"Truant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... playing on the oaten reed, a little flute of that period. He played on it agreeably, as also on the chiffonie, a sort of beggar's hurdy-gurdy, mentioned in the Chronicle of Bertrand Duguesclin as the "truant instrument," which started the symphony. These instruments attracted the crowd. Ursus would show them the chiffonie, and say, "It is ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... thou attempt to escape?" said that noble, grimly. "I fear that thou art playing the truant—against thine own interests, and must take thee with me whither I am bound, which happeneth to ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... pride would not allow her to admit that she was glad to see him, relieved to be overtaken like a truant from school. And Bill did not seem to expect a reply. He slung his rifle into the crook of ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... dim— Maria! thou hast heard my hymn! In joy and wo—in good and ill— Mother of God, be with me still! When the Hours flew brightly by, And not a cloud obscured the sky, My soul, lest it should truant be, Thy grace did guide to thine and thee Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast Darkly my Present and my Past, Let my future radiant shine With sweet hopes ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... as if relieved by his absence, turned to Albany, and said: "And now, my lord, we should chide this truant Rothsay of ours; yet he hath served us so well at council, that we must receive his merits as some ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... a lodging of some sort about Bedford Square, because she clung tenaciously to such scraps and shreds of memories as were connected with it. The mummy room of the British Museum had been one of the chief delights of her childhood. That forbidding pile was the goal of her truant fancy, and she was sometimes taken there for a treat, as other children are taken to the theatre. It was long since Alexander had thought of any of these things, but now they came back to him quite fresh, ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... old man was angry with them for playing truant. He said, slowly, "N—no. She didn't exactly send us; but I don't think she'll mind our having come if we get back in time for supper. Mamma never forbid our going ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Truant Bards! where are the Triumphal Odes and the Congratulatory Poems which should have greeted Mr. PUNCHINELLO, who, after deserting his beloved Italy, after a stormy voyage and unspeakable sea-sickness, has arrived here with a view of settling and of becoming a citizen (having already filed ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... the road to meet her, and even Lady Gray walked swiftly after, and in a moment more they had encircled the truant with their loving arms, forgetting that she had given them a ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... that the possession of the goodwill of the farmers round is the second secret of success. Ensure this, and you don't get eggs stolen, and, better still, you are informed of the whereabouts of any truant ducks that may be ...
— Wild Ducks - How to Rear and Shoot Them • W. Coape Oates
... intensely loved by Wilford, who first saw her in the streets of London, and subsequently, after diligent search, discovered her in the Queen's Arms inn at Romford. It turned out that her father Albert was brother to lord Woodville, and Wilford was his truant son, so that Bess was his cousin Queen Elizabeth sanctioned their nuptials, and took them under her own ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... in the babe, a toothless tender nursling; Beauty is boldness in the boy, a curly rosy truant; Beauty is modesty and grace in fair retiring girlhood; Beauty is openness and strength in pure high-minded youth; Man, the noble and intelligent, gladdeneth earth in beauty, And woman's beauty sunneth him, as ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... tumultuously, fetid, muddy, dusty, ragged, dishevelled, playing hide-and-seek, and crowned with corn-flowers. All of them are little ones who have made their escape from poor families. The outer boulevard is their breathing space; the suburbs belong to them. There they are eternally playing truant. There they innocently sing their repertory of dirty songs. There they are, or rather, there they exist, far from every eye, in the sweet light of May or June, kneeling round a hole in the ground, snapping ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... my dear. I was but jesting. If you have had an agreeable time, you are forgiven for playing truant. Where have ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... was a long, long time; and never a word from the truant since the day she had left the village. Martha had waited, at first impatiently, then anxiously, and finally with a pathetic hopefulness that was more than half assumed. It was she who had insisted that Tony must go to the office every day, and ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... Millie a devotee of active pursuits. She hunted, she rode, she played lawn-tennis, and, when at the seaside, golf; when all failed, she walked resolutely four or five miles on the high-road, swinging along at a healthy pace, and never pausing save to counsel an old woman or rebuke a truant urchin. On such occasions her manner (for we may not suppose that her physique aided the impression) suggested the benevolent yet stern policeman, and the vicar acknowledged in her an invaluable assistant. By a strange coincidence she seemed to suit the ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... Ellinor returned alone into the gallery, "You little truant!" she cried, "why so long? you said you would soon be with the foremost. I thought you must have escaped me, and have sought you through half the garden, and you are ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various
... to be of the same truant description during the whole of his stay there;—"always," as he says himself, "cricketing, rebelling,[40] rowing, and in all manner of mischiefs." The "rebelling," of which he here speaks, (though it never, I believe, proceeded to any act of violence,) took place on the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... me, Steal my priceless jewels, In fancy's store-house cherished, Your roguish eyes have robbed me, Of all my dreams bereft me, Dreams that are fair, yet fleeting. Fled are my truant fancies, Regrets I do not cherish, For now life's rosy morn is breaking, Now golden love is waking. Now that I've told my story, Pray tell me yours, too; Tell me frankly, who are you? Say, will ...
— La Boheme • Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica
... faltering voice, "and thou mayest begone whither thou wilt."—"Not without thee, my Undine," said the Knight, playfully; "consider, if I had a mind to forsake thee, the Church, the Emperor, and his ministers might step in, and bring thy truant home."—"No, no, you are free; it shall be as you please!" murmured Undine, half tears, half smiles. "But I think thou wilt not cast me away; is not my heart bound up in thine? Carry me over to that little island opposite. ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... pay in the current coin. Not only is the angler, like the poet, born and not made, as Walton says, but there is a deal of the poet in him, and he is to be judged no more harshly; he is the victim of his genius: those wild streams, how they haunt him! he will play truant to dull care, and flee to them; their waters impart somewhat of their own perpetual youth to him. My grandfather when he was eighty years old would take down his pole as eagerly as any boy, and step off with wonderful elasticity toward the beloved ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... trust me for a spy? Dear Mullinix, your good advice I beg; you see the case is nice: O! were I equal in renown, Like thee to please this thankless town! Or blest with such engaging parts To win the truant schoolboys' hearts! Thy virtues meet their just reward, Attended by the sable guard. Charm'd by thy voice, the 'prentice drops The snow-ball destined at thy chops; Thy graceful steps, and colonel's air, Allure the cinder-picking fair. ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... opened the door and Maria slept in her house. The king was very angry at her for playing truant, but when she returned home the next day, she found the plants of her sisters withered away, because they had disobeyed their father. Now the window in the room of the eldest overlooked the gardens of the king, and when she saw how fine and ripe the medlars were on the trees, she longed to eat ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... the afternoon came to a pretty good inn, where a small misfortune befell us. While we were indulging in a cup of tea, one of our horses escaped. We had crossed the mountain range by that time, and the truant had a fine range of undulating country to scamper over. That animal gave us some trouble, for, although nearly a dozen men went, after him on horseback, he kept dodging about actively with many flourishes of heels and tail during the ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... gloaming,—Aunt Madge's rest hour, as she called it,—and there was unmistakable gladness in her voice, when Olivia's tall figure appeared on the threshold. "Welcome, welcome, little stranger," she said, merrily; "do you know, Livy, that you have played truant for four whole days. I was just thinking of sending Deb round this evening to know if anything were the matter. Oh, I see," as her bright, penetrating glance read her niece's face. "You have something wonderful to tell me. Draw up your chair and I will be as quiet as a mouse. I ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... all these things are necessary. I suppose, that, in our callow days, it is proper that we should be birched and wear fetters upon our little, bandy, sausage-like legs. But let me, now that I have come to man's estate, flout my old pedagogues, and, playing truant at my will, dawdle or labor, walk, skip, or run, go to my middle in quagmires, or climb to the hill-tops, take liberties with the venerable, snub the respectable, and keep the company of the disreputable,—dismiss the Archbishop without reading ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... then all deceit? Did he but mock me, when with tears of rapture He bathed my hand; knelt; sighed; as had his voice By pleasure been o'erwhelmed, a while was silent; But soon came words, sweet as those most sweet kisses Which grateful Venus gave the swain whose care Brought back her truant doves!——So sweet, so sweet—— Distrust, herself, must have believed those words. Oh! and was ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... no doubt spent in Norfolk; and we learn from his own lips that he plucked geese, played truant, and whipped top, and that he did not escape beating. That he had brothers and sisters we know; for he tells us that he is John with them and Sir John with all Europe. We do not know the dame or pedant who taught his young idea how to shoot and formed his manners; but Falstaff says that ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... answered Sir Bruin, "let me alone with Reynard; I am not such a truant in discretion to become a mock to his knavery;" and thus, full of jollity, the ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... on two very round cheeks—the mischievous brown eyes grew full of laughter, and the next moment the little questioner had squeezed her way through a slightly open door, and was toddling down the broad stone stairs and across a landing to Hetty's room. The room-door was open, so the truant went in. A bed with the bed-clothes all tossed about, a half worn-out slipper on the floor, a very untidy dressing-table met her eyes, but ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... and ready for any responsibility, Fyne solemn and shrinking—the children in bed upstairs; and outside the dark fields, the shadowy contours of the land on the starry background of the universe, with the crude light of the open window like a beacon for the truant who would never come back now; a truant no longer but a downright fugitive. Yet a fugitive carrying off spoils. It was the flight of a raider—or a tractor? This affair of the purloined brother, as I had named it to myself, had a very puzzling physiognomy. The girl must ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... for aid, His sullen head would slip from off my knee, And his damp hair to earth would wander down, Till I grew frighten'd thus to challenge Death, And with the king of terrors idly play.— Yet those pale lips deserted not the smile Of froward, gay defiance, lingering there, Like a tir'd truant's sleeping on the grass, Mid the stray sun-beams of unsadden'd hope, Dreaming of ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... Scotland, the Borrows settled in Norwich, where George was schooled under a master whose name at least is still familiar to English youth, Dr. Valpy (brother of Dr. Richard Valpy). Among his schoolfellows at the grammar school were Rajah Brooke and Dr. James Martineau. George Borrow, a hardened truant from his earliest teens, was once horsed, to undergo a flogging, on the back of James Martineau, and he never afterwards took kindly to the philosophy of that remarkable man. We are glad to know ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... replied Lady Stanley, and she went away to seek the truant sister, leaving her husband to beguile the tediousness of the time by engaging in conversation with his brother. Sir Thomas was in high glee, and could find no sympathy with the miserable forebodings of his ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... quorum and so prevent the call for a State convention to consider the Constitution, the remaining members brought back two of them by force. "When perceiving the other side to have an advantage, they play truant," said Noah Webster, a New England pedagogue, who had gone to Philadelphia at this time to lecture and to sell his new Grammatical Institute. "An officer or a mob hunts the absconding members ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... tutor who had reported him, afterwards, before going to school, to receive good advice, not unsweetened by a tip. Cheques had been dealt out there, and his uncle's views for his future guidance inculcated on him. Dutton entered now with somewhat of the feelings of a truant schoolboy, for had he not been on shore a month without coming near the ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... waste of my affections and my moody defiance of life's most salutary law. With these upon my lips I roamed, an absurd pathetic figure, amid the haunts of the Scholar Gipsy, and the wayward upland breezes conspired with my truant moods. And while I sat by my lamp late into the night, I turned the pages of pessimists and cynics, for no principles are dearer to a man than those which allow him to profess contempt for the benefits which he ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... am a Lad of about fourteen. I find a mighty Pleasure in Learning. I have been at the Latin School four Years. I don't know I ever play'd [truant, [1]] or neglected any Task my Master set me in my Life. I think on what I read in School as I go home at noon and night, and so intently, that I have often gone half a mile out of my way, not minding whither I ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... of busy leisure, Long summer days of dear-bought pleasure, You have done your teaching well; Had the scholar means to tell How grew the vine of bitter-sweet, What made the path for truant feet, Winter nights would quickly pass, Gazing on the magic glass O'er which the new-world shadows pass; But, in fault of wizard spell, Moderns their tale can only tell In dull words, with a poor reed Breaking at each time of need. But those to whom a hint ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... I did. When you were coming in, after playing truant on Friday afternoon, I was then going. You might have seen the letters in ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... there with his little daughter, her hand tucked within his arm. With her he was never savage, and rarely irritable; on these walks his mood would be playful and jocose, and they would incite each other to play the truant from office and school, and pretend they were off on a holiday ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... hateful to him He had his character to maintain I 'm a bachelor, and a person—you're married, and an object I take off my hat, Nan, when I see a cobbler's stall Incapable of putting the screw upon weak excited nature It's a fool that hopes for peace anywhere Men do not play truant from home at sixty years of age No great harm done when you're silent Taking oath, as it were, by their lower nature Tears that dried as soon as they had served their end That beautiful trust which habit gives That plain confession ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... landing-place under the bridge, we found the detachments that had gone by road, awaiting us. Joining company, we proceeded together to the park, and set about our picnic in the usual harum-scarum fashion, chasing truant children, losing one another, finding one another, making merry over the most dire mishaps, and enjoying the whole thing hugely—elders, juveniles, and all—from ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... barren cliffs the ravenous vulture dwells, Who never fattens on the prey which from afar he smells; But, patient, watching hour on hour upon a lofty rock, He singles out some truant lamb, a ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... stand of one, for whom 10 A prodigal Nature and a niggard Doom (That all bestowing, this withholding all) Made each chance knell from distant spire or dome Sound like a seeking Mother's anxious call, Return, poor Child! Home, weary Truant, home! 15 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... good day in my life, and better ones followed. No, you and True must be friends. Truant is her name by rights, for her mother never could keep her indoors or at home. Now, Bobby, look ahead! Do you see those lights? We go through the town; and just outside is our home—a very tiny ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... surprised to discover that, after all, he had Mr. William Farbish for a traveling companion. That gentleman explained that he had found an opportunity to play truant from business for a day or two, and wished to see Samson comfortably ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... machinery, or trolleys, for the sweet lady and the angular man with the pained gait which spoke in loud tones of the unbroken store-shoe could belong in no other than a rural place. But the image of the New Hampshire village only flitted across my mind's film, for my truant senses seized on a message over memory's telephone: "Russell Sage has $100,000,000." One hundred millions, and I was back on earth again, but as I walked the thought was buzzing in my brain: "Is ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... municipal governments of the Nation, in all such matters as supervision of the housing of the poor, the creation of small parks in the districts inhabited by the poor, in laws affecting labor, in laws providing for the taking care of the children, in truant laws, and ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... you when I am needed, truant?" said the other with a reproachful look. "Did you fly? You are so light, so thin, you could breathe yourself here," rejoined the girl, with a gentle, quizzical smile. "But, no," she added, "I remember, you were to be here ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... little truant!" cried Mere Dubray, with a sharp glance at the child, "where hast thou been all the afternoon, while weeds ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... be illustrated by the school strike of the spring of 1912, during which every boy and girl above the age of fourteen in most of the primary and secondary schools of Croatia, Dalmatia, and Bosnia played truant as a protest against the misgovernment of Croatia. On that occasion a crowd of 5000 school children paraded the streets of Agram shouting "Down with Cuvaj" (the Ban or Governor of Croatia), and cheering the police when ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... She had always been led to think her niece's faults the effect of their management; and she now imagined that there had been some encouragement of the child's discontent to make her run away; and that if they had been sufficiently shocked and concerned, the truant would have been brought home much sooner. It all came of her having allowed her niece to associate with those children at Bournemouth. She would be ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of youth, easily outstripped them, and stood alone on the summit, surveying the fair scene before her. A light barque was sailing up the river, and as she gazed on it Lorelei uttered a loud cry, for there in the bow stood her truant lover! The knight and his train heard the shriek and beheld with horror the maiden standing with outstretched arms on the very edge of the precipice. The steering of the boat was forgotten for ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... green, and, where the sun reached them, shot with seams and cleavages of light, like fluorspar. In the sun-flecked, shadow-dappled grass near by, violets tried to hide themselves, but were betrayed by their truant sweetness. The waters purled, a light breeze rustled the olive-leaves, and birds were singing loud and wild, as ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... exchange. Leaving the captured horse in charge of Mr. Burges, I followed the rest; caught another after a smart ride of three miles, but it was not till I reached the East Irwin that I could again overtake the rest, when, favoured by the steep bank of the stream, I succeeded in securing our truant steeds. It was now dark, and being unable to manage nine horses by myself, I tethered several of the wildest, and started with two of the best for the encampment ten miles distant, which, owing to the nature of the country, I did not reach till midnight. Mr. Burges had arrived ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... the boyish heart. The fact that likes and dislikes form a large part of the child mind was completely ignored. Naturally our whole being was depressed as we stepped through its doorway into the narrow quadrangle—and playing truant became chronic ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... the ferries and steamboat landings. Others are detailed to examine the steam boilers in use in the city. Others execute the orders of the Board of Health. Another detachment, nine in number, look after truant children. Others are detailed for duty at banks and other places. The Detectives will ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... idea with the American is to educate children. This is carried to the extent of making it an offense not to send those above a certain age to school, while State or town officers, called "truant police," are on the alert to arrest all such children who are not in school. The following was told me by a Government official in Washington, who had obtained it from a well-known literary man who witnessed the incident. The literary man was invited ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... before she was found. She was unearthed at last. The gardener had seen her shrink away into the shrubbery when the carriage-wheels were heard coming up the road, and he gave information to the cook, by whom the truant was tracked ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... was angry with them for playing truant. He said slowly, "N—no. She didn't exactly send us; but I don't think she'll mind our having come if we get back in time for supper. Mamma never forbid our ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... Llewellyn homeward hied, When near the portal seat, His truant Gelert he espied, Bounding his lord to greet. But when he gained the castle door, Aghast the chieftain stood: The hound was smeared with drops of gore; His ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... to live more richly in the present, they would hardly be as studiously cherished and transmitted as they are. We are, after all, living in the present. The culture of the past either does or does not illuminate it. If it does not it is a competing environment, a shadow world in which we may play truant from actuality, but which brings neither "sweetness nor light" to the actual ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... the invasion did come whether he would stick at his post in London and dutifully forward the news to his paper, or play truant and as a war correspondent watch the news in the making. So the words of Mr. Clarkson's assistant did not sink in. But a few weeks later young Major Bellew recalled them. Bellew was giving a dinner on the terrace of the Savoy ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... Too gen'rous maid! O! had my truant, and ungrateful heart Her merit justly priz'd, I might this day, In honour, as in virtue have been happy, Not thus a wretched outcast of the world— I pray return it with a thousand blessings— Heart-rending ...
— The Female Gamester • Gorges Edmond Howard
... while we linger on the coast, My truant fancy homeward flies, And when the view is almost lost, Unmanly tears bedew ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... home of school-boy life, With creaking stair and wind-swept hall, And, scarred by many a truant knife, Our old initials on the wall; Here rest—their keen vibrations mute - The shout of voices known so well, The ringing laugh, the wailing flute, The chiding ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... occasion of his death was as follows:—One morning, instead of making the best of his way to school, (which he was constantly ordered to do) happening very luckily to be overtaken by Tom Sharper, and Dick Lackwit, they prudently agreed to avoid the intolerable drudgery of the hornbook, by playing truant and indulging themselves in the profitable diversions of sitting all day on the bank of a lonesome brook to fish for minows; they had pretty good sport, as they called it, for the first hour; but then Mr. Sharper's line happening to be entangled among some large weeds, from ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... long day, and all to myself. What do you think of Harry playing truant?'" (Here we may imagine, what they call in France, or what they used to call, when men dared to speak or citizens to hear, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... laugh so that she tumbled into a clover-bed, and lay there a minute to get her breath. Just then, as if the playful wind repented of its frolic, the long veil fastened to the hat caught in a blackberry-vine near by, and held the truant fast till Marjorie ...
— Marjorie's Three Gifts • Louisa May Alcott
... that it was not very large. It had two long French windows, opening onto a veranda which looked out over the Square. The veranda was constructed of wrought iron, painted green, and ran straight across the front of the house. Ann used it for giving her plants an airing; they usually formed a truant garden beyond the panes. There was a smaller window at the back, from which a view could be obtained of ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... receive his quarterage. He tells me his son Thomas is set up in Smithfield, where he hath a shop—I suppose, a booth. Presently after dinner to the office, and there set close to my business and did a great deal before night, and am resolved to stand to it, having been a truant too long. At night to Sir W. Batten's to consider some things about our prizes, and then to other talk, and among other things he tells me that he hears for certain that Sir W. Coventry hath resigned to the King ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... melancholy Cypress and the moaning Pine. The broad old belt of short flowery turf at the base, the Violet, the Gilliflower, and the vermilion spotted Mignonette, on their breast, and the chaplet of wilding shrubs upon their brows, give them a charm in the most common-place observation. With me, truant as I have been to the Classic page, it seemed a natural process of my desultory mind, to revert from a contemplation of such pensive dreamy realities of waking enjoyment as I have described, to visions, startling in their august ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... obtain,— I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe, Studying inventions fine her wits to entertain; Oft turning others' leaves to see if thence would flow Some fresh and fruitful flower upon my sunburned brain. But words came halting forth ... Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite, 'Fool,' said my muse to me, 'look in thy heart ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... carried to the grave, locked in the family vault under Stratford church, and there left alone, fearfully buried alive! And then, after a day or two, how shrieks and groans are heard in the church-yard by truant school-boys, and are placed to the account of the curse: how, at last, her despairing lover demands to have the vault opened; and the wretch Rowland—partly from curiosity, partly from malice—determined to be there to see. As they and some church-followers come near the door of the vault, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... with his pupil, who was about three years old when his learned education commenced; and at length he made such progress in language, as to be able to articulate no less than thirty words. It appears, however, that he was somewhat of a truant, and did not very willingly exert his talents, being rather pressed into the service of literature, and it was necessary that the words should be first pronounced to him each time before he spoke. The French Academicians who mention this anecdote, add, that unless they had received ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... it! Yes, I deserve it! I have been nothing but a truant and a vagabond. I have never obeyed anyone and I have always done as I pleased. If I were only like so many others and had studied and worked and stayed with my poor old father, I should not find myself ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... bestowed upon the wound by Lady Mary's kind attendant, till the little girl, tired of hearing so much said about the bitten finger, gravely desired her maid to go in search of the cage, and catch the truant, which had effected its escape, and was clinging to the curtains of the bed. The cage was procured—a large wooden cage, with an outer and an inner chamber, a bar for the little fellow to swing himself on, and a drawer for his food, and a little dish for his water. The sleeping-room ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... a man has left his city and fled, after him his wife has entered the house of another, if that man shall return and has seized his wife, because he hated his city and fled, the wife of the truant shall not return to ...
— The Oldest Code of Laws in the World - The code of laws promulgated by Hammurabi, King of Babylon - B.C. 2285-2242 • Hammurabi, King of Babylon
... will, but accident and necessity made me a truant from my promise. I was to have left Merton, in Surrey, at half-past eight on Tuesday morning with a Mr. Hall, who would have driven me in his chaise to town by ten; but having walked an unusual distance on the Monday, and talked and exerted myself in spirits that have ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... of the tenement, at three o'clock on the following afternoon, she felt like a naughty little girl who is playing truant from school. When she remembered the way that she had avoided the Superintendent's almost direct questions, she blushed with an inward sense of shame. But when she thought of the Young Doctor's offer to ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... leaves. The day wet and rainy, though not uniformly so. No temptation, however, to play truant; so this will make some amends for a blank day yesterday. I am far in advance of the press, but it is necessary if I go to Drumlanrig on Wednesday as I intend, and to Lochore next week, which I also meditate. This will be no great interruption, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... comes from the little door at an angle in the ruins,—a woman's form. Is it my mother? It is too tall, and the step is more bounding. It winds round the building, it turns to look back, and a sweet voice—a voice strange, yet familiar—calls, tender but chiding, to a truant that lags behind. Poor Juba! he is trailing his long ears on the ground; he is evidently much disturbed in his mind: now he stands still, his nose in the air. Poor Juba! I left thee so ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... them. These studies nevertheless are somewhat sombre;[W] and there is something much lighter and pleasanter in his presentation of some not unfamiliar phases of manners. There is the self-complacency that deals with itself like a "truant reader skipping over the harsh places"; the frank discourtesy that finds something vicious in the conventions and "circumstance" of good breeding; the patronising insolence[X] that "with much ado seems to recover your name"; the egoism of discontent that ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... off for school But loitered by the way, Until at last 'twas quite too late To go to school that day. Ah naughty, naughty, truant boys! But listen what befell! Close by a wicked ogress lived, ...
— Careless Jane and Other Tales • Katharine Pyle
... there I was alone in a big grass field, with strong notions that I should have to walk an unknown number of miles home. Judge of my delight as I paced slowly along—running was of no use—at seeing Frank G—— returning with my truant in hand. Such an action in the middle of a run deserves a Humane Society's medal. To struggle breathless into my seat; to go off at score, to find a lucky string of open gates, to come upon the hounds at a check, was my good fortune. But our fox was doomed—in ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... achieve an indirect purpose and at the same time keep his peace with his conscience. It is when he already has a certain fear of lying, and is not yet thoroughly sincere and truth-loving, that he will come home from the truant fishing party and ingeniously tell you that a "friend of Harry's" caught the fish, instead of saying that he himself did it. His conscience is quite satisfied with the reflection that he is a friend of Harry's. In this stage of his ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... Froebel stepped in and proved himself a law-breaker, just as Ben Lindsey was when he inaugurated the juvenile court and waived the entire established legal procedure, even to the omission of swearing his witnesses, and believed in the little truant even though he lied. Froebel told the little other-mothers to come to school anyway and bring ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... just now stimulated by the effect of a liberal supper and the roguish consciousness of having been to the play. He saw and recognized Cashel as he approached the village pound. Understanding the situation at once, he hid behind the pump, waited until the unsuspecting truant was passing within arm's-length, and then stepped out and seized him by ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... fence that skirts the way, With blossom'd furze unprofitably gay, There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule, 195 The village master taught his little school; A man severe he was, and stern to view; I knew him well, and every truant knew; Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace The day's disasters in his morning face; 200 Full well they laugh'd, with counterfeited glee, At all his jokes, for many a joke had he; Full well the busy whisper, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... had reported noticing one of the Briarcroft boarders in Mansfield Road on several successive evenings could give no account of the truant's personal appearance. It had been dusk at the time, and they had only seen a girl in a sailor hat with a blue-and-white striped band hurrying rapidly past, as if anxious to escape observation. They thought she had dark hair, and that ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... What, thou! Methought Thou wert a stranger in these parts? Ah, truant, Some village beauty lured thee;—thou art ...
— The Lady of Lyons - or Love and Pride • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... received a sitter with the softly-yielding submission of elastic wires. Susan had just finished her early dinner: in mind and body alike, this good girl was entirely and deservedly at her ease. By finely succeeding degrees, her eyelids began to show a tendency downward; her truant needle-work escaped from her fingers, and lay lazily on her lap. She snatched it up with a start, and sewed with severe resolution until her thread was exhausted. The reel was ready at her side; she took it up for a fresh supply, and ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... seeing how many days we have discoursed, under the restraint of a fixed law, I opine that, as well unto us as to those whom need constraineth to labour for their daily bread, it is not only useful, but necessary, to play the truant awhile and wandering thus afield, to regain strength to enter anew under the yoke. Wherefore, for that which is to be related to-morrow, ensuing your delectable usance of discourse, I purpose not to restrict you to any special subject, but will have each discourse according as it ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... became, also, expert in many sports in which, in that woman-despising country, only boys could hope to excel. One day, when she was about fourteen years old, the Princess Woo was missing from the Nestorian mission-house, by the Yellow River. Her troubled guardian, in much anxiety, set out to find the truant; and, finally, in the course of his search, climbed the high bluff from which he saw the massive walls, the many gateways, the gleaming roofs, and porcelain towers of the Imperial city of Chang-an-the City of ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... or you don't stir a step," she said sternly. "An' if you don't go to school the truant officer'll come here an' like enough I'll be arrested for not sendin' you. If you don't want your poor aunt to go to jail you'll stand up an' put on this dress I bought ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... father took from him and plunged into hot water. Between four and five he was sent to school, his parents thinking to keep him out of mischief of this kind. But he had not the least interest in school knowledge, and constantly played truant; and when he did come to school he brought with him all kinds of horrid insects, reptiles, and birds. One morning during prayers a jackdaw began to caw, and as the bird was traced to the ownership of Thomas Edward, he was dismissed from the school in great disgrace. His perplexed parents sent ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... having played truant all day from school, was lolling on his mother's best sofa in the drawing-room with his leather boots tucked up on the satin cushions, and nothing to do but to suck a few oranges, and nothing to think of but how much sugar ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... fain have joined the truant set, and, at the first commotion, up went his great back, and down went his ears, with a single lash out behind that meant mischief, but Mr. Sponge was on the alert, and just gave him such a dig with his spurs as restored order, without exposing anything ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... repeated the author's fateful words, "no, I will not 'give my requests the form of an order,' I will not 'fly to tears as a means of revenge,' I will not 'condemn the things I once approved without reservation,' I will not 'dog his footsteps with a prying eye'; if he plays truant, he shall not on his return 'see a scornful lip, whose kiss is an unanswerable command.' No, 'my silence shall not be a reproach nor my first word a quarrel.'—I will not be like every other woman!" she went on, laying on her table the little yellow paper volume which ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... thoughtfully. "I used to have a good deal of influence over Newton when he lived in our cottage as a boy. Don't you remember—I got him to go to school regularly, and saved him from the truant officer's clutches ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... nine tenths of our Evils wou'd be remov'd, yet I am convinc'd, neither of these important Points will be minded, till we are forc'd to get better Notions of Things, by seeing the Nation ruin'd by the want of them, as often as a Boy at School is whipt for playing the Truant, ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... One voice, one shape, which to Anglantes' peer Seemed his Angelica, beseeching aid. Seemed to Rogero Dordogne's lady dear. Who him a truant to himself had made: If with Gradasso, or with other near He spake, of those who through the palace strayed. To all of them the vision, seen apart, Seemed that which each ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... wealth and fame with an immensely successful musical comedy they have just written. And, like Nanki Poo, the musician isn't really a musician, but is the talented, rebellious nephew of the Cosmetic King, none other than Dick Benham himself, a truant from his tyrannical uncle's determination to make him into a rouge and talcum salesman. He falls in love with Sylvia, not knowing her as Sylvia, of course, but only as the girl up-stairs, a poor little wretch to whom in the goodness of his heart, he is ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... WELCOMES AS HER OWN CHILDREN:—The older sons of our common parent who should have greeted you from this chair of office, being for different reasons absent, it has become my duty to half fill the place of these honored, but truant, children to the best of my ability—a most grateful office, so far as the expression of kind feeling is concerned; an undesired duty, if I look to the comparisons you must draw between the government of the association existing de jure, and its government de facto. ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... Waverley that on his return from abroad he had found both Sir Everard and his brother in custody on account of Edward's reported treason. He had, therefore, immediately started for Scotland to endeavour to bring back the truant. He had seen Colonel Gardiner, and had found him, after having made a less hasty inquiry into the mutiny of Edward's troop, much softened toward the young man. All would have come right, concluded Colonel Talbot, had it not been for our hero's joining openly ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... "Which of us twain hath been more faithful, say. 'Tis all through me that Cino can display The sail of fame on life's unhappy stream." "Thee," quoth I, "root of all my woe I deem, I found what gall beneath thy sweetness lay." Then he: "Ah, traitorous and truant slave! Are these the thanks thou renderest, ingrate, For giving thee a maid without a peer?" "Thy left," cried I, "slew what thy right hand gave." "Not so," said he. The judge, "Your wrath abate. I must have time ...
— Briefless Ballads and Legal Lyrics - Second Series • James Williams
... smiled and took his hand, And said, "Poor truant, passionate fool! Life's book is hard to understand: Why couldst thou not ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... the treacherous shoals, Where many a hope lay dead, And splendid wrecks were piled, like the ghouls Of joys forever fled. Once safely over these, We sped by a fairy realm, Across the bluest and calmest seas That were ever kissed by a truant breeze, With Love still at ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... Roaring Camp" was followed by "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," "Miggles," "Tennessee's Partner," and those various other characters who had impressed the author when, a mere truant schoolboy, he had lived among them. It is hardly necessary to say to any observer of human nature that at this time he was advised by kind and well-meaning friends to content himself with the success of the "Luck," and not tempt criticism again; or that from that moment ever after he was ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... other emotion to lively apprehensions for her safety, but he soon saw her run back, and, on observing him coming to meet her, assume an untroubled countenance. "Has this serene night," said she, "made you too a truant with your pillow? I have, of late, been little disposed to sleep, and enjoy a moon-light walk amazingly."—"Do not those dogs annoy you," inquired Sedley, with more of moody displeasure than tenderness; "I should think they ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... said, "and I have brought him over to see you. Both he and Lucy appeared to think it might be well not to disturb you to-night; but I knew you better. Who should be at your side at this bitter moment, my dear Miles, if it be not Rupert, your old friend and play-mate; your fellow truant, as one might say, and ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... sleeps on securely, And every lily leaf is folded purely, Nor any purple crocus hath arisen; Nor any tulip raised its slender stem, And burst the earth-walls of its winter prison, And donned its gold and jewelled diadem; Nor by the brookside in the mossy hollow, That calls to every truant foot to follow, The cowslip yet hath hung its golden ball,— In the wild and treacherous March weather, The pansy and the sunshine come together, The sweetest flower of all! The sweetest flower that blows; Sweeter than any rose, Or that shy blossom ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... that fancy," said the minstrel, with another half-sigh. "It was not indeed wholly, but in great part the hope of the poet's fame that made me a truant in the way to that which destiny, and such few gifts as Nature conceded to me, marked out for my proper and only goal. But what a strange, delusive Will-o'-the-Wisp the love of verse-making is! How rarely a man ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and the young man with the real hat-band. Both were excited and disturbed. At the sight of the young man, Stumps turned appealingly to the golden-rod girl. He groaned aloud, and his expression was that of a boy who had been caught playing truant. ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... Schwester! Wie du uns erschreckt hast! Wie es mich freut dich zu finden!" (Oh, my truant sister! What a scare you have given us! How glad I am ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... through the streets. At last they were so tired they had to rest. They sat down on a curbstone, with Toby between them, and were just beginning to discuss the reward when a heavy hand fell on Mick's shoulder. It was the school porter. In spite of their protests he insisted that Mick was playing truant, and marched him off to school. Jane, left alone with Toby, debated what she ought to do. The reward was to be got in a village three or four miles at the other side of Rowallan, so she would have to wait and go back with Andy. But there was still an hour and ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... cleared, with here and there a pine stub left standing, and was of about twenty acres extent. We went up across it to the top of the hill, but could not find the colts. Then we walked around by the farther fence, but discovered no breach in it and no traces where truant hoofs had jumped over it. It was growing dark, and we at length went home to ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... the subject of the American War, without further reference to the truant who stood by them in the covert of the dusk, thrilling with happiness ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... reached the Captain's gate when they saw Wing Fan approaching on horseback, leading the truant Caliph. Chicken Little was immensely relieved to find, as they came near, that neither saddle nor bridle had suffered from the ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... fair girls, standing together embraced under the cedarn shade had smitten deep into the well-cased heart of Cyrus Worthington. He had come upon them at a pretty moment, when Melusine, the willowy and tall, having opened her arms to the dear truant, one arm still about her, with her free hand touched her cheek that lips might meet lips. "Darling, I'm so glad—so very glad," she was whispering, and Sanchia, with the same light laughing in her eyes, "Dear old Melot— how sweet you are to me." Mr. Worthington pushed back his mortarboard ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... meed of having meant well, and of reforming the philosophy and literature of their times. The immediate effect of their views was decidedly in favor of Rationalism, because they almost uniformly deny the absolute authority of the Scriptures. They grant too much to reason. While Kant would drive the truant mind back to self-contemplation, he terminates by giving to reason a value and dignity so great that it becomes entitled to decide upon matters of faith. Their theories, spun out at such length and concluding in so little satisfaction, make us rejoice that we have not to depend upon philosophy ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... missed him. He came to ask if Benny was ill. The mother was vexed when she found that he had staid away from school. She went to look for the naughty boy. After a while she found the little truant. He was hard at work in his garret. She saw what he had been doing. He had not copied any of his new en-grav-ings. He had made up a new picture by taking one person out of one en-grav-ing, and another out of another. He had copied these so that they made a picture ...
— Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans • Edward Eggleston
... Venetians became alarmed in their turn (as, indeed, they had need to be) and issued an edict, ordering the lace-workers to return forthwith, or, failing this, the nearest relative would be imprisoned for life, and steps would be taken to have the truant lace-worker killed. If, however, he or she returned, complete forgiveness would be extended, and work found them for life at handsome remuneration. History does not tell us the result of this decree, but it evidently failed to destroy the lace ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... advent of the Sun god later in the story. There is nothing in the content of this story to justify the idea that the chief had lost his first wife, Kailiokalauokekoa, unless it be the fact that he is searching Hawaii for another beauty. Perhaps, like the heroine of Halemano, the truant wife returns to her husband through jealousy of her rival's attractions. A special relation seems to exist in Hawaiian story between Kauai and the distant Puna on Hawaii, at the two extremes of the island group: it is here that ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... to accomplish his self-culture by devotion to his art!" We may escape uncongenial toil, only to devote ourselves to that which is congenial. It is only to transact some higher business that even Apollo dare play the truant from Admetus. We must all work for the sake of work; we must all work, as Thoreau says again, in any "absorbing pursuit - it does not much matter what, so it be honest;" but the most profitable work is that which combines into one continued effort ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... [Smilingly.] No, no, I don't complain. But the brother— the wife! Just when they imagined they had bagged the truant—there's the sting! ...
— The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith • Arthur Wing Pinero
... grey after the storm, with a sky obscured by scudding clouds, but a gleam of truant sunshine was sporting wantonly on the hoary castled summit of St. Michael's Mount, and promised to visit the town later on. Mrs. Pendleton walked briskly, and soon arrived ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... Surely was with magic fraught That upon my pulses wrought: I too felt the air of June Humming with a merry tune, I too reckoned, like a boy, Less of Time and more of Joy: Till, as homeward I was wending, I perceived my back unbending, And before the mile was done Ran beside my truant son. ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... the first morning train—and with no baggage; like a schoolboy playing truant, running off with just the clothes he had on his back. The two days since Leonora left Alcira had been days of torture to him. The singer's flight was the talk of the town. People were scandalized at the amount of luggage she ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Iemon Dono and O'Hana are the husband and wife not present?" The question came from some one in the room. "O'Hana San is very ill. Her state is serious. Iemon does not leave her." Akiyama answered for the truant pair. ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... he learned that the truant was dependent on his wife. Then, argued the moneyed man, he would not run away from her but that his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... glance, daintily settled his cravat, brushed back a truant lock, and, with a maternal air that was charming, said, "My boy is always elegant, and I'm proud of him. Now we'll go in." But with her hand on the curtain she paused, saying quickly, as a voice reached ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... seen him for so long, you know. Perhaps, when she comes to look at him with fresh eyes, she'll notice things more. Ah, here is George, just getting out of a hansom—so he has played truant for once! There's one thing I do think Ella might do—persuade him to shave off some of those straggly whiskers. I wonder why he never seems to get a hat or ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... know. What is more, I am satisfied that the larger one has more than an ordinary interest in Stephens. She has twice already saved his life; and I should not be surprised if she were now to lay him once more under the obligation. Ha, truant," he said, turning to one of his staff who had come from a nigh tree-clump, where he had been writing, "you should have been here to see the beautiful Metis maiden. She was in disguise, but her beauty was not less divine than that of your own Iena. Fancy the feelings of Stephens, when ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... sound of the guns, the common people came out along the road with fowling-pieces and pitchforks, in hopes to catch the truant. The gendarmes seemed very anxious to be on the look-out for him too. The price of a deserter was fifty crowns to those who ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with her. He played truant whenever he could, for he was a kindhearted boy, and could not bear to think of a master's time and labor being thrown away on a boy like himself—who did not wish to learn, only to find out—when there were so many worthy lads thirsting for instruction in geography and history and reading and ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... on both sides with spirit and earnestness, lightened here and there by frisky touches of the polysyllabic playful, reminding one of the serious pursuit of their fun by truant boys, that are assured they are out of the eye of their master, and now and then indulge in an imitation of him. And well might it be supposed that the Comic idea was asleep, not overlooking them! It resolved at last to this, that either Duke Pasquier was a scandal on our humanity in clinging ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... big the moment was with destiny, or how often that face seen in the fitful moonlight would haunt my sleep and disturb my waking hours. But I mind yet the cold grue of terror I got from it, a terror which was surely more than the due of a few truant lads breaking the Sabbath with ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... him. A young Oxonian is apt to feel very indignant if not treated by deans and tutors, as a man and as a gentleman; but has he any right to expect to be so treated, if he condescends to adopt the practices of a mischievous or a truant school boy? ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... the gaily-crowded streets was sweet to him as a lazy truant ramble in the woods during church-time. Everything that he looked at delighted him—the richness of shop-windows, showing all the expensive useless goods that no sensible person ever wants; the liveries worn by pampered servants ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... that instead of taking advantage of such questioning to give vent to his displeasure he would smile contentedly and stroke his chin, once so round, but then so peaked, and those who thought that the Court apothecary would diminish his legacy to his truant son, learned to know better, for the old man bequeathed in an elaborate will, the whole of his valuable possessions to Melchior, leaving only to the widow Vorkel, who had served him faithfully as housekeeper after the death of his wife, and to Schimmel, the dispenser, in the event ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... stone-cross beheld a desolate infant, unnaturally left to perish in the wilderness! It was famishing—expiring. I raised it to my breast, and its little arms twined feebly round my neck Florian! thou wert heaven's gracious instrument to reclaim a truant to his duties! Welcome! I cried to thee, young brother in adversity!—"thou art deserted by thy mortal parents, and my heavenly father has forsaken me!" From that moment I felt I had a motive left to cherish life, since my existence could be useful to a fellow-being—my ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... and the Magpie, Little Frog, and Pretty Mouse, The Mouse and the Christmas Cake, Greedy Ben, Naughty Puppies, Truant Bunny. ...
— The Mouse and the Christmas Cake • Anonymous
... fact, was by that time safe at home, and had been well scolded by Signora Orsola for having given her such a fright by playing the truant for so long. ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... themselves. Sullenly one of them gave an address far up in the Bronx, ten miles away. They had not been home for a week, he said. Was he lying? What was to be done? Somewhere in the city their homes must be discovered. And the talk of the truant officer made Roger feel ramifications here which wound out through the police and the courts to reformatories, distant cells. He thought of that electric chair, and suddenly he felt oppressed by the heavy complexity ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... nursery-governess, her evening lessons under self-selected masters, and her ultimate rise to a higher grade among the teaching sisterhood. Next came another epoch. To the mansion in which she was engaged returned a truant son, between whom and the heroine an attachment sprang up. The master of the house was an ambitious gentleman just knighted, who, perceiving the state of their hearts, harshly dismissed the homeless governess, and rated the son, the consequence being that the ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... wintry morning, through the rarefied air of these chalky hogs'-backs, was not depressing; and there is no doubt that her dream at starting was to win the heart of her mother-in-law, tell her whole history to that lady, enlist her on her side, and so gain back the truant. ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... dreams? Why had the flush risen to her cheeks at the thought? At another time she would have refused to listen to the voice which answered; but now, as the object of her thoughts lay dying on her pillow, her mind would not play truant to her heart. Sometimes the approach of love is so imperceptible that it does not provoke analysis. We wake suddenly to find it in our hearts, so strong and splendid that we submit without question.... All, ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... she be except next door?" mademoiselle questioned; "and when I went to ask, Monsieur Dubois was seated with his sons having supper, and no signs of the truant. He had seen or heard nothing ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... patten.' Until that reconciling word was uttered, there had been a shadow of distrust on the baby's face, as if treachery might be in the wind. But the magic of that one word patten wrought an instant revolution. Back the little truant ran, and the young mother's manner made it evident that she would not on her part forget what had passed between the high contracting parties.[51] What, then, could be the meaning of this talismanic word ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... a yet wider sweep. It goes from the wooing of a nation to the wooing of a race, from Jew distinctively to Roman representatively, from Annas standing in God's flood light rejected to Pilate in nature's lesser light obscured, from God's truant messenger nation to the world's mighty ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... spring and summer greenness. Or, as just then, in the gorgeous October coloring of the whole landscape that lies below, across the farm, which stretches on through an intervale of beautiful meadows and pastures to the woods that skirt the valley of the little truant river, as it ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy
... One of the results of all this legislation has been to throw, during the past quarter of a century, an entirely new burden on schools everywhere. Such legislation has brought into the schools not only the truant and the incorrigible, who under former conditions either left early or were expelled, but also many children who have no aptitude for book learning, and many of inferior mental qualities who do not profit by ordinary classroom ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... here, then, because the occasion offered, and if I pretermitted this, it might be the last, and I was unwilling that any friend or any child, who might lean upon me, who reckoned upon my counsel or advice, should know that I had been such a truant to the cause of religious liberty and humanity, as never to have ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... Eaton's I was sent to a school kept by two very nice rather young Quaker ladies in Walnut Street. It was just opposite a very quaint old-fashioned collection of many little dwellings in one (modelled after the Fuggerei of Augsburg?) known as the Quaker Almshouse. One morning I played truant, and became so fearfully weary and bored lounging about, that I longed for the society of school, and never stayed from study any more. Here I was learning to read, and I can remember "The History of Little Jack," and discussing with a comrade the question as to whether ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... not feeling comfortable, though he would have died before he admitted it to Dora. Now that the exhilaration of truant delights had died away, his conscience was beginning to give him salutary twinges. After all, perhaps it would have been better to have gone to Sunday School and church. Mrs. Lynde might be bossy; but there was always a box of cookies in her kitchen cupboard and she was not stingy. ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery |
