"Laborer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... being pressed, reluctantly acknowledged that his patient showed all the signs of the dread disease. This hastened the general preparations for departure, and when the incoming steamer hove in sight every laborer was at the dock with his kit-bag. It excited some idle comment among them to note that Dr. Gray had gone down the bay a short distance to meet the ship, and his efforts to speak it were watched with interest and amusement. Obviously it ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... with mean surroundings often give grand names to their children—was the son of an intellectually gifted laborer, who, rising first to be boss of a gang, began to take portions of contracts, and arrived at last, through one lucky venture after another, at having his estimate accepted and the contract given him for a rather ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... whim that makes me oppose your wishes. Tell me, have I not ever been a dutiful son to you? Have I ever refused to do what I was ordered? No; I have obeyed you implicitly. I am the son of the wealthiest man in Poitiers, and I have lived like a laborer's child. Whatever your mandates were, I have never complained or murmured ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... return; but it vanished almost at once, and he answered in monosyllables, if at all. Much of what I said passed him entirely by. He did not seem to understand. By slow stages I got out of him that his father was a farm-laborer; that he had come over to look for his cousin, who worked in Passaic, New Jersey, and had found him,—Heaven knows how!—but had lost him again. Then he had drifted to New York, where the society's officers had come upon him. He nodded when told ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... and the jury pronounced the double crime murder by persons unknown, but with strong suspicion resting on Andrew Zane and an unknown laborer, who had left Pettit's or Treaty Island, at night, in an open boat with William Zane and Sayler Rainey. A reward was offered for Andrew ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... the cessation of bailiff farming the last attempt at keeping the land distributed in fairly equal shares among a large number of tenants was abandoned. Bond land had been divided into portions which were each supposed to be sufficient for the maintenance of a laborer and his family. As long as the demesne was cultivated for the lord, it was to his interest to prevent the concentration of holdings in a few hands, unless some certain provision could be made to insure the performance of the labor due from all of them. But even when the demesne ...
— The Enclosures in England - An Economic Reconstruction • Harriett Bradley
... not injured by the war left their jobs and fled westward to escape conscription. Their places were left open to be filled by operatives from the injured trades. In one or another of these ways the laborer who was thrown out of work was generally able to recover employment. But it is important to remember that the key to the labor situation at that time was the vast area of unoccupied land which could be had for nothing ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... on his return." This, says, La Croix, was owing to Toussaint, who, while he had succeeded in establishing perfect order and discipline among the black troops, had succeeded in making the black laborer return to the plantation, there to resume the ...
— An Account of Some of the Principal Slave Insurrections, • Joshua Coffin
... undoubtedly correct. The proletarian movement, unlike that of the bourgeois, has produced no definite religious school, it has not claimed any particular set of religious doctrines as its own. As a matter of fact, there appears to be an ever-widening chasm between the Church and the laborer, a condition of affairs which is frequently deplored in religious papers. The famous Papal Encyclical on Labor was certainly intended to retain the masses in the Church, and the formation of trades unions under the influence of the priests was a logical conclusion from the teachings ...
— Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy • Frederick Engels
... cellar, but both were well furnished, and at every one's service; and her coffee, though served in earthenware cups, was excellent. Whoever came to her house was invited to dine there, and never did laborer, messenger, or traveller, depart without refreshment. Her family consisted of a pretty chambermaid from Fribourg, named Merceret; a valet from her own country called Claude Anet (of whom I shall speak hereafter), a cook, and two hired chairmen when she visited, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... may be a handicraftsman of some kind: a journeyman butcher, skinner, tailor, or baker. Possibly a soldier, sailor, policeman, gentleman's servant, or what not? But he is generally a common laborer. The waterside is prolific ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... the man who has mastered the details of his occupation through reducing them to a series of effective habits will surely succeed. Note the ease and perfection with which the skilled workman performs his labor and compare it with the slow, slovenly work of the unskilled laborer. ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... called forth in millions the beginnings of a higher human development; the blessing remained for the millions, while he himself felt at last little but the sorrow. Once he joyfully had hoped to die as a martyr; now he wished for the peace of the grave, like a trusty, aged, worn-out laborer—another case of a ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... that all have forgot, no cross nor stone marketh, There let the laborer guide his plough, there cleave the earth open. So shall my ashes at last be one with thy hills and thy valleys. Little 'twill matter then, my country, that thou shouldst forget me! I shall be air in thy streets, and I shall be space in ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... this second man held out a hand, which the submarine boy unsuspiciously took, at the same time looking over this second man. He appeared, like the first, to be a laborer ...
— The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip - "Making Good" as Young Experts • Victor G. Durham
... is immensely below the American laborer, and still has to be watched as a thief, for the want of a little morality intermixed with his religious instruction. It is a degrading sight to stand at the door of one of the large coach manufactories at Mexico, and to witness the manner ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... I tell them that Charles Hardy is a minister of the gospel. He was recently settled in a small town in Connecticut. The boat club changed his character,—purged it of the evil and confirmed the good,—and he is now a humble and devoted laborer in the vineyard of ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... a desperate one, and drove him to a desperate course. It was now midsummer; and run down from overwork as he was, could he face the thought of returning to the sweltering city, to go to work in some office? Or was he to hire out as a farm-laborer, under he knew not what conditions? He recoiled from either of these alternatives; and then suddenly, as he racked his brains, a wild idea flashed over him. For years he had talked and dreamed of escaping from civilization. ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... of streets and quarters which once were alive and gay. At the Place de l'Opera in Paris, the whirlpool of Parisian life is still turning, but the great streets leading away from the Place de l'Etoile are quiet. Young and old, laborer and shopkeeper, boulevardier and apache are far away ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... it. It does not prove that their strength and vigor were not given them for other purposes than to be expended on the poorer substances for food, when they might have better. Nor is it true, as often pretended, that the hard laborer needs either more food, or that which is of a stronger quality, just in proportion to the severity of his labor. The man or the child who labors moderately, just sufficient for the purposes of health, and labors with his hands in the open air, ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... implies freedom to labor at one's will, and to what purpose can a man labor, unless he can make the fruit of his labor his own? All property, except land, has been created by labor. Except where slavery is legalized, it is admitted that the laborer owns the value he creates. If it be an article made or produced wholly by himself, it is his to keep, to use, to give, or to sell. If his labor be bestowed on materials not his own, or if he be one of a body of workmen, he is entitled to a fair equivalent ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... feeling of unreality was largely emotional, now it received an intellectual sanction, and he swung from hither to yon in a never-ending cycle. He became wearied beyond measure by his thoughts; he envied the beasts of the field, the laborer in the ditch and all to whom life and living were realities not in the least to be examined and questioned. Deliberately he decided to shift his interests,—to buy an automobile and learn about it; to play cards; to have his love affair; to taste emotion and pleasure and to seek ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... aspects of grief as there are persons to mourn. A quality of pathetic and rather grisly humor is to be found in the incident of an English laborer, whose little son died. The vicar on calling to condole with the parents found the father pacing to and fro in the living-room with the tiny body in his arms. As the clergyman spoke phrases of sympathy, the father, with tears streaming ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... resembling the French 'grandes seigneurs' of the eighteenth century, they rolled in wealth wrung from the laborer by reducing the rewards of his toil to the last fraction that would support his life and strength. The rice culture was immensely profitable, because they had found the secret for raising it more cheaply than even the pauper laborer of the of world could. Their lands had ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... who saw in the negro slave an efficient laborer in a certain line of work, and there were the practical men who doubted the economic value of our system as compared with that of the free States, and whom the other practical men laughed ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... strengthened to perform the labor demanded of it." [2] No sensible man will try to do without it. If any man does so he will pay the penalty. As to the amount of exercise and the kind of exercise every man must judge for himself. Some, from their occupation, need less than others; the outdoor laborer, for instance, than the clerk who is most of the day at the desk. One man may take exercise best by walking, another by riding, another by following outdoor sports. Athletics, such as football, and cricket, are a favorite form of exercise with the young, and if ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... people of fortune and refinement in the country, has diffused a degree of taste and elegance in rural economy that descends to the lowest class. The very laborer, with his thatched cottage and narrow slip of ground, attends to their embellishment. The trim hedge, the grass-plot before the door, the little flower-bed bordered with snug box, the woodbine trained up against the wall, and hanging its blossoms about the lattice; the pot of flowers in ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... often became joro; but at no time could they enter a joroya in any neighboring city, much less in their own, so they were sold to establishments in remote places. A yama-no-mono to-day could not even become a kurumaya. He could not obtain employment as a common laborer in any capacity, except by going to some distant city where he could hope to conceal his origin. But if detected under such conditions he would run serious risk of being killed by his fellow- laborers. Under any circumstance it would be difficult for a yama-no-mono to pass himself off for a ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... moving into the reconstructed and improved building. Every one who has had any hand in the work has seemed personally interested and anxious to expedite the work, from the architect and lumber dealer to the commonest laborer. ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 7, July, 1889 • Various
... elation. He sagged down in his saddle. "I don't know," he answered despondently. "Mon Dieu! To come down to this—a common laborer for wages—after that! When I think of ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... beginning on the work which has been outlined in the following less expensive manner. A working plant might be established, on ground rented or purchased at a low figure, for about ten thousand dollars; the salary of a director, assistants, a clerical helper, and combined mechanic and laborer might be estimated at the same figure; the cost of animals and of maintenance of the plant would approximate five thousand dollars. Thus, we should obtain as an estimate of the expenditures for the first year twenty-five thousand dollars. Without ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... countrymen planned a constitution just like a house, according to the latest, simplest, and most attractive plan; and there were several under consideration—the mansion of a marquis, the house of a common citizen, the tenement of a laborer, the barracks of a soldier, the kibbutz of a socialist, and even the camp of savages. Each claimed that his was "the true habitation for Man, the only one in which a sensible person could live." In my opinion, the argument was weak; personal ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... not a groom," interrupted Rastignac; "he has some sort of an agricultural laborer that he brought with him 'from his place.' Buisson, who understands a livery as well as most, declared that the man was physically incapable ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... his father's heart. Instead of following the trail already made, he cuts loose, frequents vulgar resorts, hates his school work, becomes a loafer and a bum—and, finally, a second-rate day laborer. Again, what he is himself, his "vital spark" has been stronger than immediate heredity and environment, and has ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... Labor is still at its old value of three shillings a day; but, from increased difficulty in any part of the process, five days' labor are now spent on the production of a hat instead of four. In this second case, Phaedrus, how much will be paid to the laborer? ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... superfluous fat on my person. I am perfectly equipped for the hardest kind of physical work and in a busy western town there is sure to be work enough of that kind for a strong and willing man to do. I can at the very least earn enough as a laborer to feed me better than I've been fed for ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... there was a critic, or booklover, or philanthropist, or a person of any sort, who would stand by a true artist. "This artist will work all day and nearly all night," he wrote, "and he wants less than the wages of a day-laborer. All else that ever comes to him in his life he will give for a chance ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... or drive to the county seat with such a monstrosity on the box. Haying—that's what they would put him to—cleaning out the dung from the stables. And Marcsa, the beautiful Marcsa whom all the men were vying for, would she be the wife of a miserable day laborer? ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... more quick and intelligent than equally ignorant men. A woman will usually tell you the way in the street more readily than a man can; a woman can always understand a foreigner more easily; and Dr. Currie says in his letters, that when a laborer and his wife came to consult him, the man always got all the information from the wife. Buckle illustrates this at some length, and points out that a woman's mind is by its nature deductive and quick; a man's mind, inductive and slow; that each has its value, ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... and the tank where the fish are kept,—not to speak of the miller's boy, who was already watching me. No matter where you are in the country, however solitary you may think yourself, you are certain to be the focus of the two eyes of a country bumpkin; a laborer rests on his hoe, a vine-dresser straightens his bent back, a little goat-girl, or shepherdess, or milkmaid climbs a willow ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... it was that, and more. There had been a rain storm which the asphalt had long forgotten but the dirt road recorded with ruts and chuck-holes half filled with mud. The big car weathered it without breaking a spring, and before the tiredest laborer of San Diego had yawned and declared it was bedtime, they chuckled sedately into San Diego and stopped on a side street where a dingy garage stood open to the ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... conducted ticket-holders. This was however strongly opposed on the spot, as tending to depreciate property, and inconsistent with the social circumstances of the country. The English allotment system was inapplicable: at home, it is a subsidiary to the general resources of the laborer, who can commonly find employment with the farmers, and easily dispose of the ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... he had had a good laborer,—one of the best known, and eagerly sought by every farmer in the county; a man who had never yet been beaten in a mowing-match or a reaping. By his help the haying had been done in not much more than two thirds the usual time; but when John ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... soon, it brings over $125,000,000 a year into these five states. This immense revenue flows through every artery of labor, commerce and agriculture; in the open farming countries as well as in the timbered districts. It is shared alike by laborer, farmer, merchant, artisan and professional man. It is their greatest source of income, for lumber is the chief product which, being sold elsewhere, actually brings in ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen
... ready tool in the hand of a tyrant; as heroism with consequent glory is the noble attribute of a patriot, so a mercenary spirit is a stigma on the career of any public officer. We find no fault with an artisan, a merchant, or a common laborer if he estimate the value of his toil by the pecuniary advantages attached to it; for that is the nature of such ordinary occupations, since for man labor is the ordinary and providential condition of existence. But in the higher professions we always look for loftier aspirations. This ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... must hearten and quicken the spirit and efficiency of labor throughout our whole industrial system by everywhere and in all occupations doing justice to the laborer, not only by paying a living wage but also by making all the conditions that surround labor what they ought to be. And we must do more than justice. We must safeguard life and promote health and safety in every occupation in which they are threatened or imperiled. That is more than justice, ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan
... A poor laborer of Ohio had raised, with the greatest possible care and attention, a nursery of vines, from which, after much labor, he at last succeeded in producing a pipe of Catawba wine, and forgot, in the joy of his success, that each drop of this precious nectar ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... meantime the slaves had been set free: where before ordered, they must now be hired. A difficult agreement to effect at all times, because will and word and bond were of no account. Most difficult when the breaking of hemp was to be bargained for; since the laborer is kept all day in the winter fields, away from the fireside, and must toil solitary at his brake, cut off from the talk and laughter which lighten work among that race. So that wages rose steadily, and the cost of hemp ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... game than he would have done if he had not used some of his time in making such implements. It pays such a man to interrupt his hunting long enough to make a spear or a bow and arrows. This amounts to saying that it is an advantage to him to become, in a simple way, a capitalist as well as a laborer; for the primitive implements of the chase are forms of productive wealth, or capital. Moreover, if he possesses foresight, he will keep enough food within reach to tide him over periods when game is not to be had, and such a store is another ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... on a hill and watch a laborer striking with his sledge upon the distant railway. I hear the sound of the blow while I see his tool raised above his head. I account for this by saying that it has taken some time for the sound-waves to reach my ear, and I regard my ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... happens without deliberate intention, except that of bringing vividly before us the common interpretation of the fact. Popular tradition is not intentional deception, it is only an unavoidable fusion of facts with conventional ideas, whereby God becomes a laborer wearied by six days' work; his seat becomes Olympus or a golden throne in some corner of the blue sky; the Son of God sinks to the level of a prince of the house of David, the Saviour to a miracle doctor, and his message of salvation to a promise of resurrection ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... two faces, Making one place two places? One, by humble farmer seen, Chill and wet, unlighted, mean, Useful only, triste and damp, Serving for a laborer's lamp? Have the same mists another side, To be the appanage of pride, Gracing the rich man's wood and lake, His park where amber mornings break, And treacherously bright to show His planted isle where roses glow? O Day! and is your mightiness A sycophant to smug success? Will the sweet sky and ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... place to sleep and eat, wid kinfolks. De niggers just lay 'round de place 'til master rode in, after de war, on a horse; him have money and friends and git things goin' agin. I stay on dere 'til '76. Then I come to Winnsboro and git a job as section hand laborer on de railroad. Out of de fust money,—(I git paid off de pay train then; company run a special pay train out of Columbia to Charlotte. They stop at every station and pay de hands off at de rear end of de train in cash). Well, as I was a sayin': Out de fust money, I buys me a red shirt ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... a pretty hard place." Francis said this calmly. But he flushed in a way that, as Marjorie knew, meant he was disturbed. "You know every man counts just now, and labor is cruelly scarce. I'm doing mine and a day-laborer's work besides, now. And the contract ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... touches his cap as he receives it, and the human being whose income is paid in yearly or half-yearly sums, and to whom a pecuniary tip would appear as an insult; yet, of course, that great gulf is the result of training alone. John Smith the laborer, with twelve shillings a week, and the bishop with eight thousand a year, had, by original constitution, precisely the same kind of feeling towards that much-sought, yet much-abused reality which provides the means of life. Who shall reckon up by what millions ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... he called old-fashioned. I believed a laborer who was thrifty, efficient and industrious did not need a union to help him, arguing the union only helped the inefficient, ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... brown mare by a halter. He never once glanced back at the farm-house, but the mare several times bent her neck around and emitted a doleful neigh, as if complaining because her good days were now over. The Justice remained standing with the laborer, his arms set akimbo, until the two horses had passed out of sight through the orchard. Then the man said: "The ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... industry are threatening to stop. The laborer will not work because the pay is too low and the hours are too long. The producer cannot employ him because the wage is too high, and the hours are too short. If the high wage is paid and the short hours are granted, then the price of the thing made, ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... sense which is shown in translating by the word dinner, which must of necessity mean the chief meal—a Roman word which represents a fancy meal, a meal of caprice, a meal which few people took. At this moment, what is the single point of agreement between the noon meal of the English laborer and the evening meal of the English gentleman? What is the single circumstance common to both, which causes us to denominate them by the common name of dinner? It is that in both we recognize the principal meal of the day, the meal upon which is thrown the onus of the day's ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... certain articles altogether and permit their importation free of duty. On others they may impose low duties. In these classes should be embraced such articles of necessity as are in general use, and especially such as are consumed by the laborer and poor as well as by the wealthy citizen. Care should be taken that all the great interests of the country, including manufactures, agriculture, commerce, navigation, and the mechanic arts, should, as far as may be practicable, derive ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Polk • James Polk
... line some miles away, and also have miniature railway systems running through the fazendas to move the coffee from one harvesting and cleaning operation to another. The coffee is carried in small cars that are either pushed by a laborer or are drawn by ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... good things,—Gal. 6:6. Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in word and doctrine. For the Scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The laborer is worthy of his reward.—I Tim. 5:17, 18. Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves; for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy and not with grief; for that ...
— An Explanation of Luther's Small Catechism • Joseph Stump
... that the laborers were taking advantage of the needs of their lords to demand excessive wages, and prohibiting them from asking more than had been due and accustomed in the year before the outbreak of the pestilence or for the preceding five or six years. Every laborer when offered service at these wages must accept it; the lords of manors having the first right to the labor of those living on their manors, provided they did not insist on retaining an unreasonable number. If any laborers, men or ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... that of the free population. The luxury and magnificence of the great, (he observes,) at the commencement of the empire, must not be taken as the groundwork of calculations for the whole Roman world. "The agricultural laborer, and the artisan, in Spain, Gaul, Britain, Syria, and Egypt, maintained himself, as in the present day, by his own labor and that of his household, without possessing a single slave." The latter part ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... waste, and less time is required for removal. Many are the instances of great men, past and present, who have lived healthily and worked unceasingly and strenuously on only four or five hours of sleep, or half the laborer's portion. Surely we do not suppose that these men were or are physically different from others, but rather that by inclination or necessity they have developed a habit of sleeping intensely for a short period, with resulting gain ...
— Initiative Psychic Energy • Warren Hilton
... but that I now ought to set about actual engagement in the Lord's work. I wrote to the committee of the Society, requesting them to send me out at once; and, that they might do so more comfortably, to send me as a fellow-laborer with an experienced brother. However, I ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... hours constituted a working day. The people of the Middle Ages not only had the Saturday half-holiday but they enjoyed release from work on nearly forty vigils of feast days during the year. That they were as well off, e.g. as the unskilled laborer of our day, who demands from four to eight dollars a day as a wage, is evident from the fact that while he has to pay forty cents a pound for mutton, the workman of Edward the Third's day earned enough in four days to buy a whole sheep and a gallon of ale. So ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... herself for the great revolutionary struggle which was then before her. His parentage is too well known to need even an allusion; yet I may be pardoned if I say, that his father seemed born to aid in the establishment of our free Government, and his mother was a suitable companion and co-laborer of such a patriot. The cradle hymns of the child were the songs of liberty. The power and competence of man for self-government were the topics which he most frequently heard discussed by the wise men of the day, and the ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... established in which the funds of the capitalist find a profitable investment, and which give employment and subsistence to a numerous and increasing body of industrious and dexterous mechanics. The laborer is rewarded by high wages in the construction of works of internal improvement, which are extending with unprecedented rapidity. Science is steadily penetrating the recesses of nature and disclosing her secrets, while the ingenuity ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... that he was being fleeced, still did all he could for Finot. This brilliant condottiere of the pen was, in fact, long to remain a slave. Finot hid a brutal strength of will under a heavy exterior, under polish of wit, as a laborer rubs his bread with garlic. He knew how to garner what he gleaned, ideas and crown-pieces alike, in the fields of the dissolute life led by men engaged in ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... can only be kept in cultivation by the Africans, who can thrive and fatten where the white man withers helplessly. No one that has realized the present state of our own West Indian colonies, will believe that the enfranchised negro can be depended upon as a daily laborer for hire. The listless indolence inherent in all tropical races will assert itself, as soon as free agency begins or is restored. With a bright sun overhead, and a sufficiency of sustenance for the day before him, money will not tempt Sambo to ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... near Albany, New York, where he worked summers among the farmers as a day-laborer, and attended the district school winters. This kind of life was maintained until he was nearly nineteen years of age when he entered a store at Durham, New York, as a clerk. Here he allowed nothing to escape his attention ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... goods at a lower figure," said Mr. Eastman promptly. "We must get command of trade again. Prices will come down,—that is a foregone conclusion. The abundant harvests have glutted the market, and living will be cheaper. The laborer can live on less; and, if we can manufacture at less cost, we shall be ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... As a matter of fact, she knew afterwards that she could not have been alone more than five minutes. It was like an eternity. She listened in vain for any human sound, even for the far-off sweep of the scythe in the bracken, or the call of the laborer to his horses. The tension of those ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... compel others to obey them. I am no Moses, but I think I have the germ of the law which would cure our economic ills—that no person should be allowed to receive value without earning it. Because I believed in that I gave up a fortune and went to work as a laborer on a ranch, but Fate has forced wealth upon me, doubtless in order that I may prove out my own theories. Well, that is ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... distinctly in the style of Yorick in the section, the "Spider."[31] The return journey in the sentimental moonlight affords the author another opportunity for the exercise of his broad human sympathy: he meets a poor woman, aday-laborer with her child, gives them a few coins and doubts whether king or bishop could be more content with the benediction of the apostolic chair than he with the blessing of this unfortunate,—asentiment derived from Yorick's overcolored ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... existence is extended to the common period he will die rich. It happens, however, that he is (and long has been) troubled with violent stomachic pains, for which he has hitherto obtained no relief, and which really are the bane and torment of his life. Now, if my excellent laborer were to send for a physician and to consult him respecting this malady, would it not be very singular language if our doctor were to say to him: "My good friend, you surely will not be so rash as to attempt to get rid of these pains in your stomach. ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... poet's lay; Nor aught is wanting to delight the sense; The gifts of Ceres, or Diana's shades. The eye enraptur'd roves o'er woods and dells, Or dwells complacent on the numerous signs Of cultivated life. The laborer's decent cot, Marks the clear spring, or bubbling rill. The lowlier hut hard by the river's edge, The boat, the seine suspended, tell the place Where in his season hardy fishers toil. More elevated on the grassy slope, The farmer's mansion rises mid his trees; Thence, ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... established. The defences carried twelve cannon and six mortars. A French observer, who was a prisoner at the time when the Sultan was personally directing the works at Tekedemt, describes his simple costume, like that of a laborer; his large tall hat, plaited with palm-leaves; his "incomparable grace" and "fascinating smile" as he saluted the man who was rather a guest ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... look over its acres of velvet carpet. In June her man and three stalwart boys, now twenty, eighteen and fourteen years of age, would swing the reaper into that field and harvest the waving gold without the aid of a hired laborer. She and her little girls would help ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... the laborer is worthy of his hire,' she said, brightly. It's queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there had never been anything like it, and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... thread of my narrative. When Scott had got through his brief literary occupation, we set out on a ramble. The young ladies started to accompany us, but they had not gone far, when they met a poor old laborer and his distressed family, and turned back to take them to the house, and ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... eyes." Sometimes, he sets more moderate limits to their ambition, and hopes that they will, at least, get the freedom of the play-house by it. But at all times he chides, with good-humored impatience, the tardiness of his fellow- laborer in applying to the managers. Fears are expressed that Foote may have made other engagements,—and that a piece, called "Dido," on the same mythological plan, which had lately been produced with but little success, might prove an obstacle to the reception of theirs. At Drury Lane, too, they ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... right in that: at all events I know very well that if I had been the son of a laborer instead of the son of a country landagent, I should have struck more grit than I did. Unfortunately I'm not going back to visit the Irish nation, but to visit my father and Aunt Judy and Nora Reilly and Father Dempsey ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... and go to work. And when you have become a genuine laborer, you'll begin to try to improve not the condition of others, but your own. The way to help workers is to abolish the idlers who hang like a millstone about their necks. You can help only by abolishing the ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... expiration of sixty days next after the passage of this act, and until the expiration of twenty years next after the passage of this act, the coming of Chinese laborers be, and the same is hereby, suspended; and during such suspension it shall not be lawful for any Chinese laborer to come, or, having so come after the expiration of said sixty days, to remain ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... same earth below and the same heaven above, the heather should be purple, and the corn yellow, and the ferns green, is wonderful; but not so wonderful, I think, as that a man by the touch of genius should have made every one interested in a field-laborer taking a thorn out of the hand of another field-laborer. Catch your poet, and he'll soon ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... personage in our story, and we do not purpose to enter into the diagnosis of his case. He has our sympathies on the merit of his sufferings alone, and quite as much for Nellie's sake; for it was tender, and gentle, and kind in her to feel so much for a poor Irish laborer. While she and Donald were talking about the case, Mr. Hasbrook came down stairs, and passed through the hall into the library, where he, also, had left his hat. In a few moments more the rattle of his wagon was heard, as ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... passed through a village. Lights were in the windows. One cottage door stood open. A shaft of light streamed across Emmy's face, and Septimus caught a glimpse of drawn and haggard misery. They went on for another mile. Now and then a laborer passed them with an unsurprised greeting. A milkcart rattled by and then all was silence again. Gradually the ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... its root in fundamental agreement with those principles she held to be most 'necessary to salvation.' Where this sympathy existed, her generous affection was given to a fellow-believer, a fellow-laborer, with singularly little reference to the fact that such full sympathy was never unattended with profound love and reverence for herself as a living witness to the truth and power of the principles thus shared. To love her was a strenuous pleasure; for in spite of the tenderness for ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... comforts, being collected on our seaboard and frontiers only, and, incorporated with the transactions of our mercantile citizens, it may be the pleasure and the pride of an American to ask, What farmer, what mechanic, what laborer ever sees a taxgatherer of the United States? These contributions enable us to support the current expenses of the Government, to fulfill contracts with foreign nations, to extinguish the native right of soil within our limits, to extend those limits, and to apply such a surplus to our ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson
... been no common workman at my office," said the blunt Eben, who, though an ordinary farm-laborer, according to an usage still very generally prevalent in the country, was also skilful in the craft of the butcher. "I have brought many a wether to his end, but this is the first sheep, within all my experience, that hath kept the fleece while a portion of ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... dainty—all that money could make of her human person. Adelle was not given to prolonged reflection of any sort, but probably she could not help comparing her own dainty, cool, exquisitely clean person with this sweaty, sun-burned, coarse laborer in his black cotton shirt, frayed khaki trousers, and shoes that the lime had burned all color from. She must have felt a complacent sense of physical superiority to the man who was working for her, and perhaps congratulated herself that her lot in the ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... man took Schrank's arm; he looked like a laborer. He grabbed him and seemed to be struggling with him. The laborer got hold of Schrank first; I think the captain was up as soon as ...
— The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt • Oliver Remey
... plainly that immediate, unconditional emancipation, without expatriation, was the right of every slave, and could not be withheld by his master an hour without sin. That night my soul was baptised in his spirit, and ever since I have been a disciple and fellow-laborer of William Lloyd Garrison." A new force had arisen in our history, and a new epoch had ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... machinery the sons of Adam now sow and reap their harvests, keep the wheels of their great manufactories in motion, and with daily increasing speed carry on the commerce of the world. The time is at hand when the heavy burdens of the laborer will all be shifted on the shoulders of these tireless machines. And when the woman, too, learns and obeys the laws of life, these supposed curses will be but idle dreams of the past. The curse falls lightly even now on women who live in natural conditions, ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... this great object everything is subsidiary. The Mason is, from the moment of his initiation as an Entered Apprentice, to the time at which he receives the full fruition of masonic light, an investigator—a laborer in the quarry and the temple—whose reward is to be Truth. All the ceremonies and traditions of the order tend to this ultimate design. Is there light to be asked for? It is the intellectual light of wisdom and truth. Is there a ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... and farm laborer, the son of Lord Lackwit. On the death of his lordship, Robin Roughhead comes into the title and estates. This brings out the best qualities of his heart—liberality, benevolence and honesty. He marries Dolly, to whom he was already engaged, and ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... of cultivating the desert soil, and seeking for life under the rubbish, Zunz was the first to present himself as a laborer. The only fruit of the Society for Jewish Culture and Science, during the three years of its existence, was the "Journal for the Science of Judaism," and its publication was due exclusively to Zunz's perseverance. ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... noticed him, and lifting up the corpse, laid it down on the sidewalk. It was found, to the surprise of all, to be that of a young man of delicate features and white, fair skin. "Although dressed as a laborer, in dirty overalls and filthy shirt, underneath these were fine cassimere pants, handsome, rich vest, and fine linen shirt." [Footnote: D.M. Barnes.] He was evidently a man in position far above the rough villains he led on, but had disguised himself ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... falls for twelve or fourteen months. On the whole, Puerto Rico is one of the healthiest islands in the West Indies, nor is it infested to the same extent as other islands by poisonous snakes and other noxious reptiles. The laborer may sleep in peace and security in the midst of the forest, by the side of the river, or in the meadow with his cattle with no other fear than that of an occasional centipede or ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... every nook and corner of the South there comes a cry that the Negro as a laborer is unsatisfactory. It is said that he is inefficient, unreliable, indolent, lazy, in short, that he is unfit to do the work the South wants done. Less than two decades ago it was just the opposite. Then, it was said that the Negro was unfit ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards
... money, and were now rich; the poor priest had every thing but the thanks of the contractors for his pains, and he concluded, from his experience of this and other railroads and public works in America, that, of all the men living, the railroad and day laborer of this "free country" is the most ill treated and oppressed. He has to work from dark to dark; he has to take store pay for his wages; and he has to obey the nod, look, and arbitrary commands of the lowest, cruellest, and most brutal class of men on earth. I ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... lived way over on the east side of the city, in a house which was once a handsome dwelling, but had long since been divided into tenements and given up to ruin. The Connors were known among their neighbors as a respectable, hard-working family. The father was a day-laborer; the mother went out washing; Joe, a boy of fourteen, was in the district messenger service; after him came Katy, who was employed in McNaughton's store; and then Ellie, the little invalid. Two younger children ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... a young laborer, Victor Pratteler, who had but recently stepped out of the narrow, securely guarded realm of hand labor into the open and surging world of the iron proletariat. He completely lacked that personal imagination and that subjective instinct toward his material which ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... merchant or to the planter to pay the rent; for the merchant's supplies were secured by a mortgage on the tenant's personal property and a pledge of the growing crop. This often prevented Negro laborers in the employ of black tenants from getting their wages at the end of the year, for, although the laborer had also a lien on the growing crop, the merchant and the planter usually had theirs recorded first and secured thereby the support of the law to force the payment of their claims. The Negro tenant then began ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... hands fastened behind him, and so dragged to the gallows. But although wealth was an unpardonable sin, poverty proved rarely a protection. Reasons sufficient could always be found for dooming the starveling laborer as well as the opulent burgher. To avoid the disturbances created in the streets by the frequent harangues or exhortations addressed to the bystanders by the victims on their way to the scaffold, a new gag was invented. The tongue of each prisoner was screwed into an iron ring, and then ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... that morning—about the time that Jack awoke in Cambridge—John Harris, laborer, emerged, very sleepy and frowsy—for he had sat up late last night at the "Spotted Dog"—from the door of a small cottage on the Ely road, in the middle of Grunty Fen. He looked this way and that, wondering whether ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... the most honorable class. Next to these are the laborers. These have strikes as with us; but it is always for harder work, longer hours, or smaller pay. The contest between capital and labor rages, but the conditions are reversed; for the grumbling capitalist complains that the laborer will not take as much pay as he ought to while the laborer thinks the capitalist too persistent in his efforts to force money ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... called, as she slipped out of the garden. She was still dressed in the coarse laborer's attire that she had bought on the trading boat, and mingled readily with the crowds in the streets. She hoped she would not meet Mellie, for the girl's devotion might outweigh ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... admitted that $350 per annum is more than an average return for the work of a common laborer on an average New England farm, including ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Jago," confided the second laborer to Barron, when his companion had turned aside to get some steel wedges and a sledge-hammer. "Er's well-knawn in these paarts—a reg'lar cure. Er used tu work up Drift ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... of him or his speeches, perhaps, except by vague report, than of others who are prominent. They are preaching a doctrine that can only make matters worse for the laborer. They counsel strike, and forcible, riotous resistance to the employment of others. It can lead only to tumult, to rioting that brings out the criminal and the desperate classes; outrage results, and the sympathy they might have ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... shuffled before him, with the trot of a lean and exhausted laborer. "I was with the men you fought, when you ran. I followed to the house, and then here, to the river. I was glad you did not jump on board." He glanced back, timidly, for approbation. "I am a great coward, Herr Heywood told me so,—but ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... of the ancients, promoter of the Olympic games and laborer. H. claimed to have done some things which are even questioned by the partisans of Doctor Cook. Killed about everybody, erected two pillars, stole some apples, and, in short, did everything but enter ...
— Who Was Who: 5000 B. C. to Date - Biographical Dictionary of the Famous and Those Who Wanted to Be • Anonymous
... of many nationalities combined like a vast family; each man, from laborer to engineer, doing his stint, without favoritism and without graft, toward the big result. So in California likewise a people collected from practically all the world became Americans together under the Flag, and working shoulder to shoulder—rich ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... y the teche, wiltow any thyng{e} ler{e}? [Fol. 171b.] wiltow be a s{er}uaunde, plow[gh]ma, or a laborer{e}, Courtyour or a clark / Marchaund / or masou{n}, or an artificer{e}, Chamburlayn, or buttiller{e} / ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... Lift up that downcast face, nor blush and tremble, as if detected in a guilty act. You must not spend too much time in the reveries of imagination, for this is a working-day world, my child. Even the birds have to build their nests, and the coral insect is a mighty laborer. The gift of song is sweet, and may be made an instrument of the Creator's glory. The first notes of the lark are feeble, compared to his heaven-high strains. The fainter dawn precedes ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... the automobile. The change in rural life due to automotive vehicles can hardly be exaggerated. In our best agricultural states practically every farmer has his automobile. He can get to the community center as quickly as the business man or laborer gets to his work in the average city, and can go to the county seat or neighboring city as quickly as one can drive to the business section from the more distant parts of New York or Chicago. Auto-bus lines radiate from most of our small cities, and auto trucks not only bring freight ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... oft-quoted instance of their cruelty is recorded of a bailie named Landenburg, who publicly reproved a peasant for living in a house above his station. On another occasion, having fined an old and much respected laborer, named Henry of Melchi, a yoke of oxen for an imaginary offence, the Governor's messenger jeeringly told the old man, who was lamenting that if he lost his cattle he could no longer earn his bread, that if ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... correspondence, stand, however, in the way of all but the resolute and unwearied scholar. These difficulties, in all their complex obstinacy, had been met and overcome by the heroic efforts, the concentrated devotion, of the new laborer in the ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... me here, he made me toil like a day laborer, and feed like his helper," said he, gloomily. "But I've got to stand it, confound the luck. I'm too short in the neck to carry weight and stand excitement. That thing fairly floored me when I ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... gospel of industrial salvation to all struggling laborers who dwell in poverty—not immediate salvation for themselves, but salvation for their class, by making education free for all, and giving to the children of the poorest laborer the opportunity of a career in which independence is sure, and wealth ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, November 1887 - Volume 1, Number 10 • Various
... Spring with her flowers; on one side the man, in whom love awakens, on the other fresh young Flora, bringing the first offerings of the year. Next comes the alcove of Summer, the time of fruition. The mother brings her babe to its father, the laborer bears the first fruits of the harvest. ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... thou didst seem thou wast indeed, In sport thy tools thou didst not use, Nor, helping hind's or fisher's need, The laborer's hire too ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... ranchitas and those belonging at the home ranch, the chapel building went on by leaps and bounds. A native carpenter had been secured from Santa Maria, and the enthusiastic padre, laying aside his vestments, worked with his hands as a common laborer. The energy with which he inspired the natives made him a valuable overseer. From assisting the carpenter in hewing the rafters, to advising the masons in laying a keystone, or with his own hands mixing the mortar and tamping the earth to give firm foundation to the cement floor, he was ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... trial to him to come here. His father is a day-laborer, I believe, and of course he has never been accustomed ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... Miles Coverdale, a co-laborer of Tyndale, published "Biblia; The Bible, that is, the Holy Scriptures of the Olde and New Testament, faithfully and truly translated out of the Douche and Latyn into Englishe: Zurich." In the next year, 1536, Coverdale issued another edition, which ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... secret rendezvous in the maze of the forests. His problem now was to locate their meeting place: his patrols must search them out. Information would be passed quickly to them by the inhabitants of the gulf—every planter, laborer, trader and native now knew that the ladrones were rampant: and now the Bogobos would be most valuable to him, as in their wanderings they covered every inch of the woods to the edge of the Hill Country, and news of strangers would be brought to him ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... of the murdered man, according to his revelation to the Fox sisters, was Charles Rosna, and the murderer a man named Beck. In 1847 the house was occupied by Michael Weekman, a poor laborer. He and his family became troubled by these mysterious rappings, which followed in succession at different intervals, especially during the night. The family became so broken by fear and loss of sleep that they vacated the house. On Dec. 11, the Fox family moved in and two months later the rappings ...
— Hydesville - The Story of the Rochester Knockings, Which Proclaimed the Advent of Modern Spiritualism • Thomas Olman Todd
... after their own fashion on this bit of property, which had survived their fortunes because it had always been considered valueless and unprofitable for negro labor. How at first they had undergone serious difficulty, through the incompetence and ignorance of the freed laborer, and the equal apathy and prejudice of their neighbors. How they had gradually succeeded with the adoption of new methods and ideas that she herself had conceived, which she now briefly and clearly ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... high only with relation to the average of the class to which the man belongs and which are paid only to those who do much more or better work than the average of their class. He would not for an instant advocate the use of a high-priced tradesman to do the work which could be done by a trained laborer or a lower-priced man. No one would think of using a fine trotter to draw a grocery wagon nor a Percheron to do the work of a little mule. No more should a mechanic be allowed to do work for which a trained laborer can be used, and the writer goes so far as to say that almost ...
— Shop Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... even in science, or in his intellectual or artistic capacity, or exemplar in some vast benevolence. To the highest democratic view, man is most acceptable in living well the practical life and lot which happens to him as ordinary farmer, sea-farer, mechanic, clerk, laborer, or driver—upon and from which position as a central basis or pedestal, while performing its labors, and his duties as citizen, son, husband, father and employ'd person, he preserves his physique, ascends, developing, radiating himself in other regions—and especially where ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... "The laborer has got some hard lessons to learn. This trouble is only a small part of the bigger trouble. He wants to get more than he is worth. And all our education, the higher education, is a bad thing." He turned with ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick |
