"Menial" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... warm to watch jam in the back kitchen and that occupation, though it was the cooler of the two, had the further disadvantage of being beneath his dignity. The dignity was suffering a good deal; was it right, he asked himself, that he, the man of the house, should have the menial task of watching jam while Julia talked business with some one in the parlour? He did not know what business this person had come on; he had seen him arrive a few minutes back, had even heard his name—Mr. Alexander Cross—but ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... from her dispassionate language to the angel, we should infer that she was naturally of a more patient disposition than her mistress, and is in this view worthy of the imitation of young women whom Providence consigns to the same menial state. How many would have been clamorous and peevish, hasty in censuring their mistress, and forward in vindicating themselves! They would have obtruded the story of the fancied injuries they had sustained upon every occasion, ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... put them out, both males and females, to hard service in the houses of other people, binding them generally for another 7 or 9 years. And these are called apprentices, and during that time they perform all the most menial offices; and few are born who are exempted from this fate, for every one, however rich he may be, sends away his children into the houses of others, whilst he, in return, receives those of strangers into his own. And on inquiring their reason for this severity, they answered ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... could be where the drudgery of dairy-work had to be done for a living—the hands red and chapped, and the shoes clogged....Stephen, I do own that it seems odd to regard you in the light of—of—having been so rough in your youth, and done menial things of that kind.' (Stephen withdrew an inch or two from her side.) 'But I DO LOVE YOU just the same,' she continued, getting closer under his shoulder again, 'and I don't care anything about the past; and I see that you are all the worthier for having pushed on ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... back from the sea the fields sloped upward, and the woods in which they presently lost themselves looked down over the roofs. Bolts and bars were not a part of the domestic machinery of Marmion, and the responsive menial, receiving the visitor on the threshold, was a creature rather desired than definitely possessed; so that Basil Ransom found Miss Chancellor's house-door gaping wide (as he had seen it the night before), and destitute even of a knocker or a bell-handle. From where he stood in the porch he could ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... 1745, he marched 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, that "nothing in his ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... precision, "on account of pressing pecuniary circumstances which would not have happened had my claim against the shipowners for my dear husband's loss been properly raised. I hope you fully understand that I am unfitted both by ill health and early education from doing any menial or manual work in your household. I shall simply oversee and direct. I shall expect that the stipend you offer shall be paid monthly in advance. And as my medical man prescribes a certain amount of stimulation for my system, I shall expect to be furnished with such viands—or even"—she ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Lord Julian sate on steed; Behind him, in a round, Stood knight and squire, and menial train; Against the leash the greyhounds strain; The horses paw'd the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... house, in its immense majority, abstained from even the faintest attempt at interference. As for patronage, it has been said that no appointment was ever solicited for anyone by a member of the liberal party. From ministerial down to menial posts no claim was raised, no request preferred. If the section of moderate conservatives above mentioned has furnished a few ambassadors like Prince Hohenlohe, Count Muenster, Baron Keudell, and Count Stolberg, that was by the chief's free will. Why, then, it has been asked, a change ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... this menial task forthwith, the Admiral not even watching how he did, but quite occupied with another grog and a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sloven. A blind man cannot deal with cleanliness till he has been some months used to the darkness. If he demand attendance and grow angry at the want of it, he must assert himself and stand upright. Then the meanest menial can see that he is blind and, therefore, of no consequence. A wise man will keep his eyes on the floor and sit still. For amusement he may pick coal lump by lump out of the scuttle with the tongs and pile it in a little heap in the fender, ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... in an old German epic so called; betrothed to Herwig, king of Zealand, and carried off by Hochmut, king of Norway, a rejected suitor; preferred out of respect to her vow to serve as a menial in his mother's kitchen rather than be his wife; was rescued from durance by her brother and her betrothed, and being married to Herwig, pardoned the suitor that had ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... months before, just after the War broke out. But all he saw upon his arrival was an untidy goods yard, littered with military stores, and peopled by British privates in the deshabille affected by the British Army when engaged in menial tasks. ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... wounded arm felt as though it were frozen. I tried to cover myself beneath the straw, but in vain; and as my limbs trembled and my teeth chattered, I thought again of home, where, at that moment, the poorest menial of my uncle's house was better lodged than I; and strange to say, something of pride mingled with the thought, and in my lonely heart a feeling of elation ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... or notaire croque are but allusions in derision of protonotaire, which signifieth a pregnotary.) of the martyrized lovers, and croquenotary of love. Quod vidimus, testamur. It is of the horrible and dreadful feats and prowesses of Pantagruel, whose menial servant I have been ever since I was a page, till this hour that by his leave I am permitted to visit my cow-country, and to know if any of ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... of policy 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 ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... night 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 of my time. I once washed ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... poor boy Ferdinand, though descended from families of the highest rank, was an entire dependent upon his benefactor. The haughty Don Pedro treated him kindly. Still he regarded him, in consequence of his poverty, almost as a favored menial. He fed him, ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... the Baronet; "wonderful, wonderful!" and he gazed fondly at the Italian boy, who again resumed his menial employment. Alas! the wings of the Ideal were folded. The Student had been absorbed in ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... eldest son carries the net or lassoes the bull, and recites the prayer while his father successively presents to the god each object prescribed by the ritual. A priest may occasionally act as substitute for the prince, but other men perform only the most menial offices. They are slaughterers or servants, or they bear the boat or canopy of the god. The god, for his part, is not always alone. He has his wife and his son by his side; next after them the ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... moral and personal to the menial characteristics of Mr. Johnson's speeches, we find that his brain is to be classed with notable cases of arrested development. He has strong forces in his nature, but in their outlet through his mind they are dissipated into a confusing clutter of unrelated thoughts and inapplicable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... 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 so much interested by it that he is said to ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... 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
... 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
... of 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 that now the Countess Castlemaine do carry all before her. He did tell me of the ridiculous humour of our king and knights of the Garter the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... will render them intelligent and good citizens, whilst they themselves are left in ignorance, and while, instead of devoting their time and attention to his discharge of these high moral duties, they are held in a state of servile degradation and compelled to perform all the menial drudgeries of life? ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... climax of all was a woman and a dog harnessed together, taking a load of country produce to market! I hope, for the honor of the country, it was not emblematic of woman's condition there. But as we saw hundreds of them breaking stone along the road, and occupied at other laborious and not less menial labor, there is too much reason to fear that ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... with any degree of pride that she was keeping company with a butler? She had received a 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 Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... state of ignorance in which their elementary schooling has left them, leading them to the misapprehension that, from the standpoint of culture, they are as good as anybody and certainly above their menial position. ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... two boys, 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 ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... intended to 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
... be honest, self-respecting citizens, and at the same time we have forced them into surroundings which almost make this result impossible. In many places they are deprived of a fair opportunity to obtain education or amusement in a decent environment. Only the most menial positions are offered them. An educated girl particularly has practically no opportunity to earn a livelihood in the manner for which ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... Part of those menial activities had been to clean the animal cages. And there Shann Lantee had found something new, something so absorbing that most of the tiring dull labor had ceased to exist except as tasks to finish before he could return to the ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... insupportable. The low 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. We were, indeed ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... it does a subtile menial conception, and not a phenomenon of sense, must also be banished from the domains of Positive Science as an intruder, lest its presence should lend any countenance to the idea of causation. "Forces in mechanics are only movements, produced, or tending to be produced." ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... factor of tremendous importance in the maintenance of petty industries and business establishments in this country, which Marx could not have anticipated, has been the unprecedented volume of foreign immigration. Not only have some menial personal services—such as shoe cleaning, for example—been transformed into regular businesses by immigrants from certain countries, but the massing together of immigrants, aliens in language, customs, tastes, and manners, provides a very favorable soil for ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... girls with education and well 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 must not suppose she ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... but her gentleness disarmed the old woman; and, when it was plain that the young lady's sufferings were greatly lessened by tender care, dislike gave way to attachment, and there was little more murmuring at the menial services that were needed by the two maidens, even when Ermentrude's feeble fancies, or Christina's views of dainty propriety, rendered them more onerous than before. She was even heard to rejoice that some ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... whose interest was more, Could sleep and leave an open door, Think you that I, a dog at best, Would watch, and lose my precious rest?' This pithy speech had been, in truth, Good logic in a master's mouth; But, coming from a menial's lip, It even lack'd the lawyership To save poor Towser ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... who have not; of the former there are three grades, Brahmans, or the priestly caste, from the mouth of Brahma; Kshatriyas, or the soldier caste, from the hands of Brahma; and Vaisyas, or the agricultural caste, from the feet of Brahma; while the latter are of one rank and are menial to the other, called Sudras, earth-born all; notwithstanding which distinction often members of the highest class sink socially to the lowest level, and members of the lowest rise ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... longer anything to fear from the want of discipline of his troops, Cortes set out for Zempoalla on the 16th of August, with five hundred soldiers, fifteen horses, and six field cannon, and also two hundred Indian porters, who were intended to perform all menial offices. The little army soon reached the frontiers of the small republic of Tlascala, of which the fierce inhabitants, impatient of servitude, had long been engaged in strife with Montezuma. Cortes flattered himself that his oft-proclaimed intention of ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... trouble than your neighbour? You have lost your all—no, no, say not so; your neighbour has lost houses and lands, but his health has gone also; and while you are robust, he lies on the uneasy pillow of sickness, and watches some faithful menial prepare his scanty meal, and then waits till a trusty hand bears the ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... well for him that his wise and excellent mother taught him not to be too proud of his exalted rank, or haughty in his manners to those of humbler grade, but to be courteous and kind to every one, even to the lowest menial, so as to gain the good-will of all; and, as he was a very docile boy, and moreover believed that nobody in the world was so good or so beautiful as his own dear mother, he did not fail to profit by her gentle ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... other concerns than those of the world and the body. These after death become mere menials and servants, according to the uses which they are able to perform for those who are spiritual; for the natural man is a menial and servant, and the spiritual man is a master and lord. Those of the third class, who despise and deny the Divine precepts, not only remain natural, but also become sensual in the measure of their contempt and denial. Sensual men are the lowest ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... him in the Woman's Court. From a lateral chamber a priest, unfit for other than menial services because of a carbuncle on his lip, dropped the wood he was sorting for the altar and gazed curiously at the advancing throng, in ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... this window for hours—I have waited till all is hushed in your house, till no one, not even a menial, need see the mother stealing to the bed of her child. Brother, by the memory of our own mother, I command you to let me look, for the last time, ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... this harangue highly displeasing to the Lord Keeper's feelings; he could not help observing that his menial despised him almost avowedly for not possessing that taste for sport which in those times was deemed the natural and indispensable attribute of a real gentleman. But the master of the game is, in all country houses, a man of great importance, and entitled to use considerable freedom ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... insist upon starting that night upon the river trip. As a good commander he considered his men from every point of view of efficiency. They loved him. He was a warrior chief as they understood such to be; carefully he fostered their warrior pride; never were they ordered to work at menial offices, to fetch or to carry; only to drill and to fight; his punishments were ferocious, but he gave them liberty in pillage and rape. Eh! but the Eater-of-Men was a mighty chief! and of his name they boasted to ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... rate of remuneration paid, I may mention that salesmen and shopmen have been receiving at the rate of from two thousand three hundred to two thousand seven hundred dollars, with their board, per annum. Mere boys get extravagant salaries in the absence of their seniors; and the lowest and most menial offices are paid for at a rate which only such a wonderful influx of gold would ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... colonel's quarters I had become accustomed to my menial duties, lightened as they were by the natural kindliness of my master, but the thought of appearing in public as a common slave revolted every fine instinct within me. Yet there was nothing for it but ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 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 ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... this son of an English duke, who, by the death of an elder brother, became in time a duke himself, went on a service that among gentlemen of the land would be deemed nearly menial, with as much alacrity as if he felt honoured by the request. It was by a training like this, that England came, in time, to possess a marine that has achieved so many memorable deeds; since it taught those who were destined to command, ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... should it be That hideous mystery Is with those atoms integral combin'd? Alas! too well—too well, I've prob'd unto the spell In each dark imag'd sound, that lurks entwin'd! Eternity, implied In Death, and long denied Now sacrifices my tortur'd menial gaze! Whilst, with its lurid light Heart-burnings fierce unite And what may quench, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 369, Saturday, May 9, 1829. • Various
... time, and, perhaps, care, had mellowed but not obliterated, and her conversation indicated high cultivation. She had evidently mingled in refined society in this country and in Europe, and it was a strange freak of fortune that had reduced her to a menial condition in the family of a ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... three classes or castes, which differ in structure and social function. The queen is a fertile female, the drones are males, and the workers are stunted and infertile females which take no part in reproduction. In this case the queen never discharges any menial duties, for these are attended to by the workers; she devotes her entire time to laying eggs, which are cared for by her subjects, who act as nurses and guards for the monarch as well. The young workers serve at first as doorkeepers, and only later do they ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... shop, but as that was soon taken from him, even in the market place. After a few months 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 ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi
... mysterious way—unlike himself? And in what manner had he gathered that he was different from them? His nurse, it is true, was not a pleasant person, and had an injured and resentful bearing. In later years he realised that it had been the bearing of an irregularly paid menial, who rebelled against the fact that her place was not among people who were of distinction and high repute, and whose households bestowed a certain social status upon their servitors. She was a tall woman with a sour face and a bearing which conveyed a glum endurance of a position ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... without a word, and obediently went to look for the coat; it was not the first menial work he had done in his life. He brought it and laid it on the counter; meanwhile, the strange gentleman who had been feeling in his waistcoat pocket, said laughing: "I haven't got any silver; you can ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... guess how intimate was soon to be my association with the Berts and 'Arries and 'Erbs of the world. I was to be their servant, to wait upon them, to perform menial tasks for them, to wash them and dress them and undress them, to carry them in my arms. I was to see them suffer and to learn to respect their gameness, and the wry, "grousing" humour which is their almost ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... is unused to menial labor. If I should be right in my suspicions! if he really were Dona Jovita's secret lover! This gallantry with the servants only a deceit! Bueno! I will ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... this silent force is exerted. Many of our animals are domesticated and trained to do light services, but as for servants of our own flesh and blood, no such class exists. We all share whatever work there is, and no labor is menial. Whatever I ask others to do I am glad to do for them when occasion offers. Do not suppose we are idle. There is work for us, but with our abundant strength and continual good health it is never ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... gloom? There arises a shriek, a heavy body falls, 'tis a lacquey who has seen and recognised The White Lady of the Grand Ducal House, that walks before the deaths of Princes. Burkard and Sauerbeck spurn the inanimate body of the menial witness. The white figure, bearing in her arms a sleeping child, glides to the tapestried wall, and vanishes through it, into the Chamber of the Crown Prince, a babe of fourteen days. She returns carrying another unconscious infant form, ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... 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
... had only the story of her own simple life to tell him. In it there were no big cities, no clever people, and, alas, no mother! And yet he thought he had never heard anything more beautiful. For every menial service which she had performed, she had rendered noble by love. Of the young lady and the Baron she had a thousand touching things to tell, in all the little haunts in and behind the castle garden she had had adventures ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... with a highly indignant scowl, and turning his frown once more upon this most impertinent menial, encountered a look of such comic familiarity, easy assurance, and droll indifference, as it would not be easy to match. The beau started, stared, again pulled himself to a still greater height—as if by the dignity of the attitude to set the other at fault—frowned more ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... on her part. She fixed 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 ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... there seemed to him but one right course, and he took it with unflinching promptness. Even when Birdie, secure in the protection of his name and his support, lapsed into her old vain, querulous self, he valiantly bore his burden, taking any menial work that he could find to do, and getting a sort of grim satisfaction out of what he regarded as expiation for ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... 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 brought him into contact with persons of the humblest ...
— The History Of University Education In Maryland • Bernard Christian Steiner
... gold mines in the mountains, where every man did 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 ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... 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 and less ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... grace my song, That to the humblest menial belong: To him whose drudgery unheeded goes, His joys unreckon'd as his cares or woes; Though joys and cares in every path are sown, And youthful minds have feelings of their own, Quick springing sorrows, transient as the dew, ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... is a menial to a death-bed, 190 When the dim eye rolls vainly round for what It loves?—They say he died of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... 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
... by every man who has not been brought up a slave. Such are the two characters, Theodorus: the one of the freeman, who has been trained in liberty and leisure, whom you call the philosopher,—him we cannot blame because he appears simple and of no account when he has to perform some menial task, such as packing up bed-clothes, or flavouring a sauce or fawning speech; the other character is that of the man who is able to do all this kind of service smartly and neatly, but knows not how ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... their parents to meet the demand. Little hands, never before devoted to menial services, shoveled snow, and babes gave kisses to earn a few pence toward this consummation. Some of these lambs my prayers had christened, but Christ will rechristen them with his own new name. "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise." The resident youthful ...
— Pulpit and Press • Mary Baker Eddy
... 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 ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... word which means literally "knave of diamonds," was considered an insult, because in the old packs of cards of the beginning of the seventeenth century, that knave was called valet de chasse, hunting servant, a rather menial situation; while the knave of spades, valet de pique, was called, nobleman's servant; the knave of hearts, valet de coeur, valet de cour, court servant; and the knave of clubs, valet de trefle, valet ...
— The Love-Tiff • Moliere
... Fillgrave and Mr. Rerechild were doing their best, and poor Miss Trefoil sat at the head of her father's bed, longing, as in such cases daughters do long, to be allowed to do something to show her love—if it were only to chafe his feet with her hands, or wait in menial offices on those autocratic doctors—anything so that now in the time of need ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... will show themselves for leaving it indefinite) I enjoyed the acquaintance of two Southern gentlemen,—gentlemen, however, of widely different kinds. One was a general, a lawyer, a rake, a drunkard, and white; the other was a body-servant, a menial, an educated man, a fine man-of-business, a Sir Roger in his manners, and black. The two had been brought up together, the black having been given to the white gentleman during the latter's second year. "They ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... with terror, dreadful tidings were speeding through the palace. The whisper—for it was whispered always—flew from menial to menial, from lord to lady, down all the long corridors, from story to story, from saloon to saloon, "The prince hath gone mad, the prince hath gone mad!" Soon every saloon, every marble hall, had its groups of glittering ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the bitterness of slavery. She was set at work in the kitchen with the other slaves. It seemed that Mrs. Preston took especial delight in assigning to the naturally high-spirited and sensitive girl the most menial employments. Patiently trusting in God that He would send deliverance, she endeavored to perform, uncomplainingly, her allotted tasks. Wholly unaccustomed to such work, weary in body and sick at heart, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... and went to his menial tasks with a new sense of the dignity of his family. He was called for on all sides, and appeared to be the only member of the household in perpetual request; but, though many liberties were taken with him personally, none were taken with his name, which was always ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... 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 were denied the ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... they 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 embroider in the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... come back?" he broke in. "No, I should be sorry to see you again in a menial position, you with your divine gifts of beauty and song. The idea of your getting a new place," he added with a fall into prose, "makes me ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... had looked upon the wine when it was red in the cup so long that he was about down and out; no one would hire him any more, even in the most menial capacity. His poor, hard-working wife had at last taken the pledge not to support him any longer in idleness, so it was up to Dennie to do something desperate. The most desperate thing he could think of was to swear off. So before the priest he took a solemn vow not ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy
... 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
... you! I'll have the child back wherever you take her to. I'll show you a little legal law! (Here he stepped to the hall door.) I'll be even with you, damme! I'll charge you with setting on your menial servants to assault me. (Here he looked fiercely at the gardener, a freckled Scotch giant of six feet three, and instantly descended five steps.) Lay a finger on me, if you dare! I'm going straight from this house to the lawyer's. I'm a free Englishman, and I'll have my rights and my legal law! I'll ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... yielding to his honest indignation. 'Boffin. Dusty Boffin. That foxey old grunter and grinder, sir, turns into the yard this morning, to meddle with our property, a menial tool of his own, a young man by the name of Sloppy. Ecod, when I say to him, "What do you want here, young man? This is a private yard," he pulls out a paper from Boffin's other blackguard, the ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... is. There; with you, I will scorn all falsehood. For once, and, if possible, only for once, the truth shall stand out plainly. I love him as I never, never can love another man. I love him as I never thought to love any man. I feel at this moment as though I could be content to serve him as his menial. For she who is his wife must so serve him—and how long should I be content ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... yet remained was but a faint recapitulation of the glories which had gone before. Therefore the patricians retired from their balconies, the horsemen abandoned their stations and plunged down the many streets which led out from the Forum, and the crowd of slaves and menial citizens, already rendered so indistinct in the fading light as to resemble one writhing, struggling monster rather than separate beings, began to stretch out its long arms into the narrow lanes and byways, and so ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... woman of Samaria. The persons are very different: the one a learned Rabbi of reputation, influence, and large theological knowledge of the then fashionable kind; the other an alien woman, poor—for she had to do this menial task of water-drawing in the heat of the day—and of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... many wise and brave remarks regarding the spirit of the Middle Ages. It was a menial spirit. The seekers after natural knowledge had forsaken the fountain of living waters, the direct appeal to nature by observation and experiment, and given themselves up to the remanipulation of the ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... the butcher and vegetable-dealer, despatching the food toward the tables, feeding many dogs, posting her accounts, receiving payments, and regulating the complex affairs of her menage. She would shake a cocktail, make a gin-fizz or a Doctor Funk, chop ice or do any menial service, yet withal was your entertainer and your friend. She had the striking, yet almost inexplicable, dignity of the Maori—the facing of life serenely and without reserve ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... husband does not consider it beneath his dignity to assist her. In illustration of this remark, I may quote the case of an Indian who visited the fort in winter. This poor man's wife had lost her feet by the frost, and he was compelled, not only to hunt, and do all the menial offices himself, but in winter to drag his wife with their stock of furniture from one encampment to another. In the performance of this duty, as he could not keep pace with the rest of the tribe in their movements, he more than once nearly ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... standing as 'priests' represented merely the Babylonian equivalent to a modern university degree. For such service as the bewailing of the dead and as musicians, persons were initiated who were taken from various classes and likewise for the menial duties of the temples, and it is only when we come to the more distinctive priestly functions, like the exorcising of evil spirits, securing an oracle, or performing sacrifices, that the rules limiting these privileges to certain families were ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... house, she would have remained at Nuncombe without complaint. Had her aunt since her coming given her orders as to her mode of life,—enjoined, for instance, additional church attendances, or desired her to perform menial services in the house,—she would have obeyed, from custom, without a word. But when she was told that she was to marry Mr. Gibson, it did seem to her to be necessary to do something more than ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... 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 his sister, "he threw himself into my mother's ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... clad in a shapeless monotony of dingy blue, labeled on the back with their disgrace, stepping lightly or shuffling hastily to and fro, heads bent and eyes downcast, performing various offices, menial, clerical or industrial, with a certain obsequiousness and ostensible zeal that was yet inwardly repulsion and protest—these were men born under the great flag, Americans, my countrymen, and now my companions! What a change, ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... 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 suppose ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... of them were captives seized as children, and torn from their homes in some of the Corsairs' annual raids upon Corsica and Sardinia and the Italian or Dalmatian coasts. Most of such prisoners were condemned to menial and other labour, unless ransomed; but the bolder and handsomer boys were often picked out by the penetrating eye of the reis, and once chosen the young ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... novelty of a white man doing anything for them was irresistible to all who had shoes. He did not lower himself in their estimation. It is noteworthy that the Tahitian does not distinguish between what we call menial labor and other work. Nor did we until recently. The kings and nobles of Europe were actually served by the lords of the bedchamber and the maids in waiting. The American boot-black was really a boot-white, ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... Choice and Treatment of Academy-Wives, Ushers, and other menial Servants: with the Reasons of ...
— The Academy Keeper • Anonymous
... Maxwell having sprained his ankle, and Long Thompson is down with small-pox, so you'll have to do it. I offered 'em my services, but the manager he said that intelligent lads couldn't be spared for such menial work, and told me ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... greatness, Elmendorf refused to 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 hours, unless he has resigned ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... temperament they were mere children requiring a father. But of one venerable and aged man I would like to record a few things. He was a gaunt, tall, grey-bearded fellow as thin as a stick-insect, and he performed the most menial of all services, being a sweeper by caste. But what he did was done with passionate devotion. He had seen service in France and spoke a few curious French words. Troops on active service in France certainly are taught some strange phrases. All ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... first, this second house was opened. Some of the older and abler girls from the first house were used for the domestic work of the second, partly to save hired help, and partly to accustom them to working for others and thus give a proper dignity to what is sometimes despised as a degrading and menial form of service. By April 8, 1837, there were in ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... 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 off fear in consequence of the wicked custom. The ancient athletes, ashamed to ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... they chose to remember, and to remind the world, that he was the son of a tenant farmer (a Macgregor, at that), that as a boy he had been willing to run errands and to deliver legs of mutton, and that for a time in his youth he had held the menial post of Janitor in ...
— Critical Strictures on the New Tragedy of Elvira, Written by Mr. David Malloch (1763) • James Boswell, Andrew Erskine and George Dempster
... Nevill. "Arabs think they bring good fortune to places. That's why people cut off the tops of the trees and make nests for them, so they can bless the neighbourhood and do good to the crops. Storks have no such menial work here as bringing babies. Arab babies have to come as best they can—sent into the world anyhow; for storks are men who didn't do their religious duties in the most approved style, so they have to revisit the world next time in the form of ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... brought home a small packet which had been conveyed to him through one of the Emperor's suite. It was tied up with a long tough pale wisp of hair, evidently from the mane or tail of some Flemish horse, and was addressed, "To Master Ambrose Birkenholt, menial clerk to the most worshipful Sir Thomas More, Knight, Under Sheriff of the City ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Brahmana that cooks for Sudra, to one that too by birth is a Brahmana but who is destitute of the occupations of his order, is in vain. The gift to one that has married a girl after the accession of puberty, to females, to one that sports with snakes, and to one that is employed in menial offices, is also in vain. These sixteen kinds of gifts are productive of no merits. That man who with mind clouded with darkness giveth away from fear or anger, enjoyeth the merit of such gift while he is in the womb of his ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... "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
... least eleven or 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 ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... 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, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... bringing the little family of workers into touch with the Divine and giving them a glimpse of the great plan of laboring with God where no work is menial, and nothing too small to be worth doing for the love of Christ. Then the little company dropped upon their knees, and the earnest voice took up a prayer which was more an intimate word with a trusted beloved Companion; and they all arose to go about that work of theirs with ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... as mercenaries, to fight her battles even in such distant countries as China and the Sudan, and upon still more numerous legions of Indians in every branch of the civil administration to carry out all the menial work of government? If the Indians, untrained, and indeed forbidden, to bear arms, were unable at once to overthrow British rule, could they not at least paralyse its machinery, as Bepin Chandra Pal was preaching, by refusing to take any kind of ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... [395] has a large wooden palace, the three chief apartments of which are, one for himself, another for his wife, and the third for his menial servants. It has three doors opening into a large court, one appropriated for the queen and her attendants, one for the king and the servants attached to his person, and the third for the two head cooks, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... what disguises love makes us put on. Gods have been in counterfeited shapes for the same reason; and the divine part of me, my mind, has worn this mask of madness and this motley livery, only as the slave of love and menial creature of your beauty. ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... when I say that though the housewife may be the loveliest and most dignified of women, her work is to a large extent menial. One may arise in indignation at this and speak of the science of housekeeping, of cleanliness, of calories in diet, of child-culture; one may strike a lofty attitude and speak of the Home (capital H), and how it is the corner stone of Society. I can but agree, but I must remind ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... he kept up an unflagging search for work. He found that there were more Feathertons and Stockards than he had ever looked to find. Everywhere that he turned his face, anything but the most menial work was denied him. He thought once of going away from Broughton, but would he find it any better anywhere else, he asked himself? He determined to stay and fight it out there for two reasons. First, because he held that it would ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... the Kurus with ten thousand disciples. And seeing the irascible ascetic arrived, Duryodhana and his brothers welcomed him with great humility, self-abasement and gentleness. And himself attending on the Rishi as a menial, the prince gave him a right worshipful reception. And the illustrious Muni stayed there for a few days, while king Duryodhana, watchful of his imprecations, attended on him diligently by day and night. And sometimes the Muni would say, 'I am hungry, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... is a game animal, not to be degraded by useful or menial toil. It is enough that he exposes himself to the hardships of the chase and the perils of war; that he brings home food for his family, and watches and fights for its protection. Everything else is beneath his attention. When at home he attends only to his weapons ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... lessons in preparing and cooking plain, substantial meals. To make this "siss" work palatable to the sterner sex much of it takes the form of instruction in camp life—cooking in tin cans and other handy home-made devices. In a community where boys have always been trained to regard home work as menial, but where the absence of servants makes a "lift" from the husband or brother such a Godsend to the wife at odd times, the value of giving grade boys a taste for cooking ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... to the points of harm, And 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, ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... parlour dinner, waiting generally on the family, and making the beds. But BLAKE even went further than that, and said that people should do their own works of necessity, and not delegate them to persons in a menial situation, So he wouldn't allow his servants to do so much as even answer a bell. Here he is making his wife carry up the water for her bath to the second floor, much against her inclination, - And why in the world the gentleman who illustrates these ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... overcrowding? Because the atmosphere of the professional institution fills the student with prejudice against physical labor. It is menial. His education has fitted him for something nobler than to toil in the field or in the work-shop. Institutional rivalry also does its share, sending out alluring advertisements and thus filling the college classes with recruits from the farms and ...
— A Broader Mission for Liberal Education • John Henry Worst
... believe I could have almost murdered that woman for stealing my darling baby and sneaking off without a word of inquiry. I do not yet see how Marguerite can forgive her for keeping her out off her birthright all these years; for dragging her through poverty and all kinds of menial labor; and here she was the caretaker's daughter! Think of it—my child, Zay's sister! Even now when the child pleads for her so earnestly I cannot really forgive her. Will you pardon me for my outbreak? My child is tenderer and ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... lackey-love, you mistress of a menial—shut up and get out of here! You're the right one to come and tell me that I am vulgar. People of my kind would never in their lives act as vulgarly as you have acted to-night. Do you think any servant girl would go for a man as you did? Did you ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... said the authorities, that a Jew should return from France for his military service. A reward of 2000 francs was offered to anyone who could supply incriminating evidence against the doctor, but this was offered in vain. The Jews, by the way, were told that while they would be removed from menial positions in the hospitals they "would be tolerated" as doctors—and nearly a hundred of these doctors died on ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... had no business training, for what should a minister's wife know of business beyond the affairs of the parish and the economy of her own home? She found, therefore, nothing open to her hands in America save menial work in the ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... town and had made all ready for the evening meal. Then they sat them down to supper, the old man and his wife with Geraint between them; and the fair maid, Enid, waited upon them, though it irked the Prince to see her do such menial service. ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay |
