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menial
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  • …ago at the unveiling of a statue of that great hero of American independence Benjamin Franklin, "and look at the image of a man who rose from nothing, who owed nothing to parentage or patronage, who enjoyed no advantages of early education which are not open, a hundredfold open, to yourselves, who performed the most menial services in the businesses in which his early life was employed, but who lived to stand before Kings, and died to leave a name which the world will never forget."†   (source)
  • That meant she didn't do "menial" work, or any work at all, apparently.†   (source)
  • Everyone has had to take on various home businesses, weaving baskets, mending, doing menial labor that makes Mother complain that we have fallen as low as the tenants.†   (source)
  • Supervisors gave him the lowest menial jobs in the plant.†   (source)
  • Coding a search spider was a menial task far below her skill level, but Trish Dunne didn't care.†   (source)
  • "Menial laborers like these don't usually live to eighty," she says.†   (source)
  • Currently, I worked for Kilvin and was given relatively menial jobs at relatively low pay.†   (source)
  • And lest she forget that she's servant of us all, to her fall the menial tasks in this Ceremony of the Seed.†   (source)
  • After all, he'd stuck with pih for a decade by now, and done a lot of its most menial chores along the way.†   (source)
  • Though educated—her father was a chemist, her mother a pharmacist—their English skills were limited and they spent years working menial jobs and living in tiny, run-down apartments until they saved enough to open their own delicatessen.†   (source)
  • Menial tasks in South Africa are invariably performed by Africans.†   (source)
  • Most Scholars who aren't enslaved work menial jobs—as farmhands or cleaners or stevedores—backbreaking labor for which they're paid next to nothing.†   (source)
  • What menial cringing will be mine!†   (source)
  • Last month, you began to get just an inkling of the pride and satisfaction that can come from doing a good job even at the most menial task.†   (source)
  • He did his duty for all Party organizations, and was always the first to volunteer for the menial tasks allotted to children aspiring to Party membership, which he knew was the only path to success or even comfort in the Soviet Union.†   (source)
  • The men of Kasturba Nagar drive rickshaws or work in menial or dirty jobs, and the women work as housemaids, or they stay home and raise the children.†   (source)
  • They were eager for opportunity, but post-colonial Tanzania—then, as now, one of the poorest nations on Earth—had little to offer them beyond menial agricultural work.†   (source)
  • He found menial jobs, day-labor work: picking cotton, stacking ice in an ice plant.†   (source)
  • They order me about, and the more menial the task, the better.†   (source)
  • She took pleasure in humiliation and in menial tasks, and since she believed that she would get to heaven by suffering terrible injustice, she was content to clean her mother's ulcerated legs, washing her and sinking deeply into her stench and wretchedness, even peering into her bedpan.†   (source)
  • Deltas and Gammas a. Less intelligent and do menial tasks 3.†   (source)
  • One lawyer could have easily performed the menial task, but three could charge triple for it.†   (source)
  • If he's so grand, why would he accept such a menial assignment as following our targets?†   (source)
  • And while he's been on the job only a month, Oswald is already sick of the menial labor.†   (source)
  • "What are you doing here?" asked Rearden, in the tone one would use to address a menial caught in a drawing room.†   (source)
  • Though generations of educated Hispanics have advanced in all areas of American life, the recent arrivals from poor villages in Mexico do much of the menial work in this country.†   (source)
  • I let the staffers know through painstaking displays of competence and efficiency that I was serious about the work however menial and clerical, and that I was ready to do what anyone of authority required.†   (source)
  • Sometimes Klodwig raced along like a silky bat, hunting sleepy menials, but as he turned corners he gave himself away by the whoosh of air, and in the time it took his eyes to focus, Alessandro would have shifted to his knees on the floor, sweeping crumbs from under the chair in which he had been resting.†   (source)
  • Wulfgar always remembered his rank in the mines, however, for Bruenor was often gruff and insulting, working Wulfgar at menial, sometimes degrading, tasks.†   (source)
  • Individually, within the Glatun Federation, they tended to work in menial jobs that required more strength than smarts.†   (source)
  • And yet when they come home in the summers to earn a little money, they have to do the most menial work.†   (source)
  • In fact, she admitted that she may have even rather relished her virtually menial submission, the "Yes, Papa's" and "No, thank you, Papa's" she was compelled to say daily, the favors and attentions she had to pay, the ritual respect, the enforced obsequiousness that she shared with her mother.†   (source)
  • POZZO: Where is my menial?†   (source)
  • You'll start with the usual menial job, stock clerk or something, just for form's sake — but you'll be an executive before you can catch your breath, because I'm not getting any younger and the quicker you can pick up the load, the better.†   (source)
  • …gifted statesman given by the South to the nation from the close of the Civil War to the turn of the century, ever veer from the deep conviction he had expressed while under bitter attack in 1878: The liberty of this country and its great interests will never be secure if its public men become mere menials to do the biddings of their constituents instead of being representatives in the true sense of the word, looking to the lasting prosperity and future interests of the whole country.†   (source)
  • Now get out of my sight, Thorn, until I find some other menial task for you.†   (source)
  • "It's one shift of one group of menial laborers, Cassia.†   (source)
  • She worked every menial job she saw offered and kept her head down.†   (source)
  • Menial tasks in South Africa are invariably performed by Africans.†   (source)
  • Long ago in North Carolina, Farmer watched the nuns doing menial chores on behalf of migrant laborers, and in the years since he's come to think that a willingness to do what he calls "unglamorous scut work" is the secret to successful projects in places like Cange and Carabayllo.†   (source)
  • Whether they finished school or dropped out, many left Butanza for the towns or the capital, where the usual choice was a menial job or, for Tutsis at least, service in the army.†   (source)
  • Eventually I get a menial job doing mock-ups, and a small furnished two-bedroom apartment with kitchenette and separate entrance in a large crumbling house in the Annex, north of Bloor.†   (source)
  • Helgi's first order was that his enemy Hunding would be his servant and do his menial tasks for all time."†   (source)
  • The man who retires from public life, to think, but not to share his thoughts-the man who chooses to spend his years in the obscurity of menial employment, keeping to himself the fire of his mind, never giving it form, expression or reality, refusing to bring it into a world he despises-the man who is defeated by revulsion, the man who renounces before he has started, the man who gives up rather than give in, the man who functions at a fraction of his capacity, disarmed by his longing…†   (source)
  • He quickly returned home to a routine that never varied: menial work, the bottle, the police, the jocular but tormenting question from his fellow Pimas: "How's the hero, Ira?"†   (source)
  • It is menial labor for a man with Oswald's relatively high IQ of 118, and involves nothing more than placing books into boxes for shipping.†   (source)
  • He works a menial job.†   (source)
  • Once when I was employed at some menial job I noticed that one of the white middle-aged bosses kept looking at me and getting more and more irritated.†   (source)
  • She wiped one brush after another upon a piece of old rag, menially, on purpose.†   (source)
  • But other members of our community, not all menials or poor people, were to follow the path down which M. Michel had led the way.†   (source)
  • The menial staff of the Park Lane Hospital for the Dying consisted of one hundred and sixty-two Deltas divided into two Bokanovsky Groups of eighty-four red headed female and seventy-eight dark dolychocephalic male twins, respectively.†   (source)
  • But it was only one function of hundreds, some even more menial, more personal, others calling for cleverness and training--secretary, deputy, agent, companion.†   (source)
  • The women bore themselves like ladies and she knew they were ladies, though menial tasks were their daily lot and they didn't know where their next dress was coming from.†   (source)
  • People who never had known what it was to enter the gate of the Mayor's yard unless it were to do some menial job now paraded in and out as his confidants.†   (source)
  • At Delhi, no doubt, interviews with the viceroy and the C.I.C., salaams of turbaned menials; endless reports to be prepared and sent off.†   (source)
  • Were there menials, I wondered, whom I should never know, never see, waiting behind kitchen doors for the gift of our breakfast?†   (source)
  • But, no matter what sights they had seen, what menial tasks they had done and would have to do, they remained ladies and gentlemen, royalty in exile—bitter, aloof, incurious, kind to one another, diamond hard, as bright and brittle as the crystals of the broken chandelier over their heads.†   (source)
  • Somewhere, on the long road that wound through those four years, the girl with her sachet and dancing slippers had slipped away and there was left a woman with sharp green eyes, who counted pennies and turned her hands to many menial tasks, a woman to whom nothing was left from the wreckage except the indestructible red earth on which she stood.†   (source)
  • You reminded him that Quint was only a base menial?†   (source)
  • It delighted him to perform menial offices.†   (source)
  • Those menials having obeyed the mandate, Edward Dorrit, Esquire, proceeded.†   (source)
  • "I don't think I should like to see five persons surrounding me in that menial position."†   (source)
  • That oriental menial had a wretched life under the tyranny of Jos Sedley.†   (source)
  • Larry Donovan was a passenger conductor, one of those train-crew aristocrats who are always afraid that someone may ask them to put up a car-window, and who, if requested to perform such a menial service, silently point to the button that calls the porter.†   (source)
  • A man of his wealth and high position might look on bell-hopping as menial, particularly bell-boys who chanced to be related to him.†   (source)
  • The whisper—for it was whispered always—flew from menial to menial, from lord to lady, down all the long corridors, from story to story, from saloon to saloon, "The prince hath gone mad, the prince hath gone mad!"†   (source)
  • And bear in mind also that this monstrous disease affects not merely the idlers and their menials, its poison penetrates the whole social body.†   (source)
  • For if he does himself all these menial offices, surely it is proof that there is no one else in the castle, it must have been the Count himself who was the driver of the coach that brought me here.†   (source)
  • Right well I knew he would budge nor hand nor foot in the menial service of any mortal; but, lord, even a king must obey when an archangel gives the word o' command!†   (source)
  • Wasn't it menial, as miserable as the life he had thus far been leading, to wear old clothes and get up so early in the morning and do all the commonplace things such people had to do?†   (source)
  • If Quint—on your remonstrance at the time you speak of—was a base menial, one of the things Miles said to you, I find myself guessing, was that you were another.†   (source)
  • And although thus far no single member of this family other than his chill cousin had troubled to meet him, and that at the factory only, and although he had been so indifferently assigned to the menial type of work that he had, still he was elated and uplifted.†   (source)
  • Afterwards she kept him carding wool until he began to think he had laid the good King Alfred about far enough in the shade for the present in the matter of showy menial heroisms that would read picturesquely in story-books and histories, and so he was half-minded to resign.†   (source)
  • Sitting at an official desk in a corner commanding a charming river view and feeling that at last, after almost two months in that menial department below stairs, he was a figure of some consequence in this enormous institution!†   (source)
  • What unspeakable glory it would be, if they could recognise him, and realise that the derided mock king of the slums and back alleys was become a real King, with illustrious dukes and princes for his humble menials, and the English world at his feet!†   (source)
  • And the sight of Clyde here, looking so much like Gilbert and in an armless shirt and trousers working among these men, tended to impress upon him more sharply than at any time before the fact that Clyde was his nephew, and that he ought not to be compelled to continue at this very menial form of work any longer.†   (source)
  • After a week or two, however, coming to understand that Clyde was a nephew of the president, a cousin of the secretary of the company, and hence not likely to remain here long in any menial capacity, they grew more friendly, but inclined in the face of the sense of subserviency which this inspired in them, to become jealous and suspicious of him in another way.†   (source)
  • The same lady pays for the education and clothing of an orphan from the workhouse, on condition that she shall aid the mistress in such menial offices connected with her own house and the school as her occupation of teaching will prevent her having time to discharge in person.†   (source)
  • From his arms next issued the Kshatriya, or warriors; from his breast, the seat of life, came the Vaisya, or producers—shepherds, farmers, merchants; from his foot, in sign of degradation, sprang the Sudra, or serviles, doomed to menial duties for the other classes—serfs, domestics, laborers, artisans.†   (source)
  • MEPHISTOPHELES Since Thou, O Lord, deign'st to approach again And ask us how we do, in manner kindest, And heretofore to meet myself wert fain, Among Thy menials, now, my face Thou findest.†   (source)
  • From his complete inattention to the tidings, you would think that moody Ahab had not heard his menial.†   (source)
  • And especially is that true to-day which he declares was true in France before the Revolution: "The metayers are considered as little better than menial servants, removable at pleasure, and obliged to conform in all things to the will of the landlords."†   (source)
  • He could think of no bad object to be attained by sending him to Sikes, which would not be equally well answered by his remaining with Fagin; and after meditating for a long time, concluded that he had been selected to perform some ordinary menial offices for the housebreaker, until another boy, better suited for his purpose could be engaged.†   (source)
  • "Going into service" was the expression by which the Dodson mind represented to itself the position of teacher or governess; and Maggie's return to that menial condition, now circumstances offered her more eligible prospects, was likely to be a sore point with all her relatives, besides Lucy.†   (source)
  • A third wore trappings and arms of an officer of the staff; while the rest, from the plainness of the housings, and the traveling mails with which they were encumbered, were evidently fitted for the reception of as many menials, who were, seemingly, already waiting the pleasure of those they served.†   (source)
  • The Knight had scarcely finished a hasty meal, ere his menial announced to him that five men, each leading a barbed steed, desired to speak with him.†   (source)
  • Yet I cannot conceal it from my own perception that, immediately subsequent to the fall of the ruby-drops, a rapid change for the worse took place in the disorder of my wife; so that, on the third subsequent night, the hands of her menials prepared her for the tomb, and on the fourth, I sat alone, with her shrouded body, in that fantastic chamber which had received her as my bride.†   (source)
  • Well, he stood watch-and-watch with me, right straight through, for three days and nights, till the child was out of danger; then he took her up in his great arms and kissed her, with his plumes falling about her golden head, then laid her softly in Sandy's lap again and took his stately way down the vast hall, between the ranks of admiring men-at-arms and menials, and so disappeared.†   (source)
  • It may be imagined that he who occupies the lowest stage of the order of menials stands very low indeed.†   (source)
  • I ought to say something of this Smerdyakov, but I am ashamed of keeping my readers' attention so long occupied with these common menials, and I will go back to my story, hoping to say more of Smerdyakov in the course of it.†   (source)
  • In addition to these, were three or four subordinate menials, mostly black, some appearing at the principal door, and some running from the end of the building, where stood the entrance to the cellar-kitchen.†   (source)
  • These passions of masters, when they pass into the souls of menials, assume the natural dimensions of the place they occupy—they are contracted and lowered.†   (source)
  • Uncas acted as attendant to the females, performing all the little offices within his power, with a mixture of dignity and anxious grace, that served to amuse Heyward, who well knew that it was an utter innovation on the Indian customs, which forbid their warriors to descend to any menial employment, especially in favor of their women.†   (source)
  • The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of a menial, who announced that a monk demanded admittance at the postern gate.†   (source)
  • Jos went in a collapsed state to an inn, while Captain Dobbin escorted the ladies, and then busied himself in freeing Jos's carriage and luggage from the ship and the custom-house, for Mr. Jos was at present without a servant, Osborne's man and his own pampered menial having conspired together at Chatham, and refused point-blank to cross the water.†   (source)
  • …numbers, as fanatical and bloodthirsty; boiled and raved, and had in it exactly the same elements—servants, camel-drivers, marketmen, gate-keepers, gardeners, dealers in fruits and wines, proselytes, and foreigners not proselytes, watchmen and menials from the Temple, thieves, robbers, and the myriad not assignable to any class, but who, on such occasions as this, appeared no one could say whence, hungry and smelling of caves and old tombs—bareheaded wretches with naked arms and legs,…†   (source)
  • Here are our two women, and Pa's valet, and a footman, and a courier, and all sorts of dependents, and yet in the midst of these, we are to have one of ourselves rushing about with tumblers of cold water, like a menial!†   (source)
  • —Here—here I dwelt, till age, premature age, has stamped its ghastly features on my countenance—scorned and insulted where I was once obeyed, and compelled to bound the revenge which had once such ample scope, to the efforts of petty malice of a discontented menial, or the vain or unheeded curses of an impotent hag—condemned to hear from my lonely turret the sounds of revelry in which I once partook, or the shrieks and groans of new victims of oppression.†   (source)
  • As no marked ranks or fixed subordination are to be found amongst them, they will not display either the meanness or the greatness which characterizes the aristocracy of menials as well as all other aristocracies.†   (source)
  • No other sounds were heard save the voices of the menials who stripped the galleries of their cushions and tapestry, in order to put them in safety for the night, and wrangled among themselves for the half-used bottles of wine and relics of the refreshment which had been served round to the spectators.†   (source)
  • When social conditions are nearly equal, men are constantly changing their situations in life: there is still a class of menials and a class of masters, but these classes are not always composed of the same individuals, still less of the same families; and those who command are not more secure of perpetuity than those who obey.†   (source)
  • 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.†   (source)
  • Built in the shape of a gigantic cube, four hundred feet on a side, with a tower on each corner, it could house three hundred prisoners, plus the forty soldiers of the garrison and their commander, the civilian governor and his staff, and the four dozen cooks, orderlies, grooms, and other menials necessary for the running of the establishment.†   (source)
  • Most of the ones we get are able to live out, in foster homes, boarding houses, and do simple work on the farms or in a menial capacity in factories or laundries—†   (source)
  • The Englishman seldom tries to gloss menial occupations with sonorous names; on the contrary, he seems to delight in keeping their menial character plain.†   (source)
  • …solution), the upholding of the letter of the law (common, statute and law merchant) against all traversers in covin and trespassers acting in contravention of bylaws and regulations, all resuscitators (by trespass and petty larceny of kindlings) of venville rights, obsolete by desuetude, all orotund instigators of international persecution, all perpetuators of international animosities, all menial molestors of domestic conviviality, all recalcitrant violators of domestic connubiality.†   (source)
  • No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving, threatening, Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drinking, on the turf or the sea-beach dancing, Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness chasing, Fulfilling our foray.†   (source)
  • I see all the menials of the earth, laboring, I see all the prisoners in the prisons, I see the defective human bodies of the earth, The blind, the deaf and dumb, idiots, hunchbacks, lunatics, The pirates, thieves, betrayers, murderers, slave-makers of the earth, The helpless infants, and the helpless old men and women.†   (source)
  • Two menial dogs before their master press'd.†   (source)
  • They are dressed by men till four years of age, and then are obliged to dress themselves, although their quality be ever so great; and the women attendant, who are aged proportionably to ours at fifty, perform only the most menial offices.†   (source)
  • 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.†   (source)
  • A convenient apartment was provided for her at court: she had a sort of governess appointed to take care of her education, a maid to dress her, and two other servants for menial offices; but the care of me was wholly appropriated to herself.†   (source)
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