"Charwoman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... flash leaped up Mrs. Barry's spine. That settled it. This exquisite creature must not stay where that charwoman could speak ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... despondently. In that house there was no messenger to be procured. The landlady was elderly, and kept no servant—employing only a mysterious female of the charwoman species, who came at daybreak, dyed herself to the elbows with blacking or blacklead before breakfast, and so remained till the afternoon, when she departed to "do for" a husband and children—the husband and ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... this good lady took a very optimistic view of her own capacities and powers in general, and spoke—from the psychic point of view—with the honest pride that a flesh and blood charwoman might display on going over premises that she had thoroughly scrubbed and ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... of the house, Malcolmson decided to take up his abode in the great dining-room, which was big enough to serve for all his requirements; and Mrs. Witham, with the aid of the charwoman, Mrs. Dempster, proceeded to arrange matters. When the hampers were brought in and unpacked, Malcolmson saw that with much kind forethought she had sent from her own kitchen sufficient provisions to last for a few days. Before going she ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... kitchen than a kitchen in an ordinary house, and the way in which it was kept was the more meritorious inasmuch as Anna, even now, when she had become an old woman, would have nothing of what is in England called "help." She had no wish to see a charwoman in her kitchen. Fortunately for her, there lay, just off and behind the kitchen, a roomy scullery, where most of the dirty, and what may be called the smelly, work connected with cooking ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... anything—pins, perhaps, buttons, small tiresomenesses of that kind. It was made of some glistening black material, and at its center there bloomed a fearful red cabbage rose, a rose all vulgarity, ostentation and importance. This monstrosity had been given to Rosamund as a thank-offering by a poor charwoman to whom she had been kind. It had been in constant use now for over three years. The charwoman ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... but Eliza thought we should do more wisely to spread the money over making ourselves more comfortable generally. When she came to go into it in detail, I found that on the whole hers was the preferable course. New curtains for the drawing-room are to be put in hand at once. The charwoman is to come regularly once a week. We raised the girl's wages a pound, and she went into hysterics. Eliza has insisted that I am to have a first-class season-ticket in future. There is much ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain
... possibilities. No doubt you hear some saddening and deplorable stories, for some of the laws relating to marriage are degrading, and the lot of the married woman in the working class where she is wife, mother, cook, laundress, needlewoman, charwoman, and often many other things combined, is the most heartbreakingly cruel and tortured slavery; but you are escaping the probability of such a purgatorial existence. Take comfort in knowing that a great percentage of men are infinitely ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... obstructive than any other part of Parliamentary business. On the Estimates, as I have often explained, every single penny spent in the public service has to be entered. Whether that sum be large or small makes no difference. For instance, there is a charwoman at the Foreign Office; the charwoman's salary appears in the accounts just as bold and just as plain as the five thousand a year which the country has to pay for Lord Rosebery—who is cheap at the money, I must say, lest I be misunderstood. There ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... with his face turned to the window, expressed his doubt as to these two men having had anything to do with the outrage. All this theory rested upon the utterances of an old charwoman who had been nearly knocked down by a man in a hurry. Not a very substantial authority indeed, unless on the ground of sudden ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... and a long dormer window—three square casements in a row, of which the outer pair opened like doors—facing the morning sun and a country landscape. The previous tenants had used it for a box and lumber room, and left it cobwebbed, filthy and asphyxiating. Deb ordered a charwoman to clean it, and a man to distemper the grubby plaster and stain the floor, and then laid down rugs, and assembled tables and books, and basket-chairs, and girls' odds and ends; whereby it was transformed into a cosy boudoir and their favourite room. Hither came Mary ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... every Indian mail after his receipt of her guarded refusal; he Quixotic, devoted, no matter how she had changed. He loved the mere scent of her letter paper. Was she only a governess? Had she been a charwoman, he would have kissed her cheeks white. The boyish extravagance of his passion worked upon her, troubling her to her sincerest core. She would hide nothing from him. She wrote a full account of her stage career, morbidly exaggerating the vulgarity of her performance and the ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... the labours of two able-bodied men and a charwoman, all of whom were toiling as they had never toiled before. The woman was dusting law books and the men were packing them away in boxes. The front room of the suite was in a state of devastation. A dozen boxes stood about the floor; rugs and furniture were huddled in the most remote corner ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... had left Mrs Duncomb on the Friday night. Mrs Oliphant had departed first, accompanied by the second visitor, one Sarah Malcolm, a charwoman who had worked for Mrs Duncomb up to the previous Christmas, and who had called in to see how her former employer was faring. An odd, silent sort of young woman this Sarah, good-looking in a hardfeatured sort of way, she had ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... bee, termite, white ant; laboring oar, servant of all work, factotum. workman, artisan; craftsman, handicraftsman; mechanic, operative; working man; laboring man; demiurgus, hewers of wood and drawers of water, laborer, navvy[obs3]; hand, man, day laborer, journeyman, charwoman, hack; mere tool &c. 633; beast of burden, drudge, fag; lumper[obs3], roustabout. maker, artificer, artist, wright, manufacturer, architect, builder, mason, bricklayer, smith, forger, Vulcan; carpenter; ganger, platelayer; blacksmith, locksmith, sailmaker, wheelwright. machinist, mechanician, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Graslin employed a charwoman by the day, an old peasant from Auvergne, who did his cooking. The brown earthenware off which he ate, and the stout coarse linen which he used, were in keeping with the character of his food. The old woman had strict orders never to spend more than three francs ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... muttered about a "judgment in our midst." The Rector, in Joliffe's pauses, seemed trying to confute him by some reference to "those thirteen upon whom the tower of Siloam fell and slew them." An old charwoman whom Miss Joliffe sometimes employed wrung her hands with an "Ah! poor dear—poor dear!" The Catholic priest was reciting something in a low tone, and crossing himself at intervals. Lord Blandamer, who stood near, caught a word or two of the commendatory ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... could not call her a charwoman she was manifestly still so very young—was that Emma who had been obliged to tell the vicar's wife about Priscilla's children's treat and who did not punctually return books. I will not go so far as to say that not to return books ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... Nayland Smith briskly, holding the gate open; "there should be a fire in the library and refreshments, if the charwoman ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... would think I had set the fairy Order to work.' I felt that this was meant for high praise, and I received it graciously. I knew I had worked well and achieved wonders; but then I had Hope's strong arms to help me: it had been straightforward work, too, with no complication: any charwoman could have done it as well. I was sorry that his commendation set Mrs. Marshall's tongue going; she became so voluble, in spite of her cough, that I was obliged to ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... "Scouts" are a kind of servant attached to one student or a small number of students. They run errands, bring meals from the kitchen, and take care of clothing. A bootblack called the "boots" takes care of footwear. A charwoman called the "char" cleaned ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... have learned Fact 6.—Her ladyship rented a house, but hired no servants, and engaged no nurse. She had no attendant but a lady's maid, no servant but a sort of charwoman. ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... I shall become? There is nothing but that for me. And I know of such, who are there already. A charwoman! Yes, a charwoman! More soon or more late. Well, that is life. What would you? One exists always." Then in a different tone: "I demand your pardon, madame, for talking like this. ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... husband, who sat opposite and seemed uncomfortable—as low, horrid places, where people smoked and drank, and wore short skirts, and had added an opinion that they ought to be put down by the police—whether the skirts or the halls she did not explain. I also recollected that our charwoman, whose son had lately left London for a protracted stay in Devonshire, had, in conversation with my mother, dated his downfall from the day when he first visited one of these places; and likewise that Mrs. Philcox's nursemaid, upon her confessing that she had spent an evening at one ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... shop when Rickman Junior arrived on the scene. He was in a great bare room on an upper floor of the second-hand department. He looked more than ever studious and ascetic, having exchanged his soft felt hat for a velvet skull-cup, and his frock coat for a thin alpaca. He was attended by a charwoman with scrubbing brush and pail, a boy with ladder and broom, and a carpenter with foot-rule, note-book and pencil. He moved among them with his most solemn, most visionary air, the air, not so much of a Wesleyan ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... Beatrice was angry. She moved rapidly and determinedly about the dining-room, thrusting old newspapers and magazines between the cupboard and the wall, throwing the litter in the grate, which was clear, Friday having been charwoman's day, passing swiftly, lightly over the front of the furniture with the duster. It was Saturday, when she did not spend much time over the work. In the afternoon she was going out with Vera. That was not, however, what occupied her mind as she ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... that there was no possible hurry, and that sitting under the trees reading a book, and drinking lemon squash, was a much more agreeable method of spending a hot summer's day than working like a charwoman. She carried her latest book into the garden forthwith, ordered the "squash," and spent an hour ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... certainly a little wanting in good taste. Cummings followed it up by saying, if it had been said by anyone else but myself, he shouldn't have entered the house again. This rather unpleasantly terminated what might have been a cheerful evening. However, it was as well they went, for the charwoman had finished up the remains ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... I'd stuck it out to Y minutes past O! But it's no hardship to get up at five, these glorious mornings. The days get longer, and the weather is perfect. And the prairie looks as though a vacuum cleaner had been at work on it overnight. Positively, there's a charwoman who does this old world over, while we sleep! By morning it's as bright as a new pin. And out here every one is thinking of the day ahead; Dinky-Dunk, of his crop; Olga, of the pair of sky-blue corsets I've written to the Winnipeg mail-order house for; Olie, of the final waterproofing ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... afternoon of rain, the trio were again together in the same way. Someone knocked, and a charwoman at work on the premises handed in a letter for ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... cornices were gilded. Human beings had to move about like dwarfs on the tiny free spaces of carpet between frowning cabinetry. The taste and the aim of the author of this home defied deduction. In the first room a charwoman was cleaning. Concepcion greeted her like a sister. In the next room, whose window gave on to a blank wall, tea was laid for one in front of a gas-fire. Concepcion reached down a cup and saucer from a glazed ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... of the landlord were renewed with such vigour that I called a council of war to discuss the situation. Retreat being out of the question, Mabel suggested a levy of our last reserves, and the charwoman (who is a discreet person of considerable experience in such matters) was mobilised. In this way we secured a sufficient force to rout the landlord ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 16, 1914 • Various
... too, was reasonable. In theory, perhaps, the women should have been refined by their housekeeping work; in practice that work necessitated their being very tough. Cook, scullery-maid, bed-maker, charwoman, laundress, children's nurse—it fell to every mother of a family to play all the parts in turn every day, and if that were all, there was opportunity enough for her to excel. But the conveniences which make such work tolerable in other ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... just struck me that 1s. 5d. a day for a charwoman, a messenger and an accountant, to say nothing of a metaphysician, all rolled into one, is low pay. In London you would have to give such a being at ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... become like a man of stone, standing before them, gaze averted, as a detected criminal. One might have supposed that a bloody secret gnawed at the bosom of Fawkes; but his private life was blameless and his past above reproach. His wife acted as charwoman at the ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... I was anxious to get some work to do, as I was unwilling to eat the bread of idleness. Mrs. Mash, who was a laundress, recommended me to a lady for a charwoman. She paid me very handsomely for what work I did, and I divided the money with Mrs. Mash; for though very poor, they gave me food when my own money was done, and ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... looking round at the pictures and other decorations of the place and addressing them as if they were sentient, listening creatures. "Here's a big six-foot strongly-built British sailor talking to his officer like an old charwoman about mysteries! You, Tom May, if ever you dare to talk such nonsense to me again, I'll punch ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... servant; they were going to do the cooking themselves and employ an old charwoman in the mornings and evenings. It was all very well thought out ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... "I will write one paper about something altogether new," I said to myself; "something that nobody else has ever written or talked about before; and then I can have it all my own way." And I went about for days, trying to think of something of this kind; and I couldn't. And Mrs. Cutting, our charwoman, came yesterday—I don't mind mentioning her name, because I know she will not see this book. She would not look at such a frivolous publication. She never reads anything but the Bible and Lloyd's Weekly News. All other literature she considers unnecessary ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... breakfast, which turned out to be abundant and well cooked. Having inquired her direction—a sense of location was not one of her gifts—she set out gaily enough for a whole day of sightseeing. She might never get another position and have eventually to go out as a charwoman—the detail that she would be illy equipped for any such undertaking she humorously dismissed—but a day or two of unalloyed enjoyment she was going ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... Christmas as it might be spent and incidentally, too, what some people thought of him. The third showed him the "shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us." He saw himself dead, uncared for, unwept, unwatched, his effects plundered by the charwoman, laundress, and undertaker's man and realized the end to which he must come unless he led an altered life. Holding up his hands he prayed to have his fate reversed and saw the Ghost shrink and dwindle down into ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... that when they come to see me last time. I suppose things is all upside down. By rights I'd ought to have gone home for a day or two, just to see that the room was clean. Mrs. Larrop comes in wunst a week, you know, she's a charwoman. But I haven't much trust in her; she's such a one for cat-licking. The children do make such a mess; I always tell them they'd think twice about coming in with dirty shoes if only they had the ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... "keep a girl" is extravagance, or a significant stride toward gentility. The wife of the English joiner or mason or small farmer, if brisk, notable and healthy, may dispense with the stated service of a maid of all work, but she calls in a charwoman on certain days, and is content to live as becomes the station of a housewife who must be her ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... young lady!" Rising and throwing the overcoat over his arm, he waved his hat at her in sardonic courtesy. "I can't say it has been a pleasure to know you but—you have made it interesting, I admit. And I bid you a very good night. The charwoman will let you out when she comes to clean up in the morning. ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... set up such to govern kingdoms!—To govern kingdoms!!! I would ask nothing more from them than that they should govern their feet, and keep their boot and shoe strings tied. But from the queen down to the charwoman, there is not a woman in this world who knows ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... wife residing in the neighbourhood of Arundel. It appears that she was in the habit of making a large quantity of blackberry jam, and finding that less fruit had been brought to her than she required, she said to the charwoman, "I wish you would send some of your children to gather me three or four pints more." "Ma'am," exclaimed the woman in astonishment, "don't you know this is the 11th October?" "Yes," she replied. "Bless me, ma'am! ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... weakness for everything "grand;" and so grand a turn-out as this one was rare in their neighborhood. She paused and stared hard at it. "Whose is it, Mrs. Biggs?" she asked awe-struck of the friendly charwoman, who happened to pass at the moment,—the charwoman who frequently came in to do a day's cleaning at her mother's lodging-house. Mrs. Biggs knew it well; "It's Sir Anthony Merrick's," she answered in that peculiarly hushed ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen |
