"Truant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tried not, and to use the simple phrases of her childhood, should be thought coarse or wrong. Such matters were puzzles to her which she could not solve. She got an old thumbed Butler's Grammar and tried hard to correct the vocables of her truant tongue. I am afraid she made poor progress. She had a way of defying that intolerable tyrant, the nominative singular, and put all her verbs in the plural, under an impression, not without example, that it was elegant language. She had enough hard ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... be here soon," 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
... visits of the drover with intense longing. He was sure of a sympathetic listener in Malcolm, who listened with approval to the tales of the various scrapes into which he had got since his last visit; of how, instead of going to school, he had played truant and with another boy his own age had embarked in a fisherman's boat and gone down the river and had not been able to get back until next day; how he had played tricks upon his dominie, and had conquered in single combat the son of Councillor ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... should have come ere this: The promised hour is past: he is not here! I love him—yes, my maiden heart is his; I sigh—I languish when he is not near. The truant! Wherefore tarries he? His love, Were it like mine, would woo him to my side— Or does he—dares he—merely seek to prove The doubted passion of his promised bride? Do I not love him? But does he love me? He ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... and admired its crisp thickness. To her maiden fancy something of his strong virility had escaped even to this wayward little lock of hair. She had wondered then how the Senorita Valdes could keep from loving this splendid fellow if he cared for her. All the more she wondered now, for her truant heart was going out to him with the swift ardent passion of her race. It was as a sort of god she looked upon him, as a hero of romance far above her humble hopes. She found herself longing for chances to wait upon him, to do little ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... when I thought of laughing I felt cold chills of horror. If I had laughed at that moment I cannot think what that justice would have said! But it was a pleasure to have the old man read the deed, looking at me over his spectacles from time to time to make sure I was not playing truant. There are good and great words in a deed. One of them I brought away with me from the conference, a very fine, big one, which I love to have out now and again to remind me of the really serious things of life. It gives me a peculiar ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... the mother's look, But her head she gravely shook, And with lips that fondly smiled Feigned to chide her truant child. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... that was playing truant round the steps did Ben a service without knowing it, for a sudden puff blew a torn leaf to his feet, and seeing a picture he took it up. It evidently had fallen from some ill-used history, for the picture showed some queer ships at anchor, some oddly dressed men just landing, and a crowd of Indians ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... 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, ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... circle, which to her is earth itself, and all that it contains which is most desirable. Her husband and children compose her little world, and beyond them and their sympathies, it is rare indeed that her truant affections ever wish to stray. A part of this concentration of the American wife's existence in these domestic interests, is doubtless owing to the simplicity of American life and the absence of temptation. Still, so devoted is the female heart, so true ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... OF THIS LEGISLATION. 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 procedure. Still more, they have brought ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... 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 of ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 lips and fangs ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... made his appearance—to the great dismay of the assemblage. Scouts were sent in search of him, but they returned with the intelligence that the door of his habitation was fastened, and its inmate apparently absent. No other tidings of the truant sexton could ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the young clergyman, seizing Horatio by the collar. "I have you, truant!" And he drew a tract ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... title, but there are also Japanese, Turkish and Persian noblemen, who are therefore not yet a match for a pretty cultured English maiden. So without any mental scruples, with the calm conviction of the Englishman that his actions are perfectly justified, Harry Truant came between us two with a stanch, even, steady wooing. And what immediately struck me with distressing clearness was the greater ease with which Emmy and Harry understood each other. They were at home in each other's world and immediately understood each other's ways, each other's ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... and Antonia maid, Appeared like two poor harmless women, who Of goblins, but still more of men afraid, Had thought one man might be deterred by two, And therefore side by side were gently laid, Until the hours of absence should run through, And truant husband should return, and say, "My dear,—I was ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... fell from the latter's lips as the truant returned to his post. A tender gracious smile was the only sign of ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... what would become of us all, suppose The sun, some morn, should say, as he rose, 'A truant I'll be to-day—here goes!' ...
— The Nursery, April 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 4 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... this is but a device by which the childish mind 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 ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... that has been a long while your friend and enemy; and if, like Beranger's your gaiety has run away from home and left open the door for sorrow to come in, of all covers in Europe, it is here you may expect to find the truant hid. With every hour you change. The air penetrates through your clothes, and nestles to your living body. You love exercise and slumber, long fasting and full meals. You forget all your scruples and live a while in peace and freedom, and for the moment only. For here, all is absent that ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... vernacula flag. We should have to call in the sunrise and the sunset, the rainbow and the autumn woods and the wild flowers, and the woodpecker and the purple finch and the squirrel and the jay and the butterfly, the November traveller and the truant boy, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... I scarce know whether I will receive you—a truant should be whipped as a punishment—but, mayhap, this will do as well for the nonce,' and the Queen stroked Philip Sidney on both cheeks, saying, 'The gem of my Court, how has it fared ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... merrily like a couple of schoolboys playing truant, and then they disappeared under the doorway of a dilapidated house, whilst I was left wondering how two such elegant gentlemen dared be abroad in Lyons these days, seeing that every man, woman and ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... back, and as they did so the Indians gave a last shout of defiance and began to make camp for themselves. It was as if a lot of schoolboys, playing truant, had been rounded up, and as a last indication of defiance had ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton
... 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 her books and ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... who worked his way to New York and back again to Chicago before he was quite fourteen years old, skilfully escaping the truant officers as well as the police and special railroad detectives. He told his story with great pride, but always modestly admitted that he could never have done it if his father had not been a locomotive engineer so that he had played around railroad tracks and "was onto them ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... the daintiest of garden-hats tied under her pretty chin, was chasing her truant bird through the wood. She had soon reached the limit of the house-grounds, for, though Poll was unable to fly far at the time, he skipped ahead most provokingly, just as Fifine neared him, and called out in his lustiest croaks, "poor Poll, ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... all he knew if he was going to tell at all. Some consolation might have been got out of a report of Benny's short interview with Grayson, had Benny thought to give it, but he had, on reaching home, promptly feigned headache, and gone to bed; so such of the boys as did not determine to play truant, and so postpone the evil day, thought bitterly of the morrow as they dispersed ...
— Harper's Young People, October 5, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... into 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 ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... 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
... one day, wrapped in his shirt, a wasp's nest, which his 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. ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... building and the busy street. A low, massive balustrade guarded the bridge-like portion of the corridor that hung between the heads of the twin flights of stairs, and whence, on looking down, was seen the paved abyss below. Approaching this part, what did he behold but the truant Narcisse, unconscious of his presence, ascending one of these flights of stairs. At the sight of him the gloomy elements of his soul seemed to flash within him and explode, rending all resolution of restraint, and leaving him a puppet of some destructive power, as he stood ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... wrought on thee? Mak'st thou it good to me, now, Lord of men, That love which long ago before the gods Thou didst proclaim? Alas! Death will not come, Except at his appointed time to men, And therefore for a little I shall live, Whom thou hast lived to leave. Nay, 't is a jest! Ah, Truant, Runaway, enough thou play'st! Come forth, my Lord!—I am afraid! Come forth! Linger not, for I see—I spy thee there; Thou art within yon thicket! Why not speak One word, Nishadha? Nala, cruel Prince! Thou know'st me, ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... tugged forward by the scruff of the neck. Others were still in hiding. The men searched among the mounds and bushes. Every now and then the crack of a whip and the yelp of a dog announced the finding of a truant. Two trackers on large snowshoes had already gone ahead to break the trail. It was easy to follow their tracks though the woods were still in darkness and remained so for several hours. At dawn Oo-koo-hoo and our little outfit parted company ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... and Fanny went to school again; but Jack played truant, as he had done in the morning, and went down in the meadows, with the boys, whom he had told ...
— Frank and Fanny • Mrs. Clara Moreton
... way from Blanford to Dullhampton the Bishop was in the best of spirits, much on the principle of a naughty boy who, having played truant, means to enjoy his holiday to the full, well knowing that he will be caned when it is over. Indeed his Lordship became positively skittish, and Miss Arminster was obliged to squelch him a little, as that young lady, for excellent reasons of her own, had no more intention of becoming the mistress ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... gray hair to turn black and his teeth to grow again—if he only took it long enough; and he had, besides, remedies which would cure chickens that had the pip, horses that kicked, old women with the rheumatism, dogs that howled at the moon, boys who played truant, ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... I must parry, Still a wayward truant prove: Where I love, I must not marry; Where I marry, can ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... distinctly. For this purpose he spared neither time nor pains 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 the ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... in its better efforts, really conveys to any of us that kind of idealising power, it does so (though dealing mainly, as its professed instruments, with the most select and ideal remains of ancient literature) oftenest by truant reading; and thus it happened also, long ago, with Marius and ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... the truant?" asked Gaston. "Who but you would have thought of going after him? Well did I know you would never prosper ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his nose. The lamb, not at all disconcerted by the tumble, which was only a variation of its method of progress, came over on its knees and rose at once to go ahead; but the delay had been sufficient. Steve caught up; and the next instant, the truant, feeling the ground removed from under it, hung helpless across ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... what a change in the morals of men army life occasioned. Someone has said, "A rogue in the army, a rogue at home;" but this I deny. Sometimes that same devilish, schoolboy spirit that actuates the truant to filch fruit or melons from orchards of others, while he had abundance at home, caused the soldier oftentimes to make "raids," as they called these nocturnal visits to the farm houses outlying the ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... between long shadows on the grass The little truant waves of sunlight pass; Mine eyes grow dim with tenderness the while, Thinking I see thee, thinking I ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... 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 of the 17th regiment. Dard cross-examined about a hundred ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... may display his energies for the benefit of old mas'r. This done, she orders the servant to show him his bed in one of the "yard houses;" bids the old man an affectionate good night, retires to her room, and watches the return of her truant swain. ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... name's Fishy-Winkle—I live in the sea, To-day I played truant from school, for a spree; But, oh! how I wish that I never had come, For the tide has gone out and I ...
— Fishy-Winkle • Jean C. Archer
... Luciana. "You know perfectly well that she sent Dromio to you to bid you come to dinner;" and Adriana said, "Come, come; I have been made a fool of long enough. My truant husband shall dine with me and confess his silly ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... it? I'm distress'd. From home I must play truant, lest I meet my brother. My father too, perhaps, is come ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... 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 forget my first ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... been luxuriating and feasting for the past half hour while waiting for a truant ward. Jerome took pity upon me and fed me to keep ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... bad policy. Tim was tolerably tractable now that he was having his own way, and was not very strenuous in support of his own pugnacious views. When their plans were fully digested they left the island to prepare the stakes. Before noon they separated, and the truant returned ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... he had risen from the table, Henry attempted to slip out of the house from the front door without Sylvia's knowledge. He had nearly reached the gate, and had a sensation of exultation like a child playing truant, when he heard ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Bourget they circled the 'drome once, noted the wind socks on the great hangars, and dropped as lightly to the field as two tardy, truant schoolboys seeking to ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... young Cupid lost his way, And came to me to find it. He'd been a truant all the day, But didn't seem ...
— When hearts are trumps • Thomas Winthrop Hall
... To the question "Quid muliere levius?" the scandalous Latin writer answers "Nihil," for which I would suggest "Niger." At the supreme moment the interpreter, who had been deaf to the charmer's voice (offering fifty dollars) for the last three days, succumbed to the "truant fever." He knew something of Portuguese; and, having been employed by the French factory, he had scoured the land far and wide in search of "emigrants." He began well; cooked a fowl, boiled some eggs, and made tea; after which he cleared out a hut that was declared tres logeable, and found a native ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... were glistening, I showed to my lover all I wished to hide. His vows were so tender, his speech was so fluent, He whispered his sorrow if ever we must part. My heart in my bosom fluttered and played truant, So I gave it him all ... my innocent heart. On a green bank amidst the purple irises, And the shadow of a pine-wood across it was flung, I gave him soft words, I gave him my kisses, I gave him myself—myself that was so young. On a day, ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... 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 here now, in this field and in the darkness, taking the place of a farmer's watchdog. ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... shrank from imposing the duty on him. Rudolf might send him if he would; I dared not. So we got into our train, and I suppose that my coachman, when he had looked long enough for me, went home. I forgot to ask him afterwards. Very likely he thought it a fine joke to see his master hunting a truant servant and a truant bag through the streets in broad daylight. Had he known the truth, he would have been as interested, ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... discomposed by the prolonged absence of this the only member of his family. It was unjustifiable, as he remarked twenty times a day, unfeeling, unheard-of, unaccountable. He rang for the servants at his private residence every quarter of an hour or so to learn if the truant had returned. He questioned the boy at the office sharply and repeatedly as to orders left with him by Mr. Ryfe before he went away, only to gather from the answers of this urchin, who would, indeed, have forgotten any number of such directions, that he looked ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... hear or see; Whilst those you now would woo, The time-worn truant slight, Nor dream of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 382, July 25, 1829 • Various
... Sutton remain unconscious of its fate—unless some other passer-by should perceive and rescue it from illegibility and dissolution; unless Mabel should espy it on their return-walk, or, coming back, the next moment, to seek her truant mate, catch sight of the snowy leaflet of peace in its snuggery ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... God smiled and took his hand, And said, "Poor truant, passionate fool! Life's book is hard to understand: Why couldst thou not remain ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... well 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. If nothing were said, well and good; unless ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... chance of saving my pet from the clutches of the lion, was to follow his trail; while doing which with infinite difficulty, the ground scarcely deigning to receive a foot-print, I had the satisfaction of meeting Piet and Mohanycom, who had fortunately seen and recaptured the truant. Returning to the giraffe, we all feasted merrily on the flesh, which, although highly scented with the rank mokaala blossoms, was far from despicable, and losing our way in consequence of the twin-like resemblance of two scarped hills, we did not finally regain ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... few conjectures on the subject. May not, for instance, the practice of burning the "holly boy" have its origin in some of those rustic incantations described by Theocritus as the means of recalling a truant lover, or of warming a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various
... distance. He immediately followed her; a loud barking of dogs changed every 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 would form but a harsh response ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... AND FRIENDS, WHOM SHE 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. Your President [Robert ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... unclosed, and the full-orbed moon shed her soft refulgence over the unrivalled scene, and gave it a silvery lustre which sweetly harmonized with the silence of the night. The clock's iron tongue, in a neighboring belfry, proclaimed the hour of twelve, as the truant and unfaithful husband seated himself by the side of his devoted and loving wife, and inquired if ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... was that Jose and Patch, who had gone a-hunting, had not returned when the party had left for Bell Hammer. It was possible that, during their absence, the dogs had come back, and Anthony did not like to think that truant Patch might be wandering around the house, seeking admission in vain. Consequently, after the car had been noiselessly bestowed—out of consideration for their employers' rest, the four had alighted before they left the road and had man-handled a silent Ford up the drive and ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... 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 ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... handicraftsman, journeyman, mechanic, workman, laborer, operative, industrial. Antonyms: idler, drone, dabbler, sluggard, truant, dilettante, loafer, shirker. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... course of a week a number of names had been suggested for the tiny bit of a stranger, but none could suit the taste of Jim. He waited still for a truant inspiration, and meanwhile "Skeezucks" came daily more and more into use among the ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... still her jealous hair Broke the bright beam, and veiled her from my gaze. She, born and nursed in heaven for angels' praise, No sooner saw this wrong, than back she drew, With hand of purest hue, Her truant curls with kind and gentle mien. Then from her eyes a soul so fiery keen, So sweet a soul of love she cast on mine, That scarce can I divine How then I 'scaped from burning utterly. These are the first fair signs of love to be, That bound my heart with adamant, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... 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
... and activity. The usual occupations of the sons of Japanese peasants, such as grass-cutting and rice-weeding, were not to the taste of young Monkey-pine, as the villagers called him, and he spent his time in the streets, a keen-witted and reckless young truant, who feared and cared for no one, and ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... found the French window leading into the garden open; but Honor was well round the corner, and running fast towards the cricket field. Vivian was very much disturbed and distressed. She scarcely knew what she ought to do. She ventured a little way into the grounds, but not a trace of any truant was to be seen, so she thought it useless to search far. One of the girls must have gone out; on that point she was ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... turned from the Archduke with an air rather of dignity than scorn, leaving the Austrian apparently as much relieved by the removal of his eye as is a sullen and truant schoolboy when the glance of his severe ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... his companions, being on the other side of the church, saw nothing of their running into school, and their minds were so taken up with play, that they never heard the clock strike, and continued playing so long till they were afraid to go in; so at last they agreed to play truant, and they all went together a bird's nesting. The first nest they found was a poor little Robin Redbreast's, which one of them, whose name was Harry Harmless, and who was not so hard-heated as the rest, (indeed ...
— The History of Little King Pippin • Thomas Bewick
... last three years we have gone abroad in the middle of October, and returned for Christmas and the New Year," she finished, "but we have made up our minds to remain in England this year. Why, here comes the truant, and it is ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... and genial was the weather that certain lads, imbued with that spirit of lawlessness and adventure which seems inherent in the nature of the young Briton, had conspired together to defy the authority of their schoolmaster by playing truant from afternoon school and going to bathe in Firestone Bay. And it was while these lads were dressing, after revelling in their stolen enjoyment, that their attention was attracted by the appearance of a tall ship ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... the manhood and the intellect of the race. The widespread nature of 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 ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... Mr. Laneway found the outdoor air very fresh and sweet after the closeness of the school-house. It had just that same odor in his boyhood, and as he escaped he had a delightful sense of playing truant or of having an unexpected holiday. It was easier to think of himself as a boy, and to slip back into boyish thoughts, than to bear the familiar burden of his manhood. He climbed the tumble-down stone wall across the road, and went along a narrow path to the spring that bubbled ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... 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 house ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... may Cyprus' heavenly queen, Thus Helen's brethren, stars of brightest sheen, Guide thee! May the Sire of wind Each truant gale, save only Zephyr, bind! So do thou, fair ship, that ow'st Virgil, thy precious freight, to Attic coast, Safe restore thy loan and whole, And save from death the partner of my soul! Oak and brass of triple fold Encompass'd sure that heart, which first made bold ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... forth into the 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, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mate sang out for his watch to man the braces, all jumped to obey save the parson; he stayed with Nils. His absence was noted immediately, for the mate was lynx-eyed; and Fitzgibbon was all for invading the foc'sle and hauling out the truant by the scruff of the neck. Aye, Mister Fitz was all for teaching a lesson with boot and fist, for Holy Joe was a small man and a pacifist, fair game for any bucko. But the squareheads would not have it so. For Nils was dying, and Holy Joe was ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... hear your enemy say so, Nor shall you do my ear that violence, To make it truster of your own report Against yourself: I know you are no truant. But what is your affair in Elsinore? We'll teach you to ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... it entered 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 and the fairest. Across the azure of her youth ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... more of stabbing a man than of skewering a sausage. I grant you that your suspicions do him no wrong. He would sell you in a moment to any one who would buy you. But they are groundless; it is quite plain what he wants. He sees that you are a foreigner of good birth and position; he knows you for a truant on an escapade. Being certain that there will be hue and cry after you, a large reward offered, he means to keep you under his eye until the price is high enough to tempt him, then he will produce you and get the bounty. Call him brigand, say he holds you to ransom, you will be ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... not think it will make some odds to these children that they were brought up under the Maples? Hundreds of eyes are steadily drinking in this color, and by these teachers even the truants are caught and educated the moment they step abroad. Indeed, neither the truant nor the studious is at present taught color in the schools. These are instead of the bright colors in apothecaries' shops and city windows. It is a pity that we have no more Red Maples, and some Hickories, in our streets as well. Our paint-box is very imperfectly ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... one day near the soeter, herding the goats and sheep, because one of the herd-boys had played truant and she had to do his work. It was a warm midday; she was sitting in the shade of a hillock overgrown with birch and underwood; she had thrown off her jacket and taken her knitting in her hand, and was expecting Inga. Something ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... she said. "I forgot about your wife in Delhi." She half turned in the hammock, and after some searching, during which we were silent, succeeded in finding a truant piece of worsted work behind her. The wool was pulled out of the needle, and she held the steel instrument up against the light, as she doubled the worsted round the eye and pushed it back through the little slit. I observed ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... of your leaving the house like a truant schoolboy at this hour of the morning, and in such garb!" demanded Mrs. Bundercombe, eying him severely through her pince-nez. "Is your memory failing you, Joseph Henry? Did you or did you not arrange to accompany me this morning ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was one lady who would not bore him, and making his way to her, he inquired for Lady Elizabeth. Emma, on the other hand, asked after Violet; and it was curious that both questions were put and answered with constraint, as if each was conscious of being something like a truant. ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... If the truant appetite "came back," however, it could not have stayed; for the man ate but little. He frowned, too, as he saw how little the boy ate. He sat silent while his son cleared the food and dishes away, and he was still silent when, with the ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... Truant there from Time and Pain, What I had, I find again: Sunlight in the boughs above, Sunlight in your hair and dress, The hands too proud for all but Love, The Lips of utter kindliness, The Heart of ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke
... 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 parent's happiness, ...
— The Charm of Oxford • J. Wells
... it 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 ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... Evesham keepsake," touching his side, "burst forth again one evening, and left me so spent, that Bessee sent the boy to get me a draught of wine. The boy—mountebank as he is—lost her groat, and played truant; and she, poor wench, got into such fear for me that she went herself, and fell in with a sort of insolent masterful rogues, from whom this young knight saved her. I took her home safe enough after that, and thought to be ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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
... "Ah, truant!" cried the fair maiden, as she caressed her little favourite, "how could you wander from me—how could you ever fancy yourself safe apart from Duty? I saw the hawk wheeling in the air, and I trembled for my beautiful pet; but he has found here a refuge and protector. ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... could 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 of her, ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... had not been at the house in question. Search was at once made; but neither search nor inquiry availed. Late at night, however, a knock was heard at the door of the boy's dwelling, and the mother, hurrying out, found her truant fast asleep on the ground. She could not discover who had knocked. The boy, upon being awakened, laughed, and said that on the morning of his disappearance he had met a lad of about his own age, with very pretty eyes, who ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... one of the girls there, and I've played truant, and—yes, I think I shall go back presently, when I have taken my fill of ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... 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
... such apt and gracious words That aged ears play truant at his tales, And younger hearings are quite ravished; So sweet and voluble is ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... the hospital-cot collection at the children's service last Sunday. He had only fourpence halfpenny. I remember it all now. Oh, how stupid I've been, to be sure!' It was an intense relief to have chased successfully the truant halfpence. 'Now, Queenie,' went on Theo gleefully, 'in five minutes I shall be ready for you, and we are going to have a good time in the boat. Get ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... frisk'd, the damsel fain Would wile him back,—she called in vain. The truant gamboll'd farther: One follow'd for the maiden's sake, A pilgrim in an Angel's wake— A happy ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... incorrigible before he entered the school. As it was, there was something almost pathetic in his good behavior, as being possible to him, but utterly alien to his instincts. The boys of these schools seldom play truant, and they are never severely beaten in school; when quite intractable, notice is given to their parents, and they usually return in a more docile state. It sometimes happens that the boys are taken away by their parents, from one motive or another; ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... into it, it is especially a school for boys, as you will understand when you learn that it is a Truant School. ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 32, June 17, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... 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. ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... was due for a sitting this Wednesday morning, and he went down into the country, intending to be back for lunch and the House of Commons. But the weather was magnificent, and, the sitting over, truant thoughts began to assail the young legislator. Bushey Park was at hand, with its chestnut avenue leading to Hampton Court. A ramble of indefinite duration was, in his present frame of mind, much more attractive than the eloquence of independent members. He determined ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... 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
... truant went homeward and manfully confessed to the quarrel with Parson Throckmorton. Uncle Peter Forbes was amazingly mild. There was no gusty outbreak of temper and, in fact, he had little to say. It was in his mind to patch up a truce with his troublesome nephew pending their ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... two previous, and that charming story had made a great impression on his mind. Under its weird influence his vivid imagination conjured up possible scenes of adventure in which he was to emulate the courage and sagacity of that celebrated truant, and eventually come home, as Robinson did, a man full of knowledge with which to astonish the family, and with wealth to lavish on brothers and sisters, and make comfortable the declining years of his parents. "Then his father would not think him a fool," said this youthful logician ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... that the boy had been left behind at Potsdam. The tutor thereupon turned back in one of the carriages, whilst the rest proceeded to the next stopping-place. In the course of an hour he returned with the truant seated by his side, dusty and footsore, but otherwise as fresh as when he had started. He had, it appeared, strayed from the party at Potsdam, and returned to the starting-place in time to see the carriages disappearing in the distance enveloped in a cloud of dust. He began to run, but seeing ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... 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 ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... world, and he always talks it away whenever he finds a scholar in company; but I know the rogue, and will catch him yet.' Though I was already sufficiently mortified, my greatest struggle was to come, in facing my wife and daughters. No truant was ever more afraid of returning to school, there to behold the master's visage, than I was of going home. I was determined, however, to anticipate their fury, by first falling into a ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... 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, and had a significance they did not have when they were first told him in his restless twenties. ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... attempt one other,' said the truant—'the utter worthlessness of young ladies' letters, which is such as not to encourage their friends to make any ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... editor had instructed his subordinates to inform Gallegher, when he condescended to return, that his services were no longer needed. Gallegher had played truant once too often. Unconscious of this, he remained with his new friend until late the same evening, and started the next afternoon toward the ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... perhaps murdered. They, who had lived in the 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
... 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 at the ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... 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
... very small school, for many boys were away helping to collect the sheep for the schooner, which was coming in, and some were playing truant. The sheep were carted down to the shore and the men were ready for embarking, when the ship moved out, and so all their labour was again in vain. The sea was "making up," and to-night is stormy. It is rather late in the year for a sailing-ship to ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... 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 and the sense ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... truant, a chip of the old block, as Tona put it, thinking of that loafer who had been responsible for her, and who also sat staring day in day out at the horizon like a good-for-nothing idiot, half awake. If Tona had had to depend on that girl for a living, a fine mess ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... giving me blows on the chest with his knuckles, as if he were knocking at a door. He thumped me here, and he thumped me there, and listened with his ear pressed against my body. 'Nay,' I cried. 'Gently! gently my good fellow! Find the truant!' And he went on for half an hour longer, knocking with his knuckles and listening with his ear. At last he got tired of hearing nothing. 'Ah! friend of my soul!' he said, making the sign of the cross, 'you have a liquid heart. I never saw anything like it in my life!' 'Yes, I knew that before, ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... accident, the lover's friend, performed the work, and did him a good turn beside. The old Frenchman was slowly approaching, when a frolicsome wind whisked off his hat and sent it skimming along the beach. In spite of her late lecture, away went Debby, and caught the truant chapeau just as a wave was hurrying up to claim it. This restored her cheerfulness, and when she returned, she was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... verra nicht o' the Latin prose I cam up to speak aboot the college, and ye thocht Geordie hed been playing truant." ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... 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 Restaurant. His guests were his nephew, young Herbert, ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... to the left. As he put his feet upon this, he swung like a pendulum across the space. It was a severe grueling of nerves, but his judgment of placement was good. When the ladder stopped swinging he clambered up another story, as he had learned to do on truant afternoons wasted at the firemen's training school, during the privileged ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... love's delight And let the whole world see; Alas! one day, away, away, Sped truant Bumble Bee; 'Twas then the red rose turned to white - So was the ...
— Poems of Experience • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... expresses this feeling. One day a little stray dog attached himself to me and followed me home; I took him into the house and had him fed, intending to keep him until I could discover the owner. For this act of kindness the dog expressed thanks in the usual way. Rover, although used to play the truant, from the moment the little stranger entered the premises, never quitted us till he saw him fairly off. His manner towards us became more ingratiating than usual, and he seemed desirous, by his assiduities and attentions, to show us, that we stood in need ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various |
