"Truant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 marbles with their thumbs, quarrelling over half-farthings, irresponsible, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... of the week he wanted to play truant from the office, to be off with Ruth over the hills and far away. Both mornings there came to him a picture of Gertie, wanting to slip out and play like Ruth, but having no chance. He felt guilty because he had never bidden Gertie come tramping, and guiltily he recalled that it was ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... keen intellect, but he had had little education. By a sort of strange fatality, his brain had doggedly resisted the little instruction he might have received. For instance, he had been to the Carmelite's school at ——, and instead of showing any aptitude for work, he had played truant with a keener delight than any of his school-fellows. His was an eminently contemplative nature, kindly and indolent, but proud and almost savage in its love of independence; religious, yet opposed to all authority; somewhat captious, very suspicious, and inexorable ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... sooner quitted the nursery, than he was put under the direction of the school, to which at first he was every day conducted either by a man or maid-servant; but when thought big enough to be trusted alone, would frequently play the truant, for which he generally received the discipline necessary on such occasions.—He took his learning notwithstanding as well as could be expected;—he had read the testament through at five years old, about seven was put into Latin, and began the rudiments of Greek before he had ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... a message from the schoolmaster that the boy was absent too often. The message was repeated. Ditte could not understand it. She had a long talk with the boy, and got out of him that he often played truant. He made a pretense of going to school, hung about anywhere all day long, and only returned home when school-time was over. She said nothing of this to Lars Peter—it would only have made ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... morn—at noon—at twilight dim— Maria! thou hast heard my hymn; In joy and woe—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 ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... uniform and sedentary life, affected the system of her nerves, and contributed to debilitate her frame. She was prohibited by her physician, not merely from committing her thoughts to paper, but, had it been possible, from thinking at all. No truant, escaped from school, could receive more pleasure in eluding a severe master, than did Mrs. Robinson, when, the vigilance of her physician relaxing, she could once more resume ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... And serious heads, who guard the twin retreats Of British learning, give the studious boy His due indulgence. Let him range the field, Frequent the public walk, and freely pull The yielding oar. But mark the truant well, And if he turn aside to vice or folly, Show him the rod, and let him feel you prize The ...
— The Charm of Oxford • J. Wells
... the girl's mouth disappeared slowly as she passed a small brown hand across her forehead and replaced a truant lock. ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... to quit the churchyard at once for some place where he was not likely to be seen; he had never played truant before, and for the next hour or two was thoroughly miserable as he slunk about the premises of a neighboring farm, and finally took refuge in a shed, and began to consider his position. He would remain hidden till nine o'clock, and then go home. ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... not until he had searched for and caught Connie's truant gaze. "Aren't we?" he asked of Miss Fowler, his eyes ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... his own team a powerful St. Bernard, so trained that all he had to do was to show him the collar of the missing dog and then send him after the truant. Hamilton gave one smell at the collar and then was off. If that dog was anywhere within two miles he was driven into the camp in a hurry. If a stubborn, obstinate dog objected to march in before him, he gave him a ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... 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 ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... 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! ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... attempts to 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 career the ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... A truant glance of Mr. Moreland's eye was rebuked by this appeal, and instead of looking for a place of refuge, he now merely looked sheepish. He, however, entirely agreed with the young lady, as the surer way of ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... very moment that thus they discussed him, Gilian, a truant from school, which now claimed his attention, as Brooks sorrowfully said, "when he had nothing else to do and nowhere else to go," was on an excursion to the Waterfoot, where the Duglas in a sandy delta ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... when we played truant and climbed down in the morning's first freshness from the high room overlooking Rome and the work that had to be done in it, and loafed all day in Roman galleries and at Roman ceremonies, or strayed to places further afield—Tivoli, Albano, Ostia, Marino, Rocca ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... Truant streams: the livelong day wending their loitering path to the subterraneous outlet, flowing into which, they disappeared. But no wonder they loitered; passing such ravishing landscapes. Thus with life: man bounds out of night; runs and babbles in the sun; then returns to ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... as his arch enemy. She was after him. She wanted to put him in something that sounded like "The Willows Awful Home." Once she had almost gotten him, but Aunt 'Tella interposed. He was not afraid of the truant officer, nor of the cop, although they were generally after him, too, but he had horrible nightmares in which he saw himself being dragged into captivity by this bland lady in the ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... replied Mrs. Halberg, hastening toward them from an adjoining apartment; "it is really very delightful to have you all gathered once more about me! Nellie has been a sad truant of late, and Rosalie has quite monopolized the ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... greater delight than to read. The first book that he remembers reading was a bulky tome on the German Reformation, about Luther and Melancthon, which he had found. He spent weeks over it, and, staggering under its weight, would carry it out into the hayfield, where, truant to the harvest, he would lie behind the stacks and read and read. One night, indeed, his interest in this book led him to break the rules of his thrifty home—where children went to bed when it was dark, so that ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... shades of 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 ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy
... antiquities, or the fine arts, though he himself could never find leisure to listen to him on these subjects when the conversation happened to turn on them. But if Emilius ever chanced to be in a more active mood, he might almost make sure that his truant friend would have caught cold the night before at some ball or sledge-party, and be forced to keep his bed; so that, with the liveliest, most restless, and most communicative of men for his companion, Emilius lived in the ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... 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 ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... doorway and entered herself, turning quickly to slip into place the oaken bar that secured the door from the inside. Constans swelled with indignation at this singular treatment. He was a man grown, not a truant child to be led away by the ear for punishment. Yet she would not abate one jot of her first advantage, and his anger melted under the quiet serenity of her gaze; in spite of himself he let her have the ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... of Sir John Finett. The irritation produced by his absence seemed to arise, not from any need of him, but from that tormenting desire which mortals universally feel for the possession of objects beyond their reach. Search was commanded for the truant, unsuccessfully; ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Boy 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
... be vain to attempt to describe the tenderness lavished on the truant that night by the happy family, or repeat the many grateful words spoken to Dick. All the pain that the thoughtless boy had caused was forgotten in joy for his safety. "You should have remembered, Tom, how unhappy your ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick
... 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 ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... 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 ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... "You see a truant professor!" he exclaimed. "Simeon doesn't approve; we couldn't induce him to come. He said a day off meant a night on for him—he is so wise, is Simeon—but I positively had to do something in the way of sport; I am in a ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... 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 giving singing lessons. ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... central stem at the least touch, and the plant thus makes itself almost imperceptible;—it seems to live so, that you feel guilty of murder if you break off a leaf. It is called Zhbe- moin-mis, or "Plant-did-I-amuse-myself," because it is supposed to tell naughty little children who play truant, or who delay much longer than is necessary in delivering a message, whether they deserve a whipping or not. The guilty child touches the plant, and asks, "Ess moin amis moin?" (Did I amuse myself?); and if the plant instantly shuts its leaves up, that means, ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... came; but no Sidney. They had sent to the place whither he had been despatched; he had never arrived there. Mr. Morton grew alarmed; and, when Mr. Spencer came to dinner, his host was gone in search of the truant. He did not return till three. Doomed that day to be belated both at breakfast and dinner, this decided him to part with Sidney whenever he should be found. Mrs. Morton was persuaded that the child only sulked, and would come ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... was sharpened, and the man turned to me with, "Now, you little rascal, you've played truant! Scud to school, ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... of his own formation as he does the works of God. A man can never regard his ship as he does his shipmates. I sailed with him, boy, when everything seemed bright and happy, as at your age; when, as he often expressed it, I knew nothing and feared nothing. I was then a truant from an old father and a kind mother, and he did that for me which no parents could have done in my situation—he was my father and mother on the deep!—hours, days, even months, has he passed in teaching me the art of our profession; and now, in my manhood, ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... that there is or could have been one truant fluttering murmur of the heart against the reality of glory. And partly for these reasons: 1st, That, hoc abstracto, defrauding man of this, you leave him miserably bare—bare of everything. So that really and sincerely ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... morning, David was afraid to go to school, apprehending the severe punishment he might get from the master. He therefore left home as usual, but played truant, hiding himself in the woods all day. He did the same the next morning, and so continued for several days. At last the master sent word to John Crockett, inquiring why his son David no longer came to school. The boy was called to an account, and the ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... in time to see Bay Middleton disappear over the next fence. So 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 ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... he had often seen flitting among the copses of the Margarethe Insel, when the yellow sunset rays shone golden on the gleaming Danube, and the purple shadows began to steal over the old fortress high uplifted there above Hungary's capital. Here was a truant beauty escaped ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... might be said a thousand times to every truant, and it would have very little effect, because he thinks that he will be an exception. He never sees beyond his own boyish smartness. Few men and women realize how true it is that these smart rascally fellows, who ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship
... put the true reason down in the record book. And there it will stay always. My nice little boy was a truant-player. And we shall all be so ashamed. What will your father say? And he was so afraid last ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... countenance of the mirza lightens up a little, as though infected by the khan's overflowing merriment and the mudbake's rough handling of the young goat. They know each other thoroughly—as thoroughly as orchard-looting, truant-playing, teacher-deceiving school-boys—these three hopeful aspirants to the favor of Allah; they are an amusing trio, and not ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... about the body of the dead Grabritin, looking futilely down the river to where it made an abrupt curve to the west, a quarter of a mile below us, and was lost to sight, as though we expected to see the truant returning to us with our precious launch—the thing that meant life or death to us ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... to post his time the day before or he is likely to kick his heels around the first tee for a couple of hours before he can get away, and when he looks over the crowded dining-room at night—well, he comes to the conclusion that most of the school have deserted and are playing truant, too! ...
— Keeping Fit All the Way • Walter Camp
... she said. "I am afraid I have been playing truant this morning. I shall have to apologize, though it was all Noel's fault. Do see if you can find Mrs. Forest," she added to a servant just entering. "Ask her if she is ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... along explaining, he threw off his surly fit. The brilliant sunlight, the breeze stirring toward them from a background of drooping bamboos, the gabble of coolies, the faint aroma of the fermenting no-me cakes, began, after all, to give a truant sense of holiday. ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... unconsciously given not only an excellent description of himself, but the measure of all literature, which makes us play truant with the present world and run away to live awhile in the pleasant realm of fancy. The province of all art is not to instruct but to delight; and only as literature delights us, causing each reader to build in his own soul that "lordly pleasure house" of which Tennyson dreamed in his "Palace ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... a child playing truant," said Lucy, a flush of excitement tinting her cheek. "You see, my aunt wouldn't like my being here any more ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... 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
... large tract of land, on which it intends to erect an old folk's home, part of the money for which has already been raised. Splendid service has been rendered by the Illinois Federation of Colored Women's Clubs, through whose instrumentality schools have been visited, truant children looked after, parents and teachers urged to co-operate with each other, rescue and reform work engaged in, so as to reclaim unfortunate women and tempted girls, public institutions investigated, garments cut, made and ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... 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 streams; ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... twal o'clock chappit?" Then approaching the Master, he craved pardon for having permitted the rest of his people to go out to see the hunt, observing, that "They wad never think of his lordship coming back till mirk night, and that he dreaded they might play the truant." ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... said Huldbrand; and he began to call in the most earnest manner: "Undine! Undine! Pray come back!" The old man shook his head, saying, that all that shouting would help but little, for the knight had no idea how self-willed the little truant was. But still he could not forbear often calling out with him in the dark night: "Undine! Ah! dear Undine, I beg you to come ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... Methought Thou wert a stranger in these parts? Ah, truant, Some village beauty lured thee;—thou ...
— The Lady of Lyons - or Love and Pride • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... elsewhere, but differ from them in many respects. The Auckland "larrikin" is a growing nuisance, but he is neither so numerous nor so objectionable as yet as his fellow in Melbourne and Sydney. Unlike the street-arab, he is either a school-boy, or earns his living somehow, or he is a truant from work of either kind. He probably belongs to some working family, whom he favours with his company only at such times as pleases himself, for he is utterly unmanageable by his parents. He has exuberant spirits and an inordinate love of mischief, which shows ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... hour afterwards, ambling along, Came dainty Zephyrus humming a song, And pausing—the truant—to kiss each flower That blushed in garden, or field, or bower. But no one was left to be merry with him, So he danced with the leaves till the light grew dim, And, as Twilight was going to sleep in the west, He, too, fell asleep on ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)
... and dead silence, as if it were a calm, although every passion was roused and on the alert; every bosom heaved tumultuously, and every pulse was trebled in its action. The same feeling which so powerfully affects the truant schoolboy—who, aware of his offence, and dreading the punishment in perspective, can scarce enjoy the rapture of momentary emancipation—acted upon the mutineers, in an increased ratio, proportioned to the magnitude ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... and brought it slowly to a halt. Furiously then Costigan set and reset his controls, launching his every driving force and his every weapon, but no beam could penetrate that red murk, and the lifeboat remained motionless in space. No, not motionless—the red rod was shortening, drawing the truant craft back toward the launching port from which she had so hopefully emerged a few days before. Back and back it was drawn; Costigan's utmost efforts futile to affect by a hair's breadth its line of motion. Through the open port the boat slipped neatly, and as it came ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... intention of playing the truant or traitor, and does his duty bravely and successfully. But the new King has a niece and the Count himself has a mother, who, motherlike, is convinced that her son's mysterious love is a very bad person, if not an actual maufes or devil, and is very anxious that he shall marry ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... our adieus and pursued our journey; but, tenacious of this comparative liberty and the enjoyment of pure air, we prevailed on our conductors to let us dine on the road, so that we lingered with the unwillingness of truant children, and did not reach Amiens until dark. When we arrived at the Hotel de Ville, one of the guards enquired how we were to be disposed of. Unfortunately for us, Dumont happened to be there himself, and on hearing we were sent from Arras by order ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... answer. Her 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 ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... was this kind interest in her affairs an unconscious heaping of coals of fire on her head? Had he forgiven her so easily? Again she argued with herself, as she had so often argued before, that his love had never been more than a truant fancy, a transient folly, the merest ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... that skirts the way, With blossom'd furze unprofitably gay, There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule, The village master taught his little school. A man severe he was, and stern to view; I knew him well, and every truant knew." ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... like truant children, through the wood-path and out upon the moor. Meadows had brought a shawl, and spread it on a rock, full under the moonlight. There they sat, close together, feeling all the goodness and glory of the night, drinking in the scents of heather and ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... jumped out of bed, and rushed out upon the upper piazza. In the yard below, looking as conscious as a truant child, ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... world and the profession of letters with the merest shadow of an education. But they say it is always a good thing to have taken pains, and that success is its own reward, whatever be its nature; so that, perhaps, even upon this I should plume myself, that no one ever played the truant with more deliberate care, and none ever had more certificates for less education. One consequence, however, of my system is that I have much less to say of Professor Blackie than I had of Professor Kelland; and as he is still alive, and will long, I hope, continue to be so, it will not ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... followed reads like the scenario of an opera bouffe. Eaton ransacked Alexandria in search, of Hamet the unfortunate but failed to find the truant. Then acting on a rumor that Hamet had departed up the Nile to join the Mamelukes, who were enjoying one of their seasonal rebellions against constituted authority, Eaton plunged into the desert and finally brought back the astonished and somewhat reluctant heir to the throne. ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... appearance of blades of grass and early flowers warned them that winter was gone and that spring was at hand. Their occupation, therefore, was at an end. Now how to satisfy the folks at home and get a further extension of time was the truant's supreme object. While he always professed obedience to parental demands, yet rebellion was brewing, for he did not want to go East—not just yet. Imperative orders to return were artfully parried. Finally remittances were withheld, ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... and meadow, They searched 'neath hedge and tree; "Where," said the puzzled children, "Where can the truant be?" ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... there," said George, self-defensively. "I played moocher," he continued,—by which he meant truant,—"and then they whopped I, and a went home to mother, and she kept un at home, the ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... High School in the County town. He did not like it. His Cousin Matilda had longed to make a little gentleman of him, but he refused to be made. He would give a little contemptuous curve to his lip, and take on a shy, charity-boy grin, when refinement was thrust upon him. He played truant from the High School, sold his books, his cap with its badge, even his very scarf and pocket-handkerchief, to his school-fellows, and went raking off heaven knows where with the money. So he ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... way; here is the gate, This little creaking wicket; Here robin calls his truant mate From out the lilac-thicket. The walks are bordered all with box,— Oh! come this way a minute; The snowball-bush, beyond the phlox, Has chippy's nest hid in it. Look at this mound of blooming pinks, This balm, these mountain ...
— The Nursery, No. 107, November, 1875, Vol. XVIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... 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 here now, ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... air "like winged flowers." The kingfisher at times startles the English pedestrian when he is sauntering near a high-banked brook;—its gaudy plumage contrasts so forcibly with the sober tints of our English song birds, that he is at first inclined to take the gay fellow for a truant cage bird. But the fisher is quite at home, and is probably diving for his fish dinner. The kingfishers grouped in the two cases before which the visitor now stands, include specimens of the Australian brown kingfisher; the ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... subject. Whether or not she was the victim of her husband's guile, there was no question about the reality of her enjoyment during the evening. Ruff, when he remembered the flash of her eyes across the table, the touch of her fingers in the taxi, was almost content to believe her false to her truant lover. If only she had not been married to John Dory, he realised, with a little sigh, that he might have taught her to forget that such a person existed as Spencer Fitzgerald, might have induced her to become Mrs. ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 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
... that the lady was the daughter of a very rich tradesman, and he was not by any means displeased, for romantic actors have just as keen an eye to business as other folk. Before the pleasant afternoon closed, he had gained permission to call the truant Letty, and she primmed her rosy lips as he taught her to say Will. Decidedly Mr. Devine was no laggard ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... him, returned into the circle. She said not a word; and what he said was of no moment;—but they had met as lovers, and any of the family who had allowed themselves to imagine that even yet the match might be broken, now unconsciously abandoned that hope. "Was he always such a truant, Lady Fawn?"—Lizzie asked, when it seemed to her that no one ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... to-day all but destroyed by the ravages of time. It is situated in S. Maria Novella, next the principal chapel. In this way Cimabue made a beginning in the art which attracted him, for he often played the truant and spent the whole day in watching the masters work. Thus it came about that his father and the artists considered him so fitted to be a painter that, if he devoted himself to the profession, he might look for honourable success in it, and to his great satisfaction ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... a model for the other 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 ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... country twenty, thirty years, were better qualified to judge than I was. For peace and quiet I pretended acquiescence, and my purpose thus acquired a taste of stealth. It was with the feelings of a kind of truant that I had set out at length without a word to anyone, and with the same adventurous feelings that I now drew near to Karameyn. Two soldiers, basking in the sunshine on a dust-heap, sprang up at my approach. One was the man I sought, the rogue Rashid. They led me to their captain's house—a ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... composition, show that Signorelli might have been a great master of realistic painting. Nor are the accessories less effective. A wide-roofed kitchen chimney, a page-boy leaving the room by a flight of steps, which leads to the house door, and the table at which the truant monks are seated, complete a picture of homely Italian life. It may still be matched out of many an inn in this ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... that she might be more directly under his care, he and Mrs. Dolman invited her to their house, where she was found by Mr. Linley, on his arrival in pursuit of her. After a few words of private explanation from Sheridan, which had the effect of reconciling him to his truant daughter, Mr. Linley insisted upon her returning with him immediately to England, in order to fulfil some engagements which he had entered into on her account; and a promise being given that, as soon as these engagements ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... 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
... as Chia Cheng caught sight of him, his eyes got quite red. Without even allowing himself any time to question him about his gadding about with actors, and the presents he gave them on the sly, during his absence from home; or about his playing the truant from school and lewdly importuning his mother's maid, during his stay at home, he simply shouted: "Gag his mouth and positively beat him till ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... mine would have gone off long ago to Megara or Boeotia—by the dog they would, if they had been moved only by their own idea of what was best, and if I had not chosen the better and nobler part, instead of playing truant and running away, of enduring any punishment which the state inflicts. There is surely a strange confusion of causes and conditions in all this. It may be said, indeed, that without bones and muscles and the other parts of the body I cannot execute my purposes. But to say that ...
— Phaedo - The Last Hours Of Socrates • Plato
... some news of the truant lover. The fact is, this young lady was as intelligent as she was inexperienced; and she had asked Jacintha to tell Dard to talk to every soldier that passed through the village, and ask him if he knew anything about Captain Dujardin ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... once only, did I play truant from Parkhurst, and that transgression was attended with consequences so tragical that to this day its memory is as vivid and impressive as if the event I am about to record had happened only last week, instead of a quarter of ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... smiled and took his hand, And said, "Poor truant, passionate fool! Life's book is hard to understand: Why couldst ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... 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 grandeur, of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... to the rough treatment, and glided off to seek peace and quietness upon the floor. The pleasant coolness was gratifying for a few minutes; but the boy's love of order put an end to his lying uncovered, and he sprang out of bed, dragged the truant clothing back, remade his bed extremely badly, and ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... now?" muttered the great man, thrusting his foot into the truant slipper with a peevish jerk, for he had taken supper at the City Hall that evening, and after a temperance movement of that kind, the luxurious depth of ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... and get its 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 patten? Accidentally, having had a naval brother confined ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... brother Lazarus of Bethany was set in order three days before the expected arrival of Passover guests. Followed by Eli, who was girt about with a long towel, Martha made a last survey of the large and well furnished living-room, looking for a truant speck of dust. She paused for a moment at a table containing writing materials and bade the servant wipe it carefully and place it, with a case of scrolls, at one end of the wide, latticed window-couch, for here on the comfortable cushions ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... a pupil to Westminster. It was not long before he rebelled against the discipline and trammels of school-boy life; and one day he threw down his Euclid and Caesar and vanished as completely as if the earth had swallowed him. Every street, court, and alley was searched in vain for the truant; advertisements and handbills offering a reward for his recovery were equally futile. Not a trace of the runaway was to ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... and fringe and feather my edges. To be beautiful is not amiss, But to be loved is more than this; And who more sought than I, By all that run or swim or crawl or fly? Sober shell-fish and frivolous gnats, Tawny-eyed water-rats; The poet with rippling rhymes so fluent, Boys with boats playing truant, Cattle wading knee-deep for water; And the flower-plucking parson's daughter. Down in my depths dwell creeping things Who rise from my bosom on rainbow wings, For—too swift for a school-boy's prize— Hither and thither above me dart the prismatic-hued dragon-flies. At my side the lover ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... kingdom as he was with every other interest. He sought to teach first the priests and nobles, and after that the masses of his people. He introduced the practice of compulsory education for all children, and decreed that truant children be first deprived of food as punishment, and if that did not suffice, that ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... wherein one seeth only oaks. Wherefore, 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 ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... had brought a ball with him, for they had lost theirs. He threw his ball to him. But aren't you coming to play with us? Not to-day, Joseph answered. I'm on my way to school. Well, to-morrow? Not to-morrow. I may not play truant from learning, Joseph answered sententiously, walking away, leaving his former playmates staring after him without a word in their mouths. But by the next day they had recovered their speech and cried out: the fishmonger's son is going ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... sequel full of sin and of sorrow. Jean Jacques was now forwarded to Turin, to become inmate of a sort of charity school for the instruction of catechumens. The very day after he started on foot, his father, with a friend of his, reached Annecy on horseback, in pursuit of the truant boy. They might easily have overtaken him, but they let him go his way. Rousseau explains the case on behalf of his father ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... word, this is most provoking," he interrupted. "I really ought not to stay. But I certainly mean to hear this." He turned irritably to the servant. "Tell the hansom to wait," he commanded, and, with an air of a boy who is playing truant, ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... tell you how I long to be at home again and in my old place. In my dreams and in my waking hours, I am often back at the old homestead; my thoughts play truant while I pore over my books, and even while I listen to my teacher in the class-room. I would give so much to know what you are all doing—so much to feel that now and then I am in your thoughts, and that you do indeed miss me ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... original is truande, which, as well as the masculine truand, meant, in old French, a vagabond, a rascal; it is still retained in the English phrase "to play the truant."] ...
— Sganarelle - or The Self-Deceived Husband • Moliere
... oft in glee Came a truant boy like me, Who loved to lean and listen to your lilting melody, Till the gurgle and refrain Of your music in his brain Wrought a happiness as keen to ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... the movement may 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 they tried ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... Newfoundland, unless my little matter here is settled at once. Gloriana don't know it, and sha'n't till I'm off. She'd send me to the Tower, I think, if she caught me playing truant. I could hardly get leave to come hither; but I must out, and try my fortune. I am over ears in debt already, and sick of courts and courtiers. Humphrey must go next spring and take possession of his kingdom beyond seas, or his patent expires; and with him I go, and you too, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... unjustly." The last word was audible, but that was all, and, deeply pained, Ellen retired to her own room, which she did not quit, even to see her favourite cousin decked for the ball. Emmeline sought her, however, and tried by kisses to recall the truant rose, the banished smile, but Mrs. Hamilton did not come to wish her good night, and ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... mean time, our young Doctor is playing truant oftener than ever. He has brought Avis,—if we must call her so, and not Delilah,—several times to take tea with us. It means something, in these days, to graduate from one of our first-class academies or collegiate schools. I shall never ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... out of humor! The roses bloomed above you—sweet emblems of thy purity and rest—and there, close by you, were the pear-trees, planted by your hands, around the roots of which you gathered the rods of my reformation; for I was a truant child. You meant it all for my good, no doubt; but to me it was passing through purgatory then, to merit a future good in time. Ah! how well I remember it—all of it. Requiescat in pace. I had almost irreverently ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... difference, in which Bertrande owned herself to have been wrong, and left his house and family. He was sought and awaited in vain. Bertrande spent the first month in vainly expecting his return, then she betook herself to prayer; but Heaven appeared deaf to her supplications, the truant returned not. She wished to go in search of him, but the world is wide, and no single trace remained to guide her. What torture for a tender heart! What suffering for a soul thirsting for love! What sleepless nights! What restless vigils! Years ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARTIN GUERRE • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the age of ten her life was sketchy. A passionate scramble for food, beatings, tears, slumber, a swift transition from one childish ailment to another that kept her forever out of reach of the truant officer. ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... put a male stickleback in a basin of water in charge of his nest. When the young ones were hatched it was most curious to notice his anxiety for their welfare. Of course young sticklebacks, like young children, are of an inquisitive turn of mind, and apt to play truant too occasionally; but should some little fellow wander too far from the nest, Father Stickles hurries after him, takes the little truant in his mouth, and spits him out right over the nest. This I repeatedly witnessed myself, and ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... aback by this unexpected permission to play truant, and somehow it seemed to lessen his desire to go. He did not understand why, but Mrs. Jo did, and, knowing the natural perversity of the human mind, counted on it to help her now. She felt instinctively that ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... was very dark, as Audrey and her squire passed along Third Avenue to the front. They did not converse—they were both too shy, too impressed by the peculiarity of the predicament. They simply peered. They peered everywhere for the truant form of Musa balanced on one side by a bag and on the other by a fiddle case. From the trim houses, each without exception new, twinkled discreet lights, with glimpses of surpassingly correct domesticity, and the wind rustled loudly through the foliage of the prim gardens, ruffling them as ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... tutor was found for him; but it is to be feared that he was by no means an industrious scholar. Indeed, we hear of such dreadful things as playing truant, so that when a day was fixed for an examination by learned men as to how the Heir-to-Empire was getting on with his studies, "at the master moment it was found that the scholar, having attired himself ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... cried, with her usual buoyant air. "You truant! We've all been wondering what had become of you. Busy, of course! Always the same excuse! Find something fresh. You used it a fortnight ago to refuse my invitation to take ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... had himself a pretty talent for 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 ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... walk 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 ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... burr, and it was considered more prudent, economically and otherwise, to let him go on learning with his grandfather and herself. Mark missed Cass when he went to school in Rosemarket, because there was no such thing as playing truant there, and it was so far away that Cass did not come home for the midday meal. But in summertime, Mark used to wait for him outside the town, where a lane branched from the main road into the unfrequented country behind the Rose Pool and took them the longest ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... people who are dead; and tells me so when she meets me alone here in the gloaming! If I dared, I'd touch you, to see if you are substance or shadow, you elf!—but I'd as soon offer to take hold of a blue ignis fatuus light in a marsh. Truant! truant!" he added, when he had paused an instant. "Absent from me a whole month, and forgetting me ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... Pride of the South was ploughing her way through the waves, bound from Kirton to San Francisco, with liberty to touch at several South American ports. A thick-set, short man, shipped at the last moment as cook's mate, in substitution for a truant, was lying on his back, smoking a cigarette, looking up at the bright stars, and ever and again gently pressing his hand on a little lump inside his shirt. He seemed at peace with all the world, though he was ready to be at war, if need be, and his knife, burnished and clean, lay handy ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... me. Day after day passed and he did not come; and yet I knew that he was in the village. At length I could no longer conceal my distress from my old friend; who, being very indignant at this treatment, called my truant ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... salt air and tar smoke into his lungs that it stopped his growth. The boys used to call him Little Jacket. Jacky, however, though small in size, was big in wit, being an uncommonly smart lad, though he did play truant sometimes, and seldom knew well his school-lessons. But some boys learn faster out of school than in school, and this was the case with Little Jacket. Before he was ten years old, he knew every rope in a ship, and could manage a sail-boat or a row-boat with equal ease. ...
— The Last of the Huggermuggers • Christopher Pierce Cranch
... 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 ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... one thing," said Gunson, as we drew near our resting-place; and I believe now he said it to try and cheer me on. "Perhaps while we have been away the truant may have returned." ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... he was soon aware of something else being wrong, for Brookes was rating the three blacks, who had thoroughly enjoyed their truant holiday, and would have stayed away for days in the myall scrub, but the bush in wet weather is to a blackfellow not pleasant, from the showers of drops falling upon his unclothed skin. Consequently the storm had sent them back, and they were all found clothed and curled up fast asleep in the ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... charmer lived. He was received with demonstrations of regard and affection by Emilia and her mother; but his absence produced great disturbance at Winchester, and finally the Commodore, having been informed of his nephew's disappearance, dispatched Hatchway, who traced the truant to the village where he had taken up his abode, and persuaded him to return to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... 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
... had a fine 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 ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... so persistently into her 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, all her dreams had vanished, the latest ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... derby was stuck fast in the bare branches of an ancient lilac bush which some worshiper of former time had planted by the church door. Galusha rose and limped over to rescue his truant property. ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... An unfrocked monk against us Leads rascal troops, a truant friar dares write Threats to us! Then 'tis time to tame the madman! Trubetskoy, set thou forth, and thou Basmanov; My zealous governors need help. Chernigov Already by the rebel is besieged; ...
— Boris Godunov - A Drama in Verse • Alexander Pushkin
... elder was a benefactress to a man she had never spoken of but as "the Wretch;" the younger held her truant bridegroom's heart, I may say, in her hand all the road and was his protectress. Neither recognised the hand-writing; for no man can write his own hand with ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... you ever try calling the rooster back, when he starts to play truant, with all that mouthful of ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... 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
... combs with the best; He does up the chores while his small sister snores, And his whistle no longer annoys; He's the pride of the house and the king of out-doors,— This wonderful Santa Claus boy! He hastens to school with a heart full of glees, And he never turns truant to play: His lessons he learns with the greatest of ease,— He recites in a beautiful way; And the teacher's so glad that the boy who was bad All his failings has learned to destroy; And she smiles with delight as she breaks up her gad, At the change ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller |
