"Menial" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pity—in motion or repose she seemed 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, follow, adore her; became the business of his life. Meanwhile, as is the way often, his idol had idols of her own, and never ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... decided opinions about him. Mr. Landover, the banker, stopped to discuss the toiling menial with Mr. Nicklestick, ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... with the blood of such as you. You are beneath judgment: and that clemency which is our scutcheon I extend to you. Live, therefore, and repent, O'Hara. I, however, you understand, now turn from you for ever. And I discharge you like a menial, sir. See to it that within six months you have your affairs regulated, and send in your resignation to ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... The dog hath its parasites, the scullion his menial, the earthen pot his mug, and each puffeth himself into a gentleman thereby. And who may ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... men, clad in a shapeless monotony of dingy blue, labeled on the back with their disgrace, stepping lightly or shuffling hastily to and fro, heads bent and eyes downcast, performing various offices, menial, clerical or industrial, with a certain obsequiousness and ostensible zeal that was yet inwardly repulsion and protest—these were men born under the great flag, Americans, my countrymen, and now my companions! What a change, what a degradation from the free American ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... steals a lowly jackal in a lordly lion's den, Base Duryodhan's humble menial came ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... light the reddened sod, The grief-bowed Legion kneel to God, In Palmer's name, and by his blood, They swell the battle-cry; We'll sheathe no more our dripping steel, 'Till tyrants Southern vengeance feel, And menial hordes as suppliants kneel, ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... The simperings of these gentry, their airs and conceit, we may be sure, obtain now. Once coming out of a Theatre, at some fashionable performance, through a long lane of tall menials, one fussy aristocrat pushed one of them out of his way. The menial contemptuously pushed him back. The other in a rage said, "How dare you? Don't you know, I'm the Earl of —-" "Well," said the other coldly, "If you be a Hearl, can't ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... process which she could not analyse, her father had become a forbidden subject. True, Lady Annabel had placed no formal prohibition upon its mention; nor at her present age was Venetia one who would be influenced in her conduct by the bygone and arbitrary intimations of a menial; nevertheless, that the mention of her father would afford pain to the being she loved best in the world, was a conviction which had grown with her years and strengthened with her strength. Pardonable, natural, even laudable as was the anxiety ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... mine, as intolerant, as vain perhaps as he after a fashion, and cursed the infernal custom that lays our pride so low. Infinitely nobler than he and yet an object of scorn to him and all his people, great and small; a discredited interloper who could not deceive the lowliest menial in her own household into regarding her as anything but an imitation. Her loveliness counted for naught. Her wit, her charm, her purity of heart counted for even less than that. She was a thing that ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... grave. True to their class, Byzantine officials indulged a taste for furniture, giving thereby an unintentional sting to their attack. Like the grandees of the Classical Renaissance, they degraded art, which is a religion, to upholstery, a menial trade. They patronised craftsmen who looked not into their hearts, but into the past—who from the court of the Kalif brought pretty patterns, and from classical antiquity elegant illusions, to do duty for significant design. They looked to Greece and Rome as did the men of the ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... Part of those menial activities had been to clean the animal cages. And there Shann Lantee had found something new, something so absorbing that most of the tiring dull labor had ceased to exist except as tasks to finish before he could return to the fascination of ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... the school room, carrying half of that pail of water, was the proudest moment yet experienced by the hero of this story. For the first time in his life the spirit of chivalry arose in his bosom, and though the act he performed in response to its promptings was a very simple and menial one, yet it was enough to stir all the pulses of his boyish nature and to make of him, for the time being, such a little man as he had never before dreamed of being. It is William Shakspeare, I ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... loud the royal train, And brandished swords and staves amain, But stern the Baron's warning—"Back! 730 Back, on your lives, ye menial pack! Beware the Douglas.—Yes! behold, King James! the Douglas, doomed of old, And vainly sought for near and far, A victim to atone the war, 735 A willing victim, now attends, Nor craves thy grace ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... rule is commercial. Trade itself is neither menial nor demeaning. Rightly used, it is a high form of control. People have things to buy and things to sell. The maker is handicapped. He cannot travel elsewhere to dispose of what he has. The buyer is ignorant. He does not know where to go, or cannot ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... to drive it. Jones is away with a goods train owin' to Maxwell having sprained his ankle, and Long Thompson is down with small-pox, so you'll have to do it. I offered 'em my services, but the manager he said that intelligent lads couldn't be spared for such menial work, and told me to go and ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... night I have dreamed it; day and night I have fought for it. I have plotted and planned—I have plotted to save a minute. I have done menial work that I might have my brain free—all the languages that I know I have worked at at such times. I have calculated the cost of foods—I have lived on a third of the pittance I earned, that I might save two-thirds of my time. I once ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... your fortune when compared with this?—the fortune, thanks to which you were 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] ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... stay on, Miss Kennard went into the parlor, closed the door carefully, and told Miss Elsham where that young woman got off as an exacting lady of leisure. "Mr. Mern would not allow it—one operative doing menial work for another. If you choose to come into the ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... 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 of Lund. It is true that Sweyn Aageson, Saxo's senior by about twenty years, speaks ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... 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 ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... have been at once so much admired and so much abused as Pope. Some writers, destined to oblivion in after-ages, have been loaded with laurels in their own time; while others, on whom Fame was one day to "wait like a menial," have gone to the grave neglected, if not decried and depreciated. But it was the fate of Pope to combine in his single experience the extremes of detraction and flattery—to have the sunshine of applause and the hail-storm of calumny mingled on his living head; while over his dead body, ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... for a week or ten days. Of course on this occasion the soldiers camped over the field in covered wagons. Some came in buggies. Slaves, called 'wait-men' cared for the stock and did the cooking and other menial duties for their masters. ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... 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 duties which would lead to the discomfort of the brethren. Another ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Sometimes an 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... not affect his relations with the San Franciscans. He was singularly peaceful, docile, and harmless as a servant, and, with rare exceptions, honest and temperate. If he sometimes matched cunning with cunning, it was the flattery of imitation. He did most of the menial work of San Francisco, and did it cleanly. Except that he exhaled a peculiar druglike odor, he was not personally offensive in domestic contact, and by virtue of being the recognized laundryman of the whole ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... has become the annual "hired man." At present, there are no means of measuring the effect of this new element; but it cannot fail to depress the tone of farming society, and surround it with a new swarm of menial associations. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... Socinus to the Pope, becoming sisters in fusty convents, or having heard a few sermons in Mr. Platitude's "chapelle," seek for admission at the establishment of mother S—-, who, after employing them for a time in various menial offices, and making them pluck off their eyebrows hair by hair, generally dismisses them on the plea of sluttishness; whereupon they return to their papas to eat the bread of the country, with the comfortable prospect of eating it still in the shape of a pension after their sires ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... 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 ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... forbade even his daughter inquiring as to the success of his pursuit. Georgiana secretly hoped that the fugitive had not bee caught; she wished it for the sake of the slave, and more especially for her maid-servant, whom she regarded more as a companion than a menial. But the news of the capture of Jerome soon spread through the parson's household, and found its way to the ears of the weeping ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... that my Lord Castlewood would arrive, having a confidential French gentleman in his suite, who acted as secretary to his lordship, and who, being a Papist, and a foreigner of a good family, though now in rather a menial place, would have his meals served in his chamber, and not with the domestics of the house. The Viscountess gave up her bedchamber contiguous to her daughter's, and having a large convenient closet attached to it, in which a bed was put up, ostensibly for ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... and had been in what was considered working order for a century, Cape Town and its suburbs had a population of 1,963 officials and servants of the Company, 4,628 male and 3,750 female colonists, and 8,335 slaves. In these figures no account is taken of the Hottentots and others employed in menial capacities, nor of the black prisoners, among whom, in 1772, a Swedish traveller saw 950 men, women, and children of the Bushman race, who had been captured about a hundred and fifty miles from Cape Town in a war brought about by encroachment ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... detect, laughs perhaps at his own laxity, and, when at length alarmed, discharges the culprit without a character, and relieves himself, at the expense of he knows not whom, by making of a corrupted menial a desperate outcast. If it be said that a man cannot be expected to change his mode of life for the sake of his servants, it might be answered, that any mode of life by which each individual indulging in it hazards the perdition of several of his fellow-creatures, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 576 - Vol. 20 No. 576., Saturday, November 17, 1832 • Various
... the window—the wicked woman (as I shall call her to distinguish her), accompanied by a boy the image of herself, whom I knew to be her son. He was apparently older than the fair-haired children, who also passed to and fro, attired as servants, and generally employed in some menial work. ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... could use the salutation of 'brother,' and the physician and divine be as one man; when the rich and the poor should know no distinction; the great and the small be equal in dominion, and the arrogant master and his menial slave should make a truce of friendship with each other, all following the same law of reason, all guided by the same ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... 1744, 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 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... hold it there forever. "Thank you, Mr. Clare!" said Miss Bartram, and passed into the house. When he followed presently, shouldering her trunk into the upper best-room, and kneeling upon the floor to unbuckle the straps, she found herself wondering: "Is this a knightly service, or the menial duty of a porter? Can a man be both sensitive ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... Guasparrino's house several years, ill-clad and worse shod and employed about the meanest offices. But Giannotto, who was now sixteen years of age, and had more spirit than pertained to a slave, scorning the baseness of a menial condition, embarked on board certain galleys bound for Alexandria and taking leave of Messer Guasparrino's service, journeyed to divers parts, without any wise availing to advance himself. At last some three or ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... addressed to the two women throw a strong light on the friendship, and real affection which existed among the three friends. He says that he will work day and night for Rhadagund, draw the water, tend the vines and the garden, cook, wash dishes, anything, rather than that she should do the heavy and menial work of the house. He begs the abbess Agnes to talk often of him with the sisters that he may feel more really that she is his mother. He sends gifts of flowers for their sanctuary, and baskets which he has plaited; and with a basket of violets he sends the following charming verses.[12] (I ...
— Early Double Monasteries - A Paper read before the Heretics' Society on December 6th, 1914 • Constance Stoney
... or something," he heard one young girl of a hospital unit say to a young medico of the outfit. "Did you ever see such a nose and brows in your life? And his hands——! You can never mistake hands. I would swear those hands had never done menial work for ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... where shipping from almost all parts of the world congregates, making the active sights at the quay at once novel and business-like. Indians, Sikhs, Malays, and other nationalities are represented, but the Chinese perform all the menial labor required. ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... passion, and caned him. The fellow complained of this usage to his master, who at first took no notice of it, imagining his grace would make some excuse to him for such a procedure, but whether the duke thought it beneath his quality to make any apology for beating a menial servant, who had been rude to him, or would not do it upon another account, he spoke not a word about it. The marquis resenting this behaviour, two days after ordered the duke to prison. He obeyed, and went to Fort Montjuich: ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... measure of precaution." Soon they were joined by another political criminal: these spoke rapidly and with extreme emotion, entreating their new friend to bear everything in the most submissive and patient manner, as the only means of escaping from menial employment, and being promoted to the clerks' office. Not long was he permitted to rest. A convict came and ordered him to take a broom and sweep away a mass of dirt that some masons had left; a murderer was his companion; and thus he went on until nightfall, when his ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... appearance, it was plain that he was quite unused to polite society. He looked uneasy in his clothes, he was at a loss to know what to do with his hands, he shifted about from one foot to another as he spoke, and half rose and sat down again when anybody spoke to him. He seemed ready to do some menial service; he was obsequious, nervous, and grave by turns, laughing eagerly at every joke, listening with servility; and occasionally, imagining that people were laughing at him, he assumed a knowing air. His treatise weighed upon his mind; again and again he tried to talk about ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... Tom, striking his hand with energy on the table, and darting a look of fiery indignation from his eye, "Sir, you were this night trepanned—yes, sir, vilely, shamefully trepanned—I repeat the expression—into the performance of a menial office—an office so degrading, so offensive, so unbecoming the rank, the station, and the habits of gentlemen, my very blood recoils when I only think ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... 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 ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... than as a degraded menial, to make men the slaves of her mercenary schemes, La Corriveau cared nothing. She never felt it, never inspired it. She looked down upon all her sex as the filth of creation and, like herself, incapable of a chaste feeling or a pure ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... remained intact, the Serpent had overfed her with pommes de luxe. On her return home—where the restoration of her child might have helped matters, but it doesn't know who she is and refuses to part from its foster-mother—we find her lethargic, off her feed, indifferent to the claims of menial toil, and clamorous (as I have shown) for her rights of the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... menial Boy, From room to room assiduous fly, And busy hands extend; Our numerous fires are quivering bright, And, rolling from their pointed ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... or Magyar, Swedish or Calabrian, from that daily line of over two hundred he could always pick his face and correctly call the name. His post meant a life of indolence and petty authority. His earlier work as a steamfitter had been more profitable. Yet at that work he had been a menial; it involved no transom-born thrills, no street-corner tailer's suspense. As a checker he was at least the master of ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... 'Skiaen Annie' of Danish folk-poetry. Here the old love suffers the like indignity that was thrown upon the too-too submissive Griselda; she has to make ready the bridal bed for her supplanter and do other menial offices, until a happy chance reveals the fact that the newcomer is her sister. Yet neither from Fair Annie nor from Burd Helen comes word of reproach or complaint. The exceeding bitter thought is whispered only ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... occupation is worked out wonderfully well—better than the system of Plato's Republic—by the positions and motions of the heavenly bodies. If not for this, all men would choose the more honorable trades and professions, there would be no one to do the menial work, and society would be impossible. At the same time there are certain incidental evils inherent in the rigid system which would tend to destroy certain individuals. To counteract these unintended defects, God endowed man with reason and choice enabling him to avoid the dangers ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... all ready for the evening meal. Then they sat them down to supper, the old man and his wife with Geraint between them; and the fair maid, Enid, waited upon them, though it irked the Prince to see her do such menial service. ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... thing that the infatuation has seemed to the rest of their fellows to be a celestial madness. Beggars' rags to their unhesitating lips grew fit for kissing, because humanity had touched the garb; there were no longer any menial acts, but only welcome services.... Remember by how much man is the subtlest circumstance in the world; at how many points he can attach relationships; how manifold and perennial he is in his results. All other things are dull, meager, tame ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... pate de foie gras!" he exclaimed, with a sweep of his arm, as if he were disdainfully waving back a menial bearing a tray of Strasbourg pates; "if I live to return to Rivermouth I will have Bologna sausage three times a day for the ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... say that a vast number of the European community would hear with pleasure and approval that every Hindoo and Mohammedan had been proscribed, and that none would be admitted to serve the Government except in a menial office. That which they desire is to see a broad line of separation, and of declared distrust drawn between us Englishmen and every subject of your Majesty who is not a Christian, and who has a dark skin; and there are some who entirely refuse to believe in the fidelity ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... mentioned them,—does it strike you there are quite a few of them on the staff of this hotel? I hope they won't poison me. Look at the head waiter, look at half the waiters round, and see that blond-haired, blue-eyed menial. Do you think he saw his first ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... this season Ramazani's fast[158] Through the long day its penance did maintain: But when the lingering twilight hour was past, Revel and feast assumed the rule again: Now all was bustle, and the menial train Prepared and spread the plenteous board within; The vacant Gallery now seemed made in vain, But from the chambers came the mingling din, As page and slave anon were passing out ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... life with her stepmother. Noble as she was she was yet forced by the vindictive old woman to rise in the early hours of the morning, even two or three hours before daylight in winter, to light the fire and sweep the house and perform other menial work. One evening as she was breaking the ice in the well in order to draw water for the household she was interrupted by a cavalier ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... 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
... 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 one else ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... of reading historical works, light and gossipy in tone, carried out in garrets of Parisian hotels, sprawling on an untidy bed, to the neglect of his duties, menial or otherwise, had affected the manners of Pedro Montero. Had he seen around him the splendour of the old Intendencia, the magnificent hangings, the gilt furniture ranged along the walls; had he stood upon a dais on a noble square of ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... to perform tasks of the most menial kind. What is he now better than a hedge carpenter; and I suppose you ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... vast one, and although Christ is on the Cross, life does not stop. To most of the people gathered there, what takes place is no more than a common execution. Many of them are attending to it as to a tedious duty. Others work away at some menial task more or less connected with the Crucifixion, as unconcerned as cobblers humming over their last. Most of the people in the huge canvas are represented, as no doubt they were in life, without much personal ...
— The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance - Third Edition • Bernhard Berenson
... traveler through the West in 1819, observed that the blacks of Cincinnati were "good-humoured, garrulous, and profligate, generally disinclined to laborious occupations, and prone to the performance of light and menial drudgery." Here the traveler was taking effect for cause. "Some few," said he, "exercise the humbler trades, and some appear to have formed a correct conception of the objects and value of property, and are both industrious ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... and said, "Here am I deserted by the whole world, and yet I am a King's daughter, and a false waiting-maid has by force brought me to such a pass that I have been compelled to put off my royal apparel, and she has taken my place with my bridegroom, and I have to perform menial service as a goose-girl. If my mother did but know that, her ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... long before this Miss Carver had shuddered at the thought of him as the accomplice of a thief. But he proudly said to himself that he must let it all go; for if he had not been a thief, he had been a beggar and a menial, he had come out of a hovel at home, and his mother went about like a scarecrow, and it mattered little what kind of shame she ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... within the power of the man of the most moderate means to give his son a university education. Many of the college or university students, in order to enable them to go through their courses of study, do outside jobs after their lecture hours, and perform manual, or even menial work, during the vacations. I frequently met such students in summer resorts acting as hotel waiters and found them clean, attentive, and reliable. During a visit to Harvard University, President Eliot took me to see the dining-hall. Many ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... of 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 World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... and he brutally enjoyed the little tableau, when Hugh Fraser Johnstone impatiently tore open "Madame Berthe Louison's" note. Hawke observed significantly that he had been shown into a small room, suited to semi-menial interviews. The additional slight maddened him. The clash of glasses and shouts of a gay crowd of military convives rose up in a merry chorus within. Across that banquet hall's draped doors the thin, invisible barrier of "Coventry" shut out the bold social renegade. ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... 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
... say, a nine-year brain in a thirty-year body, and becomes an easy tool for any criminal he meets. Our prisons are one-third full of feeble-minded convicts. Society ought to segregate them on feeble-minded farms, where they can earn their livings in peaceful menial pursuits, and not have children. Then in a generation or so we might be able ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... 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 ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... especial favour of his squire could he gain leave of absence for this jaunt. So, from sunrise until dusk, he worked with will, to gain the wished-for leave. Never before did buckles shine as did the buckles of the squire entrusted to his polishing. Never did menial tasks cease sooner to be drudgery, because of the good-will with which he worked. And when the day was done, so well had every duty been performed, right willingly the squire did grant him grace, and forthwith ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... advised her 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 Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... was proud, and went to his menial tasks with a new sense of the dignity of his family. He was called for on all sides, and appeared to be the only member of the household in perpetual request; but, though many liberties were taken with him personally, none were taken with his ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... that I have left the ranks, The plain unvarnished fact is That through those three rough years, and thanks To very frequent practice, I, who was once a nascent snob, Am master of the menial's job. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various
... 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 for ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... 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
... the very air seems pulsing with the regenerating essence of spiritual reverence, he was painting against time, he was antidoting sorrow, he was racing against death. His brush strokes, put on in the early morning hours before going to his menial duties as a railway porter, in the dusk like that perpetuated on his canvas,—meant strength, food and medicine for the dying wife he adored. The art failure that cast him into the depths of poverty unified ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... honest 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 light, ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... of invoice figures to add. Twice Captain Zelotes went out and then, just as Albert settled back for a rest and breathing spell, Issachar Price appeared, warned apparently by some sort of devilish intuition, and invented "checking up stock" and similar menial and tiresome tasks to keep him uncomfortable till the captain returned. The customers who came in asked questions concerning him and he was introduced to at least a dozen citizens of South Harniss, who observed "Sho!" and "I want to ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... our terms, we shall use work as a general word for effort, physical or mental, to some purposive end; labor for hard, physical work; toil for wearying or exhaustive work; and drudgery for tedious, monotonous, or distasteful work, especially of a low or menial kind. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... scarcely a carpenter's shop in New York in which a journeyman would continue to work, if a black man was employed in it. Can the black man engage in the common industries of life? There is scarcely one in which he can engage. He is crowded down, down, down through the most menial callings, to the bottom of society. We tax them and then refuse to allow their children to go to our public schools. We tax them and then refuse to sit by them in God's house. We heap upon them moral obloquy more ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... silent force is exerted. Many of our animals are domesticated and trained to do light services, but as for servants of our own flesh and blood, no such class exists. We all share whatever work there is, and no labor is menial. Whatever I ask others to do I am glad to do for them when occasion offers. Do not suppose we are idle. There is work for us, but with our abundant strength and continual good health it is never a burden. Then ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... rebirth; sun and moon are everywhere types of warm and tender feelings; love is the converter of a winter of discontent into a glorious summer. In all love poems the wooer would fain embrace the wooed. And if she prove coy, he will tell of the menial parts he would be ready to perform, to continue unrebuked in her vicinity. Anacreon's lover (xx) would be water in which the maid should bathe, and the Egyptian sighs, "Were I but the washer of her clothes, I should breathe the scent of her." Or the Egyptian will cry, "O were I the ring on her finger, ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... this menial task forthwith, the Admiral not even watching how he did, but quite occupied with another grog and a pleasant ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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
... and, shouldering a hoe, sauntered toward the cornfield, and was soon hidden by a clump of young weeping-willows, the sunny green branches of which trailed to the darker verdure of the sward. Screened by the drooping foliage, the shirking menial cast his body on the grass to store up ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... by 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 ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... John had three keepers appointed over him—Murdoch Roy and two brothers named Ingram and David Sinclair. Roy attended him regularly, and did all the menial work, as the other two keepers were kinsmen of the earl, his father, who had imprisoned him. Roy was sorry for the unfortunate nobleman, and arranged a plot to set him at liberty, which was unfortunately discovered by John's ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... 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 ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... treatment, or by the addition of 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, it is so easy ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... like an invader! No, Daring, the Invitation's friendly, and as a Friend attended only by my menial Servants, I'll wait upon the Council, that they may see that when I could command it, I came an humble Suppliant for their Favour.—You may return, and ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... exaggeration when I say that though the housewife may be the loveliest and most dignified of women, her work is to a large extent menial. One may arise in indignation at this and speak of the science of housekeeping, of cleanliness, of calories in diet, of child-culture; one may strike a lofty attitude and speak of the Home (capital H), ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... do not disdain To dwell amongst the menial train, I have a silent place and lone, That you and I may call our own; Where tumult never makes an entry— Susan! what business ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... frequently a family and a practically independent household, with no remote prospect of obtaining freedom and property of their own. Hence such positions formed the true training school of those upstarts from the servile class, who by menial virtues and often by menial vices rose to the rank of Roman citizens and not seldom attained great prosperity, and who morally, economically, and politically contributed at least as much as the slaves themselves to the ruin of the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... 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 ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... without telling him anything of the demands of Eurystheus, pledged himself to the task, the latter measured the noble form in the lion-skin and could hardly refrain from laughing when he thought of so worthy a warrior undertaking so menial a work. But he said to himself: "Necessity has driven many a brave man; perhaps this one wishes to enrich himself through me. That will help him little. I can promise him a large reward if he cleans out the stables, for he can in one ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... dogstar, to discuss on immortal essences, to dispute with the disbeliever on gnomes—a paradox will be the darling of his bosom for a month, and a good chimera be his bedfellow by night and theme by day for a year. He is fickle, and casts off his menial mistress at an hour's notice—his mind never weds any of the strange, fantastic idealities, which he woos for a time so passionately—deep disgust succeeds to the strongest attachment for them—he is as great ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various
... withdraw her request, and her petition was at length, though reluctantly, honoured with compliance. The khillat of Amir-ul-Omra and acting Minister was conferred upon Afrasyab by his Majesty, who directed this menial (though he [the writer] was sensible of the ill-promise of the measure) to write to Mirza Shaffi to hasten to ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... considered to speak it well, and perhaps you will allow me when I call to give you a lesson," said Harry, now thoroughly convinced that, at all events, the fisherman's daughter was not in a menial capacity in his ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... driving a 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 ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... literature displayed even by those whose studies in this field would seem to point them out for the work of rescuing these literary treasures from a fate as bad as that which befell those plays which perished at the hands of Warburton's "accursed menial." The present play has some remarkable features in it. It is taken from contemporary history (the only one as far as we know of that class in which Massinger was engaged). It was written almost immediately ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... 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 Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... 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 on Sunday, the Bishop's horses must be groomed, and the Peer's ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... can't join the long procession of scullions, cooks, butlers, valets, and bottle-washers which seem to make up so large a part of your population. I couldn't keep step with them. It is altogether impossible for me to conduct myself in this matter like a menial-of-all-work out of place. 'Wanted, a situation, by a respectable young person of temperate habits; understands the care of horses; is willing to go into the country and milk the cow with the ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... judging from her dispassionate language to the angel, we should infer that she was naturally of a more patient disposition than her mistress, and is in this view worthy of the imitation of young women whom Providence consigns to the same menial state. How many would have been clamorous and peevish, hasty in censuring their mistress, and forward in vindicating themselves! They would have obtruded the story of the fancied injuries they had sustained upon every occasion, and wearied with the ridiculous recital, ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... 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. It was a time when thought had become abject, and when the acceptance ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... without doubt at being condemned to a pauper's existence, in Madrid, where she had once lived in comparative splendor, this time in a wretched house, struggling with poverty, forced to perform the most menial tasks. She complained of strange pains, her legs lost their strength, she sank into a chair where she would stay motionless for hours at a time, weeping without knowing why. Her digestion was poor; for weeks her stomach ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... spoke in broken accents, indicating but 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 for that ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams |
