"Menial" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... education in the high school at Muncie, Indiana, and was a young woman of taste and refinement. Could she marry a butler? To be near her hero, she herself had just now been willing to undertake a menial position. But she had then imagined him to be a person of importance. This stage in her cogitations led her to the reflection that her feelings were unworthy of her. Had her regard for Asbury Fuller been all due to the belief that he was a person of importance, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... for her as milliners, dressmakers, shop-attendants, cooks, maids. But, as she now realized, it is one thing to pass upon the work of others; it is another thing to do work oneself. She— There was literally nothing that she could do. Any occupation, even the most menial, was either beyond her skill or beyond her ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... this writ, not only deputies, etc., but even their menial servants, are allowed to lord it over us. What is this but to have the curse of Canaan with a witness on us? To be the servant of servants, the most despicable ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... was easy enough to turn to and shift for myself. I was sure now that my idea would live: the good ones are self-supporting. I had to learn to be so; and I tried my hand at a number of things ... adventurous, menial, commercial. ... It's not a bad thing for a man to have to live his life—and we nearly all manage to dodge it. Our first round with the Sphinx may strike something out of us—a book or a picture or a symphony; and we're amazed ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... requires at 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 ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... horses on their haunches. In an instant the thundering knock of the servant intimated the arrival of some person of rank; the hall door was opened, and Owen, availing himself of that opportunity, entered the hall. Such a visitor, however, was too remarkable to escape notice. The hand of the menial was rudely placed against his breast; and, as the usual impertinent interrogatories were put to him, the pampered ruffian kept pushing him back, until the afflicted man stood upon the upper step leading ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... in itself a living organism, it can speak only through the mouths of men, who often misrepresent it for their own partisan and prejudiced plans. It is strong and steadfast, though, and in time is always victorious over its menial opposition, for what is history but the past tense of truth, and it is justly said that veritas ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... the Pandavas, like a dog in a lion's den, approached the queen of the sons of Pandu. And he said,—'Yudhishthira having been intoxicated with dice, Duryodhana, O Draupadi, hath won thee. Come now, therefore, to the abode of Dhritarashtra. I will take thee, O Yajnaseni, and put thee in some menial work.' ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... men has fixed on a young woman he approves of, he discovers his passion to her parents, who give him an invitation to come and live with them in their tents. He accordingly accepts their offer, and by so doing engages to reside in it for a whole year in the character of a menial servant. During this time he hunts, and brings all the game he kills to the family; by which means the father has an opportunity of seeing whether he can provide for the support of his daughter and the children that might be the consequence of their union. When this period is ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... seemed to preempt was the boot-blacking business. It may seem odd to dignify so menial an employment as a business but there is many a head of such an establishment who could show a fatter bank account than two-thirds of his clients. The next time you go into a little nook containing say fifteen chairs, figure out for yourself how many ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... burning? Is it gas, or oil, or kerosene, or spermaceti, or wax, or tallow? You will never know, Mrs. G.; for Jones trims that light himself. Bridget never saw it yet. Strange, isn't it, that Jones, a rich man, with plenty of servants, should humble himself to such a menial occupation? My own impression is, that he uses a candle in that room, and has paid so high a price for it that he doesn't dare to trust any ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... Lidia," the shepherd drew her close to him and turned the determined little face so that he could see her. "Art thou happy here? Remember thou art no slave, though thou hast chosen to be a menial. Thy father wears no iron ring of bondage around his neck. ...
— Virgilia - or, Out of the Lion's Mouth • Felicia Buttz Clark
... ship, mark how many foreigners there are, though it is against the law to enlist them. Nearly one third of the petty officers of the Neversink were born east of the Atlantic. Why is this? Because the same principle that operates in hindering Americans from hiring themselves out as menial domestics also restrains them, in a great measure, from voluntarily assuming a far worse servitude in the Navy. "Sailors wanted for the Navy" is a common announcement along the wharves of our sea-ports. They are always "wanted." It may have been, ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... him to perform tasks of the most menial kind. What is he now better than a hedge carpenter; and I suppose you allow him ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... farmers' daughters and farmers' wives in New England—more numerous, let us confess, thirty or forty years ago than now—who lived in homely conditions, dressed with plainness, and followed the fashions afar off; did their own household work, even the menial parts of it; cooked the meals for the "men folks" and the "hired help," made the butter and cheese, and performed their half of the labor that wrung an honest but not luxurious living from the reluctant soil. And yet those women—the sweet and gracious ornaments of a self-respecting ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... frequently placing himself under lock and key; but you will forgive his every weakness for the unexampled skill wherewith he extricated himself from the stubbornest dungeon. Cartouche would scarce have given Sheppard a menial's office in his gang. How cordially Sheppard would have despised Cartouche's solitary experiment in escape! To be foiled by a dog and a boxmaker's daughter! Would not that have seemed contemptible to the master breaker of those unnumbered ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... people hold dearest in life for their children. They deliberately impair their health, wear themselves out, make all sorts of sacrifices, to send a worthless boy to college. They take in washing, go out house-cleaning, do the hardest and most menial work, in order to give their boys and girls an education and the benefit of priceless opportunities that they never had; yet, how often, they are rewarded only ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... brought up as a boy in the depths of indigence, in close attendance upon the school along with your father, pounding up the ink, sponging down the forms, sweeping the attendants' room,[n] occupying the position of a menial, not of a free-born boy! {259} Then, when you became a man, you used to read out the books[n] to your mother at her initiations, and help her in the rest of the hocus-pocus, by night dressing the initiated[n] in fawnskins, ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... distinguished the heiress of the throne of Paflagonia, gave the little outcast a SHELTER AND A HOME! Her parentage not being known, and her garb very humble, the foundling was educated in the Palace in a menial capacity, under the ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... so spent put him on an easier footing with Lady Mabel than a dozen casual meetings; and he quite got the weather gage of both equerry and huntsman, securing frequent and easy intercourse, while advising and assisting her in his inter-menial capacity, whereas these gentlemen's spheres of official duty lay properly out of doors. But he soon found a dangerous rival to take the wind out of his sails, in the person of Major Lumley, who, possessing ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... would grief describe, might come and trace Its watery footsteps in Dorinda's face. To see her weep, joy every face forsook, And grief flung sables on each menial look. The humble tribe mourned for the quickening soul, That furnished spirit and ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... kinds—Egyptian, Syrian, Chaldean, Iranian, and so forth. (3) This fact helped to give to Christianity—under the fine tolerance of the Empire—its democratic character and also its willingness to accept all. The rude and menial masses, who had hitherto been almost beneath the notice of Greek and Roman culture, flocked in; and though this was doubtless, as time went on, a source of weakness to the Church, and a cause of dissension and superstition, ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... menial work until he gets a girl, and then he shall learn that he can't expect one with ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... enter a cloister, and devote himself to a monastic life. Here he was required to perform the lowest drudgery, and to beg from house to house. He was at an age when respect and appreciation are most eagerly craved, and these menial offices were deeply mortifying to his natural feelings; but he patiently endured this humiliation, believing that it was necessary because ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... aware that your general appearance is very different from that of the man discharged to-day, and from those seeking the menial place in question. Can you explain this ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... 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
... poet is not one whom they can hire by money and flattery to be a minister of their pleasures, their writer of occasional verses, their purveyor of table wit; he cannot be their menial, he cannot even be their partisan. At the peril of both parties let no such union be attempted. Will a Courser of the Sun work softly in the harness of a Dray-horse? His hoofs are of fire, and his path ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... servants and labourers, except apprentices, become entitled to wages: according to their agreement, if menial servants; or according to the appointment of the sheriff or sessions, if labourers or servants in husbandry: for the statutes for regulation of wages extend to such servants only[y]; it being impossible for any magistrate to be a judge of the employment of menial servants, ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... was quite breathless. She could not entirely understand Katharine's point of view, but she seemed to be hinting that Miss Merriam was serving in a menial capacity. The idea made loyal Ethel Brown, who had not a snobbish bone in her body, extremely angry. Service she understood—her father and her uncle and Katharine's father, too, for that matter, were serving their country and were under orders. One kind of service might be less responsible ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... 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 ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... the general character, or rather appearance, of the Strasbourgeois, it is such as to afford very considerable satisfaction. The manners and customs of the people are simple and sober. The women, even to the class of menial servants, go abroad with their hair brushed and platted in rather a tasteful manner, as we even sometimes observe in the best circles of our own country. The hair is dressed a la grecque, and the head is usually uncovered: contrary to the broad round ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... naturally refined tastes and instincts the dirty furnace work had not been pleasant to him, and he had shrunk with inexpressible loathing from the swill cart and the other menial duties he had been obliged to perform for the sake of those he loved. How to get an education was the problem he was earnestly trying to solve, and lo! it was now solved for him. For a moment the suddenness of the thing overcame him, and he sat down upon a table ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... to have been a source of great perplexity to them, to say nothing of the cost to the nation caused by the hopeless incapacity displayed in dealing with them. The business grows so farcical that the English guardians become the laughing-stock of the most menial creatures on the island. ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... of this world are not apt to take up menial employs, and this one had already shown that he preferred idle musings and parasitic dependence to uncongenial labour. Whoever reads the second scene of the second act of "The Comedy of Errors," will see that Shakespeare, even at the beginning, had an uncommonly good opinion of himself. He ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... the paper 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 keep this." And ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... beyond the limit," said her father, speaking low in an effort to control his wrath. "Hereafter you shall never go beyond the walls of this palace! You shall be a waiting-maid for your sister! The servants shall be instructed to treat you as a menial—one of their own class! These shameless women are dismissed from my service! As for you"—turning upon the old tutor—"you shall be put away under lock and key until I can devise some punishment severe ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... with head slightly bowed. His face was calm and dignified. It had an impassiveness which made an interminable distance between him and those who had till now looked upon him as a poor Chinky, doing a roustabout's work on a ranch, the handy-man, the Jack-of-all- trades. Yet in spite of the menial work which he had done, it was now to be seen that the despised Li Choo had still lived his own life, removed by centuries and innumerable ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... this assembly there attended a vast number of light, nimble gods, menial servants to Jupiter: those are his ministering instruments in all affairs below. They travel in a caravan, more or less together, and are fastened to each other like a link of galley-slaves, by a light chain, which passes from ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... the darkness lowers boat after boat From Freedom's fleet, and each with lightening oars? Treasons to God and country are the rowers. They are the Gold and Hireling Brain, that gloat On conscience body with face down, afloat. Why hail they Greed, to run on menial chores From deck to deck, or to and from all shores? Why? To ensure the payment ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... remonstrated; "don't stop to play with his knife. No matter if it is cracked. So is he, for the matter of that. Go and tell your menial troop to remember to put a little beef in the soup, this noon. I am tired of sipping warm water ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... 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 she might be ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... The menial train to threat, a sacred right remains, Which the illustrious spouse of heaven-favor'd lord Through many a year doth earn of prudent governance. Since that, now recognized, thy ancient place as queen, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the infirm and poor!) Here craving for a morsel of their bread, A pampered menial drove me from the door, To seek a shelter in the ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... been reared in the enjoyment of every luxury which wealth can command. How could you bear to suffer privations, to perform menial labors, to be stinted in dress, deprived of congenial society, obliged to refrain from every amusement, because you were unable to afford the expense? How should you like to have a grinding economy continually pressing upon you, in every arrangement of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... Not venturing to attack her friend (for the little tyrant was of a timid feline nature, and only used her claws upon those who were weaker than herself), she maltreated all these, and especially poor Pincott, who was menial, confidante, companion (slave always), according to the caprice ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Heneage Finch's feast—the king, the Duke of York, and Prince Rupert dining on the dais at the top of the hall, whilst the persons of inferior though high quality were regaled at two long tables, set down the hall; and the gentlemen of the inn condescending to act as menial servants. The reader himself, dropping on his knee when he performed the servile office, proffered the towel with which the king prepared himself for the repast; and barristers of ancient lineage and professional eminence contended for the honor of serving His Majesty with surloin ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... window opening unexpectedly on its entrancing view. The ornaments on its walls will grow as we grow—pictures we shall find and always love, and tapestries your own dear hands shall paint. This home will be a real one because it will have a soul. There can be no coarse or menial tasks within its walls because its work shall be glorified by the old immortal ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... For mind is really more honorable than muscle, yet when these two met in a gold mine it fared ill with mind. Classical and mathematical scholars joined their forces with navvies to dig gold; and nearly always the scholars were found after a while cooking, shoe cleaning, and doing generally menial offices ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... manager, the great Mrs. Siddons has been seen, as a contemporary writer describes, "walking up and down both sides of a street in a provincial town, dressed in a red woollen cloak, such as was formerly worn by menial servants, and knocking at each door to deliver the playbill of her benefit." And to come to a later instance, the reader may bear in mind that before that ornament of Mr. Crummles's company, Miss Snevellici, took her benefit or "bespeak" ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... after anticipating in his own person, the plot of his later play of 'She Stoops to Conquer' by mistaking the house of a gentleman at Ardagh for an inn, he was sent to Trinity College, Dublin. The special dress and semi-menial footing of a sizar or poor scholar—for his father, impoverished by the imprudent portioning of his eldest daughter, could not afford to make him a pensioner—were scarcely calculated to modify his personal peculiarities. Added to these, his tutor elect, Dr. Theaker Wilder, was a violent and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... likely to produce such a result than the false and dangerous opinion, that preaching is comparatively a small part of a minister's duty. It is supereminently dangerous for one to form a mean estimate of one's work, unless it be work of a nature very low and menial indeed. 'No one,' said Johnson, 'ever did anything well to which he did not give the whole bent of his mind.' It is this low estimate—this want of a high standard in the mind—that leads some of our young men to boast of the facility with which ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... which Mr. and Mrs. Jocelyn had their origin, and prejudices die hard, even among people who are intelligent, and, in most respects, admirable. To Mrs. Jocelyn and her daughters work was infinitely preferable to dependence, but it was nevertheless menial and undignified because of its almost involuntary and hereditary association with a race of bond-servants. He is superficial indeed in his estimate of character who thinks that people can change their views and feelings in response to a brief demonstration of the essential dignity of labor, ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... there Lord Julian sate on steed; Behind him, in a round, Stood knight and squire, and menial train; Against the leash the greyhounds strain; The ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the rushing of a swollen stream; it comes nearer, and Edward can plainly distinguish the galloping of horses, the cries and shouts of men, with straggling pistol-shots between, rolling forwards to the Hall. The lady starts up—a terrified menial rushes in—but ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 my ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... out of his head all the agitating thoughts of the last few hours. Poor Titmouse had enough to bear—what with the delicate raillery and banter of his refined companions for the rest of the day, find the galling tyranny of Mr. Tag-rag, (who dogged him about all day, setting him about the most menial and troublesome offices he could, and constantly saying mortifying things to him before customers,) and the state of miserable suspense in which Mr. Gammon had thought fit to leave him; I say that surely all this was enough for him to bear without having to encounter at night, as he did, on his ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... indignation strong, The fatal secret 'scap'd Sir Lanval's tongue: 'Yes!' he declar'd, 'he felt love's fullest power! Yes!' he declar'd, 'he had a paramour! But one, so perfect in all female grace, Those charms might scarcely win her handmaid's place; Those charms, were now one menial damsel near, Would lose this little ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... boots, and so on; but even the slight outlay that this involved was eventually too heavy for us, and after having dispensed with her services, Minna had to suffer the humiliation of doing the whole work of the household, even the most menial part of it, herself. As we did not like to mention this to Brix, Minna was obliged, not only to do all the cooking and washing up, but even to clean our lodger's boots as well. What we felt most, however, was the thought of what the concierge and his wife would think of us; but we were mistaken, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... supplying them with provisions. Then, having closed the doors, he commanded his minions to fire the place, in which all fell victims to the flames. When he heard the death shouts and shrieks of the unhappy poor, turning towards the menial parasites who abetted his ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... as it is of pleasures, would seem to you, nevertheless, extremely laborious. To begin with, my dear, you must know that Louise-Armande-Marie de Chaulieu does her own room. I could not bear that a hired menial, some woman or girl from the outside, should become initiated—literary touch again!—into the secrets of my bedroom. The veriest trifles connected with the worship of my heart partake of its sacred character. This is not jealousy; it is self-respect. Thus ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... herself it made no difference unless the neighbours were looking; she had not thought of herself, except in the indomitable failing of her "false pride," since her marriage, which had taken place in her twentieth year. A clergyman's wife might do menial tasks in secret, and nobody minded, but they ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... careless mouth had told how one observant maid, amorously minded, proclaimed of Evan, to a companion of her sex, that, 'he was the only gentleman who gave you an idea of how he would look when he was kissing you.' Juliana cherished that vision likewise. Young ladies are not supposed to do so, if menial maids are; but Juliana did cherish it, and it possessed her fancy. Bear in your recollection that she was not a healthy person. Diseased little heroines may be made attractive, and are now popular; but strip off the cleverly woven robe which is fashioned to cover them, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... point 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 the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... disturbs the Baron's reflections. She is in a state bordering on frenzy. Incoherent expressions of rage burst from her lips: it is some time before she can sufficiently control herself to speak plainly. She has been doubly insulted—first, by a menial person in her employment; secondly, by her husband. Her maid, an Englishwoman, has declared that she will serve the Countess no longer. She will give up her wages, and return at once to England. Being asked her ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... replied Mistress Maud Lindesay, "that, since lamps are dangerous things in maidens' chambers, he desires you to assist in the trimming of the waxen tapers to-night—that is, if so menial a service shame ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... 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 notions of their predecessors. ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... been nurtured in affluence; now far from friends and entirely without means, they were reduced to the greatest straits. They were not even allowed to fish for their support, but were obliged to perform the most menial services. After thirteen months captivity, Cornwallis ordered them to be sent to the West Indies, and this cruel order would have been carried out, but for the general exchange of prisoners which took ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... discourtesy which your superior civilized 'helps' think is self-respect. The excuse of servitude of any kind is its spontaneity and affection. When you know a man hates you and serves you from interest, you know he's a cur and you're a tyrant. It's your blank progress that's made menial service degrading by teaching men to avoid it. Why, sir, when I first arrived here, Jack Hammersley and myself took turns as cook to the party. I didn't consider myself any the worse master for it. But enough of this." He paused, and, raising himself on his elbow, gazed for some seconds ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... preparin' manure for fuel; it wuz made into lumps and dried. The wimmen wuz workin' away all covered with chains and bangles and rings; Josiah looked on 'em engaged in that menial and onwelcome ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... very intimate terms with his housekeeper, a handsome young woman of the name of Hannah Montgomery, who had been his servant of all work. Her familiarity with her master, who, it appears, was a very fine looking, gentlemanly person, had rendered her very impatient of her former menial employments, and she soon became virtually the mistress of the house. Grace Marks was hired to wait upon her, and perform all the coarse drudgery that Hannah considered herself too fine a ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... an impatient glance, "is it nothing to be reduced to this paltry situation—to be caged in a miserable cottage—to be obliged to toil almost in the menial concerns of her ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... of the Muse to-day. He deems that she now has fled from cities to dwell on the robuster champaigns of Illinois and Kansas. Would that I could agree; but I see her in the cities and everywhere, set down to menial taskwork. She were better in exile, on Ibsen's sand dunes or Maeterlinck's bee farm. But in America the times are very evil. Prodigious convulsion of production, the grinding of mighty forces, the noise and rushings of winds—and what avails? Parturiunt montes ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... Jimmy Torrance rebelled to a point where it utterly dominated him—rebelled at the thought that this girl, whom he had unconsciously set upon a pedestal to worship from afar, should always find him in some menial and humiliating position. It was bad enough that she should see him as a sparring partner of a professional pug, but it made it infinitely worse that she should see him as what he must appear, an unsuccessful ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... out to lunch. And twenty minutes after making this decision she was sitting in the anteroom of a suite of theatrical offices in the Empire Theater building. The girl in attendance had, as usual, all the airs little people assume when they are in close, if menial, relations with a person who, being important to them, therefore fills their whole small horizon. She deigned to take in Susan's name and the letter. Susan seated herself at the long table and with the seeming ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... 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 exhibit a man naked, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... nineteen or twenty. They are all of American birth, and have to pass a rigid medical examination; well-grown youths, good flesh, bright eyes, looking straight at you, healthy, intelligent, not a slouch among them, nor a menial—in every one the promise of a man. I have been to many public aggregations of young and old, and of schools and colleges, in my day, but I confess I have never been so near satisfied, so comforted, (both from the fact ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... leaning over their table, elbows resting there, heads close together. And behind Talcott's chair the black figure was bent until the hands could touch the floor. He was brushing up scattered crumbs. As I looked, he raised his head, and it seemed to me that he had forgotten his menial task, had forgotten his menial place, for he was very still. He was no longer dusting. The napkin fell from his outstretched hand. He was listening to the muttered, maudlin conversation as though from the chaos of it he gathered some ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... them on the morrow, the young men took leave of the maidens. Hildburg conscientiously finished her task, but Gudrun proudly flung the linen into the sea and returned to the palace empty-handed, saying that it did not become her to do any more menial labor, since she had been kissed by two kings. Gerlinda, hearing her confess that she had flung the linen into the sea, ordered her to be scourged; but when Gudrun turned upon her and proudly announced that she would take her revenge on the morrow, when she would preside over the ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... some deleterious substance. This is doubtless due to the fact that the preparation of food being such a commonplace matter, its important relations to health, mind, and body have been overlooked, and it has been regarded as a menial service which might be undertaken with little or no preparation, and without attention to matters other than those which relate to the pleasure of the eye and the palate. With taste only as a criterion, ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... with prejudice that neither law nor religion restrains their bloody hands when the Negro refuses to get into what he calls "his place," which place is that of a menial; and often there seems no effort even to put the Negro in any particular place save the grave, as many of the lynchings and murders appear to be done either for the fun of shooting someone, or else with extermination in view. There is no attempt ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... of the Nihonbashi. Some fishermen were violently quarrelling in the fish market on the bank just below the bridge. As he looked on with interest a hand was laid on his shoulder. Turning, he saw a man, partly in the dress of a chu[u]gen, partly in that of a menial attendant of one of the larger yashiki (nobleman's mansion). Scars of burns on his hands and arms, patches of rice flour and bran, showed that he was a cook. His eye was severe and his manner abrupt as he rebuked ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... sonorous blast, but dropped it hastily, it being answered almost simultaneously by an ancient menial left in charge. Their own servants were coming on by coach, and they were much comforted by perceiving that this provident person had prepared a substantial repast, combining supper and tea, in ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... civil war. It was in vain he repeated his clamorous "Welcome, noble Cavaliers! welcome, generous gentlemen!" There was a slight murmur amongst them, that their welcome ought to have come from the mouth of the Colonel's lady—not from that of a menial. Sir Jasper Cranbourne, who had sense as well as spirit and courage, and who was aware of his fair cousin's motives, having been indeed consulted by her upon all the arrangements which she had adopted, saw matters were in such a state that ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... the character whom he has called Selma (he can state this without wounding the feelings of any one, as none of her relatives are now living), was Selma Winchester. She was educated at Cambridge, Mass., was a slave, and died of a broken heart shortly after being put at menial labor in her mother-in-law's kitchen. Her character and appearance, even the costume she wore on the occasion of her visit to the opera—a scene which many residents of Boston and vicinity will remember—are attempted to be described literally. She was not the daughter of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Where'er he turns, he meets a stranger's eye, His suppliants scorn him, and his followers fly; Now drops, at once, the pride of awful state, The golden canopy, the glitt'ring plate, The regal palace, the luxurious board, The liv'ried army, and the menial lord. With age, with cares, with maladies oppress'd, He seeks the refuge of monastick rest: Grief aids disease, remember'd folly stings, And his last sighs reproach the faith of kings. Speak thou, whose thoughts at humble peace repine, Shall Wolsey's wealth, with Wolsey's ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... must not sell her, or otherwise dispose of her services during the unexpired period of her servitude, because "he had dealt deceitfully with her." In case of betrothal to his son, as in the other, she was not to be reduced to her former rank as a menial, but to be treated in every respect as a daughter. Even when the affection of the man to whom she was betrothed waned, he was to yield to her all the rights and privileges which belonged to her as his wife; and, if any ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... of the door was open, and, on my rapping at it, a young person in black made her appearance and admitted me; she was not a menial, but remarkably genteel (an American characteristic) for an English girl, and was probably the daughter of the old gentlewoman who takes care of the house. This lower room has a pavement of gray slabs ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... centuries ago. It is true that a great portion of ancient literature and many monuments bear distinct evidence, all the more impressive because frequently only casual, that, from the earliest ages, the Africans had shared, in common with other less civilized peoples, the doom of having to furnish the menial and servile contingents of the more favoured sections of the human family. Now, dating from, say, five hundred years ago, which was long indeed after the disappearance of the old leading empires ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... longer entirely free, while some were actual slaves. The greater part of this servile class were villeins or farm laborers (S150). They were bound to the soil, and could be sold with it, but not, like the slaves, separately from it. They could be compelled to perform any menial labor, but usually held their plots of land and humble cottages on condition of plowing a certain number of acres or doing a certain number of days' work in each year. In time the villeins generally obtained the privilege of ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... career—managing, writing, directing, producing. He fired the imagination of this stocky, gargoyle-faced boy with the luminous eyes and the humorous mouth. I don't know that Sid Hahn, hanging about the theatre in every kind of menial capacity, ever said to himself ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... is full of the records of courage, devotion, and self-sacrifice on the part of these women, who were generally of high birth, but gave themselves to poverty and the most menial offices, and left names which have perpetuated the sanctity of their order, and come down to the present day as types of ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... came and we were united in the very hotel where I had so long served in a menial capacity. The social distinctions in such a place being small and my birth and breeding really placing me on a par with my employer and his family, I was given the parlor for this celebration and never, never, shall I forget its mean and bare look, even to my untutored eyes; or how lonely those ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... Restored was the outward sign of release from bondage to those whom that yoke had galled. Her dignitaries had suffered the direst straits of poverty, and her clergy had sought a meagre livelihood in menial employment, or had lived in dependence upon the secret benevolence of impoverished loyalists, in whose households they were often well-loved inmates. They had full need of money, not only for their own subsistence, ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... all others he scorned Lodge. The Massachusetts Senator who had put by scholarship for politics and had won the opportunity to do menial service for a political machine hated the man who had chosen scholarship, for whatever motive, and come out with the Presidency. You hate the man you might perhaps have been if you had chosen more boldly, more according to your ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... people did not have any enterprises in which they could employ him. It is true that such positions as street laborer, hod-carrier, cart driver, factory hand, railroad hand, were open to him; but such menial tasks were uncongenial to a man of his education and polish. And, again, society positively forbade him doing such labor. If a man of education among the colored people did such manual labor, he was looked upon as an eternal disgrace to the race. He ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... vied with 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 ...
— Pulpit and Press • Mary Baker Eddy
... future which had made so young and unsentimental a woman as Mary Wells think of suicide for a moment or two; and it now deprived her of her rest, and next day kept her thinking and brooding all the time her now leaden limbs were carrying her through her menial duties. ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... 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 was christened Delilah. Any of our ministers would hesitate to give such ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... individual; to guarantee the highest mental freedom by providing all with labour adapted to their tastes and talents, and securing to them the fruits of their industry; to do away with the necessity of menial services by opening the benefits of education and the profits of labour to all; and thus to prepare a society of liberal, intelligent and cultivated persons whose relations with each other would permit a more simple and wholesome life than ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... to find so little difference between the teaching of the Koran and the Aangeel. He wanted me, in case Omar did not go with me, to take him to serve me. Here there is no idea of its being derogatory for a gentleman's son to wait on one who teaches him, it is positively incumbent. He does all 'menial offices' for his mother, hands coffee, waits at table or helps Omar in anything if I have company, nor will he eat or smoke before me, or sit till I tell him—it is like service in the ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... desolate and joyous, without hope, without spirit, without ambition. Laws were passed against them, one at Bordeaux as late as 1596,—many earlier; by these they were even denied the rights of citizens; they could not bear arms, nor engage in any trade save wood-working or menial occupations, nor marry out of their race; they were obliged to wear a scarlet badge on the shoulder, in the shape of a goose's foot; they were not to go barefoot in towns lest they contaminate the streets, and the penalty was branding with a red-hot iron; they were not to touch the provisions ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... nearer to each other, the princes began to spin the web of their treason; and for this purpose a messenger was sent by them to Tarik, informing him how Roderic, who had been a mere menial and servant to their father, had, after his death, usurped the throne; that the princes had by no means relinquished their rights, and that they implored protection and security for themselves. They offered to desert, and pass ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... near Northallerton, in Yorkshire, of a family above the vulgar. His father, John Ascham, was house-steward in the family of Scroop; and, in that age, when the different orders of men were at a greater distance from each other, and the manners of gentlemen were regularly formed by menial services in great houses, lived with a very conspicuous reputation. Margaret Ascham, his wife, is said to have been allied to many considerable families, but her maiden name is not recorded. She had three sons, of whom Roger was the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... quatuordecim dies, convocato regni senatu[m]." This includes not only privilege from illegal violence, but also from legal arrests, and seisures by process from the courts of law. To assault by violence a member of either house, or his menial servants, is a high contempt of parliament, and there punished with the utmost severity. It has likewise peculiar penalties annexed to it in the courts of law, by the statutes 5 Hen. IV. c. 6. and 11 Hen. VI. c. ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... me the business of the want of paper at the Council-table the other day, which I have observed; Wooly being to have found it, and did, being called, tell the King to his face the reason of it; and Mr. Evelyn tells me several of the menial servants of the Court lacking bread, that have not received a farthing wages since the King's coming in. He tells me the King of France hath his mistresses, but laughs at the foolery of our King, that makes ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... experienced all 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, she dragged herself about from day to day, till at last Mrs. Preston, disgusted with ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the faithful servant. This practice was carried to a great extent among the Romans; the owner of a skilful slave could make a greater profit by giving scope to the man's energies than by confining him forcibly to menial occupation. ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... a passenger conductor, one of those train-crew aristocrats who are always afraid that someone may ask them to put up a car-window, and who, if requested to perform such a menial service, silently point to the button that calls the porter. Larry wore this air of official aloofness even on the street, where there were no car-windows to compromise his dignity. At the end of his run he stepped indifferently from the train along with the passengers, his street hat on his ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... conspicuous among the new powers which were generated by the corruption of the decaying monarchy. At first they were only robbers. They soon rose to the dignity of conquerors. Half the provinces of the empire were turned into Mahratta principalities, Freebooters, sprung from low castes, and accustomed to menial employments, became mighty Rajahs. The Bonslas, at the head of a band of plunderers, occupied the vast region of Berar. The Guicowar, which is, being interpreted, the Herdsman, founded that dynasty which still reigns in Guzerat. The houses of Scindia and Holkar waxed great ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... untaught, With spur and bridle undefiled— 'T was but a day he had been caught; And snorting, with erected mane, And struggling fiercely, but in vain, In the full foam of wrath and dread To me the desert-born was led: They bound me on, that menial throng; Upon his back with many a thong; Then loosed him with a sudden lash— Away!—away!—and on we dash! Torrents less rapid ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... 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 ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the servants, swept and tidied her own room, cleaned her own boots and brushed her own clothes. Her brother could not help looking with irritation and even hatred at her cold face when she went about her menial work. In that work, which was always performed with a certain solemnity, he saw something strained and false, he saw something both pharisaical and affected. And knowing he could not touch her by persuasion, he carped at her and teased ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... later, when Ambrose 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
... retirement, heard of her lover's advancement with pride and fear. She distrusted her worth, and found the hard menial duties of life more irksome than before. Not that she shrank from labor, but she feared its unfitting her for the refinement required by her lover's new social position. She had few examples to teach her the small proprieties of small minds, but a native delicacy helped her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... clad and worse shod, continued with the nurse in Messer Guasparrino's house for two years, patiently performing all kinds of menial offices. But Giannotto, being now sixteen years old, and of a spirit that consorted ill with servitude, brooked not the baseness of his lot, and dismissed himself from Messer Guasparrino's service by getting aboard a galley bound for Alexandria, ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... character of the man; and particularly curious, in being quoted as matter of commendation, and thus serving to illustrate the feelings of a great body of the community.—His mother, who shared in the pious disposition of her son, had attached herself to the convent to assist in the menial offices; and one day, while she was thus engaged, the building caught fire, and she perished in the flames; upon which, Hellouin, though bathed in tears, lifted up his hands to heaven, and gave thanks to God that his parent ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... is in a position to feel and appreciate the need of this in a way that no one else can. No one can fully appreciate what I am saying who has not walked the streets of a Northern city day after day seeking employment, only to find every door closed against him on account of his colour, except in menial service. It is to prevent the same thing taking place in the South that I plead. We may argue that mental development will take care of all this. Mental development is a good thing. Gold is also a good thing, but gold is worthless without an opportunity to make itself touch the world of trade. ...
— The Future of the American Negro • Booker T. Washington
... midst of this population is a House of Refuge for the Destitute, established by charitable individuals for the relief of those who may be found in a state of absolute destitution of the necessaries of life. Here they are employed in menial services, lodged and fed until they can be sent to their friends, or employment found for them. We went over the building, a spacious structure, in the Canongate, of the plainest Puritan architecture, with wide low rooms, which, at the time of the union of Scotland with England, served ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... rank serving as a private soldier but exempted from menial duties and in promotions preferred to others ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... the water, declaring that it had been dipped up. At this the younger wife laughed furtively; the elder broke forth and said: "It is due to the slowness of the way you told us to employ in getting the water. We are not accustomed to the menial office of fetching water; our father treated us delicately, and a man always fetched water for us, and we always used to see him pour the water into the gourd with the nozzle turned up, but you trickily ordered us to turn the nozzle down. ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... little fingers projecting very much, as though they wished it to be distinctly understood that they had no connection whatever with the others, and would not on any account assist the low-born and hard-working forefingers and thumbs in such menial employment. Hopkins's nose appeared to be affected with something of the same spirit. Then Hopkins bowed—that is to say, he broke across suddenly at the middle, causing his stiff upper man to form an obtuse angle with his rigid ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... two lines, that their appearance might be the more gallant and splendid. "My lord," said the king, "I have heard much of your hospitality, but the truth far exceeds the report. These handsome gentlemen and yeomen, whom I see on both sides of me, are no doubt your menial servants." The earl smiled, and confessed that his fortune was too narrow for such magnificence. "They are most of them," subjoined he, "my retainers, who are come to do me service at this time, when they know ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... that sort; and in manner, why, in a plebeian way, a perfect Chesterfield; very intelligent, too—quick as a flash. But, such suavity! 'Please sir! please sir!' always bowing and saying, 'Please sir.' In the strangest way, too, combining a filial affection with a menial respect. Took such warm, singular interest in my affairs. Wanted to be considered one of the family—sort of adopted son of mine, I suppose. Of a morning, when I would go out to my stable, with what ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... the laboring men during the period of commercial expansion in the United States since the Reconstruction period, the country has been all but thoroughly organized through trades unions, so as to restrict the Negro to menial service by written constitutions in keeping with the caste which has so long figured conspicuously in ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... 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 firmly, ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... are numerous and formidable; but man, by nobleness of life and word, by patience and self-mastery, can master them, bring them into subjection, and make them tend to eventual good. Caliban, the gross, sensual, earthly element—though somewhat raised—would run riot, and is therefore compelled to menial service. The brute force of Stephano and Trinculo is vanquished by mental superiority. Even the supermundane spirits, now no longer thirsting for the destruction of body and soul, are bound down to the work of carrying out the decrees of truth and justice. Man is no longer the ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... pseudo-liberty, watched always by the unseen eyes of Tarrano's guards. And there was nothing we could do but accept our status. Tarrano was guiding his destiny cleverly. Yet underneath it all, unseen forces were at work. We sensed them. The slaans—submissive at their menial tasks, but everywhere with sullen, resentful glances. Perhaps Tarrano realized his danger; but I do not think that he, any more than the rest of us, realized what the Water Festival ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... he was making. "My dear young man," he said to him in his patriarchal way, "I am delighted to hear of the way in which you identify yourself with the interests of the firm. If at first you find work allotted to you which may appear to you to be rather menial, you must understand that that is simply due to our desire that you should master the whole business from ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and silver ornaments. Niches, prepared in the walls, were filled with images of animals and plants curiously wrought of the same costly materials; and even much of the domestic furniture, including the utensils devoted to the most ordinary menial services, displayed the like wanton magnificence! *42 With these gorgeous decorations were mingled richly colored stuffs of the delicate manufacture of the Peruvian wool, which were of so beautiful ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... 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 to relate, and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... menial hold the foot which it is an honour for an hidalgo of Spain to touch. I am your servant," he said, and resting one knee on the snow-covered ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... much taken up in nursing a sick woman, whose friendless position stirred Angelina's sense of duty, and she had her removed to Mrs. Frost's house. She and Sarah took upon themselves all the offices of nurse, even the most menial. They read to her, and tried to cheer her during the day, sat up with her at night, and in every way devoted themselves to the poor consumptive, until death came to her relief. Such a sacrifice to a sense of duty was all the more admirable, as the invalid was unusually exacting and unreasonable, ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... position in camp is curious,—half menial, half superior. It is no place for a feeble man. But a cook who is strong in the back and quick with his fists can make his office much respected. Wages, forty dollars a month; duties, to keep the pea-soup kettle always ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... public cab, denotes menial labor, with little chance for advancement. If it is a wagon, you will remain in poverty and unfortunate circumstances for some time. If you are driven in these conveyances by others, you will profit by superior knowledge of the world, and ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... to avail yourself of his infatuation. The menial of Mrs. Blakely would be a worthy daughter, truly, of a house which has counted ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... government of the Empire into thirteen great dioceses, and these he subdivided into one hundred and sixteen provinces. He separated the civil from the military functions of governors. He installed eunuchs in his palace, to wait upon his person and perform menial offices. He made his chamberlain one of the highest officers of State. He guarded his person by bodies of cavalry and infantry. He clothed himself in imposing robes; elaborately arranged his hair; wore a costly ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... 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 ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... shut him up in the Pyramid of Cheops, in the great chamber where the sarcophagus is. Thence we will lead him out when we give our feasts. He shall ripen our corn for us and do menial work. ...
— Selections from the Writings of Lord Dunsay • Lord Dunsany
... 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 ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... [407] A sharp word or a cold look of the master sufficed to make the servant miserable during several days. [408] But this tameness was merely the tameness with which a tiger, caught, caged and starved, submits to the keeper who brings him food. The humble menial was at heart the haughtiest, the most aspiring, the most vindictive, the most despotic of men. And now at length a great, a boundless prospect was opening before him. To William he was already slightly known. At Moor Park the King ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 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 it ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... impossibilities, he keeps them to himself. Alas! this is an ideal, how antipodal sometimes to the real! I am thinking of the gigantic Sheikh Mahomed, with his terrible beard and womanly voice, who would convey my commands to a menial of lower degree and return in five minutes to detail the objections which that person had raised. Another type of Mahomedan Chupprassee, whom we see is to abhor, expresses his opinion of himself by letting half a yard of rag hang down from his turban behind. He calls himself a Syed ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... resolution 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 into the truth of those rumors; ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... 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
... small sum for his room. It is expected, in return for these advantages, that he will be a diligent student, and render himself useful in a variety of ways. In Trinity College, at the time of Goldsmith's admission, several derogatory and indeed menial offices were exacted from the sizer, as if the college sought to indemnify itself for conferring benefits by inflicting indignities. He was obliged to sweep part of the courts in the morning, to carry up the dishes from ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving |
