"Alert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... soul, the life of Rosalind. His quick ear detected the noise, slight as it was, occasioned by Kent's labor. The latter supposing the inmates of the lodge would be slumbering, hoped for an opportunity to do what he wished. But Pequanon was on the alert, and detected him at work. When his face was placed at the opening, it was brought between the sky and the darkness of the lodge, and the Indian plainly observed the outlines of his face. His first impulse was to seize a rifle and shoot the intruder instantly, for he believed ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis
... fact that indolence, irregularity, unreliability, and slothfulness will yield them nothing, and that if they would be successful in the great economic struggle they must make of themselves industrious, prompt, reliable, skilful and alert workers. In short, they are being made to see that they must be efficient. Finally, these favorable expressions and acts of employers in regard to Negro labor point to the fact that the Negroes are gradually approaching their due place ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... noiselessly, in order not to attract the attention of the alert porter who lived in the basement, I crept up the carpeted stairs to the door of the flat, ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... the Emir Fakreddin, were on the alert; and while a bell, that had remained in the great mosque of Damietta ever since John de Brienne seized the city in 1217, tolled loudly to warn the inhabitants of the danger, the Moslem warriors got under arms, ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... feeding on the edge of a cliff, moving here and there, leaping lightly across some gully, tossing its head up for a precautionary sniff. Suddenly it gave a bound and stood still, alert. Two great clumsy "Hirsch-kuehe" had taken fright at some imaginary danger, and, uttering their peculiar half grunt, half roar, were galloping across the alm in half real, half assumed panic with ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... loudly that Carr could not fail to hear him, but he was quite prepared, and indeed had been on the alert. ...
— Tessa - 1901 • Louis Becke
... Ever alert to the educational needs of the colored youth, Senator Bruce introduced, among many other bills, during the second session of the Forty-sixth Congress, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... you are very quick to act. Your hands, once their task is learned, move very swiftly. You are inclined to be impulsive. If your forehead is of the type which indicates quick thinking and you have a large nose, high in the bridge, then you are of the keenest, most alert, most energetic and dynamic type. No sooner do you see a proposition than you decide. No sooner do you decide than you act, and when you have acted, you want to see the results of that action immediately. You ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... from the windows, so that the porters might clean the glass the following morning, and this had been done on the night of the riots, so that the windows were empty. There was a great crowd in the street that evening, and I ordered the place to be closed earlier than usual, and kept everybody on the alert. About eight o'clock, amid increasing uproar in the street, there came a cry of 'Fire,' and on proceeding to an upper floor I saw the glare of fire reflected in the windows of the opposite houses. I at once collected all the ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... was, and through mismanagement thus mischievously alert, or through torpor thus unaccountably base, that actually, on the 30th of May, not having raised their standard before the 26th, the rebels had already been permitted to possess themselves of the county of Wexford in its whole southern division—Ross and Duncannon only excepted; of which the latter ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... ahead! Stop!—Half-speed astern! The first engineer would be at the engine himself, gray with nervous excitement. Down in the engine-room, where they knew nothing at all, they would strain their ears painfully for any sound, and all to no purpose. But up on deck every man would be on the alert for his life; the helmsman wet with the sweat of his anxiety to watch every movement of the captain's directing hand, and the look-out on the forecastle peering and listening into the fog until he could hear his own heart beat, while the suspense held every ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... into Kirkwood's face. At a glance, this Mr. Brentwick was a man of tallish figure and rather slender; with a countenance thin and flushed a sensitive pink, out of which his eyes shone, keen, alert, humorous, and a trace wistful behind his glasses. His years were indeterminate; with the aspect of fifty, the spirit and the verve of thirty assorted oddly. But his hands were old, delicate, fine and fragile; ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... characteristic harmonies. Wagner was a mystic at sixteen, dwelling largely in the abstract, but grew out of this, through varied experience, into an active philosopher, with every objective faculty on the alert, and thus escaped, perhaps, the ...
— Edward MacDowell • Elizabeth Fry Page
... foam fell like snow-flakes along the dusty road as they passed upward. This carriage contained Judge Sharp, the two orphans, and Mrs. Farnham, looking very slender, very fair, but faded, and with a sort of restless self-complacency in her countenance, which seemed ever on the alert to make itself recognized ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... go, and he rather regretted that he had accepted the mackerel fishery investigation, because he saw that he could have got permission to work on with Mr. Prelatt for a week or two. But the matter had been arranged, and when the boy arrived in Boston, he was alert with the interest of a ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... and other facts of their appearance, and curiously questioned whether this were the best that a great material civilization could come to; it looked a little dull. The men's faces were shrewd and alert, and yet they looked dull; the women's were pretty and knowing, and yet dull. It was, probably, the holiday expression of the vast, prosperous commercial class, with unlimited money, and no ideals that money could not realize; fashion ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... strong and vigorous, in spite of his advanced age. No doubt he travels those stairs twenty times a day. He is as alert as a young man; doubtless he still has his voice, as he says. And what a career he has had. You know he was a friend of Edward the Seventh; they once lived together. Then he and Verdi were close friends; he helped coach singers for Verdi's operas. He ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... windward,"—and the royals were set. These brought us up again; but the wind continuing light, the California set hers, and it was soon evident that she was walking away from us. Our captain then hailed and said that he should keep off to his course; adding, "She isn't the Alert now. If I had her in your trim she would have been out of sight by this time." This was good-naturedly answered from the California, and she braced sharp up, and stood close upon the wind up the coast; while we squared away our yards, and stood before the wind to the south-southwest. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... once a week, looking over recent pledges and comparing them with descriptions of stolen articles. I gave him a list from that catalogue of Dr. Lith's and I think that if any of the emeralds, for instance, have been pawned his men will be on the alert and ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... be interesting to stop and consider at length what effect Cicero's intimate relations with these young men had upon his character, his political views, his personal fortunes, and the course of politics. That they kept him young in his interests and sympathies, that they kept his mind alert and receptive, comes out clearly in his letters to them, which are full of jest and raillery and enthusiasm. That he never developed into a Tory, as Catulus did, or became indifferent to political conditions, as Lucullus ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... second wife, and, though over forty, a still young and alert looking woman, more Irish than Scotch in appearance, with her dark hair and blue eyes. But she came of good Highland stock and ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... or doubt the existence of blight among our filbert plants. Not at all. Quite the contrary. We have, as stated above, so far no blight-proof filberts and no guarantee that blight will not eventually attack our plants. We therefore will have to be more or less on the alert, will have to watch our filbert plants as we do our pear or quince orchards or other fruit trees more or less inclined to blight. By no means let blight discourage the planting of filbert or hazel nuts, as I am fully convinced should it eventually appear it will not kill ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 13th Annual Meeting - Rochester, N.Y. September, 7, 8 and 9, 1922 • Various
... many. A man who is accounted brilliant and entertaining may become an insufferable bore by continuing to tell stories when the hearers have become satiated. Of all speakers, the story-teller should keep his eyes on his entire audience and be alert to detect the ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... his face—a handsome, high-bred face, clever, a bit weak,—and tears were wet on his cheeks. He glanced about as if fearing to be seen as he wiped them away, and at the moment there was a light bustle, low voices down the hall. The young man sprang to his feet and stood alert as a step came toward him. He caught a sharp breath as another man, iron-gray, ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... grotesque enough in the outset, and yet it ended in a desperate attempt at robbery. Or, again, there was that most grotesque affair of the five orange pips, which let straight to a murderous conspiracy. The word puts me on the alert." ...
— The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge • Arthur Conan Doyle
... custom-house lines were no longer maintained. Napoleon could not do without his thirty thousand custom-house officers for service in the field. Cotton, then introduced through a thousand loopholes, slipped into the markets of France. No one can imagine how sly and how alert cotton had become at this epoch, nor with what eagerness the English laid hold of a country where cotton stockings sold for six francs a pair, and cambric shirts ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... continued the pursuit at the same speed, when we suddenly heard the warning wh-r-r-r-r as the elephants winded us at a distance of 200 yards, and the crash instantly following this sound told us too plainly that the game was fearfully on the alert, and gave us little hopes of overtaking them, as they were ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... perplexity that is grateful, because it stops short of confusion; while the awkward and grotesque predicaments, into which the persons are thrown by their mutual crossing and tripping, hold attention on the alert, and keep the spirits in a frolic. Yet the laughable proceedings of the scene are all easy and free; that is, the comic situations are ingenious without being at all forced; the ingenuity being hidden in the naturalness ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... toils, Alert I met the dame with jocund smiles; First at the form, my task for ever true, A little favourite rapidly I grew: And oft she stroked my head with fond delight, Held me a pattern to the dunce's sight; And ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... month had passed since the incident of the false Dionysius had led to the two men meeting. It was now December. Whatever Mr. Carlyle's step might indicate to the inner eye it betokened to the casual observer the manner of a crisp, alert, self-possessed man of business. Carlyle, in truth, betrayed nothing of the pessimism and despondency that had marked him on ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... last of the complement remains on board to steer the vessel during the action. They have no wages; each draws a certain established share in partnership with the proprietor of the vessel; by which economy they are all proportionately concerned in the success of the enterprise, and all equally alert and vigilant. None of these whalemen ever exceed the age of forty: they look on those who are past that period not to be possessed of all that vigour and agility which so adventurous a business requires. Indeed if you attentively consider the immense disproportion between ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... had made their escape, as soon us dinner was finished; and Morton, on the watch, like a cat to steal cream, was on the alert, as soon as he perceived their intentions, and accompanied them on deck. To his great satisfaction, none of the Spanish officers made any attempt to leave the table; for, as the old Don had just got fairly under weigh with one of his campaigning stories, they were afraid to treat him ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... great promptness, for our people are extremely interested in enhancing personal beauty by costume, and the absence of any arbitrary standards of style such as fashion set for you leaves us on the alert for attractions and novelties in shape and color. It is in variety of effect that our mode of dressing seems indeed to differ most from yours. Your styles were constantly being varied by the edicts of fashion, but as only one style was tolerated at a time, ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... only a rather heavy breathing. At one Mrs. Dane came to relieve her. Lilian was on the alert quite early and her mother asked for ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... They then perceived what those at the other end were after and joined them—a common habit amongst fishes. Although the minnows were not interested in the tiny "bags of mystery," they were even more alert than the sticklebacks in perceiving moving objects in or on the water, and there is no doubt that both these shallow-water species discover their food largely ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... boss is alert and discovers wastes and leaks in his business, the employes will discover them too, and the ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... in his sentence, but took up his drawling comment again instantly. Only an added sparkle in his eyes betrayed the change that had suddenly wiped out his indolence and left him tense and alert. For while he had been speaking a head had slowly raised itself above the window casement and two eyes had looked in and met his. They belonged ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... shouting to bed, the men of St. Nicaise slept sound without a thought of possible reprisals. But the young bloods "across the way" were all alert. Waiting till the change of guard at St. Hilaire should make that customary noise of clinking arms and tramping feet which every citizen would recognise and forget, sixty of the bravest champions crossed the Rubicon and advanced in the depth of the darkness to the ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... himself in vain, why his eye could not judge of distance or space so well as those of his companions; why his head was not always successful in disentangling the various partial movements necessary to execute a particular evolution; and why his memory, so alert upon most occasions, did not correctly retain technical phrases and minute points of etiquette or field discipline. Waverley was naturally modest, and therefore did not fall into the egregious mistake of supposing such minuter rules of military duty beneath his notice, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... find Wilmot, he naturally recognized him, in spite of the beard which so changed the young man's face for the worse; but of this recognition he gave no sign. The legless man, alert for any possibility of self-betrayal on Wilmot's part, had followed him into the room. ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... generous, her manner unconquerably gracious, her movements indolently active, her face so candid that you must swear her every thought lived always in the open. Yet, with it all, she was a wild thing, alert, suspicious of the lasso, nosing it in every man's hand, more curious about it than about aught else in the world; her quivering delight was to see it cast for her, her game to elude it; so mettlesome was she that she loved it to be cast fair that she ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... deftly swung his rifle to his right shoulder. "I'll walk me post in a military manner, keepin' always on the alert and observin' everything that takes place within sight or hearin', accordin' to Gin'ral Order Number Two. There won't be no war unless somebody starts somethin'. Hey, there, buddy, would ye smoke a God's-country cigarette ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... frightened into losing several precious hours merely because a ship sixty miles to the south'ard of my track reports a little floating ice. No; I'll just issue instructions that everybody is to be on the alert and keep a specially sharp look-out, and let it go ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... and laid about a stone's throw distant for my other men. At last we heard them coming down, and shortly afterwards we perceived that they were stopped by other people, and in altercation with them. I knew then that the officers were on the alert, and would discover the stratagem, and therefore desired my men and the gentlemen, who had each taken an oar in readiness, to give way and pull for the schooner. As we did so, the king's officers on search who had stopped my four men came down to the wharf and ordered ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... on the bridge of his dusky-coloured vessel as she soused through the waters of the grim North Sea, his keen eyes ever on the alert fore and aft, and occasionally on the sister ship to his, coupled along with the "broom." They were "carrying on," as usual. This skipper was a man just in his thirties. His face was cheery and round, and body was muscular and thick-set. In spite of the watch he and his ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... as a modern Hercules, quick and alert in his movements, and, now that he was free from the terror which had overthrown him at Brown's Buildings, was of his wonted cheerfulness. Fortunately, also, he was a good sailor, and did not go under with the sea-sickness which soon prostrated nearly all the other members ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... I was on the alert, for there could be no wood within that buried river that had not been man brought. Almost coincidentally with my first apprehension of the noise, my hand shot out across the boat's side, and a second later I felt my fingers gripping the gunwale ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... They are alert on the least disturbance; and by the loudness of their humming, you can judge of their strength. They preserve their hives free from filth, and are ready to defend it ...
— A Description of the Bar-and-Frame-Hive • W. Augustus Munn
... whole care was bestowed on the ship. Apprehension of falling in with some British cruiser, kept his eyes wide open, and his gaze constantly sweeping the horizon, so far as the obscurity would allow. I was incessantly on the alert myself, stealing up from the cabin, as far as the companion-way, at least a dozen times in the course of the night, in the hope of finding him asleep; but, on each occasion, I saw him moving up and down the quarter-deck, in rapid motion, armed to the ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... He did not dare to enter it, however. But he had communicated his secret to his wife, who decided to circumvent the Evil One by the exercise of her woman's wit. Mounting her donkey, she rode into the castle, bidding all her men follow her. Satan waited on the alert. But the Countess amid great laughter pinned a kerchief upon the ass's head, covered it with a cap, and, leading it to the window, made it thrust its ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... such work indeed there is, delightful in itself, technically exquisite, most interesting by its history, which properly finds its place beside the larger, the full-grown, physical perfection of the Discobolus, one of whose alert younger brethren he may be,—the Spinario namely, the boy drawing a thorn from his foot, preserved in the so rare, veritable antique bronze at Rome, in the Museum of the Capitol, and well known in a host ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... Prior to that time His doctrines had been set forth in unveiled plainness, as witness the explicit teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. It is noticeable that the introduction of parables occurred when opposition to Jesus was strong, and when scribes, Pharisees, and rabbis were alert in maintaining a close watch upon His movements and His works, ever ready to make Him an offender for a word. The use of parables was common among Jewish teachers; and in adopting this mode of instruction Jesus was really following a custom of the time; though between ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... Americans didn't believe in anything but machinery and newspapers." She touched the spring of the panel behind her, and displayed the little tottery staircase to the American. The sight of it worked a wonderful transformation in him. He became eager, alert, very keen. ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... to teach and impress the reality of Spirit, its regnancy in human life, whilst the mind is alert and supple: and so to teach and impress it, that it is woven into the stuff of the mental and moral life and cannot seriously be injured by the hostile criticisms of the rationalist. Remember, that the prime object of education is the moulding ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... down the dog in an instant, and was on her feet again, trembling but alert. She pushed the door a little wider and went into the next apartment, a bedroom more splendid than any bed-chamber her fancy had ever depicted when she read of ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... more subtle beauty of doubt. To believe is very dull. To doubt is intensely engrossing. The Apostle Thomas was artistic up to a certain point. He appreciated the value of shadows in a picture. To be on the alert is to live. To be lulled in security is ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... greeting to the trav'ler, Solace to the toilsome hours. Old Jack Rabbit hopped before him, Then sat up, to watch him pass, Dusky horned-toads scurried nimbly Through the withered buffalo grass. Here and there the buzzing rattler Whirred a warning, head alert, Then retreated from the snapping, Stinging strokes of Billy's quirt. Day by day the wild breeze flying, With'ring in its scorching heat, Hummed a tune to labored beating Of the ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker
... more satisfactory state the next day; feeble, but tamed into endurance of medical treatment, and almost indifferent about the robbery; as though his passion were spent, and he were tired of the subject. However, the police were alert. The man whom they had taken up was a squatter in the forest, notorious as a poacher and thief, and his horse and cart answered to Phoebe's description of the shadow. He had been arrested when returning with them from the small seaport on ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the Solar Guard rocket destroyer that would take them to Mars. After they had climbed into the ship, they waited for a full hour before they could get clearance to blast off. And, in flight, they were forced to maintain constant alert and careful position in the heavy flow of traffic to ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... necessary for you if not for the others? How many were there in your class, including all the services? Three hundred? And out of the three hundred only one was refused assignment." He looked up sharply at Dal, his pale blue eyes very alert in his ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... habits, who generally turned night into day, the household were all on the alert; a blazing fire greeted them, and his lordship ordered instantly a devil and ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... discriminating action; it was neither diabolical nor divine; it but shook the doors of the prison-house of my disposition; and like the captives of Philippi, that which stood within ran forth. At that time my virtue slumbered; my evil, kept awake by ambition, was alert and swift to seize the occasion; and the thing that was projected was Edward Hyde. Hence, although I had now two characters as well as two appearances, one was wholly evil, and the other was still the old Henry Jekyll, that incongruous compound of whose reformation ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the street lamps at the successive crossings. Then he strolled back the way he had come. He was a shadow of a man sliding noiselessly and without undue movement through the semi darkness. Also he was very alert, like a wild animal in the jungle, keenly perceptive and receptive. The movement of another in the darkness about him would need to have been more shadowy than he ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... three parties, evidently from the hotel, were looking about the camp, but they paid little attention to the two Camp Fire Girls, evidently recognizing that they did not come from the hotel. The gypsies, however, always on the alert when they see a chance to make money by selling their wares or by telling fortunes, flocked about them, particularly the women. Bessie, fair haired and blond, they seemed disposed to neglect, but Bessie ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart
... then walked towards Lady Eleanor together. Both were dressed in blue coats, buff waistcoats, and broad-brimmed white hats, and wore riding trousers strapped very tightly over their boots. They were evidently father and son, though the elder seemed almost as young and alert as the younger. The old gentleman took off his hat, bent his grey head over Lady Eleanor's out-stretched hand, and kissed it with the old-fashioned courtesy which has now vanished. Then beckoning the younger man forward, ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... hopeful and cheerful; and as the weather mended, and the calm brightness of October set in, he rallied, and came downstairs again, not looking many degrees more wan and hectic than before, with a mind as alert as usual, and his kind heart much gratified by the many attentions of his parishioners during ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... could not be obtained without a considerable loss to themselves. Higson had been on shore for some weeks before these preparations were made. Sometimes his mind misgave him, especially when he saw that the British troops in the garrison were thoroughly disciplined, and always on the alert, and that even a regiment of black troops, whom it was hoped might be gained over, refused to desert their colours. The conspirators had then, not without considerable risk, to send to the French and ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... gathered together for transportation, and everything would have gone on very well indeed had it not been for the most culpable and unwarranted interference of that lawless party of men, who might almost be said to amount to a nationality, who were continually on the alert to take from Spain everything she could take from America. The English, French, and Dutch governments were generally at peace with Spain, but they sat by quietly and saw their sailor subjects band themselves together and make war upon Spanish ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... are no chimney-cornerers, who rejoice in the social thunderstorm, have a ground in reason for their choice. They get little rest indeed; but restfulness is a quality for cattle; the virtues are all active, life is alert, and it is in repose that men prepare themselves for evil. On the other hand, they are bruised into a knowledge of themselves and others; they have in a high degree the fencer's pleasure in dexterity displayed and proved; what they get they get upon life's terms, paying for it as they go; and once ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... regarded as a mere disguise of failure, a dishonest attempt to clothe ignorance in the pretentious garb of mystery. The Self as a primary, determining entity, he would not therefore admit. He represented an empiricism which, so far from refuting, was actually based on, idealism, and yet was alert to expose the fallacies of a particular idealist construction (see his essay in Ethical Democracy, edited ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... ideal, but they claim that in the progress of society it must follow, not antedate, external authority and the cultivation of public opinion, and that time is not yet come. Only the few can be trusted yet to follow their best judgment on all occasions, to be on the alert to maintain in themselves and others highest efficiency. Human nature is slowly in the making. One by one men and women rise to higher levels; social regeneration must therefore wait on individual regeneration. Seeing the need of a dynamic ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... on all the while; and there was never a time that the lookout did not have to keep his eyes on the alert, because of the traps and snares that lay in wait for the ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... the pleasure of a stolen glance at Catherine, happened to look in it as he leaned over towards the window fastening. For a single moment he stood rigid. Catherine had risen to her feet and, without the slightest evidence of any fatigue, was leaning, tense and alert, over the tray on which his untouched whisky and soda was placed. Her hand was outstretched. He saw a little stream of white powder fall into the tumbler. An intense and sickening feeling of disappointment almost brought a groan to his lips. He conquered himself ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... misery drives him to his prayers. For we are not yet, we are only becoming. The endless day will at length dawn whose every throbbing moment will heave our hearts Godward; we shall scarce need to lift them up: now, there are two door-keepers to the house of prayer, and Sorrow is more on the alert to open than her ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... to accomplish some work in prose at this period, but the painful condition of his health forbade it. "I am forbidden to use my poor head," he said, "so I have to get along as I can without it. The Catholic St. Leon, thee knows, walked alert as usual after his head ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... stiff and their heads stretched out. The contempt, conceived from their appearance, they took pains to increase; sometimes falling from their horses, and making themselves objects of derision and ridicule. The consequence was, that the enemy, who at first had been alert, and ready on their posts, in case of an attack, now, for the most part, laid aside their arms, and sitting down amused themselves with looking at them. The Numidians often rode up, then galloped back, but still contrived to get nearer to the pass, as if they were unable ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... people had been on the alert, on account of a feud between them and the Ghawarineh Arabs. On coming up to the print of a human footstep, this was carefully examined as to its size, direction of the tread, etc. The circumstances were not, however, exactly parallel to the occurrence in Robinson Crusoe, which naturally ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... a force set apart and kept on the alert for the security of the whole.—The outlying piquet, some distance from the main body, watches all hostile approach.—The inlying piquet is ready to act in case of internal disorder, or ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... all the rest with one voice cried out that it would be very stupid; and Miss Fosbrook did not press it, but only begged in a droll way that some one would take pity on her; and come to release her; and so alert was she in skipping towards her allies from behind the rose-bush, that Bessie presently succeeded in giving the rescuing touch, and she flew back quick as a bird to the safe territory, dragging Bessie ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the ecclesiastical bent of mind. Reading between the lines, one soon discovers that his is not so much a priest as a statesman and philosopher, a student curious in the lore of mankind and of nature—alert, sagacious, discriminating. He tells us, for example, that this legend of the visions and martyrdom of Saint Dodekanus, which he was the first to disentangle from its heterogeneous accretions, was vastly to his liking. Why? Because of its churchly flavour? Not ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... jolt. Probably, he thought, a rumor of the poor fisher folk who worked the southern fringe areas. What else could you expect from such types, who had never even learned to read in a thousand cycles. Nevertheless, as he patrolled the sunken rocks, he was alert, scanning the water on all sides constantly for the great shape he sought, his skin alert for the first strange vibration. By neglecting the broken bottom, brown with laminaria and kelp, he missed the great, mottled tentacle ...
— Join Our Gang? • Sterling E. Lanier
... offers us a passage by his own high-road into Babylon. We must take heart and enter fearlessly, remembering that those against whom we are to march this night are the very men we have conquered before, and that too when they had their allies to help them, when they were awake, alert, and sober, armed to the teeth, and in their battle order. [21] To-night we go against them when some are asleep and some are drunk, and all are unprepared: and when they learn that we are within the walls, sheer astonishment will make them still more helpless than before. [22] If any of ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... inasmuch as it was I who at first had "dubbed him knight;" and when I gave him to understand this he could not contain himself for joy, and from that hour he ever proved my most ready servant, ever alert and thankful; and the little benevolence it was in my power to shew the poor lad bore fruit more than a thousand fold in after ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... threatening; the tariff issue was causing bitterness; Austen Chamberlain with a minority following was fighting Walter Long to lead the Tories and on this troublesome sea Sir Max Aitken's barque bobbed up and down with the skipper's eyes keenly alert. He saw the possibilities in Bonar Law. When Chamberlain and Long created a deadlock, Beaverbrook advocated Bonar Law as leader of the Tory Party. To make his voice heard more distinctly he purchased the Daily ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... which penetrated even his callous mind, and made him for the moment ashamed of himself. Nettie bit her red lip till it grew white and bloodless as she turned from Fred's door. It was not hard to work for the children—to support and domineer over Susan; but it was hard for such an alert uncompromising little soul to tolerate that useless hulk—that heavy encumbrance of a man, for whom hope and life were dead. She bit her lip as she discharged her sharp stinging arrow at him through the ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... her instinctive attitude, other people noticed it. For the world is sharp-eyed, and its attitude is always alert, ears pricked forward even when its tail ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... to await, on the wharf of a large city, the incoming of a great steamer. The feeling of expectation in the air is exhilarating, the bustle, hurry and excitement are contagious; involuntarily one straightens up, and grows alert, every sense on the qui vive, eyes observant, intelligence active, memory garnering impressions. Note the variety of expression in the faces of the waiting crowd—the eager longing, the restless expectation of some; the listless ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... all accounts, be divided into two very different types. There were the town Boers, smartened and perhaps a little enervated by prosperity and civilisation, men of business and professional men, more alert and quicker than their rustic comrades. These men spoke English rather than Dutch, and indeed there were many men of English descent among them. But the others, the most formidable both in their numbers and in their primitive qualities, were the back-veld Boers, the sunburned, tangle-haired, ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... be armed. To command men thus equipped there were extemporary generals, whose epaulets were obtained from the wardrobe of the Opera Comique. The students of the Polytechnic were, as usual, on the alert to practise whatever they had learned of military science; the younger sort entering into the war with the same spirit that other schoolboys partake of any minor mischief that is going forward. A student of the Polytechnic is standing on the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... Immortal, but if I am, then I am an Immortal without ambition. I seem to be lost, to be suddenly diffused into space or time, to be a kind of vapour. Something has dissolved in me—something hard, bright, alert. I do not know why I am here. The car came round as usual to take me for my morning run. I ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... now that there was artificial light in the court; from the distance its undulations were invisible, and it resembled a cap of some heavy and handsome material drawn carefully down over his head. Hadi Bey retained his vivid, alert and martial demeanor. He was twisting his mustaches with a muscular brown hand, not nervously, but with a careless and almost a lively air. Many women gazed at him as if hypnotized; they found the fez ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... from under the velvet hoofs of the camel, the silence like a filmy cloak, sleep everywhere, save at the eyes of the fugitive. Hour after hour they sprawled down the waste, and for numberless hours they must go on and on, sleepless, tireless, alert, if the man was to be saved at all. As morning broke he turned his eye here and there, fearful of discovery and pursuit. Nothing. He was alone with the sky and the desert and his fate. Another two hours ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... world where there is no sound, no colour, no vibration; a world muffled and veiled in the stillness and the greyness of the hour before dawn. It is the work of a woman who is not perfectly alive. So far from having had her great awakening, Charlotte is only half awake. Her intellect is alert enough and avid, faithful and subservient to the fact. It is her nerves and senses that are asleep. Her soul is absent ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... of impressions of the mornings at Lugano—her loftiest, purest, dearest; and these reinforced her. She did not ask herself why she should have to seek them for aid. In other respects her mind was alert and held no sly covers, as the fiction of a perfect ignorant innocence combined with common intelligence would have us to suppose that the minds of women can do. She was honest as long as she was not directly questioned, pierced to the innermost and sanctum ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of the mind to rise to the occasion of a sudden emergency—to stretch itself long to the length of an event; I do not hesitate to say that no combination of circumstances can defeat a vigorous brain fully alert, and in possession of itself. With a quickness to which the lightning-flash is tardy, I remembered that this was a spot indicated by the symbols on the papyrus: I remembered that this same papyrus was ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... as the loiterer had been before, was the subject of observation to the accidental passengers. Two men entered the porch in company. One was a somewhat slight made, but alert-looking man, by name Lysimachus, and by profession a designer. A roll of paper in his hand, with a little satchel containing a few chalks, or pencils, completed his stock in trade; and his acquaintance ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... alert. He wheeled as if on a pivot, killed the left bird and the right one. Then dropped in another shell with a slowness that set Bart Hodge wild, and killed the third bird, which had gone off at a difficult tangent, at a distance of at least ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... detect that there was any false bottom at all. However, after this practice had been in vogue for some time it was discovered by the Revenue officers and the matter made generally known among the officials at all the ports, so that they could be on the alert for ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... bit of dessert had been disposed of, and Dicky had gone to sleep in his mother's lap, like an infant boa-constrictor after a hearty meal, the presentation of gifts and reading of poems took place; and Polly had to be on the alert to answer all the nonsensical jokes that ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... answered, with quiet mockery. "There always are. I will see to them. Difficulties are not without a certain advantage. They keep one on the alert." ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... elaborate treachery. Neither the great world nor the world of journalists laid any deep schemes; definite plans are not made by either; their Machiavelism lives from hand to mouth, so to speak, and consists, for the most part, in being always on the spot, always on the alert to turn everything to account, always on the watch for the moment when a man's ruling passion shall deliver him into the hands of his enemies. The young Duke had seen through Lucien at Florine's supper-party; he had just touched his vain susceptibilities; and now he was trying his first efforts ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... approved as president by popular referendum in July 2000. Syrian troops - stationed in Lebanon since 1976 in an ostensible peacekeeping role - were withdrawn in April 2005. During the July-August 2006 conflict between Israel and Hizballah, Syria placed its military forces on alert but did not intervene directly on behalf of ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... the execution of the plan,—the directives and the supervision of the action,—but the treatment as to details is chiefly from the standpoint of the mental effort. During hostilities the vital issues which hinge on alert supervision create an accentuated demand for the intelligent exercise of professional judgment. Its possession to a highly developed degree and its exercise on a foundation of knowledge and experience, are prerequisite to attainment of the highest ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College
... kept constantly on the alert watching ahead, in the hope of discovering another deer, which might be brought down by his quick ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... thus for a full minute, probably recovering their wind; and then the rhinoceros, with a scarcely perceptible movement, began to edge stealthily round in an apparent endeavour to work himself into position on his enemy's broadside. The elephant, however, was fully on the alert, and followed his adversary's movement with a corresponding turn of his own body, keeping the rhinoceros still full in front of him. The movements of the two animals gradually quickened, but it presently became apparent to the onlookers that the ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... street-dog is of gutters; a natural police des moeurs, infinitely more efficient than any artificial organisation; an all-ramifying association created to keep the bounds of social order, on duty at every street corner, alert to check every outbreak of individuality. Do ladies aspire to ride bicycles? Or wear bloomers? There is the small boy to face. It is a question for him. Conciliate him, and you may laugh at the pragmatic. His, too, is a healthy barbarism, ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... made difficult because their schooling had been largely inferior and their work therefore chiefly unskilled. Nevertheless, the Army staff concluded, all races were equally endowed for war and most of the less mentally alert could fight if properly led.[2-40] ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... be constantly on the alert, and my impatience and perplexity may be imagined as hours elapsed and there were still no signs of my approaching deliverance. The storm had long since passed over, and darkness was settling down when I again felt a pull at the rope, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... when several large companies engaged in growing foreign grapes failed, and a meritorious native grape made its appearance. The vine of promise was a variety known as the Alexander. Thomas Jefferson, ever alert for the agricultural welfare of the nation, writing in 1809 to John Adlum, one of the first experimenters with an American species, voiced the sentiment of grape experimenters in speaking of the Alexander: ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... port of Boulogne. The least appearance of stir or preparation, to embark troops, or get ready for sea, was promptly sent by signal to the English coast, and the numerous British cruisers were instantly on the alert to attend their motions. Nelson had, in fact, during the last war, declared the sailing of a hostile armament from Boulogne to be a most forlorn undertaking, on account of cross tides and other disadvantages, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various
... Tiny, fragile hands that look more like an X-ray picture of hands, rest in her lap in Quakerish pose. Her whole atmosphere when she is not in action is one of strength and quiet determination. In action she is swift, alert, almost panther-like in her movements. Dressed always in simple frocks, preferably soft shades of purple, she conforms to an individual style and taste of her own rather ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... since that last terrible occurrence, the double murder which had been committed early in the morning of the day Daisy had arrived in London. And though the thousands of men belonging to the Metropolitan Police—to say nothing of the smaller, more alert body of detectives attached to the Force— were keenly on the alert, not one but had begun to feel that there was nothing to be alert about. Familiarity, even with horror, ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... who, always engaged in the performance of sacrifices, duly goes through this mode of life and properly discharges all its duties, obtains blessed rewards in heaven. Upon his death, the rewards desired by him became deathless. Indeed, these wait upon him for eternity like menials ever on the alert to execute the commands of their master.[194] Always attending to the Vedas, silently reciting the mantras obtained from his preceptor, worshipping all the deities, O Yudhishthira, dutifully waiting upon and serving his preceptor with his own body smeared with clay and filth, the person ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Indian, but was not long discovering that Hamilton could take care of himself; was flown at indeed by two agile fists upon one occasion, when protectiveness, in Alexander's measurement, rose to interference. But they formed a deep and lifelong friendship, and Troup, who was clever and alert, without brilliancy, soon learned to understand Hamilton, and was not long recognizing potentialities of usefulness to the American cause in ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... in detached groups, many eyes were on the alert, and listening ears bent to catch some sign ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... quite good-naturedly, laid any adversary flat in the dust. If Nora and Fil were like rose and lily, she was decidedly the robin of the party. Her fair complexion seemed to add force to the brightness of her twinkling brown eyes, and her general restlessness and quick alert ways made one think of a bird always hopping about. Though not quite such a romp as Nora, she was ready for any fun that was going, and intended to get as much enjoyment as possible out of the coming term. She linked herself now on to Fil's disengaged ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... taken as our only and necessary guide; but, knowing the variable part of our judgment, and knowing how very likely we are to be mistaken in our "think so's" and "feel so's," we should ever be on the alert to verify or rectify our convictions by the help of experience and facts. The question as to how much of our intellectual power is intuitive and innate, or how much is acquired and dependent upon truth ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... at Ashbourne, Johnson seemed to be more uniformly social, cheerful, and alert, than I had almost ever seen him. He was prompt on great occasions and on small. Taylor, who praised every thing of his own to excess; in short, 'whose geese were all swans,' as the proverb says, expatiated on the excellence of his bull-dog, which, he told us, was 'perfectly well shaped.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... him—rigid and alert. His gaze also went into the west; and he blinked against the white glare of sun and distance, squinting his eyes and scanning the featureless waste with ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... a child's, almost diseased in its tenderness, and a heart loving as a woman's, his intellect is none the less powerful. Its movements are as the sword-play of an alert, poised, well-knit, strong-wristed fencer with the rapier, in which the skill impresses one more than the force, while without the force the skill would be valueless, even hurtful, to its possessor. There is a graceful humour ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... quarter of a mile off. By Jove! she was coming towards his compartment. Her hands were full of parcels, and she was asking a gray-headed old gentleman to open the door for her—how handsome and bright and alert she looked, as she smiled her acknowledgment! The old gentleman looked back once or twice—even old fogeys have eyes for a pretty woman—but Mrs. Blake was too busy arranging her parcels in the rack to notice the impression ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the house darkened, the early supper eaten and Marylyn asleep in her bed before the hearth, the elder girl still kept on the alert. A nervousness born of loneliness had taken possession of her. If the doorlatch rattled, she raised herself, listening. If Simon rubbed himself against the warm outer stones of the fireplace, she sprang up, a startled sentinel, with wide ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... Premier Salandra's speech of Dec. 3 for "armed, alert neutrality," and the declaration in Parliament on Dec. 5 by Signor Giolitti showing that the declaration of Aug. 1 was merely a repetition of one conveyed to Austria in the Summer of 1913, when Austria had suggested that she aid Bulgaria in ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... people around her. Women were in a great majority, a man scattered forlornly amongst them once and again. She discovered at once the alert eyes of young Mr. Warlock. He was seated in the side aisle with a thin, severe-looking woman beside him. He stared straight in front of him, wriggling sometimes his broad back as though he were a dog tied by a chain. Some one else very ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... that the alert and inventive spirit of the American has lightened the cumbrous awkwardness of Old-World implements, has simplified their traditional complexity, has systematized methods of manufacture, and has shown a certain audacity ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... would and returned to his post in Paris. He studied the hardware situation and found a tremendous need for our goods. He was about to make a report to the hardware manufacturer when an alert upstanding young American breezed into his ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... a minute, Halstead! Yet I'm thinking of the great danger you'd be running. At this moment Terrero's spies must be plentiful in Rio Janeiro. Why, even every steamer that leaves New York for Brazil may carry his men aboard, alert, watchful and deadly. You don't know what a man like Terrero is like. ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... had soon an opportunity of knowing. Ina kindled into a different being when the hunting instinct came over him. Every sense was on the alert. ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... places the object or person compared at a disadvantage. If the contrast is a dignified one we have high comedy; but if the reverse, low comedy. Some of Holmes's comparisons make the reader laugh out aloud. He says that a tedious preacher or lecturer, with an alert listener in the audience, resembles a crow followed by a king-bird,—a spectacle which of itself is enough to make one smile; and as for an elevated comparison, what could be more so, unless we were to seek one in the moon. There is a threefold wit in it; but the full force of this can ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... children, under the stinging terrors of their lonely situation, stole away from their "forms," to speak in the hunter's phrase, and sought to rejoin each other. But in these attempts they were liable to surprises from the enemy; papa and mamma were both on the alert, and often intercepted the young deserter by a cross march or an ambuscade; in which cases each had a separate policy for enforcing obedience. The father, upon his general system of "perseverance," compelled ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... flow of eager talk with a smile of content on her fine face. To her fond eyes Grace looked absurdly immature in her simple frock of white dotted swiss. She was secretly glad that Overton, rather than marriage, had claimed her alert, self-reliant daughter for another year. Like every other mother she wished some day to see Grace happily settled in a home of her own, but she preferred to think of that someday ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... along the crest of hills, in a mighty crescent that reached almost to the sea, lay the army, panting from the effort of the first, second and third days of the month, resting on its arms, its eyes to its sights, Maxim, Hotchkiss and Krag-Jorgenson held ready, alert, watchful, straining in the leash, waiting the expiration of the last truce that had now ...
— The Surrender of Santiago - An Account of the Historic Surrender of Santiago to General - Shafter, July 17, 1898 • Frank Norris
... can't find him, at all events. He knows all the men are on the alert, so I think you are safe, I will remain here ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... them, however, they always used the most abject language, and the most humble tone and posture—"Please your honour; and please your honour's honour" they knew must be repeated as a charm at the beginning and end of every equivocating, exculpatory, or supplicatory sentence; and they were much more alert in doffing their caps to these new men, than to those of what they call good old families. A witty carpenter once termed these ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... safe from it beyond any possible peradventure, and he began to plan for the future. He had prepared himself for the all-night ride, if he should decide to take it, with a cup of strong coffee at Wellwater, and he was alert in every faculty. His mind worked nimbly and docilely now, with none of that perversity which had troubled him during the day with the fear that he was going wrong in it. His thought was clear and quick, and it obeyed his will like a ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... though she was, or perhaps for that very reason, Wilfred was far less amenable to her voice than Agatha's; and if she attempted authority it was sure to rouse all the resistance left in him. Agatha had been constantly on the alert, liable to be called on every half-hour, to soothe fretful distress over impossible impatience at delay, anger at want of comforts, and dolefulness over the chances of improvements, and abuse, whether just or not, of the ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... rustling of a frightened rabbit as it scuttled from his path, each whir of startled grouse, or sudden call of nesting king-bird, made him pause cautiously until he had quite satisfied himself that it meant nothing to be feared. He was ever carefully alert for danger ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... in the vigour of his years dressed in the costume of a judge, with his left hand clenching the hilt of his sword, and his clawed right hand grasping a double hooked lance. His cruel eye is sternly on the watch, and his attitude is one of alert readiness to spring in all his giant force upon his prey. He sits enthroned on a rock, overtowering the tall waving trees, and below him his underlings are stripping and murdering a wayfarer. "Avarice" is a horned hag with ears like trumpets. A snake issuing from her mouth ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson
... the crowd thickened. Men with pale hangdog faces and horrible mouths slipped into the stream of people, all on the alert, waiting for the time to pounce on their prey. The mud was stirred up. With every inch the river grew more and more turbid. Now it flowed slowly thick, opaque, and heavy. Like air-bubbles rising from the depths to ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... of such speculations. A little tract, published towards the end of the seventeenth century, entitled 'The Growth of Deism,' brings out these points; and as a matter of fact we find that for the next half century the minds of all classes were on the alert—some in sympathy with, many more in bitter antagonism against Deistical speculations. In his later writings, Toland went much further in the direction of infidelity, if not of absolute Atheism, than he did in his ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... Thomas Hardy as "The Mayor of Casterbridge" is superior to "The Egoist." (Never in English prose literature was such a seer of beauty as Thomas Hardy.) The volume of Meredith's verse is small, but there are things in it that one would like to have written. And it is all so fine, so acute, so alert, courageous, ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... here began to take notice, to record and to classify the facts of nature. We may count this the second visible step in his great progress. Never again shall we find him in a childish attitude of idle wonder. Always is his brain alert, striving to understand, self-conscious of its own ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... the mortification of feeling that we had been deceived like children and huddled like sheep as an atonement for the sluggishness or obstinacy of that less alert and punctual class of travellers who, as the experience of steamboat agents had proved, could be aroused only by successive bell-ringings and repeated threats of a forfeited passage. We had some compensation and revenge, however, as, seated in our early secured best places, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... up, light-footed and alert. "I've been unlucky," he explained. "Had two punctures. I left the car at the garage and came on as quickly as I could. I say, I'm awfully sorry. I've been ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... chase the thieves, they wasted no time in embraces, but started instantly in pursuit of them. On reaching the same gate where the berlin had been seen, the officers described in what direction the party had driven; and the police being immediately on the alert, the criminals were discovered and arrested just as they were on the point of ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... of emotion seemed to ripple through the room. The atmosphere grew tense, electric—alert as with some premonition of ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... doubters gain an entrance, by the senses, into the town, but cannot force the heart; and Mansoul is reduced to the greatest straits and sadness. In this extremity, prayers are incessantly offered up to Emmanuel; but, for a long time, they can obtain no satisfactory answers. Both parties are on the alert; but Diabolus finds it impossible, either by treachery or by storming with his legion of doubts, to gain possession of Heart-castle. Being worsted in a general engagement, the doubters are slain, and are buried with their armour; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... words have not been included in the text. They have been omitted because they can be found in the literature study. It is better for pupils to find these for themselves. It will put them in the way of reading with the senses always alert for something good; and all good paragraphs and sentences lose something of their beautiful adaptation when torn from the place of ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... something tragic in the sudden contrast between the vigour and youth and pride of life that Yeovil had seen crystallised in those dancing, high-stepping horses, scampering dogs, and alert, clean-limbed young men-servants, and the age-frail woman who came forward to ...
— When William Came • Saki
... had great reserves of youth and vitality to draw on, and he kept on doggedly, his brain alert, his eyes wide open, his heart ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... such words could ever apply to her she was tired and dusty. But her little figure was so alert and trim, her grey linen dress and its appointments so dainty, and the apple-red in her small cheeks so bright, that one might have conceived her as just fresh from a maid's hands, and stepping out to amuse herself, instead of as just returning from a tedious afternoon's ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward |
