"Absent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stateroom, Nayland Smith, his gaunt face wet with perspiration, beside me, handling certain odd-looking objects which littered the place, and lay about amid the discarded garments of the absent cleric. ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... the drawing-room door open, and suddenly disclose the beautiful figure of Lady Massey, than a mighty cloud seemed to roll away from the young Irishman's brow. At this time it happened, and indeed it often happened, that Lord Carbery was absent in Ireland. It was probable, therefore, that during the long couple of hours through which the custom of those times bound a man to the dinner-table after the disappearance of the ladies, his time would hang ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... charity of those into whose hands this work shall fall, to join with me in thanksgiving and blessing to Our Lord, Who has inspired me to make known this life to those present and those absent, and has given me the strength to do it. Pray for me and with me, that I may try here below to follow in the steps of this peerless man, whom, by God's goodness, I have had the happiness of living with for ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... outside the hut in which to store my precious powder. It was safe enough in a way above ground, as I have already mentioned, but with inquisitive strangers like Mr. Latimer prowling around, I certainly didn't mean to leave a grain of it about while I was absent from the shed. I packed it all away in a waterproof iron box, which I had specially ordered for the purpose, and buried it in the hole that I had dug outside. Then I covered the latter over with a couple ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... which she completely reacted. She progressed so well that it was not deemed advisable to remove the head-bandage until the fourth day, when it was seen that the wounds had almost entirely healed and suppuration was virtually absent. The patient rapidly and completely recovered, and her neighbors, on her return home, could hardly believe that she was the same woman whom, a few days before, they were preparing ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... them in surprise, unable to account for the transformation. Petersen was forgotten; jewels and treasure were forgotten; even the strange code was forgotten and Grant absent-mindedly thrust it into his ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... Excused myself and interviewed my C.O. behind the dining-room door. Came back and accepted. Q.M.S. so overjoyed (apparently) that he fell over the scraper. Seemed to jog his memory. He paused, and gazing in absent fashion at the topmost rose on the climber in the porch, asked whether I could take three! Added hopefully that the third was only a boy. Excused myself. Heated debate with C.O. Subject: sheets. Returned with me to explain to the Q.M.S. He smiled. C.O. accepted ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... soldiers were, and heard often how they fared: their sickness, wounds, and deaths were all recorded. But the scenes of this war's vast theatre are so often shifted, and communication with the remoter parts of the Southwest is so uncertain, that months will elapse without a line of tidings from the absent; the grass has grown and withered again, over many graves, before the weary hearts at home knew that the time was past, for waiting, ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... that these animals were looking very ill, and could not drink the mud remaining in the pond. At the same time intelligence was brought me that four of the horses had broken their tether ropes during the night, and that William Baldock had been absent in search of them on foot, from an early hour in the morning. I immediately sent back the whole of the bullocks to Nyingan, with a dray containing the empty harness casks, also the horses, and a cart carrying all our other empty casks; and the whole of the cattle and ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... without some old musical instruments, indicating that at one time or other one or more members of the family have been musical. There is a sadness about the discovery of a long-neglected instrument, telling of the breaking up of the old home or of an absent one whose instrument has been cherished in memory of happy moments when harmonious sounds and beautiful music were drawn from the now long-neglected piano, harp, or violin. To its owner a simple flute or bugle is probably of as much value as an old piano, although ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... any extravagant way; she did not absent herself from any meals; she attended mass, for she was a devout Catholic, in the private chapel every morning, and, indeed, spent a great deal of time there in prayer; she never gave up one of her accustomed duties, ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... or old age; she herself, in spite of her large family, being young and beautiful as ever. They stayed three months, and it seemed to all but Maelduin that the three months were three years. When the queen was absent, one day, the men took the boat and compelled Maelduin to leave the island with them; but the queen rode after them and flung a rope, which Maelduin caught and which clung to his hand. She drew them back to the shore; this happened thrice, and ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... Ponds. Started for the camp on the Newcastle Water. On my arrival, I found the party all right, but very anxious about me, as I had been absent longer than I intended. No natives had been near them during my absence at this time; smoke was seen all around. Weather hot during the day, but cold at night and in ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... Morning-star all dimmed and dusky-red; the fair creature was silent, absent, she seemed to have been weeping. Alas, no longer a Morning-star, but a troublous skyey Portent, announcing that the Doomsday had dawned! She said, in a tremulous voice, They were to meet no more." The thunder-struck Air-sailor is not ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... conjectures, however, did not grow to positive statements, though insidious hints were thrown out that those who guessed the Viscount Giovanni Massetti to be the culprit were not far out of the way. Massetti, it was known, had been absent from Rome for several days about the period the abduction was supposed to have taken place, but he did not deign to notice the hints current in regard to himself and no one was hardy enough to question him. Nevertheless ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... punished with death; and this, not in the case only of the third offence, but even in the very first instance. It was enacted, "That, if any Negro or other slave should withdraw himself from his master for the term of six months, or any slave, who was absent, should not return within that time, every such person should suffer death." There was also another West Indian law, by which every Negro was armed against his fellow Negro, for he was authorized to kill every runaway slave; and he had even a reward held out to him for so doing. Let ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... and with a heavy heart and repugnant conscience, Vivian followed. At this instant, he wished for Russell, to prevent what he knew would be the consequence of this interview. But Russell was absent—the keeper of his conscience, the supporter of his resolution, was not at hand. Woe to him who is not the keeper of his own conscience—the supporter of his own resolution! The result of this political breakfast was just what every reader, who knows the world but half as well as Lord Glistonbury ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... bales were cut open, and their contents scattered upon the ground; and, upon a near examination, we found that the impudent robbers had used our dishes to feast from, and that there were still smoking brands upon the fire where they had boiled their coffee, as though they knew we should be absent all night, and had plenty of time to ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... on his travels without delay, in order that he might once more look upon his Fanny, from whom he had been absent for ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... war came to an end. Bonaventure was glad. 'Thanase was expected home, but—let him come. If the absent soldier knew what the young folks at the balls knew, he would not make haste in his return. And he did not, as it seemed. Day after day, in group after group, without shouting and without banners, with wounds and scars and tattered garments, some on horses, but many more on foot, ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... role of Aurelia. She had withdrawn to her rooms, and had asked permission of the queen-mother to absent herself from dinner. Her part was difficult, and she needed preparation ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... Battle of Navarino, when the allied ships of the English, French, and Russians destroyed the Turkish fleet; but it seemed to him that he could not have borne to have the allies impose a king upon the Greeks, when they really wanted a republic, and so he was able to console himself for having been absent. He did what he could in fighting the war over again, and he intended to harden himself for the long struggle by sleeping on the floor, as the Greek soldier had done. But the children often fell asleep on the floor in the warmth ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... poets tell us—these snowy flowers bathe their charms, when the sun is absent, but lift up their virgin heads, when he looks down approvingly:—but that, sometimes deceived, on some peerless damsel's approaching, they mistake her eye for their loved luminary, and pay to her beauty an abrupt and involuntary homage:—now ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... morning. Another distinguished man of the same century, Benjamin Franklin, used sometimes to work naked in his study on hygienic grounds, and, it is recorded, once affrighted a servant-girl by opening the door in an absent-minded moment, thus unattired. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... all in the household were absent, the leaves of the oak tree rustled loudly. There was no wind, and Snow White, surprised, strained her ears to find out what this might mean. Soon she could make out ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... an hour she had made tea, and sat down to take a cup. The cat, refreshed after slumber, jumped on to her lap and lay there pawing playfully at the trimming of her sleeves. Lilian at first rewarded this friendliness only with absent stroking, but when she had drunk her tea and eaten a slice of bread and butter the melancholy mood dispersed; pussy's sportiveness was then abundantly indulged, and for awhile Lilian seemed no less ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... interest to him, psalmody carried his soul towards heaven in holy raptures, he could not help voting for its continuance in the church service. Ullerston quotes also two lines, not indeed specimens of classical accuracy, but the spirit of which should never be absent from the mind of a Christian worshipper, whether a Protestant or in communion with ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... one fifth of the Athenian population (then rated at ten thousand), became greatly agitated; and twice proposed a massacre of the Christians. This was resisted by the humane Khadi; and the Turks, contenting themselves with pillaging absent proprietors, began to lay up stores in the Acropolis. With ultra Turkish stupidity, however, out of pure laziness, at this critical moment, they confided the night duty on the ramparts of the city to Greeks. The consequence may be supposed. On the eighth of May, the Ottoman ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... assumed its usual absent expression, and she seemed busy with some memory and unconscious of his presence. He recalled the latter to her by rising and saying, "I will bid you good-morning now, but I hope you will let me come and sit here sometimes if it doesn't disturb you. I have been ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... picked up five men of your ship's company, is a Mohammedan, though the captain and his wife are Congregationalists. We have a religious service on board at eleven o'clock, to which your party are invited, though no umbrage will be taken if you prefer to absent yourselves." ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... Deceitful Star, whose beams are bright to blind, Although their more benignant influence poured The light of glory on the Switzer's sword, And hallowed Washington's immortal name. Liberty! Thou when absent how deplored, And when received, how wasted, till thy name Grows tarnished; shall mankind, ne'er ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... that men are always endeavouring to mend their Condition and render Society more happy as to this World we may easily conceive, when it was evident that Nothing could be a Check upon Man that was absent, or at least appear'd not to be present, how Moralists and Politicians came to look for Something in Man himself, to keep him in Awe. The more they examin'd into Human Nature, the more they must have been convinced, that Man is so Selfish a Creature, that, whilst ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... that it must been dark and unlawful as all his actions have been since that time. He pretended to get his living like the other fishermen in the neighbourhood; but he was often idle for a week at a time, and still more often, absent. I have seen him count over gold and jewels with old Andrinetta on his return from some expedition. To me he was harsh and cruel. I hated him, and he knew that I hated him. He ordered me to call him father, and I was more than once savagely beaten by him because I refused to do ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... he did, indeed, carry out; though not without constant difficulties in escaping those friendly spirits who would have kept him for hours at a time over a meal, out of sheer conviviality. And it was three weeks or more before the absent-minded dreamer became convinced of the hopelessness of attempting his own work in that particular atmosphere. For Ivan was of a type, fortunately rare, which demands a large amount of daily solitude. ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... Taking the inventory in my hand, I pointed out every article marked down, except when the said article, having through my instrumentality taken an airing out of the house, happened to be missing, and whenever any article was absent I said that I had not the slightest idea where it might be. But the uncouth fellow, taking a very high tone, said loudly that he must know what I had done with the furniture. His manner being very disagreeable to me, I answered that I had nothing to do with him, and as he still raised his ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... are shipwrecked upon an island in the Arctic Ocean. By day and night they dream of absent friends, of mother, wife and child, the pleasant meadows or the sunny hills of their distant homes. Hourly they scan the horizon with eager eyes. Daily they ask each other, "Is there hope?" All former animosities are forgotten, for they are ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... for the men to visit their homes, and the money which they had gained in their trip was of great use to their friends in enabling them to repair the damages effected by the Danes. Not a man was absent at the appointed time, and the Dragon again made her way down ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... the desert, to discover that the two messages do not move in the same circle of thought at all; there is something practical, something severely heart-searching, something at home in every-day life, about John's announcement of the coming kingdom that is quite absent from the visions of his contemporaries. John had not, like some of these seers, a coddling sympathy for people steeped in sin. He traced their troubles to their own doors, and would not let ceremonies pass in place of "fruits meet for repentance." He came from the desert ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... only at the cost of such wild acclaim and evidence of undying sorrow that little Molly came hurrying from the house, her round face stained and tearful, her mouth an inverted crescent. She had gone to the lame puppy for comfort, and now strangled him absent-mindedly in her arms, clutching him to her breast so tightly that his tongue lolled out and his three legs protruded stiffly, pawing an aimless pantomime. When Johnny found that no hope remained, he quelled his demonstrations of emotion and, as befitted a stout-hearted gentleman of the woods, ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... the junior partner swept the technicalities aside with a single gesture. He announced that they would make good all of the obligations incurred by the defaulter. This meant the immediate loss of his own personal fortune, and it meant a serious difference of opinion with the absent head of the firm, whose frantic cables came, however, too late to overrule the ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... sincerely. His chief fault, and a serious one it is, came from his susceptibility to fresh impressions. The pleasure of the present had more power over him than any recollections of the past. The influence of the living woman at his side was greater, for the moment, than that of any absent love. In an evil hour, he committed himself to another. She was, doubtless, formed to inspire his passion and to return it. But he was not free, and had no right to linger on forbidden ground. For weeks, nay, months, he lived this false and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... as I say," he cried. "Frederick, you are to stay away from classes for two days, your professors knowing that you have disobeyed your father. If your fellow students ask you why you are absent, you must tell them what I have said. ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... Faith; which last work was neither rough nor heavy. She was amused (edified too) at the new commentary on his former life which this day gave her: to call upon servants when they were present, seemed as natural as to do without them when they were absent. Faith mused and wondered a little over the old habit which showed itself so plainly, thinking too of his ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... is a remarkable fact that most of the genera of Fly-catchers of Borneo and Java on the one side (Muscipeta, Philentoma,) and of the Moluccas on the other (Monarcha, Rhipidura), are almost entirely absent from Celebes. Their place seems to be supplied by the Caterpillar-catchers (Graucalus, Campephaga, &c.), of which six or seven species are known from Celebes and are very numerous in individuals. We have no positive evidence that these birds pursue butterflies ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Too absent-minded to submit to the bother that the wearing of a wig entails, that man of science—he is a man of science—shows, when he makes a bow, a head that, viewed from the top, has the appearance of ...
— A Street Of Paris And Its Inhabitant • Honore De Balzac
... can be on this point; and I shall divide this Dissertation into four parts. In the first, I shall speak of good angels; in the second, of the appearance of bad angels; in the third, of the apparitions of souls of the dead; and in the fourth, of the appearance of living men to others living, absent, distant, and this unknown to those who appear. I shall occasionally add something on magic, wizards, and witches; on the Sabbath, oracles, and ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... became customary for the king to absent himself from cabinet-meetings. (It will be remembered that George could not speak English.) This tended to make the cabinet even more independent of the sovereign, as shown by the fact that Anne was the ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... good joke:—"'What do you charge for board?' asked a tall Green Mountain boy, as he walked up to the bar of a second-rate hotel in New York—'what do you ask a week for board and lodging?' 'Five dollars.' 'Five dollars! that's too much; but I s'pose you'll allow for the times I am absent from dinner and supper?' 'Certainly; thirty-seven and a half cents each.' Here the conversation ended, and the Yankee took up his quarters for two weeks. During this time, he lodged and breakfasted at the ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... the sum of the affair that brings me: The late Marquis de Condillac left two sons. The elder, Florimond—who is the present marquis, and who has been and still continues absent, warring in Italy, since before his father's death—is the stepson of the present Dowager, she being the mother of the ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... Anko calmly, "I was a little absent-minded and ate an anchor. There was a long chain attached to it, and as I continued to swallow the anchor I continued to eat the chain. I never realized what I had done until I found a ship on the other end of the chain. ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
... most concerned, naturally, with wholly impersonal verse, and in it the aged poet is never wholly absent from English thought. As the youthful singer suggests the southland, so the aged bard seems indigenous to the north. It seems inevitable that Gray should depict the Scotch bard as old, [Footnote: The ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... was invaded by a band of raiders from a neighbouring kingdom called Bernicia. Not finding any one at hand to resist them, the Bernicians began to lay waste the country as they passed. All the men of that neighbourhood seemed to be absent that day; and there was no one to give the alarm as the invaders destroyed the young crops and killed or drove away the cattle which were grazing ...
— Stories from English History • Hilda T. Skae
... addressed, paused above the shield-sign he was lettering, slowly smiling as he dipped and trailed his pencil through the ivory black upon a bit of broken glass and said, in his deliberate, half-absent-minded way,—"Is it Tommy you're telling him about?" and then, with a gradual broadening of the smile, he went on, "Well, I should say so. Tommy! What's come of the fellow, anyway? I haven't seen him since his last bout with the mayor, ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... facts, as narrated, could be sustained. Ma-que-a-pos could give no explanation beyond the general one,—that he "saw us coming, and heard us talk on our journey." He had not, during that time, been absent from the Indian camp. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... understand that all sorcerous spells were completely at her command, but that the exercise of such powers would be derogatory to her high rank in the heavenly kingdom. She said that the spell by which the face of an absent person is thrown upon a mirror was within the reach of the humblest and most contemptible magicians, but that the practice of such-like arts was ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... returned to his house in a better frame of mind. And so the service remitted us all to our own homes, to what roast-beef and plum-pudding slender means permitted, to gatherings around cheerful fires, to half-pleasant, half-sad remembrances of the dead and the absent. ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... ashes and sand that seemed to destroy and bury the monuments of the mighty empires of the ancient world, but which have kindly covered and preserved them, just as we put our treasures away in some safety-vault while absent on a long journey. The fire burned the upper wooden walls of the city, and it fell in ruins, but under those ruins, covered by that ashes, were preserved for two thousand, three thousand, five thousand years uninjured, the choicest sculpture and the most precious records of ancient ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... rescued and conducted safe to the apartments of the Pavilion of Flora. This, probably, may be a matter of no real consequence whatever; but it is our duty to avoid danger, and it has been decided that you should, at least for a time, absent Paris. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... clash while Tecumseh, the master-mind of the fast-growing confederacy, was absent, the Prophet committed a capital blunder. When reproached by his warriors, he declared that all would have gone well but for the fact that on the night before the battle his squaw had profanely touched the pot in which his magic charms were brewed, ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... understood all this and smiled at it, just as she understood that to absent oneself from the Polo Club Races in Cattle Week would be to send in one's resignation from the exclusive social circles to which she belonged, a position quite unthinkable for one who sought only the mild excitements which pertain to ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... the Lady Rowena, breaking silence; "my voice shall be heard, if no other in this hall is raised on behalf of the absent Ivanhoe. I affirm he will meet fairly every honourable challenge, and I would pledge name and fame that Ivanhoe gives this proud knight the meeting ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... whole families perishing during severely cold weather. The father absent on a winter's hunt, the mother could not leave her children to apply to the fort for assistance, even had she strength left to reach there. The frozen bodies would be found in the lodges. The improvident character ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... second year graduate of the pavement could have preserved a completer equanimity; it did not appear that her pulse quickened ever so slightly, nor had her eyelid the suspicion of a droop. She hummed 'Queen of my Heart,' and grew absent in speculative thought, whilst Horace burned and panted at the ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... some one you love better than you love me, but that you have not committed yourself to her. Alas, I know too much of the world to be surprised that a man's constancy should not stand out two years in the absence of his mistress. A man cannot wrap himself up and keep himself warm with an absent love as a woman does. But I think that some remembrance of the past must come back upon you now that you have seen me again. I think that you must have owned to yourself that you did love me, and that you could love me again. You sin against me to my ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... night in a strong castle, called Fleurines, which belonged to a gentleman of the party of the States, whom I had seen with the Comte de Lalain. Unfortunately for me, the gentleman was absent, and his lady only was in the castle. The courtyard being open, we entered it, which put the lady into such a fright that she ordered the bridge to be drawn up, and fled to the strong tower.—[In the old French original, 'dongeon', ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... inclined to believe, that the story is not absolutely without a foundation. It may well be that Addison did not know, till he had consulted experienced clerks who remembered the times when William the Third was absent on the Continent, in what form a letter from the Council of Regency to the King ought to be drawn. We think it very likely that the ablest statesman of our time, Lord John Russell, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmerston, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... had all got somewhere nearer the hall-door; but the Scatcherd retainers were too fond of the row to absent themselves willingly at Dr Fillgrave's bidding, and it did not appear that any one went ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... turning and turning the thick stub of a crayon pencil between his thumb and fore finger. Bat knew that trick of absent-minded motion always presaged senatorial sermonizing, just as the soft laugh down in the crinkles of the white vest forewarned danger. ("When I see the tummy wrinkles coming, I always feel like telling the other fellow to get the button off his fencing sword—You bet that means business," ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... or two soldiers were habitually kept in the hall with us, during the day. The turnkey, who was the presiding imp in that wing—the ghoul of our part of the catacombs—was rarely absent, but passed back and forth, prying and suspicious. Scott (familiarly Scotty) was the name of the interesting creature who officiated as our immediate keeper, for the first four months of our confinement ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... quietly, he retired; and returned to Mr. Haines' house. That gentleman was absent, having gone to the governor's. He did not come back until late in the evening. Charlie passed the time in endeavouring to cheer up Mrs. Haines, and her daughter; assuring them that, if the worst came to the worst, there could ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... about this matter, except that being absent from duty on sick-leave there may be difficulty in the matter of my tunic, which is ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... the analysis quoted is, of course, due to the high amount of sulphur to be found in the gas coke, and is practically absent from water gas made with anthracite, while the nitrogen is due to the method of manufacture, the coke being, in the first instance, raised to incandescence by an air blast, which leaves the generator and pipes ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... hoped that Elsie April would somehow reach that little office. But Elsie April was absent, indisposed. Her absence made the one blemish on the affair's perfection. Elsie April, it appeared, had been struck down by a cold which had entirely deprived her of her voice, so that the performance of the Azure Society's Dramatic ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... men arrived at the Ohio on the tenth of April," said the courier, "and we set to work at once to throw up the fort. We made good progress, but on the morning of the seventeenth, while Captain Trent and thirty of the men were absent, leaving Lieutenant Ward in command, the river was suddenly covered with canoes crowded with French and Indians. There were at least eight hundred of them, and they had a dozen pieces of artillery. We had no choice but ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... was something wanting. There was everything there except the force to accomplish, the initiative which oversteps the bank of words, threats, and angry thoughts, and plunges boldly into the stream, ready to sacrifice itself to lead others. The look of power, of stern determination, which is never absent from the faces of men who change their times, was not visible in the thin dark countenance of the silver-chiseller. Marzio was destined never to rise above the common howling mob ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... the young lady watched the opportunity of her mother being engaged, and her father absent, and went accidentally into the schoolroom to get a pen mended: where, seeing nobody but Nicholas presiding over the boys, she blushed very deeply, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... race have not been absent from 1255 my mind, but that stock has sorely offended me. Now the sons of Seth renew my wrath and take to themselves the maidens of my enemies as wives: the fairness of the 1260 women, the maidens' faces, and the eternal Fiend have shamefully captivated ...
— Genesis A - Translated from the Old English • Anonymous
... the usual pleasant humdrum style; nobody wanted to shine; that hideous bore, the professional talker, was absent, and the company were content with a little mild talk about Miss Ranken's seclusion at sea during the early days of the autumn voyage. The girl said, "Well, never mind, I would go through it all again to see what we saw. I never knew ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... a prominent residence (the former incumbent being absent in arms against his country) for the term of one year, and wrote at once for Mrs. Brigadier-General Doke and the vital issues—excepting Jabez Leonidas. In the camp of treason opposite here there are supposed to be three thousand ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... consecrated ground, to-day. With stronger truth be it said, that a devout heart may consecrate a den of thieves, as an evil one may convert a temple to the same. My heart, perhaps, has not such holy, nor, I would fain trust, such impious potency. It must suffice, that, though my form be absent, my inner man goes constantly to church, while many, whose bodily presence fills the accustomed seats, have left their souls at home. But I am there, even before my friend, the sexton. At length, he comes,—a man of kindly, but sombre aspect, in dark gray clothes, and hair of the ...
— Sunday at Home (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... when the Fixed Period had come, I could have led my father into the college, there to enjoy for twelve months that preparation for euthanasia which no cares for this world would be allowed to disturb. All the existing ideas of the grave would be absent. There would be no further struggles to prolong the time of misery which nature had herself produced. That temptation to the young to begrudge to the old the costly comforts which they could not earn would be no longer fostered. It would be a pride for the young man to feel ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... word was spoken during the few minutes for which Mazeroux was absent. Mme. Fauville seemed absorbed in her grief. M. Desmalions kept his eyes fixed ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... she had gone, and the trouble and expense she had been put to in getting the girl's relatives to let her come; she hoped I would pay the additional expenses; and that I did at a cost of about twenty pounds. What with that and paying for her journey, and for lodgings while absent, Louise had cost me nearly ninety pounds already. Then I undertook to pay for the additional room, in which a bed having been put, an extra was charged; cooking now being done downstairs. Then Louise must have a new gown; then Camille thought I ought to give her something ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... star that rose at evening, bright, Toward heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel. Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute, Tempered to the oaten flute; Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel From the glad sound would not be absent long, And old Damoetas loved to hear our song. But oh! the heavy change, now thou art gone, Now thou art gone, and never must return! Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves, With wild thyme and ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... he innocently relates what has happened, and the father warns him that fiends in this fair disguise strive to tempt hermits to their undoing. The next time the father is absent the temptress, watching her opportunity, returns, and persuades the boy to accompany her to her 'Hermitage' which she assures him, is far more beautiful than his own. So soon as Rishyacringa is safely on board the ship sails, the lad is carried to the ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... the rocks of the river, and that a double-barrelled gun, taken in the boat, was once in his possession, but it had lately burst. His cousin, Abderachman, however, had a small printed book, taken out of the boat; but he was now absent on an expedition to Nyffee. The other books were in the hands of the sultan of Youri, who was tributary to him. Clapperton told the sultan, if he could procure these articles for the king of England, they would ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... said Mrs. Haddo. "But now I wish to say something to you. Betty has been absent from evening prayers at the chapel so often lately that I think it is my duty to speak to ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... moss and deep earth, that the enemy's horse and cannon could be of little service to them; and that it was therefore well selected. By this time the young and unfortunate Master of Lovat had joined the forces, but Lord Cromartie was still, by a fatal mistake, absent; and Macpherson, of Clunie, was at three or four miles distance, marching with all possible expedition towards Culloden. The stragglers and others were also collecting, so that, as Lord George conjectured, the army would have been increased by two or three thousand more men that night, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... complete leaf consists of three parts: the blade, the thin expanded portion; the petiole, the leafstalk; and the stipules, a pair of small blades at the base of the petiole. The petiole is often very short and sometimes wanting. The stipules are often absent, and, even when present, they frequently fall off as soon as the leaves expand; sometimes they are conspicuous. Most Willows show the stipules on ...
— Trees of the Northern United States - Their Study, Description and Determination • Austin C. Apgar
... beloved society was wont to delight me when I was with you, so does the report of your tribulation sadden me continually now that I am absent from you. How have the heathen defiled the sanctuaries of God, and shed the blood of the saints round about the altar. They have laid waste the dwelling-place of our hope; they have trodden down the bodies of the saints ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... princess, who sat to the right of her father. Had it not been for the moiety of barbarism in her nature it is probable that lady would not have been there, but her intense and fervid soul would not allow her to be absent on an occasion in which she was so terribly interested. From the moment that the decree had gone forth that her lover should decide his fate in the king's arena, she had thought of nothing, night or day, but this great event and ...
— The Lady, or the Tiger? • Frank R. Stockton
... was to enter upon his professional studies. The latter entered in the office of an eminent attorney in his native town, which was about twenty miles distant from the village in which lived the family of Edgar and Melissa. Alonzo was the frequent guest of this family; for though Edgar was absent, there was still a charm which attracted him hither. If he had admired the manly virtues of the brother, could he fail to adore the sublimer graces of the sister? If all the sympathies of the most ardent friendship had been drawn forth towards the former, must not the most tender passions of the ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... draft a constitution for a national Anti- Slavery Society, nominate a list of officers, and prepare a declaration of principles to be signed by the members. Dr. A. L. Cox of New York, while these committees were absent, read something from my pen eulogistic of William Lloyd Garrison; and Lewis Tappan and Amos A. Phelps, a Congregational clergyman of Boston, afterwards one of the most devoted laborers in the cause, followed in generous commendation of the zeal, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... without once pausing to look at the river or play on the bridge or pay heed to any of the hundreds of attractions which lie on a walk on a beautiful spring day. Guard made little dashes and excursions in all directions, but was never absent for more than a moment or two from his little ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... rowing some people down the river, among them two prominent politicians who were discussing an absent one. 'He has no more backbone than an oyster,' said one. The boatman laughed, and said, 'Skuse me, marsers, but if you-all gemmen don' know no mo' 'bout politicians dan you does 'bout oyschers you don' know much. No mo' backbone dan a oyscher! ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... valley, in 1838. The Boer women were as anxious to take an active part in the campaign as their grandmothers were at Weenen, and it was only in obedience to the rules formulated by the officers that Amazon corps were absent from the commandos. Instances were not rare of women trespassing these regulations, and scores of Boer women can claim the distinction of having taken part in many bloody battles. Not a few yielded up their life's blood on the altar of liberty, and many will carry ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... in ashes, and the fall of stocks, Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet With tears that trickled down the writer's cheeks Fast as the periods from his fluent quill, Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains, Or nymphs responsive, equally affect His horse and him, ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... you in those funny little ways in which you are a useful little animal. I am under no delusion as to the value of that Soul of yours—but, such as it is, I am determined to save it. So just you bring it round to tea to-morrow, as usual; and don't you ever be absent again without my permission. You began the game and I'll end it—when I think ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... answered, in the same absent manner. Then with an effort which was apparent in her tone, 'Lord Almeric Doyley was there,' she ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... of the universality of Turner's; but only to explain in what real truth, as far as it is explicable, consists, and to illustrate it by those pictures in which it most distinctly occurs, or from which it is most visibly absent. And it will only be in the full and separate discussion of individual works, when we are acquainted also with what is beautiful, that we shall be completely able to prove or disprove the presence of ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... The four pages consisting of the Contents and List of Illustrations appeared twice in the original text, first as pgs. v-viii, then as pgs. xv-xviii. (The intervening pages are absent.) The text and layout are identical except that the first group is headed "Contents", the second "Corsica." The repeated ...
— Itinerary through Corsica - by its Rail, Carriage & Forest Roads • Charles Bertram Black
... up the path," said Nan, in a half absent way, as if what she was telling seemed far less important than the perplexing issues it had bred in her. "I said good evening to her. I went by her: I think I did. I must have got into the kitchen first. And there he was. ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... at her. She was very white, and her lips were parted and pale. There was a distressed and strangely absent look upon her face which startled me, though I had no ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... eyes over the group that surrounded him, he discovered that Frank and Harry, the ones he most feared, were still absent. This was exactly what he had wished for. With the assistance of his companions, the Rangers, who, he was confident, would uphold him, he could settle up all old scores, without fear of suffering ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... concerns no one else, and it disgraces neither of us. I should be in despair, if this sad controversy were made the pretext for insulting the father of my children and the honored name he bears. For the very reason that I stand alone, am I called on to defend the absent to the best of my ability. Therefore let M. Despres come to me; I will instruct him how to answer this ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... struggle against the wild-boar king Twrch Trwyth, who with his seven cubs holds in check all the heroes of the Round Table. The adventures of the three hundred ravens of Kerverhenn similarly form the subject of the Dream of Rhonabwy. The idea of moral merit and demerit is almost wholly absent from all these compositions. There are wicked beings who insult ladies, who tyrannise over their neighbours, who only find pleasure in evil because such is their nature; but it does not appear that they ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... chair!" "Lead the procession!" Mrs. Comstock was dumbfounded. The notes of the pipe organ began to fill the building in a slow rolling march. Would Elnora lead the procession in a gingham dress? Or would she be absent and her chair vacant on this great occasion? For now, Mrs. Comstock could see that it was a great occasion. Every one would remember how Elnora had played a few nights before, and they would miss her and pity her. Pity? Because ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... at first only grotesque. The colors would be the very ones he had learned to shun as tawdry or bizarre. The tones and shades, modest and tender, subdued yet rich, in which his fancy had always taken special delight, would be the ones which are conspicuously absent." ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... "Barnaby Rudge," explains to his friends that his absent son Joe is away in "the Salwanners in America, where the war is." Mr. Willett's knowledge and appreciation of the American colonies represents pretty well for profundity and accuracy the knowledge and appreciation of the majority of the English people in ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... last! The Leverings brought a friend to call this afternoon, who has just arrived in Lone-Rock to spend the rest of vacation with them; a grumpy, middle-aged, absent-minded, old professor from the East, who seemed rather bored with us at first. But when he was taken out to the side-show in the 'Zoo,' he waked up in a hurry. His very spectacles gleamed and his gray whiskers bristled ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... inferior so brutally as we are apt to do. There is a general intention to make things pleasant—at any rate so long as it does not involve the doer in loss. There is less gratuitous insolence. Servility, with its attendant hypocrisy and deceit, is conspicuously absent; and the general spirit of independence, if sometimes needlessly boorish in its manifestations, is at least sturdy and manly. In England we are rude to those weaker than ourselves; in America the rudeness is apt to be directed ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead |
