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noun
Absentee  n.  One who absents himself from his country, office, post, or duty; especially, a landholder who lives in another country or district than that where his estate is situated; as, an Irish absentee.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Absentee" Quotes from Famous Books



... to your minds some idea of the antiquity of this Chamber, he would scarcely do it, I think, by saying it was founded in 1768. So few besides the reporters would personally recollect those times. He would rather tell you that it dates back to an epoch when each absentee from the annual dinner was fined five shillings sterling for the offence. Think of that! How eloquently it seems to tell us that there was no Delmonico in those days. I can understand how a people that punished such a slight to commerce in such a way, would rebel at stamp acts and other ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... imports and exports of a country, so must there be a balance between the revenue raised in a nation and the public expenditure on that nation. Irish economic depression after the Act of Union was due in large measure to absentee landlordism and the expenditure of Irish revenue outside Ireland with no proportionate return. This must not be expected to continue against Irish interests. Ireland, granted the freedom it desires, would be willing to defend its freedom and the freedom of other dominions in the commonwealth ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell

... he had been in correspondence with Mr Brackenbury regarding Protestants in Spain being debarred from marrying. It is inconceivable that Mrs Clarke and her daughter contemplated living in the North of China; and equally unlikely that Mrs Clarke would marry a potential "absentee landlord," or one who frankly confessed "I hope yet to die in the ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... explained by the fact that both managers and public were dealing with a new agency whose laws they did not completely understand. But the mere play of personal forces in themselves aggravated the antagonism. The fact that most of the railroad magnates lived in the East added that element of absentee landlordism which is essential to most agrarian problems. Many of the Western capitalists were real leaders; yet it is only necessary to remember that the most active man in Western railroads in the seventies was Jay Gould, to understand the suspicion in which the railroad ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody

... which had now for some generations been the habitation of the dowager of the Brotherton family. When the late marquis died, this had become for her life the property of the Marchioness; but had been ceded by her to her son, in return for the loan of the big house. The absentee Marquis had made with his mother the best bargain in his power, and had let the dower house, known as Cross Hall, to a sporting farmer. He now kindly offered to allow his mother to have the rent of her own house, signifying at the same time his wish that all his family should remove themselves ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... What was his position in this house! What was his real duty here? Suppose it was not to guard this woman, but to watch her. Let us imagine that it was not the woman he served, but a master, and see where that leads us. For this house has a master, a mysterious, absentee landlord, who lives in St. Petersburg, the unknown Russian who came between Chetney and Zichy, and because of whom Chetney left her. He is the man who bought this house for Madame Zichy, who sent these rugs and curtains from St. Petersburg to furnish ...
— In the Fog • Richard Harding Davis

... Patriotism (that is according to the meaning of the word in those days, the pretence of preferring the interests of the people to those of the Crown), "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel," gains an added piquancy from the fact that it was uttered at "The Club" under the nominal though absentee chairmanship of Charles Fox, soon to be the greatest of "patriots," and in the ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey

... to custom, began his reign by taking an exactly opposite course to his predecessor, and ended it by falling into nearly the same errors and abuses. He suggested an Absentee-tax, which was introduced by Flood, but rejected through the preponderating influence of the landed aristocracy. In preparing the tables of expenditure, he had caused arrears amounting to 265,000 pounds, and an ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... them, the charm which armies and circus processions have for children everywhere. But their passage filled with cruel anxiety a large old dog whom his master had left harnessed to a milk-cart before the hotel door; from time to time he lifted up his voice, and called to the absentee with hoarse, deep barks that almost shook him from ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... election of William and Mary by the English convention. He entered Dublin in state on the 24th March, accompanied by D'Avaux, as Ambassador from France, and a splendid court. His first act was to issue five proclamations—the first, requiring the return and aid of his Irish absentee subjects; the second, urging upon the local authorities the suppression of robberies and violence which had increased in this unsettled state of affairs; the third, encouraging the bringing provisions for his army; the fourth, creating a currency of such metal ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... of money, and (towards the last part of his life, at least,) of pleasure. It will be seen in the sequel how soon his gains were dissipated, and his house overthrown. At his death he wielded all the power of the Empire which his energies and virtues had restored. He was Deputy Vazir of the absentee Viceroy of Audh, and Commander-in-Chief of the army. He held the direct civil administration, with receipt of the surplus revenues, agreeably to Eastern usages, of the province of Agra and the Jat territories, together with the district of Alwar to the south-west ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene

... a man so attached to me, I had noticed his absence as soon as I entered the meeting hall. To tell the truth, I came to the hall with the intention of sitting next to him. The principal said that the absentee may appear shortly, and untied a package he had before him, taking out some hectograph sheets and began reading them. Red Shirt began polishing his amber pipe with a silk handkerchief. This was ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri

... ownership be proved out of the registers of property. If the property is registered as belonging to some one who is absent, possession shall be given to him who offers sufficient security on behalf of the absentee; or if the property is not registered, let it remain with the three eldest magistrates, and if it should be an animal, the defeated party must pay the cost of its keep. A man may arrest his own slave, and he may also imprison for safe-keeping the runaway slave ...
— Laws • Plato

... the Blue Mountain Valley. The Belvidere is one of the finest estates in the valley. It contains two thousand acres, only four hundred of which are cultivated in sugar; the most of it is woodland. This estate belongs to Count Freeman, an absentee proprietor. We took breakfast with the overseer, or manager, Mr. Briant. Mr. B. stated that there was not so much work done now as there was during slavery. Thinks there is as much done for the length of time that the apprentices are at work; but a day and a half every ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... own great surprise, wasted the generosity of which they were perhaps too conscious. According to Miss HARRISON the gombeenman is the curse of Ireland, the serpent whose presence, if only he can be reduced to being an absentee, warrants us in regarding Ireland as a possible Eden. Miss HARRISON will please to take the preceding sentence as proving my entire sympathy with Irish modes of thought and expression and, generally, with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various

... among the stars. Hell or heaven I never heard formulated, nor their equivalents; unless that existence in the Shining One's domain could serve for either. Over all this was Thanaroa, remote; unheeding, but still maker and ruler of all—an absentee First Cause personified! Thanaroa seemed to be the one article of belief in the creed of the soldiers—Rador, with his reverence for the Ancient Ones, was an exception. Whatever there was, indeed, of high, truly religious ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... the whole population of the United States is fluid. Equally notable is the enormous proportion of the British prosperous which winters either in the high Alps or along the Riviera. England is rapidly developing the former Irish grievance of an absentee propertied class. It is only now by the most strenuous artificial banking back that migrations on a far huger scale from India into Africa, and from China and Japan into Australia ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... of these English prairies, comprising a farm called the Moors, was, at the time of which I write, in the occupation of a wealthy yeoman named John Cobbam, who, the absentee tenant of an absentee landlord, resided upon a small property of his own about two miles distant, leaving the large deserted house, and dilapidated outbuildings, to sink into gradual decay. Barns half unthatched, tumble-down cart-houses, palings rotting to pieces, and ...
— Jesse Cliffe • Mary Russell Mitford

... "One of them I can answer for, though. The young lady who is to sit on my right will be down directly—Miss Elizabeth Dalstan, the great actress, you know. She is by way of being under my charge. Very charming and talented young lady she is. Let us see who our other absentee is." ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... Delobelle, ordered a pitcher and two glasses as the former had done, then sat erect with his hands in his pockets and his back against the wall, waiting in his turn. The two empty glasses in front of them, intended for the same absentee, seemed to be hurling defiance ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet

... always be in session, as he never was so happy as when he could be in daily contact with it. His door was open at all times to a senator or a member of the House of Representatives. If either failed to see him at least once a week, the absentee usually received a message stating that the president desired him to call. He was very keen in discovering any irritation on the part of any senator or member about any disappointment or fancied slight, ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew

... his younger sister had even borne him in mind. His father looked surprised at this, not to say a little grave; and he waited, with evident curiosity, for the gifts of Maud, as one thing after another came up, without any signs of her having recollected the absentee. ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... most part being in French, the native tongue of the doctor and priest, and spoken with facility by Jean Thompson the lawyer, who was half Americain; but running sometimes into English and sometimes into mild laughter. Mention had been made of the absentee. ...
— Madame Delphine • George W. Cable

... Julius? I declare I get a little weary of this Deity of yours. He neglects his business so flagrantly. He really is rather scandalously much of an absentee. And He would be so welcome if He would condescend to deal a trifle more openly with one, and satisfy one's intelligence and moral sense. If, for instance, He would afford me some information regarding this same psychological moment which I need so badly just ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... Religious service and leadership in the one section under the direction of college and theological seminary men can hardly be put in the same class with the highly emotional expression of religious impulses of the mountain section led by once-a-month absentee pastors with no education, or, worse still, by wandering so-called evangelists of doubtful morality. One could go through the whole list of contrasts between the economically well-favored sections of the country and the less favored agricultural sections and in no way would the advantage ...
— Church Cooperation in Community Life • Paul L. Vogt

... and absentee,—This is Christmas-day 1815 with us; what it may be with you I don't know, the 12th of June next year perhaps; and if it should be the consecrated season with you, I don't see how you can keep it. You have no turkeys; ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... had not known that from them alone could light and civilization descend upon these poor wretches. I had often heard, as every one has, of the evils of absenteeism, but till I came and saw its effects I had no notion how great a crime it is.... They [the absentee landowners] thought only of themselves and their own enjoyments, they left their people to grow up and multiply like brute beasts, they stifled in them by their tyranny all hope and independence and desire of advancement, they made them cowards and liars, and have now left them ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... ghosts of dead loves, haunting a love that has grown upon the graves of the past, is a check upon passion, which by a sudden turn at the close triumphs in a victory that is defeat. Fears and Scruples is a confession of the trials of theistic faith in a world from which God seems to be an absentee. What had been supposed to be letters from our friend are proved forgeries; what we called his loving actions are the accumulated results of the natural law of heredity. Yet even if theism had to be abandoned, it would ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... is the way in which religious instruction may be put aside in favor of a blind though legitimate love. Madame refused breakfast, and ordered the meal to be kept hot, just as she kept herself ready, at a moment's notice, to welcome the precious absentee. ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac

... written a little play for our present large juvenile audience, [Footnote: Mrs. Beddoes and her three children were now at Edgeworthstown.] not for them to act, but to hear; I read it out last night, and it was liked. The scene is in Ireland, and the title "The Absentee." When will you let me read it to you? I would rather read it to you up in a garret than to the most brilliant audience ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... heard the bell ringing. We had just reached our tavern when a committee appeared stating that they had been waiting for us and that the congregation was assembled. It appears that a noted exhorter had been expected who had no doubt been delayed as we had been. I was taken for the absentee minister and asked how soon I would be ready to accompany them to the meeting-house. I was almost prepared with my companions to carry out the joke (we were in for fun), but I found I was too exhausted with fatigue to attempt it. I had never before ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie

... invitation requires a reference to his journal: if you invite him for Saturday next, he will turn to his tablets, apologise for a previous engagement, run his eye eagerly down the column for an occasional absentee, and then invite himself for some day in the ensuing week, to which your politeness cannot fail to accede. You will meet him in London, Brighton, Bath, Cheltenham, and Margate during the fashionable periods; at all of which ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... "laughable results of the Gilder Tenement House Commission." Those results made for the health and happiness and safety of a million and a half of souls, and were accounted, on every humane ground, the longest step forward that had been taken by this community. For the old absentee landlord, who did not know what mischief was afoot, we have got the speculative builder, who does know, but does not care, so long as he gets his pound of flesh. Half of the just laws that have been passed for the relief of the people he has paralyzed ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... under father and son, attained enormous prosperity, prestige and real power. It suffered chiefly from what they call in Ireland "absentee landlordism." Its "proprietor," for he never described himself as its "editor," was a man of exquisite sensibilities—a "despot" of course—whom nature created for a good citizen, a good husband and the head of a happy domestic fabric. He should have married the woman of his choice, ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... feels superior to individuals, who looks at men as dots and dreams—and who expects to deal with a man subconsciously and get on with him as if he were not there—the employer who is an absentee in soul and body, and who gives an order to his men and then goes off and leaves them like pumps, hydraulic rams, that of course cannot help slaving away for him until they are stopped—the employer who during the first stupid stages ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee

... of the universe to the mind from which it derived its power? Some say that it is the relation of a wound-up watch to the winder. It was dowered with sufficient power to revolve its ceaseless changes, and its maker is henceforth an absentee God. Is it? Let us have courage to see. For twenty years one devotes ten seconds every night to putting a little force into a watch. It is so arranged that it distributes that force over twenty-four ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren

... to lend Earl Blessington sixty thousand pounds (at six per cent.) on a Dublin mortgage. Only think of my becoming an Irish absentee!" ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... regard is, according to certain modern economists, undoubtedly sound. A man should be permitted to acquire at least as much property as is required for the expression of his personality; such a wise limitation, also, would abolish the evil known as absentee ownership. Again, there will arise in many minds the question whether the funds for the plan of National finance outlined in the program may be obtained without seriously deranging the economic system ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... outer world that it is said that the battle of Waterloo was not heard of there until a month after it had been fought. But all this has now been changed, and is changing. Not long ago, the proprietor of Somersby (now, alas! an absentee), complained to the writer that his carpets were being worn into holes by the feet of the many pilgrims to this modern poetic “Mecca,” who seemed to think they had a right freely to intrude everywhere; with the barren compensation to himself that his paternal home was becoming ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... auto-cab to keep an appointment made by telegram. As he paced the big room, with its dark-green walls, its Turkey carpet, and sombre furniture, his companions regarded him in wonder. They instinctively knew that he had some news of importance to impart. There was one absentee. Until his arrival Goslin refused to ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux

... acres.[2] In consequence of this, massive holdings were impossible to maintain legally, as the customary holdings of two to three hundred acres indicate in the tax lists for the years after 1784.[3] In fact, the tax lists suggest that absentee-owners or persons outside the actual geographic limits of the Fair Play territory who participated with the Fair Play settlers were the only ones to possess 700 to 1,000 acres or more.[4] This ...
— The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 - A Study of Frontier Ethnography • George D. Wolf

... Austrian dominions, carrying in his hand Tuscany, the throne of which was secured to him at the death of Gian Gaston. It was further promised to the Tuscans, discontented at the prospect of having an absentee sovereign, that on the death of the emperor Francis, Tuscany should have a ruler of its own in the person of his second son. This Francis, who gave up the duchy of Lorraine to become the husband of Maria Teresa, reigned over Tuscany till his sudden death by apoplexy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various

... others to feed, lodge, supply, and convey them at fabulously low prices throughout the whole expedition. You also understand that the secretary will call upon everybody in the neighbourhood you propose to visit, induce the rectors to throw open their churches, square the housekeepers of absentee dukes, and beard the owners of Elizabethan mansions in their own dens. These little preliminaries being amicably settled, you get together your archaeologists and set out ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... in royal state, winning reverence by remoteness, than his own children would be satisfied to know him only as a sovereign. He craves the friendship of that one; he longs for compassion, sympathy, assistance such as friend gives to friend; in a word, he looks for love. You cannot love an absentee God any more than you can love an ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope

... middle of the nineteenth century no nation owed payments to a foreign nation on any considerable scale, except such tributes as were exacted under the compulsion of actual occupation in force and, at one time, by absentee princes under the sanctions of feudalism. It is true that the need for European capitalism to find an outlet in the New World has led during the past fifty years, though even now on a relatively modest scale, to such countries as Argentine owing an annual sum to such countries ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes

... made a Visit to Mrs L a day or two ago & informd me that your Family were in Health. They are shortly to move into the House of S Waterhouse an Absentee. ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams

... sidewalks with leapfrog and the like, and we took ours, in turn, in the wide roadway with "pom-pom-peel-away" and similar games. Football, however, would take us to a vacant corner lot, some two streets away. Some absentee owner in the East was doubtless paying taxes on it with hopes of finally recouping himself through the unearned increment. Meanwhile it ran somewhat to rubbish and tin cans, to bare spots from which adjoining homemakers had removed irregular ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller

... regarded him as a brother, or rather as her equal. She always anxiously awaited his return from sea, though she did not, in her more youthful days, exactly understand why. When her beauty brought wealth and rank to her feet, she could not avoid comparing their possessors with the nautical absentee. ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames

... of Wakefield, She Stoops to Conquer; Sheridan: The Rivals, The School for Scandal, The Critic; R. Edgeworth: Essay on Irish Bulls; M. Edgeworth: Castle Rackrent, The Absentee; Maginn: Miscellanies in Prose and Verse; Carleton: Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry; Mahony (Father Prout): Reliques of Father Prout; John and Michael Banim: Tales of the O'Hara Family; Lover: Legends and Stories of Ireland, Handy Andy; Lever: Harry ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... "The absentee landlord is a curse, of course. I'm afraid I'm a bit of a one myself. And I'm bound to say—though I'm keen on shooting—if the game laws were abolished, it ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... service was five years and nine months; but he had been absent, with or without leave, something more than half the time! His old friends in Auxonne were few in number, if indeed there were any at all. No doubt his fellow-officers were tired of performing the absentee's duties, and of good-fellowship there could be in any case but little, with such difference of taste, politics, and fortune as there was between him and them. However, he made a few new friends; but it was ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... not what I set out to say. There was a moral to the tale of my friend the absentee Apostle who was so cocksure about the crisis. This moral is that he has Continental blood in his veins. To these foreign corpuscles he owes the floridness of his outlook, his conception of the excited Englishman. The Englishman takes his authors placidly; he is never in a ferment ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill

... Turk! A Russian spy! A double-dealing rogue. Sword in hand I have chased him through the Kurdistan valley all one night, and if I had caught him then Russia would have lost a tool and the Sultan a traitorous soldier. He holds still, although an absentee, a high command in the Turkish army, and all the while he is in the pay of Russia. Prince Alexis knows of my mission to you by now, and if we reach Theos we are lucky, for I do not think that a Tyrnaus upon the throne of Theos would ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim

... that his situation and the state of public sentiment must be his apology. An overseer who was disposed to manifest the most liberal bearing towards his apprentices, and who had directions from the absentee proprietor to that effect, was yet effectually prevented by his attorney, who having several other estates under his charge, was fearful of losing them, if he did not maintain the same ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... homestead, with its garden and clumps of planted eucalypts, willows, and poplars—an oasis in the grassy wilderness—no more. Sometimes a new squatter reigned in his stead, sometimes for years the mortgagee left the place in charge of a shepherd—a new and dreary form of absentee ownership. Meanwhile, in the earlier years the squatters were merry monarchs, reigning as supreme in the Provincial Councils as in the jockey clubs. They made very wise and excessively severe laws ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... him. He had been a nester, and it was claimed that calves certainly not his had been found carrying his brand. The man had been full of explanations, but there came a time when explanations no longer were accepted. He was invited to become an absentee at his earliest convenience. This was when he had been living across the mountains. Curly had been one of those who had given the invitation. He had taken the hint and left without delay. Now he was paying the ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine

... crowded with nonresident students, there for classes. In that case no roll was called, but merely the time required and the order reported. The penalty for non-attendance at fire drills is a fine of fifty cents, and a serious error credited to the absentee. ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse

... attention than if you trouble the editor at his own house by addressing him by his own name. Besides this, some one may be acting for the editor, and if he sees the packet addressed to the name of the absentee, he will not feel free to open it, but will send it to him, whereby confusion and delay, possibly loss of ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost

... the greater in being unexpected, Lady Vignoles!" he said. "I gather I am thus favoured that I may take the place of an absentee. Shall I hazard a ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer

... this: Glazier found out the absent man's name, and then volunteered to call the roll from a list in the sergeant's possession. It being dark, a piece of pitch-pine was lighted, and the list handed to Glazier, who proceeded to call the names. All answered, except the absentee, when, according to previous arrangement, each affirmed that no such man had been among them. The sergeant sapiently concluded that the name had found its way upon the roster by some error, and nothing further was said about it. Had ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... provided itself with a charter, granted by King James, and as characteristic of that monarch as was his treatment of Raleigh. It was the first of many specimens of absentee landlordism from which America was to suffer. It began by setting apart an enormous stretch of territory, bounded on the north by the latitude of the St. Croix River, and on the south by that of Cape Fear, ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... he may be unaware of his residence so near him. Sir Thomas, like too many of his countrymen, has been an absentee for years, and is only a short time in this country, and still a shorter at Red Hall. The young man probably is at large, because he may have escaped. There is evidently some mysterious relation between ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... expansion on that side had been checked by extensive private grounds. There were very beautiful woods coming almost close to the town, and in the absence of the owner, a great moneyed man, they were open to all those who did not make themselves obnoxious to the keepers; and these, under an absentee proprietor, gave a free interpretation to rights of way. Thither were the Ogilvies bound, in search of primrose banks, but their way led them past two or three houses on the hill-top, one of which, being constructed on supposed Chinese ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... years ago. Mr. Trench was the most eminent of a class of men peculiar to Ireland, and growing out of the unfortunate condition of that country. He was an agent, which means overlooker and manager of the estates of absentee landlords. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various

... thrifty, poor fellow, for he was too fond of whiskey; the result was that very little means remained for the support of the family when the bread-winner had been taken. The proprietor of Taskerton was generally an absentee, and the casual tenants of the place had little interest in those employed on the estate. Consequently, Christian had to do her best to support herself and her three young children by her own efforts. Tam and Kirsty, aged respectively twelve and eleven, had to continue at school for a ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett

... imperilled the Banner. The black mark on the register was a snowflake compared with the black frown on all those childish foreheads. As for the absentee, the scowls that would meet her return not improbably ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... her ladyship—"but is it possible that I have discovered another absentee? I don't see Mrs. Glenarm. Yet surely she must be here! Mrs. Glenarm is not training for a foot-race. Do you see ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... it was said that Kiliaen van Rensselaer visited America, it seems to be established that he never did. He governed his estate as an absentee landgrave, through agents. He was the most powerful ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus

... Encumbered Estates Court, into the hands of its present proprietor. On this estate a most wonderful change has been effected, and in a short space of time to effect so much. During the old regime, and the good old times of absentee landlordism, squalor and misery crept up to the castle gates. The wretchedness of the tenants could be seen by every passer-by. The peasantry tell of unspeakable orgies held at the castle even upon the Sabbath day. The change is something miraculous. ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall

... BUMSTEAD lives there, too—him as is always tryin' to put a head on me. I'll play my points on him yet, though. I'll play my points!" And the rather vulgar young chronic absentee from Sunday-school retired to a proper distance, and from thence began stoning his benefactor to the latter's ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 25, September 17, 1870 • Various

... big affair." Calonice: "And is it thick, too'?" Lysistrata: "Indeed it is, great and big too." Calonice: "And we are not all on the spot!" Lysistrata: "Oh! If it were what you have in mind, there would never be an absentee. No, no, it concerns a thing I have turned about and about, this way and that, for many sleepless nights." When the plot has been explained, viz.: that the women refuse intercourse to their husbands until after peace has been declared—Calonice: ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... feast went on they became less noisy. Then a feeling of uneasiness manifested itself, but no one ventured to suggest that anything might have occurred to the absentee until the evening had deepened into night. Then the laird started up suddenly. "Something must have happened to our friend," he exclaimed, at the same time ringing the bell violently. "He has never been late before, and however far he may have gone a-field, there has been more ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne

... in France. The story is a combination of incidents taken from Scott's 'Monastery' and 'Guy Mannering.' The Laird of Avenel, who was obliged to fly from Scotland after the battle of Culloden, entrusted his estates to his steward Gaveston. Many years having passed without tidings of the absentee, Gaveston determines to put the castle and lands up for sale. He has sedulously fostered a tradition which is current among the villagers, that the castle is haunted by a White Lady, hoping by this means to deter any of the ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... the teacher came to the mission house and inquired why Sandy had not been at school that day. This of course was news to us. We were at once much alarmed, and immediately began searching for the absentee. After about an hour's search, in which quite a number of Indians took part, Sandy was found curled up among the rocks on the point, crying bitterly for his ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young

... the others, has, thus far, elicited no official action, has brought censure upon us from the press, while great dissatisfaction has been created in our own body by the failure of a portion of its members to sustain the allegations to which the entire board, with the exception of one absentee, had ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... bush 'hath moods and changes' — and the bushman hath 'em, too, For he's not a poet's dummy — he's a man, the same as you; But his back is growing rounder — slaving for the absentee — And his toiling wife is thinner than a country wife should be. For we noticed that the faces of the folks we chanced to meet Should have made a greater contrast to the faces in the street; And, in short, we think the bushman's being driven to the wall, And it's doubtful ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson

... other emoluments were duly collected, he troubled himself very little as to what went on in the colony. If that had been all, the colony would have troubled itself very little about him. But the governor appointed by this absentee master was liable to be more devoted to his interests than to those of the people, and the civil service was seriously damaged by worthless favourites sent over from England for whom the governor was expected to find some office that would pay them ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske

... advertising runaway convicts under the soft and gentle name of absentees, is really unaccountable, unless we suppose it possible that his Excellency as a native of Ireland, and as having a well-grounded Hibernian antipathy to his absentee countrymen, uses the term as one expressive both of the criminality of the absentee and of his ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... canton, it had taken away from the noble his office of resident protector and hereditary patron, reducing him to the odious position of a mere creditor, and, if he were a man of the court, to the yet worse position of an absentee creditor.[2302]—So that in the parish and in the rural canton, it had taken away from the noble his office of resident protector and hereditary patron, reducing him to the odious position of a mere creditor, and, if he were a man of the court, to the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... muster of serfs appeared, for Frau Kunigunde admitted of no excuses, and the sole absentee was a widow who lived on the ledge of the mountain next above that on which the castle stood. Her son reported her to be very ill, and with tears in his eyes entreated Baron Friedel to obtain leave for him to return to ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the Jap labor bosses. They're the masters already. They contract for the crop. The fruit-growers are at their mercy, you see. Pretty soon the Japs are running the valley. The fruit-growers have become absentee landlords and are busy learning higher standards of living in the cities or making trips to Europe. Remains only one more step. The Japs buy them out. They've got to sell, for the Japs control the labor market and could bankrupt them ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... Absentee Snakes. It is believed that the Serpent who tempted Eve (from the "way he had with the women") was one of ...
— This Giddy Globe • Oliver Herford

... instinct, unchanged in nature though circumscribed in scope; if on many estates they are herded in barracks whose promiscuous life debases still lower their already low morality; if their labors are directed for absentee masters by hired overseers, whose interest is not to create a wholesome confidence between laborers and proprietors, but to get the most they can out of them during their own term of employment; if they are treated with the old slaveholding arrogance, embittered ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... Philosophy, he shelters himself under your name, entices Dialogue from our company to be his ally and mouthpiece, and induces our good comrade Menippus to collaborate constantly with him; Menippus, more by token, is the one deserter and absentee on this occasion. ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... neglect is authenticated; when the abandonment is solemnly and voluntarily set forth in a contract in the presence of a magistrate; when the proprietor dares to say, "I cease to labor, but I still claim a share of the product,"—then the absentee's right of property is protected; the usurpation of the possessor would be criminal; farm-rent is the reward of idleness. Where is, I do not say the consistency, but, ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... were waiting in London for the arrival of their Canadian colleagues, they made an offer to James C. Pope, prime minister of the Island, who happened to be in London, that the sum of $800,000 should be allowed the Island, in order to extinguish the rights of the absentee land-owners, an incubus that had long caused discontent. The Canadian delegates, at first reluctant, were brought to agree to this proposal. But it was declined, and the same fate overtook better financial terms which Tilley offered ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun

... brother deacon, who had been present, set all doubt at rest by the assertion that Bartram had not only been converted, but was assisting at the meetings. When, however, the attending deacon went on to inform his absentee brother that Bartram had attributed his awakening and conversion to the influence of Sam Kimper, Deacon Quickset ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton

... THE ABSENTEE is not intended as a censure upon those whose duties, and employments, and superior talents, lead them to the capital; but to warn the thoughtless and the unoccupied from seeking distinction by frivolous imitation of fashion and ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

... was already at work. The long-deserted grounds were filled with labourers; the carpenters were busy at the fences; the house looked alive and stirring; the grooms were exercising the horses in the park,—all betokened the return of the absentee. This seemed to denote that Maltravers had come to reside; and the rector thought of Caroline, and ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... hours each day and 313 days each year, than when cultivating our free and fertile lands? Do they have equal opportunities for mental and moral improvement? The trades-unions tell us, No. Whatever may be the experience of other countries where the land is either owned by absentee lords, who take all the product except what is necessary to give the tenant a bare subsistence, or where it is cut up in parcels not larger than an American garden patch, it is an undeniable fact ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat

... assistance of another" should be lodged, clothed and entertained, and that one hundred other poor men of good conduct should dine here daily. The munificent charity of the founder was soon abused and the funds had the common habit of disappearing into the capacious pockets of absentee masters. William of Wykeham and his immediate successor, Beaufort, caused reforms in the administration and added to the foundation, the latter instituting an almshouse of "Noble Poverty," which was partly carried out by Bishop Waynflete in 1486. ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes

... of the Montagus has utterly passed. The present Earl of Egmont is either an absentee or he lives in a cottage near the gates; and the new house, which is hidden in trees, is of no interest. The park, however, is still ranged by its beautiful deer, and still possesses an avenue of chestnut trees and rolling wastes of turf. It is ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... she testifies her grief in every imaginable manner, filling the air with her lamentations, tearing her loosened hair, and giving all the demonstrations of the deepest sorrow. At each meal food is placed at the accustomed seat, and the absentee is entreated to return and partake in the most endearing terms. This is continued for a season, when, as if tired of entreaty so unavailingly lavished, and in the true spirit of her sex, the widow changes her tune, and commences to abuse the "dear departed." ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay

... leave to walk about the streets instead. Lady Eynesford declined to recognise the occasion, and Eleanor had to content herself with stealthy glances to right and left till the church doors engulfed her. The only absentee was Alicia Derosne, and she was not walking about the streets, but sitting under the verandah, with a book unopened on her knees, and her eyes set in empty fixedness on the horizon. The luxuriant growth of a southern summer filled her nostrils with sweet scents, ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope

... in the government of the ecclesiastical states rendered themselves so odious to the people by their immorality and rapacity that a league of the more powerful political factions was formed for throwing off the yoke of the "absentee" papal rulers. This was the beginning of the War of Liberation (1375) that was to shake the papal power in Italy to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... that she has been surpassed gives her an additional claim to our respect and gratitude; for, in truth, we owe to her not only "Evelina," "Cecilia," and "Camilla," but also "Mansfield Park" and "The Absentee." ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... Mr. Gayles, who had listened with the deepest interest to the proceedings, were satisfied that the whole affair was a conspiracy. Mr. Watson's theory was, that Dock Vincent had robbed the miser himself, and had employed the absentee to place the bag in Levi's room, intending himself to be on the way to Australia before Seaver returned. As the matter stood, nothing could be proved. But Mr. Gayles declared that he should watch Dock Vincent and a "certain other person," whose name he declined to mention, ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic

... the Irish had a vivid historical background in their own country. There were four principal causes which induced the transplanting of the race: rebellion, famine, restrictive legislation, and absentee landlordism. Every uprising of this bellicose people from the time of Cromwell onward had been followed by voluntary and involuntary exile. It is said that Cromwell's Government transported many thousand Irish to the West Indies. Many ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth

... not in Englebourn parish—happily for that parish, one is sorry to remark. It must be a very bad squire who does not do more good than harm by living in a country village. But there are very bad squires, and the owner of the Grange is one of them. He is, however, for the most part, an absentee, so that we are little concerned with him, and in fact, have only to notice this one of his bad habits, that he keeps that long belt of woodlands, which runs into Englebourn parish, and comes almost up to the village, full of hares and pheasants. He has ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... a sixth plate laid, but the captain made no further mention of the person who was not out yet till shortly after the coffee was poured, when the absentee appeared, hastily closing his state-room door behind him, and then waiting on foot, with a half-impudent, half-intimidated air, while Captain Jenness, with a sort of elaborate repressiveness, presented him as Mr. ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells

... concentrated the control over the natural resources in a small group, not of individuals, but of corporations; has created a new form of social master, in the form of a land-tool-job owner; has thus made possible a type of absentee-landlordism more effective and less human than were any of its predecessors and has decreased the responsibility at the same time that it has augmented the power of the owning group. These changes have been an integral part of a general economic transformation that has occupied the chief energies ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing

... being tenderly watched, and another, in man's writing, enclosed some money, and said her son would soon be home. Mrs. Dennis was far from happy in this indefinite state of mind, and her heart told her, also, that the absence of James Phoebus was a different strain. She loved that absentee already too ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... having been duly warned to take the watch, not attend, another laborer is to be hired in the place of the absentee, and at his expense, not, however, to exceed fifteen cents. The person who wilfully leaves the watch, or neglects it, is to be reported to the magistrate and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... utmost to spin out the meal by eating with tantalizing and hygienic slowness, it ended without any sign of the absentee, and at last she felt bound to return to the drawing-room, where she was followed ten minutes later by Lawrence, who had ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb



Words linked to "Absentee" :   absent, absentee ballot, exile, traveler, hooky player, defaulter, truant, expat, expatriate, awol, absentee rate, traveller



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