"Menial" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... indifference of public opinion, the Southern whites have carried their campaign into the national government, with an ominous degree of success. If they shall have their way, no Negro can fill any federal office, or occupy, in the public service, any position that is not menial. This is not an inference, but the openly, passionately avowed sentiment of the white South. The right to employment in the public service is an exceedingly valuable one, for which white men have struggled and fought. A vast army of men are employed in the administration of public affairs. ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... gone. In her the generations—Henry IV., the Grand Monarch, and all of that stately line—in her they stooped. And an element of sheerest vulgarity, as plebeian as a Jew's diamond, crept in perforce. Poor tarnished escutcheon of Orleans! Poor princess of the Blood, become menial with scouring it! She was weary. Over this New World there floated too much of obscuring democratic dust. So she allowed "ma'am," like a homely fleck, to settle unreproved on the ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... 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 Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sent up a telegraph. Oh me! oh me! poor boy, what will he do? I shall never know what to do with him, never! never!" And with such sorrowful wailings she sat rocking herself through the long night, every now and then comforting herself by the performance of some menial service in ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... state. "You are not ignorant," says Harris, writing to William Eden, "that the great officers of the court are merely titular, and never allowed to have any authority annexed to their office. This is given to some menial servants, who are constantly about the king's person, and his treasurer was a Russian named Deiss, in whom his Majesty placed more confidence than he appears to have deserved; since for maladministration, or some equally ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... from his happy home to the place of "devil" in the printing office was one which tried the lad's fortitude to the utmost. His position was but little better than that of a menial, and not only was all the drudgery and disagreeable work put upon him, but he was made the sport of the workmen, some of whom used him even roughly. He bore it all good-naturedly, however, devoting himself to his trade with the ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... patriarchate. He confirmed to 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 ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... not guess how intimate was soon to be my association with the Berts and 'Arries and 'Erbs of the world. I was to be their servant, to wait upon them, to perform menial tasks for them, to wash them and dress them and undress them, to carry them in my arms. I was to see them suffer and to learn to respect their gameness, and the wry, "grousing" humour which is their almost universal trait. In my own wards, and elsewhere ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... gracious alike; the tone of her voice, though she uttered words ever so trivial, gave him a pleasure that amounted almost to anguish. It cannot be called love, that a lad of twelve years of age, little more than a menial, felt for an exalted lady, his mistress: but it was worship. To catch her glance, to divine her errand and run on it before she had spoken it; to watch, to follow, adore her; became the business of his life. Meanwhile, as is the way often, his idol had idols of ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... my song, That to the humblest menial belong: To him whose drudgery unheeded goes, His joys unreckon'd as his cares or woes; Though joys and cares in every path are sown, And youthful minds have feelings of their own, Quick springing sorrows, transient as the dew, Delights from trifles, trifles ever, ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... indignity overcame his self-possession, as, on one occasion, when the jailer's attendant rudely awoke him with a kick, as he deposited a basin of hot broth, which Foresti indignantly seized and dashed its scalding contents into the face of the brutal menial, who thenceforward was more respectful in his salutations. But it was the moral suffering against which all his wisdom and courage were invoked to struggle,—the resolute maintenance of healthful mental activity, without an object or motive underived from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... provision that no man shall be allowed to work on Sunday—'That no person, upon the Lord's day, shall do, or hire, or employ any person to do any manner of labour, or any work of his or her ordinary calling.' What class of persons does this affect? The rich man? No. Menial servants, both male and female, are specially exempted from the operation of the bill. 'Menial servants' are among the poor people. The bill has no regard for them. The Baronet's dinner must be cooked ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... task-makers as best I might. This was the commencement of a life of unceasing toil. I was the pariah of our little community; having no rights that compelled respect, and being looked upon with feelings of suspicion and distrust by the Indian women, I was driven to perform the menial tasks and endure the ill-treatment of those who were only too happy, to visit on my unoffending and unresisting body, the ill-treatment they had ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... sent a letter to Plymouth by an Indian, stating their deplorable condition, and imploring further aid. They had become so helpless and degraded that the Indians seem actually to have made slaves of them, compelling them to perform the most menial services. The letter contained the ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... bricklayer; whether bending beneath tool box of the carpenter or ensconced on the bench of the shoemaker, he has a moral strength, a consciousness of acquirement, giving him a dignity of manhood unpossessed by the menial and those engaged in unskilled labor. Let it never be forgotten that as high over in importance as the best interest of the race is to that of the individual, will be the uplifting influence of assiduously cultivating a desire to obtain ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... net or lassoes the bull, and recites the prayer while his father successively presents to the god each object prescribed by the ritual. A priest may occasionally act as substitute for the prince, but other men perform only the most menial offices. They are slaughterers or servants, or they bear the boat or canopy of the god. The god, for his part, is not always alone. He has his wife and his son by his side; next after them the gods of ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... soon as he entered the town he disclosed to its citizens the most offensive traits of arrogance and tyranny. But this was not all. Not merely was he accused on every side of such faults as the improper issuing of passes, the closing of Philadelphia shops on his arrival, the imposition of menial offices upon the sons of freemen performing military duty, the use of wagons furnished by the State for transporting private property; but misdeeds of a far graver nature were traced to him, savoring of the criminality ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... cannot sin. But neither can he do anything which would make him the tool of an intent to sin. He refuses to do anything at all on Sunday, for instance, and he won't let either Fitz or I do anything that even vaguely resembles menial labor. Slowly, he's coming to the notion that human beings aren't human—that only God is human, in relation to the First and Second Laws. There's nothing we ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... had known all her life, commonplace, tiresome teasers or clowns. That awkward impediment, a rival, I had not to contest or fear. All went well with us until I fell from the ranks of the aristocracy and became a menial shop boy in a store. But before that eclipse there were other happy days and joyous experiences. Together we visited the grave of the Indian Uncas, and the remnant of his tribe at Montville; we drove often to Fishville, where was an estate laid out in a foreign fashion with grottoes, ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... her in guardianship prior to marriage, and upon marriage making her and all her possessions practically the property of her husband, while a cruel, unreasonable and vicious public opinion excluded her from all except menial and ill-paid service. One by one and year by year these barriers have given way, until in many States her property and personal rights enjoy the complete shelter of the law. Now more than half the occupations and employments of this age of industrial activity ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... taking her hero's desertion. As he lifted the latch he heard her voice giving orders, and the door opened, not on the peaceful scene he expected of the spinster at her ingle nook, but of a bustling and apparently rejuvenated old lady supervising a packing menial. The greatest shock of all was that this menial proved to be Yossel himself squatted on the floor, his crutches beside him. Almost as in guilty confusion the hunchback hastily closed the sheet containing a huddle of articles, and tied ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... operations of commerce, gone astray during the Revolution and, subsequently, scared of the dominant party, accustomed unfortunately at that time to receiving pay for taking part in political strife, and now reduced to living on almost gratuitous distributions of food, to dealing in small wares, to the menial occupations which chance rarely presents—in short, to swindling. Such is what the observer finds in that portion of the population of Marseilles most in sight; eager to profit by whatever occurs, easily won over, active ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Had her mother and Priscilla told her positively not to go to her aunt's house, she would have remained at Nuncombe without complaint. Had her aunt since her coming given her orders as to her mode of life,—enjoined, for instance, additional church attendances, or desired her to perform menial services in the house,—she would have obeyed, from custom, without a word. But when she was told that she was to marry Mr. Gibson, it did seem to her to be necessary to do something more than obey. Did she love Mr. Gibson? She tried ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... a shapeless monotony of dingy blue, labeled on the back with their disgrace, stepping lightly or shuffling hastily to and fro, heads bent and eyes downcast, performing various offices, menial, clerical or industrial, with a certain obsequiousness and ostensible zeal that was yet inwardly repulsion and protest—these were men born under the great flag, Americans, my countrymen, and now my companions! What a change, what a degradation from the free American citizen of the streets ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... often used as exactly equivalent to wages, but may be used with reference to the real value of work done or service rendered, and even applied to inanimate things; as, the earnings of capital. Hire is distinctly mercenary or menial, but as a noun has gone out of popular use, tho the verb to hire is common. Salary is for literary or professional work, wages for handicraft or other comparatively inferior service; a salary is regarded as more permanent than wages; ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... and distributed a certain number of Indians among them to cultivate the soil. This system was afterward introduced in all the Spanish settlements, the Indians being everywhere seized upon and compelled to work in the mines, to till the plantations, to carry burdens and to perform all menial and laborious services. The stated tasks of the unhappy natives were often much beyond their abilities, and multitudes sank under the hardships to which they were subjected. Their spirit was broken, they became humble and degraded, and the race was rapidly wasting away. ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... to say, but the idea of Miss Payne being on terms of equality with a menial was not pleasant to ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... the part that in a way was not without appeal to the imagination, he felt that he might gradually have accustomed himself to it; but to be put into the mindless routine of the workingman, to be set about menial tasks which a mere muscular machine could perform better than he—what ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... Confederate prisoner who had "swallowed the yellow pup," i.e., had taken the oath of allegiance to the United States Government. These men were looked upon even by the Federal officers as a contemptible set, and were required to do all kinds of menial service. ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... she was not even particularly pretty. He had, of course, obtained the requisite official sanction, so that there could not be anything actually against her family; but concerning the reception into their midst of this young person, who had formerly filled a "menial position," the ladies of the regiment ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... to go on and finish the course, if only to show her friends, and enemies, the stuff she's made of. When I think of those free wards, and the menial, disgusting offices that frail little girl has to perform! What did she sow that she should reap this fighting in the thickest of the fight, ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... heard, that imperious voice, "Go on! Don't be easy on yourself." His own shepherding exemplified his belief that in the ministry honor for one's self is nothing, humanity everything. No task, even scrubbing floors, was too menial or too hard to be beneath the position of him who is God's servant. When the problems and the pressure of work in such a large institution weighed upon us, and their full scope inevitably was revealed ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... was a terrible fate, a far worse fate than death, for the Saracens usually sold their captives as slaves; and Sir Dietrich as he languished in captivity, wondering whether he was destined to spend the rest of his days serving the infidel in some menial capacity, vowed that if he should ever regain his native Germany he would build there a chapel to St. Peter. Nor did his piety go unrewarded, for shortly afterward a body of his compatriots came to his aid, worsted his foes, and set him free. A joyful day was this for the crusader, but it ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... (1847-1853) there was an immense deal of fagging, which has been, we believe very properly, much diminished. Under boys were called in to perform many menial offices which should have been done by servants. The task-work which by "gown-boys" was most disliked was what was called being basonite. This duty devolved upon the twelve junior boys occupying what was known as "the under bedroom." To this hour we recall ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... a very firm idea of her own standing as a princess. Had she not earlier in the day impressed Maizie? And now, was this stranger, even though she were a queen, to demand menial service of one of royal blood? Suzanna thought not. So she said ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... [the missionaries] to carry their burdens while travelling, or build their mia-mias when halting to camp for the night; in fact, all sorts of menial offices had to be discharged by the missionaries for these noble black men while away on ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... to mass in silk and powder on a Sunday. After two months of wretchedness with these unfriendly hosts, whom she vainly tried to conciliate by a hundred little services and attentions the poor girl resolved to return to Milan, where she hoped to obtain some menial position in the household of one of her father's friends. Her cousins, at this, made a great outcry, protesting that none of their blood should so demean herself, and that they would spare no efforts to find some better ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... claimed relief of Mr. Peel, whose flocks had been scattered, and his property destroyed by their desertion. He was glad to hide from their violence, while they were embarking for the neighbouring colonies. Respectable families were compelled to perform the most menial offices, and young women of education were reduced to rags. Contributions of clothing were collected and forwarded by the ladies of Cornwall. Many were brought to Van Diemen's Land, as to a city of ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... liberal house! with princely state {589} To many a stranger, many a guest, Oft hast thou oped thy friendly gate, Oft spread the hospitable feast. Beneath thy roof Apollo deign'd to dwell, Here strung his silver-sounding shell, And, mixing with thy menial train, Deigned to be called the shepherd of the plain: And as he drove his flocks along, Whether the winding vale they rove, Or linger in the upland grove, He tuned the pastoral ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... that you promise! He begs, sahib! He says he is thy trooper, thy dog, thy menial, ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... looked upon the wine when it was red in the cup so long that he was about down and out; no one would hire him any more, even in the most menial capacity. His poor, hard-working wife had at last taken the pledge not to support him any longer in idleness, so it was up to Dennie to do something desperate. The most desperate thing he could think of was to swear off. So before the priest he took a solemn vow not ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy
... interest, and secondarily for the due remuneration of the faithful servant. This practice was carried to a great extent among the Romans; the owner of a skilful slave could make a greater profit by giving scope to the man's energies than by confining him forcibly to menial occupation. ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... 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 ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... The menial servants of Englishmen, persons (to use the emphatical phrase of a ruined and patient Eastern chief) "whose fathers they would not have set with the dogs of their flock" entered into their patrimonial lands. Mr. Hastings's banian ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Brockenhurst, the birthplace and favourite residence of the young Earl. The children were left with their grandmother; they were to follow, in charge of Maude and Bertram, to Langley, where their mother intended to rejoin them. Maude continued to be bowerwoman to her mistress; but some of the more menial functions usually discharged by one who filled that office, were now given to a younger girl, who bore the name of ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... fragile stranger, but her gentleness disarmed the old woman; and, when it was plain that the young lady's sufferings were greatly lessened by tender care, dislike gave way to attachment, and there was little more murmuring at the menial services that were needed by the two maidens, even when Ermentrude's feeble fancies, or Christina's views of dainty propriety, rendered them more onerous than before. She was even heard to rejoice ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not. Yet how could I ask her to perform so menial a task as to bail the boat? But it soon went past the point ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... upon the Egyptian character is the position accorded to their women, who, as in all Mohammedan countries, are considered to be soulless. From infancy employed in the most menial occupations, they are not even permitted to enter the mosques at prayer-time, and until recently the scanty education which the boys enjoyed was denied to their sisters. It is no wonder, therefore, that these often beautiful girls grow up much like graceful animals, ignorant of the ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... no other concerns than those of the world and the body. These after death become mere menials and servants, according to the uses which they are able to perform for those who are spiritual; for the natural man is a menial and servant, and the spiritual man is a master and lord. Those of the third class, who despise and deny the Divine precepts, not only remain natural, but also become sensual in the measure of their contempt and denial. Sensual men are the lowest natural men, who are incapable of thinking above the ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... prefer a valet to a husband; who think that the more menial are his services in public, the more apparent is his devotion. It is a Roman-chariot-wheel idea, which degrades both the man and the woman in the eyes of the spectators. I wrote to Rachel, and said in the letter, "One horse in the span always does most of the pulling, you know, especially uphill." ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... was a passenger conductor, one of those train-crew aristocrats who are always afraid that some one 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, ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... 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
... primary importance. The most costly attire, if unaccompanied by it, is not only valueless, but may become a positive disfigurement, while the simplest dress, combined with cleanliness, may be absolutely refreshing. There is no reason whatever why the most menial occupation should be admitted as any excuse for want of personal cleanliness. It is always easy to distinguish between accidental dirt which cannot always be avoided, ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... Mark, for they be six and we but two. As for that, said Sir Dinadan, let us not spare, for I will assay the foremost; and therewith he made him ready. When King Mark saw him do so, as fast as Sir Dinadan rode toward them, King Mark rode froward them with all his menial meiny. So when Sir Dinadan saw King Mark was gone, he set the spear out of the rest, and threw his shield upon his back, and came, riding to the fellowship of the Table Round. And anon Sir Uwaine knew Sir Dinadan, and welcomed him, and so ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... and countess quitted Hungary, and settled in Italy, where they lived upon the remains of the Count of Morven's property, shorn of all their splendour but enough to keep them from being compelled to do any menial office. ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... went on that night before the magistrates, but all was dark; although suspicion attached to a negro named Aaron, who had occasionally been employed in menial services by the family, and had been in the house immediately before the murder. The circumstances were such as to leave every man in utter perplexity as to the presumption for and against him. His mode of defending himself, and his general deportment, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... the Indians travelled early and late, with all speed. Both Christie and Bullen were compelled to assist in paddling, as well as to labor at the most menial tasks when in camp, receiving as a recompense only kicks and blows. They had, indeed, become slaves, and were treated as such, while at all times their tormentors found delight in assuring them that they would most certainly ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... submit to the open contempt of the Moors, the kicks and insults of the streets, he had to learn how bitter is the bread that one is forced to eat at another's table. When he should have been still at school he was set to some menial occupation in the bank at Holborn Bars, and when he ought to have risen at his desk he was required to teach the sons of prosperous men the way to go above him. Life was playing an evil game with him, and, though he won, it must be at ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... on the fitness of things. The attendance of the black was thought well enough in itself; but the napkin was deemed a superfluous exhibition of ceremony, at the funeral of a man who had performed all the menial offices ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... the pottage in return? It is not necessary to inquire whether opulence be an adequate compensation for the sacrifice of bodily and mental freedom; for Frances Burney paid for leave to be a prisoner and a menial. It was evidently understood as one of the terms of her engagement, that, while she was a member of the royal household, she was not to appear before the public as an author; and, even had there been no such understanding, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... girls with education and well connected take it into their heads to go into service for a few weeks or months. Sometimes it is from economic motives,—to procure means for their education, or to help members of their families who need assistance. At any rate, they undertake the lighter menial duties of some household where they are not known, and, having stooped—if stooping it is to be considered—to lowly offices, no born and bred servants are more faithful to all their obligations. You must not suppose she was christened Delilah. Any of our ministers would hesitate to give such a ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... aggravated by a fresh severity. Four days afterward an order was sent down which commanded the removal of all their attendants, with the exception of one or two menial servants. Madame de Tourzel, the governess of the royal children, was driven away with the coarsest insults. The Princess de Lamballe, that most faithful and affectionate friend of the queen, was rudely torn from her embrace by the municipal ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... window for hours—I have waited till all is hushed in your house, till no one, not even a menial, need see the mother stealing to the bed of her child. Brother, by the memory of our own mother, I command you to let me look, for the last ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... all the details,—particularly Maria! The details of the life of a drunken sot are not pleasant tidings to be poured into a mother's ear, or a sister's. And then, as they two had gone away equal, and as he, John Caldigate, had returned rich, whereas poor Dick was a wretched menial creature, he felt that his very presence in England would carry with it some reproach against himself. He had in truth been both loyal and generous to Dick; but still,—there was the truth. He had come back as a rich man to his own country, while Dick was a miserable ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... as a person is going to school, he is given a stipend. But a person who has neither the ability to work nor the ability to study is an outcast, even though he is provided for by the companies. He is forced to do something to earn what should be his by right; he is given menial and degrading tasks to do. We would like to put a stop to that sort of thing, but we ... ah ... have no ... ah ... means of doing so." He paused, as though considering whether he had said ...
— Anchorite • Randall Garrett
... 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 ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... by some wimmen 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 ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... 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 ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... understood, as never before, Gilbert's childhood and boyhood. For his sake she had accepted menial service in families where he was looked upon and treated as an incumbrance. The child, it had been her comfort to think, was too young to know or feel this,—but now, alas! the remembrance of his shyness and sadness ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... salads, bargaining with the butcher and vegetable-dealer, despatching the food toward the tables, feeding many dogs, posting her accounts, receiving payments, and regulating the complex affairs of her menage. She would shake a cocktail, make a gin-fizz or a Doctor Funk, chop ice or do any menial service, yet withal was your entertainer and your friend. She had the striking, yet almost inexplicable, dignity of the Maori—the facing of life serenely and without reserve or fear ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... large wooden palace, the three chief apartments of which are, one for himself, another for his wife, and the third for his menial servants. It has three doors opening into a large court, one appropriated for the queen and her attendants, one for the king and the servants attached to his person, and the third for the two head cooks, who are great men and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... people of the world. But there is a higher motive still, which has its origin in that love of independence which springs up spontaneously in the breasts of the high-souled children of a glorious land. They cannot labour in a menial capacity in the country where they were born and educated to command. They can trace no difference between themselves and the more fortunate individuals of a race whose blood warms their veins, and whose name they bear. The want of wealth alone places an impassable barrier between them and ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... pottery, look down to the ground, Where bottle and mug, jug and pottle abound; From the plebeian throng see the graded array; There is shelf above shelf of brittle display, As rank above rank the poor mortals arise, From menial purpose to ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... evidence exists for identifying our Saxo with the scribe of that name—a comparative menial—who is named in the will of Bishop Absalon; and hardly more warranted is the theory that he was a member, perhaps a subdeacon, of the monastery of St. Laurence, whose secular canons formed part of the Chapter ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... that she was white and that one of the servants was black, she concluded that all who occupied a similar menial position were of the same hue; and whenever I asked her the colour of a servant she would say "black." When asked the colour of some one whose occupation she did not know she seemed ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... like to see how you are training him. At length, Eliacin, you have amused me; You're, doubtless, not an ordinary child. You see I am a queen, without an heir: Cast off these garments, quit this menial trade, And all my riches I will share with you. Try the conclusion of my promises: Beside me at my table, everywhere, I promise you shall ...
— Athaliah • J. Donkersley
... most trifling services into rites. The humblest offices are sanctified. All things are baptized into a new name. Duty is lost in joy. Care veils itself in caresses. Drudgery becomes delight. There is no longer anything menial, small, or ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... in lying does not always develop the power of detecting it. She knew that her father had on one occasion struck Malcolm, and that he had taken it with the utmost gentleness, confessing himself in the wrong. Also she had the impression that for a menial to lift his hand against a gentleman, even in self defence, was a thing unheard of. The blow Malcolm had struck Liftore was for her, not himself. Therefore, while her confidence in Malcolm's courage ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... slave of Murillo, is said to have become enamored of art while performing the menial offices of his master's studio. Like Erigonus, the color grinder of Nealces, or like Pareja, the mulatto of Velasquez, he devoted his leisure to the secret study of the principles of drawing, and in time acquired a skill with ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... the accidents of nature. Their darling object appears to be, to enjoy practical personal liberty. They possess less, and they enjoy fewer, luxuries than others; but they escape slavery in all the Protean shapes by which it ensnares the rest of mankind. They do not act as menial servants, and obey the caprice of a master; nor do they work as labourers for a tythe of the advantages of their industry. They do not, as tenants of land, pay half the produce in rentals; nor do they, as anxious traders, ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... exhibition of this prejudice was seen among the lower classes of white people, largely Irish and Germans, who, devoted to menial labor, competed directly with the Negroes. It did not require a long time, however, for this feeling to react on the higher classes of whites where Negroes settled in large groups. A strong protest arose from the menace of Negro paupers. ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... curious glance upon the custodian of this strange place, and saw a man who was evidently a gentleman, though very plainly and simply dressed, and employed at this moment in menial toil. He had a thin, worn face, and his eyes gleamed brightly under their heavy brows. He looked like one who had seen both trouble and suffering, and had grown somewhat ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... breakers on the bar, but always with the confidence of its returning sooner or later to an anchorage beside him. After the third month of his self-imposed exile, he was forced into a more human companionship, that was brief but regular. He was obliged to have menial assistance. While he might have eaten his bread "in sorrow" carelessly and mechanically, if it had been prepared for him, the occupation of cooking his own food brought the vulgarity and materialness of existence so near to his morbid sensitiveness that he could ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... the slaves is a blessing for both worlds, and that if all who possess slaves were, as many are, slavery would cease to be any more of a curse than any dependent condition in this world. There must always be those who will do every sort of menial work. The great Father of all, who himself says that he has 'deprived' the ostrich 'of wisdom, neither hath he imparted to her understanding,' so arranges the capacities of some that their happiness consists in leaning upon ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... had to be done for a living—the hands red and chapped, and the shoes clogged....Stephen, I do own that it seems odd to regard you in the light of—of—having been so rough in your youth, and done menial things of that kind.' (Stephen withdrew an inch or two from her side.) 'But I DO LOVE YOU just the same,' she continued, getting closer under his shoulder again, 'and I don't care anything about the past; and I see that you are all the worthier for having pushed on ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... his name was Do-ran-to, and that it is frequently the lot of Indian captives, to some extent, to occupy the relation of servants or slaves to their captors, and to be assigned to those menial and domestic offices which are never performed by men among the Indians, but constitute the employment of the women. To be compelled to fill such a position in the village was very mortifying to the Indian ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... fighting in every battle, cleaving to King and Prince in spite of every opposing influence, carrying letters between father and son in the teeth of the enemy, humbling himself as a servant, and performing menial labours, in those latter days of bitterness and outrage, when all courtly surroundings were denied ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... for he must know—how you may see in Germany young ladies living in what we more luxurious British would consider something like poverty; cooking, waiting at table, and performing many a household office which would be here considered menial; and yet finding time for a cultivation of the intellect, which is, unfortunately, too rare in ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... writing, or become traders or husbandmen. Consequently they sometimes grow rich, and it will also sometimes happen that Brahmans become poor. That fact works its usual consequence, and rich Sudras sometimes employ poor Brahmans in menial occupations. ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... parapet 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 Densuke. "An idle ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... to suppose that some green, young, inexperienced lover would be most likely to be caught in her net. Hence she had her mind fixed on Murty, whom she regarded, as he really was, a young man of talent, and whose dependent and menial condition she considered as calculated to balance the disparity in their age, and as likely to insure her success. This was why she felt so mortified at being detected by him in her late attempt on the faith and resolution ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... House were stirred up by a like devotion to do menial tasks and fulfil humble offices. Wherefore the clerks and weavers would not avoid the work in the fields, but when called thereto at harvest time they would go forth with the rest to gather in the sheaves of corn. Following the rule of obedience, and acting for the ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis
... not like housework any more than I do; he says the performance of menial duties crushes his spirit—but he makes such a fuss about things. You might think, to hear him talk, that getting up coal, lighting fires, chopping wood and cleaning flues, knives and brasses were the entire work of a household instead of being mere incidents in the ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... must rest. I've reached my limit,"—my limit of endurance of the sights and odors and befoulings of these sewers of politics I must in person adventure in order to reach my goal. I must pause and rise to the surface for a breath of decent air or I should not have the strength to finish these menial and even vile tasks which no man can escape if he is a practical leader in the ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... recommend him to the royal grace; That, exercised within a higher sphere, His virtues more conspicuous might appear. Thus by the general voice was Arcite praised, And by great Theseus to high favour raised; 600 Among his menial servants first enroll'd, And largely entertain'd with sums of gold: Besides what secretly from Thebes was sent, Of his own income, and his annual rent: This well employ'd, he purchased friends and fame, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... more grotesquely human than the above, or more out of keeping with one's best thoughts about God. Again, there is a story which is told, I think, of one of the first monasteries of the Benedictine order. One of the monks was a lay brother, who had many little menial tasks to fulfil; he was a well-meaning man, but extremely forgetful, and he was often forced to retire from some service in which he was taking part, because he had forgotten to put the vegetables on to boil, or omitted other ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... to come back?" he broke in. "No, I should be sorry to see you again in a menial position, you with your divine gifts of beauty and song. The idea of your getting a new place," he added with a fall into prose, "makes me ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... find any sphere of woman's activity in which she had not been leader. Believing that "the manifest intention of nature is the perfection of man," she faithfully did her part. In the laborious and the menial she served the colored poor, while she neglected no opportunity to open their spiritual vision. She fed, warmed, and clothed them; ministered to the sick; attended the dying; procured their coffins; spoke ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Hawker of flax-combs or HECKLES;—is oftenest a Slavonic Austrian (I am told).] by creed Papist or worse, said floutingly, 'The Archbishop ought to have flung you all into the river, you—!' Upon which a menial servant of the Duke's suddenly broke in upon him in the way of actuality, the whole crowd blazing into flame; and the pedler would certainly have got irreparable damage, had not the Town-guard ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... little knowledge of the English language. From the manner in which the crew treated him, it was evident that he was an established favourite with them as well as the officers, for each appeared to treat him more as an equal than a menial. He laboured cheerfully at sailor's duty until the first sea broke over her, when, seeing that the caboose was in danger of being carried from the lashings, and swept to leeward in the mass of wreck, he ran ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... have kings of old, deluded, All their own friends for his excluded. By that, his selfish schemes pursuing, He thrives upon the public ruin. Antiochus,[8] with hardy pace, Provoked the dangers of the chase; And, lost from all his menial train, Traversed the wood and pathless plain. 40 A cottage lodged the royal guest! The Parthian clown brought forth his best. The king, unknown, his feast enjoyed, And various chat the hours employed. From wine ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... love her for his sake; They would not, and her heart forgave. Why should a woman stoop to take The poor endowment of a slave, And like a menial ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... himself, or under his orders, instantly obeys Mr. Hastings, and declares he will not interfere in the business of the courts any more. Your Lordships will observe further that the complaint is not against the Nabob, but against the creatures and the menial servants of Munny Begum: and yet it is the Nabob he forbids to interfere in this business; of the others he takes no notice; and this is a strong proof of the corrupt dealings of Mr. Hastings with this woman. When the whole country was ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... preparing and cooking plain, substantial meals. To make this "siss" work palatable to the sterner sex much of it takes the form of instruction in camp life—cooking in tin cans and other handy home-made devices. In a community where boys have always been trained to regard home work as menial, but where the absence of servants makes a "lift" from the husband or brother such a Godsend to the wife at odd times, the value of giving grade boys a taste for cooking ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... he said, as Gascoyne and he talked over the matter one day—"I tell thee I will never serve them. Prithee, what shame can be fouler than to do such menial service, saving ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... phrase of Napoleon, "he had missed his destiny." His parents had been country people of some substance, but misfortune falling upon misfortune had reduced them to poverty. Finally, the father had become insane; the mother had been glad to obtain a menial situation in the very asylum where her husband was confined; and there was nothing better to be done for the son than to apprentice him to a shoemaker. Some talk there was amongst the neighbours of raising a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... government, and all power immediately committed to him. One of the first exercises of his power was, to arrest Lansago and the Portuguese priest, who had hitherto remained unmolested, and cast them into prison, and to subject the native Portuguese and Bengalees to the most menial occupations. The whole town was in alarm, lest they should feel the effects of his power; and it was owing to the malignant representations of this man, that the white prisoners suffered such a change in their circumstances, as I shall ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... the Italians 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 ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... been equally well taken care of had servants or hired nurses shared in the otherwise overpowering labour. Often is this labour found to incapacitate the nurse-tending friend for fulfilling towards the convalescent those offices in which no menial could supply her place —such as the cheering of the drooping spirit, the selection and patient perusal of amusing books, an animated, amusing companionship in their walks and drives, the humouring of their sick fancy—a sickness that often ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady |
