"Menial" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... act as domestics to such of the inmates of the mansion as do not keep servants; making their beds, arranging their rooms, lighting their fires, and doing other menial offices, for which they receive a monthly stipend. They are also in confidential intercourse with the servants of the other inmates, and, having an eye on all the incomers and outgoers, are thus enabled, by hook and by crook, to learn the secrets and domestic history of every ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... said the Judge, "I am not accustomed to having those in your evident station of life address me with any such familiarity. You should be old enough to know that it is unseemly. You can not succeed, even in a menial occupation, unless you cultivate that respect which is due not only to your superiors, but to those who patronize the hotel, or any other undertaking in ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... 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 of ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... without hope, 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 branding with ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... thyself, and go to the palace. I trust that they also will recognize thee." The emperor did as the confessor directed. The porter opened the gate, and made a low obeisance to him. "Dost thou know me?" said he. "Very well, my lord!" replied the menial; "but I marvel that I did not observe you go out." Entering the hall of his mansion, Jovinian was received by all with a profound reverence. The strange emperor was at that time in another apartment with the queen; and a certain knight going to him, said, "My lord, there ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... dressed his hair. Royal apparel agreed but ill with his condition after three days of sackcloth and ashes. As luck would have it, Esther had issued the command that the bathkeepers and barbers were not to ply their trades on that day, and there was nothing for Haman to do but perform the menial services Mordecai required. Haman tried to play upon the feelings of Mordecai. Fetching a deep sigh, he said: "The greatest in the king's realm is now acting as bathkeeper and barber!" Mordecai, ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... 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 just at the ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... others, under the orders of Sam, who seemed to be in charge, already feeling somewhat deeply the humiliation of my position, but nevertheless realizing the necessity of prompt obedience. The knowledge that I was now a slave, on a level with these others, compelled to perform menial labor under the very eyes of Dorothy Fairfax and that sneering Spaniard, cut my pride to the quick. In my trips back and forth I kept my eyes averted, never once venturing to glance toward them, until this work had been accomplished. ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... who have given their lives to this work shine as brightly as any on the battle-field,—in some respects even more brightly. They have not the bray of trumpets nor the clash of swords to rouse enthusiasm, nor will the land ever resound with their victories. Theirs is the dark and painful side, the menial and hidden side, but made light and lovely by the spirit that shines in and through it all. Glimpses of this agency are familiar to our people; but not till the history of its inception, progress, and results is calmly and adequately written out and spread before the public will any ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... warrant any expectation of a step so audacious. Little more than a year had elapsed since his own subjects in Rome itself rebelled against him, murdered his Prime Minister, and compelled him, in the disguise of a menial, to fly from Rome; nor was he restored except by the arms of the French, who besieged and took ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... north-west side of the island. "I do not know," he answered. "It might not be far-fetched to translate it as 'a ship's steward: a menial.'" ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... indeed, John was, next to Malachi, the best shot of the party. It was, therefore, very annoying to Percival that he should always be detained at home doing all the drudgery of the house, such as feeding the pigs, cleaning knives, and other menial work, while his younger brother was doing the duty of a man. To Percival's repeated entreaties, objections were constantly raised by his mother: they could not spare him, he was not accustomed to walk in snow-shoes. ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... avail yourself of his infatuation. The menial of Mrs. Blakely would be a worthy daughter, truly, of a house which has ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... impolicy was exhibited in the neglect of American claims to distinctions and offices. No cabinet seems ever to have thought of attaching the rising men of the colonies, by a fair and natural distribution of honours. Excepting a few trifling offices, scarcely more than menial, under the staff of the British governors, or commissions in the provincial militia, the promotion of an American was scarcely ever heard of. The result was natural,—the English blood was soaked in the American veins; the original spirit of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... Harry smoked many pipes in tranquillity until the day when on his entry he found Mr. Hadley's sardonic face waiting for him. He liked Charles Hadley less than many men whom he more despised. Nobody in a position just better than menial can be expected to like the condescending mockery which was Mr. Hadley's metier. But Harry—it is one of his most noble qualities—bore being laughed at well enough. What most annoyed him was Mr. Hadley's parade of a surly, austere virtue. He did not doubt ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... again involves the previous meetings of the high-born lover and the menial heroine, transformed for the nonce by her dress into a dame of equal standing. In some of the variants these meetings are in church and not at a ball, royal or otherwise. But the Shoe Marriage Test involves a highly desirable parti ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs
... frail form, Whilst tremblingly he waited at the door; And feeble tho' he seemed, he feared not harm, For 'neath his cloak a trusty sword he bore. A menial came, and thus he spoke:—'Away! Old man, away! seek not to enter here: We feed none such as you: so hence! I say:— Perhaps across the street you'll ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... Bedouins; and the Aeneze even give the Kerekein their girls in marriage. The sum paid to the father of the bride is generally between six and eighthundred piastres; young men without property are obliged to serve the father five or six years, as menial servants, in compensation for the price of the girl. The Kerekein do not treat their wives so affectionately as the Bedouins; if one of them falls sick, and her sickness is likely to prevent her for some time from taking care of the family affairs, the husband sends her back to her father's house, ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... throw out any side-remarks about certain services being unbecoming an officer and a gentleman? No. You got up and got it. When he ordered his pap bottle and it was not warm, did you talk back? Not you. You went to work and warmed it. You even descended so far in your menial office as to take a suck at that warm, insipid stuff yourself, to see if it was right—three parts water to one of milk, a touch of sugar to modify the colic, and a drop of peppermint to kill those immortal hiccoughs. I can taste that stuff ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... above, or more out of keeping with one's best thoughts about God. Again, there is a story which is told, I think, of one of the first monasteries of the Benedictine order. One of the monks was a lay brother, who had many little menial tasks to fulfil; he was a well-meaning man, but extremely forgetful, and he was often forced to retire from some service in which he was taking part, because he had forgotten to put the vegetables on to boil, or omitted other duties ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... her residence in Italy, where she gradually learned to neglect the caution which she had observed in England, till, after a year or two, reports arose of her intimacy with a servant whom she had raised from a menial situation to that of the chief officer of her household, and whom she admitted to a familiarity of intercourse which others besides her husband thought quite incompatible with innocence. He sent agents into Italy to inquire into the truth of those rumors; ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... Oliver went up to Trinity College, Dublin, as a sizar. The sizars paid nothing for food and tuition, and very little for lodging; but they had to perform some menial services from which they have long been relieved. They swept the court: they carried up the dinner to the fellows' table, and changed the plates and poured out the ale of the rulers of the society. Goldsmith ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... indicated the substitution. But the merchant could no more enter the room in which the prince was seated at this moment than the most abject menial ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... down the table along silver rails. The diner stopped these and helped himself at his discretion. They appeared at a little door at one end of the table, and vanished at the other. That turn of democratic sentiment in decay, that ugly pride of menial souls, which renders equals loth to wait on one another, was very strong he found among these people. He was so preoccupied with these details that it was only as he was leaving the place that he remarked the huge advertisement dioramas that marched ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... thousands of dollars. This fact speaks volumes in praise of their industry and economy; for, be it remembered, they have had to accumulate this property in small sums, by shaving the beards, cleaning the boots and clothes, and being the servants of their white contemners, and in other menial employments. In Baltimore, Philadelphia, New-York, and other places, there are several colored persons whose individual property is worth from ten thousand to one hundred thousand dollars;[T] and in all those cities, there are ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... class, she was to be a mother, to supervise this range of work, look after dependents, conserve social conditions and be the lady bountiful of her district. The second ideal was the woman of religion, who was to subdue her passions, observe set prayers and other religious exercises, and do the menial work of the convent. The third ideal was the lady of chivalry, who appeared after the tenth century. She was to be cared for and protected from work or anxiety; menials were to prepare her food, clothes and ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes
... 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 ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... 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 has not met the EU's Growth and Stability ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... our training ground for to-morrow. Let the woman realise this, and at least as many women as men will prefer privation with self-respect to comfort with contempt. Let us, then, in the name of our common nature, ask those who have her training in hand, to teach the woman to despise the man of menial soul and to loathe the luxury that is ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... all; it carries with it a consciousness of superiority, and inspires a superior bearing. These influences are more potent in the formation of female than male character. The mistress is relieved absolutely from all menial duties, and is served by those who are servants for life, and compulsorily so. She is only under the obligations of humanity in her conduct toward them. They must do her bidding. She is not afraid to ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... revelation we simple plebeians, who had been all day heaping shawls and guide-books upon Count Giovanni, demanding menial offices from him, and treating him with good-natured slight, felt uncomfortable in his presence, and welcomed the appearance of our carriage with our driver, who, having started drunk from Bassano in the morning, had kept drunk all day at Valstagna, ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... then paled. It was not so much on account of the menial position to which she was assigned, as the manner in which the change had been made known ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... blast, but dropped it hastily, it being answered almost simultaneously by an ancient menial left in charge. Their own servants were coming on by coach, and they were much comforted by perceiving that this provident person had prepared a substantial repast, combining supper and tea, in a ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... menial in felt slippers and alpaca jacket, who seemed to pass the whole of his life flitting in and out of bedrooms like a rabbit in a warren, carried Gerald's trunk downstairs. She recognized the peculiar ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... 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. ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth
... of great perplexity to them, to say nothing of the cost to the nation caused by the hopeless incapacity displayed in dealing with them. The business grows so farcical that the English guardians become the laughing-stock of the most menial ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... a Negro minister who could hold services any time he chose, so long as he did not interfere with the work of the other slaves. He was not obliged to do hard menial labors and went about the plantation "all dressed up" in a frock coat and store-bought shoes. He was more than a little conscious of this and was held in awe by the others. He often visited neighboring plantations to hold his services. It was from this minister ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... Varney acted as the Earl's chamberlain as well as his master of horse, though the latter was his proper office in that magnificent household, where knights and gentlemen of good descent were well contented to hold such menial situations, as nobles themselves held in that of the sovereign. The duties of each of these charges were familiar to Varney, who, sprung from an ancient but somewhat decayed family, was the Earl's page ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... made subservient to his own: By that have kings of old, deluded, All their own friends for his excluded. By that, his selfish schemes pursuing, He thrives upon the public ruin. Antiochus,[8] with hardy pace, Provoked the dangers of the chase; And, lost from all his menial train, Traversed the wood and pathless plain. 40 A cottage lodged the royal guest! The Parthian clown brought forth his best. The king, unknown, his feast enjoyed, And various chat the hours employed. From wine what sudden friendship springs! Frankly they talked of courts ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... first meeting, he must remember what she had suffered and that it is hard for the loser to yield. It should be his part to speak with humility and dwell but lightly on the past while he pictured a future, entirely free from menial service, in which she could live according to her station. All her years of poverty and disappointment and loneliness would be forgotten in this sudden rise to wealth; and to complete the picture, Blount, the ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... we are ignorant what the vital spark may be, so in our great cosmical laws we can say in what their power resides, though we know not really what they are. Whether mind be but a sublimated form of matter, or, what amounts to the same thing, matter a menial kind of mind, or whether, which seems less likely, it be a something incomparable with substance, of one thing we are sure, the same laws of heredity govern both. In each a like chain of continuity leads from the present to the dim past, a connecting clue which we can follow backward ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... 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 and ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... found the child, and, with THAT ELEGANT BENEVOLENCE which has always distinguished the heiress of the throne of Paflagonia, gave the little outcast a SHELTER AND A HOME! Her parentage not being known, and her garb very humble, the foundling was educated in the Palace in a menial capacity, under the ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in his inscrutable wisdom, to permit the Persian rebel, Esref, to drive his lawful sovereign, Tamasip, from his capital. The prince became a fugitive, and the mother of the prince, dressed in rags, was reduced to the wretched expedient of doing menial service in the streets of Ispahan for a livelihood. The glory of the Ottoman arms could not permit that a usurper should sit at his ease on the stolen throne, and thy triumphant host, led by the ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... Dolabella! Thou hast beheld me other than I am. Hast thou not seen my morning chambers filled With sceptered slaves, who waited to salute me? With eastern monarchs, who forgot the sun, To worship my uprising? menial kings Ran coursing up and down my palace-yard, Stood silent in my presence, watched my eyes, And, at my least command, all started out, Like ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... his knees to the Maid.[1216] It was even stated that he had asked to surrender to her as to the bravest lady in the world.[1217] But it is more likely that he would have surrendered to the lowest menial of the army rather than to a woman whom he held to be a witch possessed ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... not impertinent, nay, almost indecent, that the woman should come to her and interrogate her on such a subject? The inmost, most secret feelings of her heart had been ruthlessly inquired into and probed by a menial servant, who had asked questions of her, and made suggestions to her, as though her part in the affair had been of no consequence. "What are you, that you shouldn't let a gentleman like him have his own way?" Why was it not so much to her as to ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... an impatient glance, "is it nothing to be reduced to this paltry situation—to be caged in a miserable cottage—to be obliged to toil almost in the menial ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... plans that ultimately drove them from his kingdom. It was while here that the incident of the burned cakes occurred. The king was disguised as a peasant, and, living in a swineherd's cottage, performed various menial offices. The good wife left him in charge of some cakes that were baking, with instructions to turn them at the proper time. His mind wandered in thought and he forgot his trust. The good wife returned, found the cakes burning, and the guest dreaming by the fireside; ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... this season Ramazani's fast Through the long day its penance did maintain. But when the lingering twilight hour was past, Revel and feast assumed the rule again: Now all was bustle, and the menial train Prepared and spread the plenteous board within; The vacant gallery now seemed made in vain, But from the chambers came the mingling din, As page and slave anon were ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... the major glad at heart; for he had changed his 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 flabby men, the major thought, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... any celebrity in it. With wealth, if a man have but a common share of understanding, he is at once pronounced a wise man, and he is looked up to as a prodigy; when his own native talent alone would not more than fit him for a menial office. Look for instance at our neighbours; there is. Mr. Astley of Everly, who is surrounded by every comfort; he has at his command not only horses, servants, and carriages, but he has a numerous body of ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... be true," he muttered, "that a Jewish man, a tricked and unsuspecting husband of a menial, like her who has perished with this preacher, did behold a new-born baby in the manger of an inn, eighteen hundred ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... of individual capacity and desire. Macaulay tells of the Dutch farmers who worked in the fields all day, and at night read the Georgics in the original. Scotch and American universities are largely attended by students who have had to engage in menial duties all the summer in order to gain funds for their high education during the winter. And every University Extension lecturer, highly trained specialist as he is, will testify how his work has continually ...
— The History Of University Education In Maryland • Bernard Christian Steiner
... a family, it left him little room for luxuries. Consequently, he never had more than two servants, and at times only one. Upon this plea rose the scheme of the mother for employing these two young girls in menial offices of the household economy. One reason for that was, that she thus indulged her dislike for them, which she took no pains to conceal; and thus, also, she withdrew them from the notice of strangers. In this way, it happened that I saw them ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... these began to take to the road, knight-errantry vanished from the face of the earth. The varlets borrowed the grand idea of care-free itinerancy and debased it, as waiters borrow a gentleman's evening dress for their menial uniform, and drunken coachmen wear the same head-gear that a duke wears to a wedding! Why prove evolution by searching for a man with a tail? The performances of human nature must convince any thinking man that we have ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... about one, but to find the people of the trade who will assist in the gladdest way. One wants the right stripe in the morning and evening papers, but none the less happy are just the right merchant and just the right menial. Since all of life may be rounded into rhythm, shall we not even consult the harmonies in a grocer or an upholsterer? Personal power can be carried into every department. It is well to find where one's word has weight, then always say the word there. This is a part of the quest ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... of all classes, that domestic service has anything in it peculiarly mean, is a feeling than which there is none meaner. In the feudal ages, youthful nobles of the highest rank thought themselves honoured by officiating in what is now called a menial capacity, about the persons of superiors of both sexes, for whom they felt respect: and, as M. Comte observes, there are many families who can in no other way so usefully serve Humanity, as by ministering to the bodily wants of other ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... it deserves to be remarked, that however it might strengthen the personal influence of the sovereign to enroll amongst the menial servants of the crown gentlemen of influence and property, it is chiefly perhaps to this practice that we ought to impute that baseness of servility which infected, with scarcely one honorable exception, the public characters of the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... were not uncommon; and Clement, though he had little faith in this form of contrition, received the services of the incognita as a matter of course. But presently she sighed deeply, and with her heartfelt sigh and her head bent low over her menial office, she seemed so bowed with penitence, that he pitied her, and said calmly but gently, "Can I aught for your soul's ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... are not apt to take up menial employs, and this one had already shown that he preferred idle musings and parasitic dependence to uncongenial labour. Whoever reads the second scene of the second act of "The Comedy of Errors," will see that Shakespeare, even at the beginning, ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... humanity, whose care is to eke out this miserable existence by means of the occasional doles of those who know how faithful and good a child she has been to that decrepit creature; who thinks herself happy if she can be well enough, by hours of patient toil, to perform those menial services which they both require; whose talk is of the price of pounds of sugar, and ounces of tea, and yards of flannel; whose only intellectual resource is hearing five or six verses of the Bible read every day,—"my ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... his substance, and not daring to make himself known for fear of his father, he fell into great want, and so into severe sickness. His companions having nothing wherewith to live, and not knowing any trade by which to gain their bread, did menial services fit for day-laborers, and sustained their lord with their earnings, he remaining hidden in a poor woman's ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... 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 ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... negroes, either young or old, but Senegals, called among themselves Diolaufs, because of all {363} the negroes I have known, these have the purest blood; they have more fidelity and a better understanding than the rest, and are consequently fitter for learning a trade, or for menial services. It is true they are not so strong as the others for the labours of the field, and for bearing the ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... 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 to find some better way of providing for her. Their noble connections gave Fulvia ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... I have left the ranks, The plain unvarnished fact is That through those three rough years, and thanks To very frequent practice, I, who was once a nascent snob, Am master of the menial's job. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various
... 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 the ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... step-mother, however, determined to 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 returned, ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... is unknown among strong men. The masterful hero is worshipped 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, ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... tastes and instincts the dirty furnace work had not been pleasant to him, and he had shrunk with inexpressible loathing from the swill cart and the other menial duties he had been obliged to perform for the sake of those he loved. How to get an education was the problem he was earnestly trying to solve, and lo! it was now solved for him. For a moment the ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... think they will be proud, John, when their child's life depends on their accepting some aid from others? I don't think they will allow so false an emotion to sacrifice his little precious life. It seems to me, that were I in that mother's place, I would lick the dust off the most menial feet that ever ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... to this, that I, Athol Meldrum, of gentle birth and Highland breeding, must sue in vain to understudy a scullion in a third-rate hash joint. I am, indeed, fallen. What mad folly is this that sets me lower than a menial? Here I might be snug in the Northwest raising my own fat sheep. A letter home would bring me instant help. Yet what would it mean? To own defeat; to lose my self-esteem; to call myself a failure. No, I won't. Come what may, I will play ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... this jaunt. So, from sunrise until dusk, he worked with will, to gain the wished-for leave. Never before did buckles shine as did the buckles of the squire entrusted to his polishing. Never did menial tasks cease sooner to be drudgery, because of the good-will with which he worked. And when the day was done, so well had every duty been performed, right willingly the squire did grant him grace, and forthwith Ederyn ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... regiment of foot. He had held his commission more than three months without taking the sacrament. He was therefore liable to a penalty of five hundred pounds, which an informer might recover by action of debt. A menial servant was employed to bring a suit for this sum in the Court of King's Bench. Sir Edward did not dispute the facts alleged against him, but pleaded that he had letters patent authorising him to hold his ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... get to loving), as if their modesty had been washed away in the bath. Those who have not become utterly destitute of modesty shut out strangers, but bathe with their own servants, and strip naked before their slaves, and are rubbed by them, giving to the crouching menial liberty to lust, by permitting fearless handling, for those who are introduced before their naked mistresses while in the bath, study to strip themselves in order to show audacity in lust, casting ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... you do not disdain To dwell amongst the menial train, I have a silent place and lone, That you and I may call our own; Where tumult never makes an entry— Susan! what business have you in ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... 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, ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... sate on steed; Behind him, in a round, Stood knight and squire, and menial train; Against the leash the greyhounds strain; The ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... poor to send him to school, but they placed him as foot-boy with the cure of the village, hoping that under that learned man he might pick up an education for himself. But the cure kept him so busily employed in grooming his mule and in other menial offices that the boy found no time for learning. While in his service, it happened that the celebrated lithotomist, Cotot, came to Laval to operate on one of the cure's ecclesiastical brethren. Pare was present at the operation, and was ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... some women who prefer a valet to a husband; who think that the more menial are his services in public, the more apparent is his devotion. It is a Roman-chariot-wheel idea, which degrades both the man and the woman in the eyes of the spectators. I wrote to Rachel, and said in the letter, "One horse in the span always does most ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... in this! Can we ever hope to be respected by our servants? Never. Here are our two women, and Pa's valet, and a footman, and a courier, and all sorts of dependents, and yet in the midst of these, we are to have one of ourselves rushing about with tumblers of cold water, like a menial! Why, a policeman,' said Miss Fanny, 'if a beggar had a fit in the street, could but go plunging about with tumblers, as this very Amy did in this very room before our very eyes ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... ill clad and worse shod, continued with the nurse in Messer Guasparrino's house for two years, patiently performing all kinds of menial offices. But Giannotto, being now sixteen years old, and of a spirit that consorted ill with servitude, brooked not the baseness of his lot, and dismissed himself from Messer Guasparrino's service by getting aboard a galley bound for Alexandria, and travelled far and wide, ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... at her,—"you must admit, Dr. Staunton, that every lady nurse is not like that. If you have an infection case in your practice, send for me. I think I can prove to you that there are some ladies who are too truly women to think anything menial or beneath them." She colored as she spoke, ...
— A Girl in Ten Thousand • L. T. Meade
... writ, not only deputies, etc., but even their menial servants, are allowed to lord it over us. What is this but to have the curse of Canaan with a witness on us? To be the servant of servants, the most despicable ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... performed by the women, not from any necessity of a slavish condition or an enforced obedience, but because, where the men and boys must be warriors and hunters, the women and girls felt that it was their place and their duty to perform such menial labor as, to their unenlightened nature, seemed hardly suitable to those who were ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... to do besides the menial labours of which she had relieved the man who deemed himself fit for nothing more complicated than washing dishes and providing funds. She wrote letters for the wounded, and also for the dead. She had a way of looking at those who groaned unnecessarily and ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... those in the dogstar, to discuss on immortal 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 of the brain" which ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various
... information enough to prove that he was not an object for political suspicion. He seems to have been simply animated by servile zeal for the woman's interests; to have performed for her all the menial offices of a servant in private; and to have misled the neighbors by affected equality ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... twelve domestics, if not more. In the first place, every member of the family must have an attendant especially for his or her use; then there is a man-cook, a number of nursery-maids, and several coolies for the more menial duties, such as cleaning the rooms, carrying the wood and water, and so forth. In spite of this number of servants, the attendance is frequently very bad; for, if one or other of them happens to be out, and his services are required, his master must wait until he returns, as no ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... had no other duty at Cecil Place than to wait upon the young heiress or assist in her embroidery, was considered and treated more as a humble companion than a menial; and Lady Frances Cromwell talked just as freely to Mistress Cecil in her presence as if they were perfectly alone. Nor was such confidence ever abused by the gentle girl. She moved within her small circle like an attendant satellite upon a brilliant star—silent and submissive—yet ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... however, they could ill have done without this cringing axeman. He did small menial services for his fellows, was ordered about at all times uncomplainingly, and bore the blame for everything that went wrong in the ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... menial, who impressed me as being both kindly and obliging albeit somewhat officious, I pressed a coin of the denomination of five cents. I believe it must have been the manner of bestowal which impressed him rather than the size of the pourboire itself, for he examined it with lively ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... be grateful for any task, however menial, that permits me to meditate. I understand your point of view. By coming aboard your ship I have broken the law, I have committed a crime; but not a sin. Crime and sin, every theologian admits, are ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... bow down before my author's wonderful powers of imagination, for once more, in company with my wife, with a hireling to carry my sketching stool and materials, I walked a great distance in search of the jetty. Vain, vain! not a ghost of a jetty was to be seen. The menial could not enlighten us. At last we unearthed the "oldest inhabitant," who took us back to where a few sticks in the water alone marked where it stood "a many years ago." I tried to develop some of the powers of the late ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... Hooper as more than a distasteful necessity—somebody must wait on him and do him menial service; he was not feared, indeed, for surely such a dog would not dare to be false, but cordially disliked. Beaumaroy won him from the beginning. Whom he conceived him to be Beaumaroy himself never knew, but he opened his heart to him unreservedly. ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... Even menial work is interesting if we regard it as a stepping-stone to something better. It must be done thoroughly, however, to justify this hope. Life is a struggle, a struggle in which many are vanquished and few survive. Only those few survive who fit most perfectly to their environment. If a man ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... 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 internal battle at the time; poor Kaiser ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... the menial, "royal Pandu's righteous son, Lost his game and lost his reason, Empress, thou art ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... one-sided people of strong faith. She began to refuse the attentions of the servants, swept and tidied her own room, cleaned her own boots and brushed her own clothes. Her brother could not help looking with irritation and even hatred at her cold face when she went about her menial work. In that work, which was always performed with a certain solemnity, he saw something strained and false, he saw something both pharisaical and affected. And knowing he could not touch her by persuasion, he carped at her and teased ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... was unheard of. Jacob Kent was making the fire, chopping wood, packing water—doing menial tasks for a guest! When Jim Cardegee left Dawson, it was with his head filled with the iniquities of this roadside Shylock; and all along the trail his numerous victims had added to the sum of his crimes. Now, Jim Cardegee, with the ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... should 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 its companion.[121] ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... a certain number of Indians among them to cultivate the soil. This system was afterward introduced in all the Spanish settlements, the Indians being everywhere seized upon and compelled to work in the mines, to till the plantations, to carry burdens and to perform all menial and laborious services. The stated tasks of the unhappy natives were often much beyond their abilities, and multitudes sank under the hardships to which they were subjected. Their spirit was broken, they became humble and degraded, and the race was rapidly wasting away. ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... assisted Edward Henry to alight. Within the groined and echoing hall of the establishment a young boy sprang out and, with every circumstance of deference, took Edward Henry's hat and stick. Edward Henry then walked a few steps to a lift, and said "smoking-room" to another menial, who bowed humbly before him, and at the proper moment bowed him out of the lift. Edward Henry, crossing a marble floor, next entered an enormous marble apartment chiefly populated by easy-chairs and tables. He sat down to a table and fiercely rang a bell which reposed ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... gained to have made the lady stoop to love a menial. We should not be misled by such examples as John of Saintre and Cherubin. The serving-boy filled the lowest offices in the household. The footman proper did not then exist, while on the other hand, few, if any maidservants lived in military strongholds. Young hands did everything, and were not ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... negro at the North. It is undeniable that there is such a prejudice. Accepting the undoubted fact, we see that it shuts nearly every avenue of honest industry against the man with a black skin, restricting him to the most menial offices; and that it is fostered in many ways by the conventions and usages of our society, so as practically to put him in a worse condition than his bonded brother at the South—always except as to his God-given right to his liberty and labor. Experience has shown that even ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... At Romsey, Mother Margaret, in her black patched habit and up-turned sleeves, was washing out the convent refectory, and thereby, she fervently hoped, washing her sins out of existence—without a thought of the chivalrous love which would have set her high above all such menial labour, and would never have permitted even the winds of heaven to "visit her cheek too roughly." Did it never occur to her that she might have allowed the Redeemer of men to "make her salvation" for her, and yet have allowed herself to make her husband's ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... country's aristocracy. One day Jonathan happened to be putting on his coat in the hall, when somebody knocked at the front door. Forgetting that the act, so natural to an American, is ungentlemanly and menial in England, he opened the door himself. A couple of young swells inquired for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... where political and economic power makes it formidable, does it overcome opposition. The negro's competition for jobs and homes will probably exacerbate relations. As the negroes increased in numbers they would not only seek menial and unskilled work, but also strive to enter skilled trades where they would meet with antagonism of white workers. Moreover, the negroes would be forced to seek homes in what are now regarded as "white" ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott
... midst of this population is a House of Refuge for the Destitute, established by charitable individuals for the relief of those who may be found in a state of absolute destitution of the necessaries of life. Here they are employed in menial services, lodged and fed until they can be sent to their friends, or employment found for them. We went over the building, a spacious structure, in the Canongate, of the plainest Puritan architecture, with wide low rooms, which, at the time of the ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... in his eye there sat a lambent fire which bespoke the man, without roughness, and without ferocity. In one hand he bore a crystal goblet full of every potent enchantment, and which rendered him who drank for ever a slave to the most menial offices and the most wanton caprices of his seducer. In the other hand he held loosely, and as if it had been intended merely to give a completeness to his figure and a gracefulness to his step, that irresistible wand by which the majesty of man had often been degraded, and ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... would almost say arrogant. In fact he would give one the impression that he was playing a role—the role of emperor—that he was, in one word, posing, even if it were only for the benefit of the menial who had interrupted us. But when the intruder had vanished, William would, like a flash, become his own charming self again. That is what made me exclaim just now, 'if only the kaiser would be true to himself!—be ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... or rather appearance, of the Strasbourgeois, it is such as to afford very considerable satisfaction. The manners and customs of the people are simple and sober. The women, even to the class of menial servants, go abroad with their hair brushed and platted in rather a tasteful manner, as we even sometimes observe in the best circles of our own country. The hair is dressed a la grecque, and the head is usually uncovered: contrary to the broad round hats, and depending queues, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... recommend him to the royal grace; That, exercised within a higher sphere, His virtues more conspicuous might appear. Thus by the general voice was Arcite praised, And by great Theseus to high favour raised; 600 Among his menial servants first enroll'd, And largely entertain'd with sums of gold: Besides what secretly from Thebes was sent, Of his own income, and his annual rent: This well employ'd, he purchased friends and fame, But cautiously conceal'd from whence it came. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... pride that apes humility. Is that the way you teach your flock to 'leave all, and follow me'?" I started up suddenly, saying to myself, "I will seek this man in his palace, and see whether I shall be kindly received and consoled, or be repulsed by a menial." ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... have given up expecting to have servants do somethings as they ought to be done. Toast is one of the things. They are outside of the limitations of the menial mind.' ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... Far worse punishments than menial work were prepared for them. On 3d July a decree of the Convention ordered that the Dauphin should be separated from his family and "placed in the most secure apartment of the Tower." As soon as he heard this decree pronounced, says ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Roque would most implicitly have approved of the practice, inasmuch as in this case, his master would only be asserting a sort of hereditary right attached to those of his class. But to be deceiving two ladies of distinction was really too much for the delicate feelings of the conscientious menial. ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... substance. This is doubtless due to the fact that the preparation of food being such a commonplace matter, its important relations to health, mind, and body have been overlooked, and it has been regarded as a menial service which might be undertaken with little or no preparation, and without attention to matters other than those which relate to the pleasure of the eye and the palate. With taste only as a criterion, it is so easy to disguise the results of careless and improper ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... spent with cattle. Even during my four years' service in the Confederate army, the greater portion was spent with the commissary department, in charge of its beef supplies. I was wounded early in the second year of the war and disabled as a soldier, but rather than remain at home I accepted a menial position under a quartermaster. Those were strenuous times. During Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania we followed in the wake of the army with over a thousand cattle, and after Gettysburg we led the retreat with double that number. Near the close of the war ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... father, Roger Kemble, was manager, the great Mrs. Siddons has been seen, as a contemporary writer describes, "walking up and down both sides of a street in a provincial town, dressed in a red woollen cloak, such as was formerly worn by menial servants, and knocking at each door to deliver the playbill of her benefit." And to come to a later instance, the reader may bear in mind that before that ornament of Mr. Crummles's company, Miss Snevellici, took her benefit or "bespeak" at the Portsmouth Theatre, she, in company with Nicholas ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... ourselves in discriminating our terms, we shall use work as a general word for effort, physical or mental, to some purposive end; labor for hard, physical work; toil for wearying or exhaustive work; and drudgery for tedious, monotonous, or distasteful work, especially of a low or menial kind. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... what was right in his own eyes—and so they came to Atchison or Leavenworth and engaged to drive these freighting teams to Denver. Many of them were sons of rich fathers, well educated, and had never engaged in manual labor, much less in such menial work as this, and when these proud and high-spirited fellows felt what an ignoble life they had been reduced to, the reader may well believe they did not feel good-natured over it. And now, when these young gentlemen came to understand that they were to be associated ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... done, what a success upon the whole her life would have been. She who had begun her career as a cottage-girl, a small quarry-owner's daughter, had sunk so low as to the position of laundress, had engaged in various menial occupations, had made an unhappy marriage for love which had, however, in the long run, thanks to Jocelyn's management, much improved her position, was at last to see her daughter secure what she herself had just missed securing, and ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... and her fellow-creatures, who will understand, even more thoroughly than most of us now can (most of us being still so ignorant), how deep a debt of gratitude is due to her who first opened for women so many paths of duty, and raised nursing from a menial employment to the dignity of an "Art of Charity"—to England's first great nurse, the wise, beloved, and far-seeing heroine of the Crimean war, the Lady ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... who would grief 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
... little family used, five or six in all; two or three stood vacant, and served as 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
... bear distinct evidence, all the more impressive because frequently only casual, that, from the earliest ages, the Africans had shared, in common with other less civilized peoples, the doom of having to furnish the menial and servile contingents of the more favoured sections of the human family. Now, dating from, say, five hundred years ago, which was long indeed after the disappearance of the old leading empires of the world, we have (save and except in the case of Arab incursionists into the ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... measure of her rights was the grim edict of the common law holding her in guardianship prior to marriage, and upon marriage making her and all her possessions practically the property of her husband, while a cruel, unreasonable and vicious public opinion excluded her from all except menial and ill-paid service. One by one and year by year these barriers have given way, until in many States her property and personal rights enjoy the complete shelter of the law. Now more than half the occupations and employments ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... The beautiful woman beside him struck me as Eastern beyond all question. While I gazed intently he turned to her and proffered a request. She smiled acquiescence, and there was a flash of anticipated triumph in her eye as she beckoned to a menial and sent him forth with a message. A movement as of expectancy ran around the tables where the guests sat at meat. The attendants opened wide the portals and a young girl came forward. She was perhaps fourteen or fifteen years ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... came to an end, and they worked out by the day in the farms and inns, doing the most menial work, eating what was left from the tables, sleeping on the ground and suffering from cold. Then as they became enfeebled by hard work no one would employ them any longer, and they were forced to beg along the ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... 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 ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... place, as there, There only, were his refuge; and declared In broken words, with sighs of deep regret, The mortal danger he had scarce repell'd. Fired with his tragic tale, the indignant crowd, To guard his steps, forthwith a menial band, Array'd beneath his eye for deeds of war, Decree. Oh! still too liberal of their trust, And oft betray'd by over-grateful love, 70 The generous people! Now behold him fenced By mercenary weapons, like a king, Forth issuing from the city-gate at eve To seek his rural mansion, and with ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside |
