escape. Liberia, at present, may boast of several individuals, who, but for their caste, might adorn society; while they who have personally known Roberts, Lewis, Benedict, J. B. McGill, Teage, Benson of Grand Bassa, and Dr. McGill ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... stories illustrate one phase of Mongol character. We seldom hear among them of those domestic murders so frequent in Turkish history; pretenders to the throne were reduced to servitude, and generally made to perform menial offices, but seldom murdered. They illustrate another fact: favors conferred in distress were seldom forgotten, and the chroniclers frequently explain the rise of some obscure individual by the recollection of a handsome thing done to the ruler in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... very strange dream. 'I was carried through the streets with the rapidity of lightning,' said she, 'and taken into a soldier's room, and I had to wait upon him like a servant, sweep his room, clean his boots, and do all kinds of menial work. It was only a dream, and yet I am just as tired as if I really had done everything.' 'The dream may have been true,' said the king. 'I will give you a piece of advice. Fill your pocket full of peas, and make a small hole in the pocket, and then if you are carried away again, ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... playgrounds for the children in bad weather. Of his relatives at the top, Buncombe never spoke; he either did not know, or viewed with indifference, the fact that Mrs. Handover served his lodger in a menial capacity. About once a month he invited three or four male friends to a set dinner, and hilarity could be heard until long after midnight. Altogether it was a strange household, and, as he walked about the streets of the neighbourhood, Harvey often wondered what abnormalities ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... offered for his passage he did not know; he only remembered that he had been told "to make himself handy." This he had done cheerfully, if at times with the unskillfulness of a novice; but it was not a peculiar or a menial task in a company where all took part in manual labor, and where existence seemed to him to bear the charm of a prolonged picnic. Neither was he subjected to any difference of affection or treatment from Mrs. Silsbee, the ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... and almost daily absence from home, she was exposed to constant intercourse with two handsome young men, both, it might be supposed, ambitious of pleasing her more than most parents would have deemed entirely prudent. Nor was Nurse Jamieson,—her menial situation, and her excessive partiality for her foster-son, considered,—altogether such a matron as could afford her protection. Gideon, however, knew that his daughter possessed, in its fullest extent, the upright and ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... police-call was sounded, and all the "plebes" were turned out to police the company streets. This new phase of West Point life— and its phases rapidly developed themselves—was a hard one indeed. The duties are menial, and very few discharge them without some show of displeasure, and often of temper. None are exempt. It is not hard work, and yet every one objects to doing it. The third and fourth classes, by regulations, are required to do the policing. When I was a plebe, the plebes did it all. Many ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... at the same date, had not studied deeply in college and hospital; nor had he taken any long course of instruction in foreign schools and universities. When he had decided to become a doctor, he had simply ridden with an old, established physician—ridden literally—in a half-menial, half-medical capacity. He had cared for the doctor's horse, swept the doctor's office, run the doctor's errands, pounded drugs, gathered herbs, and mixed plasters, until he was fitted to ride for himself. Then he had applied to the court and received ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... In Balaghat a Kumhar is put out of caste if a dead cat is found in his house. At the census of 1901 the Kumhar was ranked with the impure castes, but his status is not really so low. Sir D. Ibbetson said of him: "He is a true village menial; his social standing is very low, far below that of the Lohar and not much above the Chamar. His association with that impure beast, the donkey, the animal sacred to Sitala, the smallpox goddess, pollutes him and also his readiness to carry manure and sweepings." As already seen there ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... alike; the tone of her voice, though she uttered words ever so trivial, gave him a pleasure that amounted almost to anguish. It cannot be called love, that a lad of twelve years of age, little more than a menial, felt for an exalted lady, his mistress: but it was worship. To catch her glance, to divine her errand and run on it before she had spoken it; to watch, follow, adore her; became the business of his life. Meanwhile, as is the way often, his idol had idols of her own, and never thought ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... connected take it into their heads to go into service for a few weeks or months. Sometimes it is from economic motives,—to procure means for their education, or to help members of their families who need assistance. At any rate, they undertake the lighter menial duties of some household where they are not known, and, having stooped—if stooping it is to be considered—to lowly offices, no born and bred servants are more faithful to all their obligations. You ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... make the young culprit smart for his offences, and one day, when Mr. Newcome was absent, and Tommy refractory as usual, summoned the butler and footman to flog the young criminal. But he dashed so furiously against the butler's shins as to cause that menial to limp and suffer for many days after; and, seizing the decanter, he threatened to discharge it at Mrs. Newcome's head before he would submit to the punishment she desired administered. When Mr. Newcome ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... describe, might come and trace Its watery footsteps in Dorinda's face. To see her weep, joy every face forsook, And grief flung sables on each menial look. The humble tribe mourned for the quickening soul, That furnished spirit ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... the year, he became dissatisfied with his employer because he was forced to perform "some menial services in the house."[10] He wished his employer to know that he was not a household servant, but an apprentice. Further difficulties arose, which terminated his apprenticeship in Middlebury. Returning to Brandon, he entered the shop of Deacon Caleb Knowlton, also a cabinet-maker; ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... the reddened sod, The grief-bowed Legion kneel to God, In Palmer's name, and by his blood, They swell the battle-cry; We'll sheathe no more our dripping steel, 'Till tyrants Southern vengeance feel, And menial hordes as suppliants kneel, Or, ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... there lived an earl Who had a charming niece: And never gave the timid girl A single moment's peace! Whatever low and menial task His fancy flitted through, He did not hesitate to ask That shrinking child to do. (I see with truly honest shame you Are blushing, and I do not blame you. A tale like this the feelings softens, And brings the ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... walked, a certain rude foreign fellow, flax-pedler by trade, ["HECHELTRAGER," Hawker of flax-combs or HECKLES;—is oftenest a Slavonic Austrian (I am told).] by creed Papist or worse, said floutingly, 'The Archbishop ought to have flung you all into the river, you—!' Upon which a menial servant of the Duke's suddenly broke in upon him in the way of actuality, the whole crowd blazing into flame; and the pedler would certainly have got irreparable damage, had not the Town-guard instantly hooked ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... without spirit, without ambition. Laws were passed against them, one at Bordeaux as late as 1596,—many earlier; by these they were even denied the rights of citizens; they could not bear arms, nor engage in any trade save wood-working or menial occupations, nor marry out of their race; they were obliged to wear a scarlet badge on the shoulder, in the shape of a goose's foot; they were not to go barefoot in towns lest they contaminate the streets, and the penalty was ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... him to his home in Gex, and then to Geneva. She entered a convent and worked as a menial so as to be near him. The Bishop made Father La Combe her official adviser, so as to lend ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... nearest lowlands. Even if he had moved down into the lowlands he could not hope to own land but would only have fallen once more into the unbearable state of his forbears in Ulster—that of tenant, or menial, with proprietors and bosses to harass his life. This peril alone was enough, aside from the lack of money, to make the highlander shrink from the society of the lowlands. The few who straggled down were glad enough to return ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... talent, but never that creative power which we call genius because it suggests the genii. "No man is a hero to his valet," says the adage. Carlyle assumes this to be the fault of the latter—due to sawdust or other cheap filling in the head of the menial. Yet, may not the valet be wiser in this matter than the world? The hero, the greatest genius, is not always aflame with celestial fire, impelled by that mysterious power which comes from "beyond the clouds"— may be, for most part, the commonest kind of clay, a creature ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... and I resented the menial duty of sliding those heavy filecases down four flights of stairs; but at a time like this, I thought philosophically, a man has duties he cannot shirk; besides, Le ffacase was old, I could afford to humor him even if it ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... forfeited the favor of a rich father by marrying the woman of his choice, but never regrets the action. From the outset ill-fortune pursues him. He is willing to work, but work is hard to get. He accepts various employments, more or less menial, and through no fault of his, loses one after another. Nothing is stable except Mary's love and Dr. Sevier's friendship. Just before the war poverty compels him to send Mary to her mother in Milwaukee. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... this man had been his master's constant companion and friend; fighting in every battle, cleaving to King and Prince in spite of every opposing influence, carrying letters between father and son in the teeth of the enemy, humbling himself as a servant, and performing menial labours, in those latter days of bitterness and outrage, when all courtly surroundings ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... due remuneration of the faithful servant. This practice was carried to a great extent among the Romans; the owner of a skilful slave could make a greater profit by giving scope to the man's energies than by confining him forcibly to menial occupation. ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... nether garments, and was now sure the news of what had so recently befallen him had not reached New York. There now came on board four flabby men, dreamy of countenance, and whose dilapidated garments bespoke them persons of menial occupations. But as neither St. Paul, nor Alexander the Great, nor Henry Ward Beecher, (who, I take it, is as great a man as either of them, and will leave more portraits of himself than both,) never dressed according to their "circumstances," so these four ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... that club very swiftly indeed, never to see it again, scarcely pausing to say farewell to those menial kings, and as I left the door a great window opened far up at the top of the house and a flash of lightning streamed from it ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... exists; to combine the thinker and the worker, as far as possible, in the same individual; to guarantee the highest mental freedom by providing all with labour adapted to their tastes and talents, and securing to them the fruits of their industry; to do away with the necessity of menial services by opening the benefits of education and the profits of labour to all; and thus to prepare a society of liberal, intelligent and cultivated persons whose relations with each other would permit a more simple and wholesome ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... the voice of either captain or mate would reach me from below, usually summoning me with an oath, and ordering me upon some other business, such as to mop out the cabin, swab the quarter-deck, black their boots, or perform some other menial act of service. In fact, I had begun to perceive that the drunken old skipper had no intention of teaching me anything of the seaman's craft, but had taken me aboard as a sort of slave-of-all-work, to be kicked about by everybody, but by himself in particular. That ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... 27th February, Guiol's daughter, the lay-sister who acted as her jailer, came to her at an early hour with a glass of wine. She was astonished: she was not at all thirsty: she never drank wine, especially pure wine, of a morning. The lay-sister, a rough, strong menial, such as they keep in convents to manage crazy or refractory women, and to punish children, overwhelmed the feeble sufferer with remonstrances that looked like threats. Unwilling as she was, she drank. And she was forced to drink ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... the boy's governess; and intolerably cruel to Pincott, her attendant. Not venturing to attack her friend (for the little tyrant was of a timid feline nature, and only used her claws upon those who were weaker than herself), she maltreated all these, and especially poor Pincott, who was menial, confidante, companion (slave always), according to the caprice of her ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... porter racket hasn't a leg to stand on, for you see they've got a man and his family on the payroll, and he looks after the furnace in the winter, as well as does all the sweeping out and such menial tasks. But it might be possible that they could make room for you as my assistant. You see duties have kept piling up on me all the time, and I'm the hardest worked man in the institution ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... into the outer darkness to seek that which is lost until He find it. For even that is not shut out beyond the bounds of possibility in the impenetrable mystery of the Hereafter. Do you know Whittier's beautiful poem of the old monk who had spent his whole life in hard and menial work for the rescue and help of others? And when he is dying his confessor tells him work is over, "Thou shalt sit down and have endless prayers, and wear a golden crown for ever and ever in Heaven." "Ah," he says, "I'm a stupid old man. I'm dull at ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth
... of the want of paper at the Council-table the other day, which I have observed; Wooly being to have found it, and did, being called, tell the King to his face the reason of it; and Mr. Evelyn tells me several of the menial servants of the Court lacking bread, that have not received a farthing wages since the King's coming in. He tells me the King of France hath his mistresses, but laughs at the foolery of our King, that ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... powder-closet of its modish day, where Mullins was still pursuing his ostensibly menial avocation. What the master said was inaudible in the library, but the man hurried out in front of him, and was heard clattering down ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... cot by the green hillside Hath more charms for me than thy halls of pride; If the roof be lowly, the moss rose there Rich fragrance sheds on the summer air; And the birds and insects, with joyous song, Are more welcome far than a menial throng." ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... course, obtained the requisite official sanction, so that there could not be anything actually against her family; but concerning the reception into their midst of this young person, who had formerly filled a "menial position," the ladies of the regiment felt ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... was a pleasure to do things for her, and she had no desire to do what somebody else seemed desirous to do for her. He unpacked her clothes and put them away. She was not proposing to go out again, so he got her slippers and took off her boots. It delighted him to perform menial offices. ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... with more dresses. There seemed no end to them, each more beautiful and costly than the other. The maid put them on the sofa; then, picking up the opera cloak, she laid it out on top of the dresses in the trunk. Even the humble colored menial was spellbound by the beauty of ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... night-caps that they might go to mass in silk and powder on a Sunday. After two months of wretchedness with these unfriendly hosts, whom she vainly tried to conciliate by a hundred little services and attentions the poor girl resolved to return to Milan, where she hoped to obtain some menial position in the household of one of her father's friends. Her cousins, at this, made a great outcry, protesting that none of their blood should so demean herself, and that they would spare no efforts ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... friend like you, Mr. Thwaite;—none whom I love as I do you. And next to you is your son. For myself, there is nothing that I would not do for him or you;—no service, however menial, that I would not render you with my own hands. There is no limit to the gratitude which I owe you. But my girl is young, and if this burden of rank and wealth is to be hers,—it is proper that she do honour ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... a capitalist economy with the public sector accounting for about 40% of GDP and with per capita GDP at least 75% of the leading euro-zone economies. Tourism provides 15% of GDP. Immigrants make up nearly one-fifth of the work force, mainly in menial jobs. Greece is a major beneficiary of EU aid, equal to about 3.3% of annual GDP. The Greek economy grew by nearly 4.0% per year between 2003 and 2006, largely because of an investment boom and infrastructure upgrades for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. Greece ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... own past was confined to vague and fanciful traditions. They were few in numbers, barbarous in condition, untamable in nature; they built no cities and practiced no industries: their women planted maize and performed all menial labors; their men hunted and fought. Before we came, they fought one another; our coming did not unite them against a common enemy; it only gave each of them one enemy the more. After an intercourse ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... "don't stop to play with his knife. No matter if it is cracked. So is he, for the matter of that. Go and tell your menial troop to remember to put a little beef in the soup, this noon. I am tired of sipping warm water and ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... entirely to the menial occupation of announcing, by a single dab, or a variation of raps, the desire of persons on the door-step to communicate with the occupants of the interior of a mansion. Modern genius has elevated it into a source of refined ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... they cannot exist except as slaves, but they can be trained to understand language and to do certain kinds of work. They are harmless and mild, making excellent servants, otherwise they would have perished ages ago. All menial work and most of the manual labor is done by the slave race. Formerly criminals were sterilized and reduced to unwilling slavery, but there have been no unwilling slaves in Kondal for ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... The scene is a vast one, and although Christ is on the Cross, life does not stop. To most of the people gathered there, what takes place is no more than a common execution. Many of them are attending to it as to a tedious duty. Others work away at some menial task more or less connected with the Crucifixion, as unconcerned as cobblers humming over their last. Most of the people in the huge canvas are represented, as no doubt they were in life, without much personal feeling about Christ. His own friends ...
— The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance - Third Edition • Bernhard Berenson
... was employed by her neighbors to help turn and put down carpets, cover furniture, etc. etc., light jobs requiring judgment and skill rather than strength, for which her friends, who never placed her in a menial capacity, gladly paid double the sum they would to any one else. She was also a capital nurse, and in this position rendered herself very valuable in many households, and for such services she was even more ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow
... enough of his mercantile experience to know that a master's eye makes a ready servant. Accordingly, with his tunic ungirdled on his portly stomach, his easy slippers on his feet, a small wand in his hand, wherewith he now directed the gaze, and now corrected the back, of some duller menial, he went from chamber to chamber of ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... prevails in Castile, in reference to the more humble occupations. A man of gentle blood may be a coachman, lacquey, scullion, or any other menial, without disparaging his nobility, which is said to sleep in the mean while. But he fixes on it an indelible stain, if he exercises any mechanical vocation. "Hence," says Capmany, "I have often seen a village in this province, in which the vagabonds, smugglers, and hangmen even, were natives, ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... my companions; for no courtiers, male or female, were permitted to have the same honour. Each lady stood behind the person who had been intrusted to her charge, and waited upon him. My gallantry, as a Frenchman, was sorely wounded at the idea of my charming princess performing the duties of a menial, and I expressed my feelings to her in a low tone of voice. She shook her head, as if to rebuke me, and I said no more. When we had finished the banquet, his majesty ordered the water of the golden fountain to be produced, which it immediately was, by those in attendance, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... transported small eggs and larvae. Often, when a great mandibled soldier had hold of some insect, he would have five or six tiny workers surrounding him, each grasping any projecting part of the loot, as if they did not trust him in this menial capacity,—as an anxious mother would watch with doubtful confidence a big policeman wheeling her baby across a crowded street. These workers were often diminutive Marcelines, hindering rather than aiding in the progress. But in every phase of activity ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... the Public" which they recently put forth, they explained, that, instead of taking the places of better men, as they are accused of doing, they considered that, in performing the menial work they did, they opened the way to higher and more lucrative employments for others; saying several times, in their simple, impressive way, "We lift ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... I have dreamed it; day and night I have fought for it. I have plotted and planned—I have plotted to save a minute. I have done menial work that I might have my brain free—all the languages that I know I have worked at at such times. I have calculated the cost of foods—I have lived on a third of the pittance I earned, that I might save two-thirds ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... must not sell her, or otherwise dispose of her services during the unexpired period of her servitude, because "he had dealt deceitfully with her." In case of betrothal to his son, as in the other, she was not to be reduced to her former rank as a menial, but to be treated in every respect as a daughter. Even when the affection of the man to whom she was betrothed waned, he was to yield to her all the rights and privileges which belonged to her as his wife; and, if any of these were ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... religious regularity, all the most esoteric examples of periodical literature in our language, from "The Iron-Trades Review" to "The Animals' Guardian." With one careless movement he destroyed the balanced perfection of a labour into which some menial had put his soul, and then dropped into a gigantic easy-chair near the fire, whose thin flames were just rising through the interstices of ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... the fair sex which was to form so important an element in the boys' later life. The "gentle damoiseau," confided at the age of seven or eight to the care of a knight whose reputation for prowess and courtesy ensured a good example, learned modesty and obedience in the performance of menial services, then considered honorable; in the court-yard of the castle he was instructed in horsemanship, and in the use of the lance, the bow, and the sword. In the dangers and hardships of the chase the principal occupation in time of peace,—he was inured ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... footgear. It is not possible for a Japanese to perform a lowlier act of obeisance towards another than to be the bearer of the latter's sandals. Yoshimitsu was in a position to dictate to the Emperor, yet he voluntarily performed a menial ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... Marquesan, I gathered that his mind was set on fish-hooks; with three of which, and a brace of dollars, I thought he was not ill rewarded for passing his forenoons in our cockpit, eating, drinking, delivering his opinions, and pressing the ship's company into his menial service. For all that, he was a man of so high a bearing and so like an uncle of my own who should have gone mad and got tattooed, that I applied to him, when we were both on shore, to know if he were satisfied. "Mitai ehipe?" I asked. And he, with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... distinguish her), accompanied by a boy the image of herself, whom I knew to be her son. He was apparently older than the fair-haired children, who also passed to and fro, attired as servants, and generally employed in some menial work. ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... as he is worshipped by the readers of the "Bow Bells Novelettes," and for the same reason—a profound sense of personal weakness. That tendency to devolve our duties descends on us, which is the soul of slavery, alike whether for its menial tasks it employs serfs or emperors. Against all this the great clerical republican stands in everlasting protest, preferring his failure to his rival's success. The issue is still between him and Lorenzo, between the responsibilities of liberty and the license of slavery, between ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... knave, though allowing for the menial, Nor overmuch the king, Jack, nor prodigally genial. Ashore on liberty he flashed in escapade, Vaulting over life in its levelness of grade, Like the dolphin off Africa in rainbow a-sweeping— Arch iridescent shot from ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... and, shouldering a hoe, sauntered toward the cornfield, and was soon hidden by a clump of young weeping-willows, the sunny green branches of which trailed to the darker verdure of the sward. Screened by the drooping foliage, the shirking menial cast his body on the grass to store ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... plasterer or bricklayer; whether bending beneath tool box of the carpenter or ensconced on the bench of the shoemaker, he has a moral strength, a consciousness of acquirement, giving him a dignity of manhood unpossessed by the menial and those engaged in unskilled labor. Let it never be forgotten that as high over in importance as the best interest of the race is to that of the individual, will be the uplifting influence of assiduously cultivating a desire to obtain trades. The crying ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... long dreary columns of invoice figures to add. Twice Captain Zelotes went out and then, just as Albert settled back for a rest and breathing spell, Issachar Price appeared, warned apparently by some sort of devilish intuition, and invented "checking up stock" and similar menial and tiresome tasks to keep him uncomfortable till the captain returned. The customers who came in asked questions concerning him and he was introduced to at least a dozen citizens of South Harniss, who observed "Sho!" and "I want ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... of that sort? Perhaps you will have heard the anecdote about one of our ambassadors to England. All ambassadors, save ours, wear on formal occasions a distinguishing uniform, just as our army and navy officers do; it is convenient, practical, and saves trouble. But we have declared it menial, or despotic, or un-American, or something equally silly, and hence our ambassadors must wear evening dress resembling closely the attire of those who are handing the supper or answering the door-bell. An Englishman saw Mr. Choate at some diplomatic ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... the young girl's active brain, quickened by seclusion and fed by solitary books. She read with keen eyes the miserable secret of her father's strange guest in the poverty-stricken walls, in the mute evidences of menial handicraft performed in loneliness and privation, in this piteous adaptation of an accident to save the conscious shame of premeditated toil. She knew now why he had stammeringly refused to receive her father's offer to buy back the goods he had given him; ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... hurt at being put to menial employment, or whether he simply felt it an imposition to require him to carry a pile of boards and three sturdy lads in addition, it is impossible to say. At all events, he ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... call Political Economy, are the Meal? And what is that Science, which the scientific head alone, were it screwed off, and (like the Doctor's in the Arabian Tale) set in a basin to keep it alive, could prosecute without shadow of a heart,—but one other of the mechanical and menial handicrafts, for which the Scientific Head (having a Soul in it) is too noble an organ? I mean that Thought without Reverence is barren, perhaps poisonous; at best, dies like cookery with the day that called it forth; does not live, like sowing, in successive tilths and ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... bows, and the still humbler expressions of the Prussian Ambassador, the Marquis da Lucchesini, were hardly noticed; and the Saxon Ambassador, Count von Buneau, was addressed in a language that no well-bred master ever uses in speaking to a menial servant. He did not cast a look, or utter a word, that was not an insult to the audience and a disgrace to his rank. I never before saw him vent his rage and disappointment so indiscriminately. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... fear or deference was gone, she had nothing left but scorn for these two despicable creatures, the fat harpy and her crapulent consort who had battened so long upon her misery, who had held her in bondage to the most menial tasks of their wretched restaurant while they filched and hoarded the money paid them for giving her the care and the advantages that ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... chivalry, began to be grossly varied from the original purposes of the institution. None was more remarkable than the change which took place in the breeding and occupation of pages. This peculiar species of menial originally consisted of youths of noble birth, who, that they might be trained to the exercise of arms, were early removed from their paternal homes, where too much indulgence might have been expected, to be placed in the family of some prince ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... in Bela with a sneer, "you need not always remind me that my future wife—the bride of my lord the Count's own bailiff—does menial work for a village schoolmistress and a ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... in bringing pets to the table. It may be necessary sometimes; but the true sportsman would always prefer to leave the unpleasant task of execution to menial hands, while he goes out into the wild country to capture his game by his own skill,—if he has good luck. I would rather run some risk in this enterprise (even as the young Tobias did, when the voracious pike sprang at him from the waters of the Tigris, and would have devoured him but for the ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... overthrow of Rome, what can we not predict of the Christian civilization which, in the twentieth century of its existence, degrades its Christian women to labors fit only for the beasts of the field; harnessing them with dogs to do the most menial labors; which drags them below even this, holding their womanhood up to sale, putting both Church and State sanction upon their moral death; which, in some places, as in the city of Berlin, so far recognizes the sale of women's bodies for the vilest purposes as part of the Christian religion, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... as matters were, Dan and I could well have afforded domestic assistance. It rankled in my mind that to fit in with the foolish fad of old Deleglise, I the future Dickens, Thackeray and George Eliot, Kean, Macready and Phelps rolled into one, should be compelled to the performance of menial duties. On this morning of all others, my brilliant literary career just commenced, the anomaly of the ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... that she was a sweet and lovely girl, one in every way similar to Solveig the innocent, and he did not care to change it. He tried to remember Gila's conventional upbringing, and realize that she had no conception of a girl out of her own social circle other than as a menial to whom to condescend. The vision of her loveliness in rose and silver, with her prayer-book "in her 'kerchief" was still dimly forcing him to be at least polite and accept her letter of apology for her failure, as he could but ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... late is getting to be a kind of homely, modest, informal, almost menial everyday thing. It makes one more hopeful about religion. Perhaps people who once get the habit, and who are being good all the week, can even be good ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... nearer to each other, the princes began to spin the web of their treason; and for this purpose a messenger was sent by them to Tarik, informing him how Roderic, who had been a mere menial and servant to their father, had, after his death, usurped the throne; that the princes had by no means relinquished their rights, and that they implored protection and security for themselves. They offered to desert, and pass over to Tarik with the troops ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... in Germany young ladies living in what we more luxurious British would consider something like poverty; cooking, waiting at table, and performing many a household office which would be here considered menial; and yet finding time for a cultivation of the intellect, which is, unfortunately, too rare in ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... broken accents, indicating but little knowledge of the English language. From the manner in which the crew treated him, it was evident that he was an established favourite with them as well as the officers, for each appeared to treat him more as an equal than a menial. He laboured cheerfully at sailor's duty until the first sea broke over her, when, seeing that the caboose was in danger of being carried from the lashings, and swept to leeward in the mass of wreck, he ran for that all-important apartment, and ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... house. I was all alone with him, ready to render him every kind of service I was capable of, and to give him all the dutiful marks of a most sincere affection. I do not doubt but my assiduity was very agreeable to him. I performed the most menial offices unperceived by him taking the time for it when the servants were not at hand; as well to mortify myself as to pay due honor to what Jesus Christ said, that He came not to be ministered to, but to minister. When father made ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... amorously minded, proclaimed of Evan, to a companion of her sex, that, 'he was the only gentleman who gave you an idea of how he would look when he was kissing you.' Juliana cherished that vision likewise. Young ladies are not supposed to do so, if menial maids are; but Juliana did cherish it, and it possessed her fancy. Bear in your recollection that she was not a healthy person. Diseased little heroines may be made attractive, and are now popular; but strip off ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to evince a new evolution in mental and moral process. The influence of riches was quite as marked upon him as upon so many of his white brothers and sisters, proving their essential kinship. To-day he began to sniff disdainfully at his menial tasks; and in the evening "Ole Dan Tucker" resounded from his fiddle with a rollicking abandon over which the cook groaned in despair, "Dat ar niggah's 'ligion drop off ob 'im like a yaller pig from de bush. 'Ligion dat's skeert inter us hain't no ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... got up a disturbance in the church. And then the church all went to pieces. Oh, what a church it was! And mother thinks he's such a nice man. I don't. Don't carry his carpet-bag again, Tite. Don't make a menial of yourself for anybody." After saying this she walked part of the way home with Tite, and then they parted with ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... housework any more than I do; he says the performance of menial duties crushes his spirit—but he makes such a fuss about things. You might think, to hear him talk, that getting up coal, lighting fires, chopping wood and cleaning flues, knives and brasses were the entire work of a household instead of being mere incidents in the daily routine. If ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... I feel for him," he answered. "I have reason to feel dislike. He ruined my prospects, he killed my companions, and he treated me with every indignity and cruelty he could devise while I remained on board his ship. He made me serve him as a menial—wait behind his chair, clean his shoes, arrange his cabin, and if I displeased him he ordered his men to flog me. Ay! I never told you that before, I was ashamed to do so. He well-nigh broke my spirit. Had I remained much longer with him he would have done ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... from sin and to find peace with God, led him at last to enter a cloister, and devote himself to a monastic life. Here he was required to perform the lowest drudgery, and to beg from house to house. He was at an age when respect and appreciation are most eagerly craved, and these menial offices were deeply mortifying to his natural feelings; but he patiently endured this humiliation, believing that it was necessary because ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... singular person. To use a favourite phrase of Napoleon, "he had missed his destiny." His parents had been country people of some substance, but misfortune falling upon misfortune had reduced them to poverty. Finally, the father had become insane; the mother had been glad to obtain a menial situation in the very asylum where her husband was confined; and there was nothing better to be done for the son than to apprentice him to a shoemaker. Some talk there was amongst the neighbours of raising a subscription to send him to the grammar-school, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... to that very numerous group of stories dealing with the success of the youngest child in the face of opposition, mistreatment, or lack of sympathy from others of his family. "John was Boots, of course, because he was the youngest"; which means that it was the rule to give the most menial tasks about the house to the youngest. But John had the saving trait of always "wondering" about things, which led him to find out what would always be hidden from his more stupid ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Hatty. Anything was preferable to the life she led, she said, pleading so hard that Hatty, after an interview with the old aunt—a purse-proud, vulgar woman, who seemed glad to be rid of her charge—consented to receive her, and Genevra became one of our family, an equal rather than a menial, whom Hatty treated with as much consideration as if she had been a sister. I wish I could tell you how beautiful Genevra Lambert was at that period of her life. I have her picture, which I will ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... that I should wait, and long, and hunger, for the love that you took only as your right. So I waited, and to-day I triumph in the thought that Deane Phelps' petted wife is a dependent upon my bounty, a menial in the house where I reign supreme, and which knows no law but my will. I have forgotten how to love, but each day (and I have conned the lesson well) I learn ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... of Russia, Martin Guerre of the CAUSES CELEBRES: it is a common story in the world, and needs no commentary now. POST-MORTEM Waldemar, it is said, was a Miller's Man, "of the name of Jakob Rehback;" who used to be about the real Waldemar in a menial capacity, and had some resemblance to him. He showed signets, recounted experiences, which had belonged to the real Waldemar. Many believed in his pretension, and took arms to assert it; the Reich being in much ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... accept rebuff. Who was she to treat with scorn the man whose merest word now could move a million stalwarts! "You must pardon me, Miss Allison," he answered, with emphasis. "I am not here in the capacity of a menial in the household. The events of the past few days have conspired to make me a factor in affairs, with power and influence far exceeding that wielded by my late employer. Furthermore, I should see him, or rather he should seek to see me, within the next few ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... their office, he informed them of his new regulations, the nature of which made them tremble. He proposed nothing less than to condemn them to daily manual labour, the tillage of the soil, the performance of menial household duties; and to this he added the practices of immoderate fasting, perpetual silence, downcast glances, veiled countenances, the renouncement of all social ties, and all instructive or entertaining literature. In short, he advocated sleeping ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... exclaimed the old man; "you are the only being that ever confronted the fire-wizard without feeling terror—and for those who know not fear there is no danger. Instead of a menial, or a victim, I will make ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... please you, Madam," said I, "Sister Denise is thus distressed because she, being a De La Pole, is set to scrubbing and such like menial work." ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... secret 'scap'd Sir Lanval's tongue: 'Yes!' he declar'd, 'he felt love's fullest power! Yes!' he declar'd, 'he had a paramour! But one, so perfect in all female grace, Those charms might scarcely win her handmaid's place; Those charms, were now one menial damsel near, Would lose this little light, ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... the whole matter; and Lady D——, having conversed for a little with Phebe, took such a liking to the girl that she proposed having her continually about her person, as a kind of superior waiting-maid, half menial and half companion, and to remove her from under our roof on the instant. Although this was an offer too good and too opportune to be negatived, yet we could not think of parting with our darling Phebe on so short a warning; and, after some remonstrances on both sides, it was ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... time I was the ship's drudge. At everybody's beck and call, I was employed from morning till night in all kinds of menial offices. It was a hard life, and the treatment meted out to me was rough; but having got the better of my first rage and indignation, I resolved to make the best of my situation and to show no sullenness; besides I honestly wished ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... suddenly angry; why he resented the head waiter's blush as an impertinence and a liberty. After all, the fellow was a student and probably a gentleman; and if he chose to help himself through college by taking that menial role during the summer, rather than come upon the charity of his friends or the hard-earned savings of a poor old father, what had any one to say against it? Gaites had nothing to say against it; and yet ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... School masters and mistresses have quite as little suspicion that they have sowed the seed which sprung up in the youths who are dismissed from offices for defalcation, and the girls who leave menial service ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... his mother died and his father sacrificed his last remaining possessions for drink. He insulted and even attacked his son, bidding him leave his house, and the poor boy was compelled to render the most menial service to all. For ten long years this condition lasted, yet Ivan ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi
... home at night to a cheerless house and a solitary meal for which she had no appetite; getting up in the night to go to Grandma Fergus taken down suddenly with one of her attacks; helping Mrs. Smith out with her sewing and spring cleaning. Menial, monotonous tasks many of them. Not that she minded that, if they only got somewhere and gave her something from life besides the mere fighting ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... e'en my throne will be with age an altar-stone. When the time comes for me to cast off earthly robe, And enter—being Day—into the realms of light, The gods will say, we call Zizimi from his globe That we may have our brother nearer to our sight! Glory is but my menial, Pride my own chained slave, Humbly standing when Zizimi is in his seat. I scorn base man, and have sent thousands to the grave. They are but as a rushen carpet to my feet. Instead of human beings, eunuchs, blacks, or mutes, Be yours, oh, Sphinxes, with the glad names on your fronts! ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo |
