"Alert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Heaven made him think of God, God made him think of his call for help that morning, the call made him think of the answer, the beautiful woman before him made him think that possibly she might be the answer instead of the other one. He rather doubted it, but it might be a chance. Mickey was alert for chances for Peaches, so he smiled again, then he asked: "Are you in such ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... walked along in detached groups, many eyes were on the alert, and listening ears bent to catch some sign of ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... listened to his slow step as he ascended the stairs. She heard him pause, too, and waited for the sound of the opening of his room door, which was situated exactly above her own. But she listened in vain, her ears, brain and heart on the alert with surprise, curiosity, and at last suspicion. The Baroness was as full ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... continually growing excitement that he saw nothing clearly except the central group of objects: that is to say, a narrow bed, whose burden was screened from him by its foot, a table, an empty chair, the gas-globe luminous against a dark-green blind, and Hilda in black, alert and erect beneath the down-flowing light. The rest of the chamber seemed to stretch obscurely away into no confines. Not for several seconds did he even notice the fire. This confusing excitement was not caused by anything external such as the real ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... a higher order than Davenant's. They have found a place in Dodsley's and the several subsequent collections of early dramas, not conceded to the plays of the latter. Masque-making, however, was not in his line. His invention was not sufficiently alert, his dialogue not sufficiently lively, for a species of poetry which it was the principal duty of the Laureate to furnish. Besides, it is highly probable, his sympathies with rebellious Puritanism were already so far developed as to make ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... Cul-de-Sac, where no white influence reaches. No one who knew Haitian conditions doubted that revenge would be sought for Charlemagne's death, and all through the winter of 1919-1920, the Marines were on the alert for trouble. ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... and when that important matter had been settled to her satisfaction, she sat back contentedly and smiled upon the man opposite her, who, after a successful hearing before the Commerce Commission, had more than ever the alert air of a man who knows his own business. Outside in the summer sunlight, above the blue water of the Lake and over the dingy sward of the Park, the airmen were man[oe]uvring their winged ships, casting great shadows as they dipped and ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... it was a heavy burden to bear, and under its weight she became downcast and gloomy, a different Biddy from the briskly alert one of two months ago. The baby was the first to notice this. She missed her nurse's cheerful voice, and looking up in her face found there a settled sadness instead of the usual ready smile. This she resented in her own fashion, and cried ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... aesthetics. Beauty results from the harmony between spirit and sense; it addresses all the faculties of man, and can only be appreciated if a man employs fully all his strength. He must bring to it an open sense, a broad heart, a spirit full of freshness. All a man's nature must be on the alert, and this is not the case with those divided by abstraction, narrowed by formulas, enervated by application. They demand, no doubt, a material for the senses; but not to quicken, only to suspend, thought. They ask to be freed from what? From a load that oppressed ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... dreaded, but eventually would lead to Jim's vindication; she deplored my lack of faith in my companion; she marveled that I, too, should have fallen so easily a prey to the sharpers who were deceiving her hot-headed, obstinate father, whose senses were alert for every word or sign that would smirch, by even so much as a shadow, the man he would overthrow. If it had been possible for Gabrielle Tescheron to understand that I had read her impulsive father's character aright, and that my loyalty to Jim Hosley at the time was as firm as her own, ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... always travelling home with her, but he will be at hand to pilot her through a fog, to help her out of a crowd, or to get her a place when there is anything to be seen. He will make it plain that he thinks of her, and is ever on the alert to play the part ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... looked like magic-lantern slides, and amid all the people using the triangle as a promenade or hurrying here and there on business, the newsboys shouting and the general bustle, Charles did not know whether to be more afraid of losing Henrietta or colliding with her. But now his faculties were alert and he used more discretion than was necessary, for Henrietta, under the influence of that instinct which persuades that not seeing is a precaution against being seen, was scrupulous in avoiding ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... appear in turn in the doorway. Both are of medium height. She is an alert young woman of about thirty, modestly and neatly dressed. He wears a green forester's overcoat; his face is healthy but insignificant; his left eye is concealed by ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... man, neat, trim, smart. His clothes were those of Greater Washington, rather than Dakar and West Africa. His facial expression seemed overly alert, overly bright, and his features were more ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... again in a moment, moved subconsciously by the life-time habit of making sure what Vincent was up to. He smiled at the keen look of alert, prick-eared attention which the other was still giving to that room! Lord, how Vincent did love to get things all figured out! He probably had, by this time, an exact diagram of the owners of the ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... the police were upon the alert to discover the person whom they suspected of having stolen the relics for the diamonds, and not the diamonds for the relics. Among our fashionable and new saints, surprising as you may think it, Madame de Genlis ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... possibility, for the bear was beginning to flag a little, while his hardy steed was still in good wind. He therefore applied the whip with greater energy, and soon came alongside of the bear, which attempted to turn to the right, but Paddy had become a good and alert horseman by that time, and was on his other side in an instant. Again the bear tried to double, and again his enemy checked him and urged him on. Thus they progressed until they drew near to the gate of the fort. ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne
... contemplated by the statute not be made, and should there be room to entertain a suspicion of an existing design in any foreign power to occupy the country in question, you are to keep yourselves on the alert, and on the first undoubted manifestation of the approach of a force for that purpose you will exercise with promptness and vigor the powers with which you are invested by the President to preoccupy by force the Territory, to the entire exclusion of any ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson
... nature of dogs and men, the watchdog was never more numerous nor more alert than today. He was never in better voice, and having nothing whatever to do, he does it to the highest artistic perfection. At least one justification remains. Civilization has not done away with the moon. In the stillness of night, its great white face peeps over the hills at ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... and again in Paris. It was, therefore, to be expected that Baroness von Doring should be found in the midst of an admiring throng at Princess Shadursky's reception. Her brother, Ian Karozitch, was also there, suave, alert, dignified, losing no opportunity to make friends with the distinguished company that thronged ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... audience had dispersed, suddenly there was an alarm of a night attack. Firing commenced all round the town, which was a most unusual occurrence for a Sunday night. In an instant the man who had been masquerading as a buffoon was again the commanding officer, stern and alert. The tramp of many feet was heard in the streets, which proved to be the reserve squadron of the Protectorate Regiment, summoned in haste to headquarters. A Maxim arrived, as by magic, from somewhere else, the town guard were ordered to their places, and an A.D.C. was sent to ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... to make all duty sweet, To be alert and kind; 'Tis good, like Little Mabel, To have ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... room, I entered upon the staircase, in the wake of my companion. Though the two men at cards did not look up as I passed them, I noticed that they were alert and ready for any signal I might choose to give them. But I was not ready to give one yet. I must see danger before I summoned help, and there was no ...
— The Staircase At The Hearts Delight - 1894 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... and the phantasmal mists of this engendering air. But none stirred, nor went, nor came. So resting my hands cautiously on a little witch's guild of toadstools that squatted cold in shade, I lifted myself softly and stood alert. ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... cities, the instrument used for its accomplishment, debased by ignorance, poverty, and vice, could not be restrained to rational action. But the world will recover from the panic of this first catastrophe. Science is progressive, and talents and enterprise on the alert. Resort may be had to the people of the country, a more governable power from their principles and subordination; and rank and birth and tinsel-aristocracy will finally shrink into insignificance, even there. This, however, we have no right to meddle with. It suffices for us, if the moral ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... reminiscences of the old Republic, upon the republican faith of a number of enthusiasts, and, above all, upon the spirit of French patriotism, whose hatred of the treaties of Vienna and of the alliance with England kept them perpetually on the alert. The "National" owed a large portion of its following under Louis Philippe to this covert imperialism, that, later under the republic, could stand up against it as a deadly competitor in the person of Louis Bonaparte. The fought the aristocracy of ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... to have received little attention. The first edition, it would appear, ran to no more than a thousand copies; at all events, specimens of it are now very hard to find, and collectors pay high prices for them. When "An Outcast of the Islands" followed, a year later, a few alert readers began to take notice of the author, and one of them was Sir (then Mr.) Hugh Clifford, a former Governor of the Federated Malay States and himself the author of several excellent books upon the Malay. Clifford gave Conrad encouragement ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... little motorboat nosed its way into the harbor, several others dashed forward, with guns bared and alert figures standing ready for action. It was not until Lord Hastings had been satisfactorily identified that the warlike ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... in her pocket-pouch, not only to insure a variety but because she found them more palatable. Occasionally she returned to the stream to drink, but each time moderately. Always were her eyes and ears alert for the first signs of danger, but she had neither seen nor heard aught to disturb her. And presently the time approached when she felt she must return to her flier lest she be caught in the revealing light of low swinging Thuria. She dreaded leaving the water for she knew that ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... her, bareheaded and alert, quite obviously awaiting her. He did not express his pleasure in words as he took her hand in his. Only there was an indescribable look in his brown eyes that made her very glad that she had come. He had brought an enormous basket of strawberries, which he presented ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... the ponderous knights, amongst the reedy pools. William decided on constructing a causeway, and employed workmen to cut trenches to drain off the water, and raise the bank of stones and turf, under the superintendence of Ivo Taillebois. However, Hereward was on the alert, harassing them perpetually, breaking on them sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other, in such strange, unexpected ways, that at last the viscount came to the conclusion that he must have magic arts to aid him, and persuaded the ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... some pleasant scenes of Continental travel. There is something exceedingly quaint, almost ludicrous, in the author's way of employing the Spenserian stanza, and as it is not always clear that he is conscious of the humour there is in it, the reader's attention is kept on the alert in the very last way that would ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... on a blade of grass beneath, his feet, tumbled off and gave vent to his feelings in a belated "chirr." Overhead somewhere a raven croaked dismally and cynically at intervals. Ralph's ears heard these things as he waited, with every sense on the alert, at the ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... himself. We know this, but the enemies of the Black Battalion know it better than we do, for wherever they appeared on the field of action during those two years, whether with their sappers and miners or assaulting columns, there they found him alert, dauntless, invincible—their sappers and miners hoisted with their own petard, their assaulting columns routed and driven to cover before the withering, the deadly fire from the flashing cannon of his facts, ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... was born in Henry County, near Locust Grove, Georgia, on June 10, 1850 (as nearly as he can tell). His mother kept his age for him and had him tell it to her over and over when he was a little boy. The old fellow is well and rather alert, despite ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... creature," she cried,—"stupid, because, manlike, you are so hopelessly sensible—it makes just all the difference in the world. I shall grow less alert, less pliable of mind, less quick of sympathy, less capable of adjusting myself to altered conditions, and to entertaining new views. And, all the while, the demand ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... some premonition of the event which was to take place in the night, namely, the passing of the equatorial line; and we tried to keep our senses alert in order not to miss the subtle significance of so unusual an event, but in the morning there was the humiliating reflection that sleep had "won the day"! At noon we began to realize that we were at Summer's door and would soon learn the true quality of the ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... character that it could be kept for hours at a stretch. It was the genuine Indian dog trot, which is so effective in long distances. As the runner went along in this fashion, his thoughts were busy, and all his senses on the alert. He concluded that it was nearly midnight, and that he had, consequently, a number of hours at his command; so he aimed to get as far below the intercepting Apaches as possible, with the intention of returning to the river, before ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... charming day. Up and despatched packets for Ballantyne and Cadell; neither of them was furiously to the purpose, but I had a humour to be alert. I walked over to Huntly Burn, and round by Chiefswood and Janeswood, where I saw Captain Hamilton. He is busy finishing his Peninsular campaigns.[341] He will not be cut out by Napier, whose work has a strong party cast; and ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... Alexander assumed the offensive and endeavored to surprise Napoleon in his encampment. But Napoleon was on the alert. A series of terrific battles ensued, in which the French were invariably the victors. The retreating Russians, hotly pursued, at last rallied on the field of Eylau. Napoleon had already driven them two hundred and forty miles from his ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... we rode exalted, with hearts too full for speech. And our benefactor gave us no occasion for it. His eyes were fixed straight ahead upon the speeding road, alert for obstacles or rapt in visions of his own dear ones; or, more probable still, deep in reconsideration of his rashness in harboring two strangers who might ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... whom we were hospitably entertained, had heard of our projected occupation of the upper Tanana, and alert to his own interests, was anxious to know the plans for the establishment of a mission—plans which were yet all to make. He naturally favoured this spot, which it was already plain was quite out of the question, but professed his ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... changed, for her countenance was now bright and vivacious, and her eyes merry and sparkling. The hard set expression had gone, and she looked very alert and ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... opposition so formidable that all Europe cannot overcome it. Beyond any other people in the world, the Chinese furnish the raw materials for a world power. All they need is capable leadership. This is the gigantic task to which Japan has set herself. The alert and enterprising Islanders have entered upon a career of national aggrandizement. They realize that with their limited territory and population, they can hardly hope to become a power of the first ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... particularly at night, or at the junction of roads converging towards the Piquet line, at cross roads, etc., when they are out of sight of the sentries. The Piquet will stand to arms, every man in his allotted place, an hour before dawn, and will remain alert until the patrols (which are invariably sent out about that time) have reported absence of movement by the enemy. Outposts are generally relieved at dawn, so that the force is doubled at the hour of danger. ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... "Quick! Follow her. Follow her. Fast! Come! Thrice double fare if you follow her true To her own palace door." There was plashing of oar And rattle of rowlock. . . . I sat leaning low Looking far in the dark, looking out as we sped With my soul all alert, bending down, leaning low. But only the oaths of the men as we passed When we jostled them sharp as we sudden shot thro' The watery town. Then a deep, distant roar— The rattle of rowlock, the ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... around, alert and on guard, for he did not recognize the voice. A medium-sized man stood before him, a man of about his own age, who had a furtive manner and ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong
... Barine held out her arms to her sister! Her mother had been prevented from coming only by the warning that her disappearance would surely attract the attention of the spies. And the latter were very alert; for Mark Antony had not yet given up the pursuit of the singer, nor had the attorney Philostratus recalled the proclamation offering two talents for the capture of Dion, and both the latter's palace and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the conversation, for each took his position behind the tree barricade with all senses alert for ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... have made no mention of the men orderlies, who I must say were absolute bricks. There was Pierre, an alert little Bruxellois, who was in a bank before the war and kept his widowed mother. He was in constant fear as to her safety, for she had been left in their little house and had no time to escape. He was well-educated ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... led me a mile or more at least before they again halted and commenced to browse upon the rank, luxuriant grasses. All the time that I had followed them I had kept both eyes and ears alert for sign or sound that would indicate the presence of Felis tigris; but so far not the slightest indication of the beast ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... life was to "catch the first wave" from a big steamer. Dennis Maloney was his comrade in this perilous game. They rowed their egg-shell of a boat close to the wheel. Drenched with spray—for a moment they felt the wild excitement of danger. Four alert eyes, four steady hands kept them from being sucked under—then came the triumph of meeting the first wave that left the steamboat, and the extatic rocking motion of the skiff as she rode the other waves in the wake—but to catch the first was the point in the frolic! Connor was known to many of ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... 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 ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... course women are all alike!) While Osborne, like a good-natured bumble-bee, was buzzing noisily about, as though all the world were his clover-blossom; and Allen, so far as I know, was doing nothing; M. Godin, alert and keen despite his gentleness and a modesty which kept him for the most part unobtrusively in the shadow of his chosen corner, was writing rapidly in a note-book and speaking no word. It seemed as if nothing escaped him. Clearly he was there ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... arrival submitted these instructions to my father, he at once took up a certain routine of duties that never varied. He brushed Monsieur Maurice's clothes, waited upon him at table, attended him in his bed-room, was always within hearing, always on the alert, and haunted the prisoner like his shadow. Not even a housemaid could go in to sweep but he was present. Now the man's perpetual presence was intolerable to Monsieur Maurice. He had borne all else with patience, but this last tyranny was more ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... remain in the tainted air and the imprisoned earth. It would whisper at night at the windows, it would smile invisibly under the sun, it would steal into men's minds and work its will upon them. And already Henrietta felt its power. She was in a new world, dull but magical, torpid yet alert. ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... off there, in those two directions: straight northward is for Grossenhayn, right hand is for Badeburg. Most interesting to Lacy, which of these forks, what is quite optional, Friedrich will take! Lacy is an alert man; looks well to himself; warns Daun; and will not be caught if he can help it. Daun himself is encamped at Reichenberg, within two miles of him, inexpugnably intrenched as usual; and the danger surely is not great: nevertheless both these Generals, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... up the Capilano the banished chief had built his solitary home; for who can tell what fatal trick of sound, what current of air, what faltering note in the voice of the Medicine Man had deceived his alert Indian ears? But some unhappy fate had led him to understand that his solitude must be of ten years' duration, not ten days, and he had accepted the mandate with the heroism of a stoic. For if he had refused to do so his belief was that ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... likeness of a chubby undertaker, ready for a funeral, rather than in that of the "unmatched form and feature of blown youth"—in short, the very type and image of poor Tokely in Peter Pastoral,—his eyes and ears were on the alert to catch the look of surprise, and buzz of admiration, which he very naturally anticipated. He was a little daunted by a suppressed titter which ran round the room; but he was utterly confounded when his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 366 - Vol. XIII, No. 366., Saturday, April 18, 1829 • Various
... respectable abode, and, furnished with dark lantern, pistol, crowbar, and crape, joined half-a-dozen neophyte burglars—his pupils and his victims. The hostelry chosen for attack was "The Spaniards." The host and his servants were, however, on the alert; and, after a smart struggle in the passage, the housebreakers were worsted; two or three of them being killed, and the others—save and except the cautious Jemmy, who had only directed the movement from without—being fast ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 27, 1841 • Various
... is the free roamer of the wilderness—hunter, prospector, explorer, seeking he knows not what. Lithe and sinewy, he walks erect, making his way with the skill of wild animals, all his senses in action, watchful and alert, looking keenly at everything in sight, his imagination well nourished in the wealth of the wilderness, coming into contact with free nature in a thousand forms, drinking at the fountains of things, responsive to wild ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... person as a girl who could climb to the top of it; but after Genevieve and Mrs. Kennedy, arm in arm, came through the front door—with eyes indeed, a little misty, but with lips cheerfully smiling—every vestige of constraint fled. Genevieve, once more in her pretty linen frock, was again the alert little hostess, and very soon they were all off to inspect the flower garden, the vegetable garden, the cow corral, the sheds, the stables, and the blacksmith's shop, not forgetting Teresa, the cook, who was making tamales in the ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... he watches. It was not long before the depredator of the night was there, and a lurid gleam stood out of his eyes. While Beowulf cautiously held himself on the alert, the fiend had quickly clutched and devoured one of the sleepers. But now Grendel—such was the demon's name—found himself in a grasp unknown before. Long and dire was the strife. The timbers cracked, the iron-bound benches plied, and work deemed proof against all but fire was now a wreck. Grendel ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... stage. It was all over now but the noise; after a long and desperate fight Grayson, a young lawyer, with little more than a local reputation, had been nominated by his party for the Presidency of the United States, and Harley, alert, eager, and fond of dramatic effects, intended to be the first who should ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... kept on turning his eyes away from Mamma and looking at her; every time she looked she caught him looking. His dark hair sprang in two ridges from the parting. His short, high-bridged nose seemed to be looking at you, too, with its wide nostrils, alert. His face did all sorts of vivid, interesting things; you wondered every minute whether this time it would be straight and serious or crooked and gay, whether his eyes would stay as they were, black crystals, or move and show ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... rain, and was bitter cold; and the mist fell thick and swift upon the coast beyond. Jacky, forward with the jib-sheet in his capable little fist and the bail bucket handy, scowled darkly at the gale, being alert as a cat, the while; and the skipper, his mild smile unchanged by all the tumult, kept a hand on the mainsheet and tiller, and a keen, quiet eye on the canvas and on the vanishing rocks whither we were bound. And forth and back she went, ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... the field of humanity, as if a breeze had rippled a monstrous bed of poppies. This was the President. A quivering silence settled down and every eye was wide to watch this strange, disappointing appearance, every ear alert to catch the first sound of his voice. Suddenly the voice came, in a queer, squeaking falsetto. The effect on the audience was irrepressible, ghastly. After Everett's deep tones, after the strain of expectancy, this extraordinary, gaunt apparition, this high, thin sound from the huge body, ...
— The Perfect Tribute • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... any one at all; but that was chiefly because he did not want to meet any one. He went with his ears and his eyes alert, and was not above hiding behind a clump of stunted bushes when two horsemen rode down a canyon trail just below him. Also he searched for roads and then avoided them. It would be a fat morsel for Marie and her mother to roll under ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... mind and nerves as you wish they had treated them. Pretend that you are your own little child, and deal with yourself tenderly and gently, making allowances for the early strain to which you were subjected. So few of us American women, with our alert minds, and our Puritanic consciences, have the good sense and self-control to refrain from driving ourselves; and if, as often happens, we have formed the bad habit early in life, reform is truly difficult, but not impossible. We can get the ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... is for the most part a lonely place. Men pass through the melancholy iron-gates by which that quadrangle is entered on three sides—from Broad street, from the Ratcliff, and from New College-Lane—when necessity leads them that way, with alert step and silently. No nursemaids or children play about it. Nobody lives in it. Only when the examinations are going on you may see a few hooded figures who walk as though conscious of the powers of academic life and death which they wield, and a good deal of shuddering ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... 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 ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... in this occupation, so agreeable to men who are hungry, the botanist, whose eye was always on the alert for matters relating to his favourite calling, remarked that the wood out of which their fire had been made burned very much like oak. On taking up one of the fagots, and cutting it with his knife, he was astonished to find that it ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... must wear head-bands, carry bows and have quivers hung at their backs. They must scatter around the border of the "field," move watchfully about, peer into the distance and act as if on the alert to detect or to meet any ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher
... large door on the other side of the ring was rolled back and in galloped one of the bulls; then the door was closed again. At once the matador became very much on the alert. He waved his red cloak and the bull rushed at him. Pepito stepped nimbly aside and the ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... helpless and dared not say or do anything against the English. Nor was this feeling confined to the Creoles of Vincennes; it had spread to most of the points where trading posts existed. Hamilton found this out too late to mend some of his mistakes; but he set himself on the alert and organized scouting bodies of Indians under white officers to keep him informed as to the American movements in Kentucky and along the Ohio. One of these bands brought in as captive Colonel Francis Vigo, of St. Louis, a Spaniard by birth, an American by adoption, a patriot to the core, ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... friend—at last the dearest friend he had in this world—was the younger son, George, afterwards the well-known chemist and Professor of Technology in the University of Edinburgh. No two men could be less alike—George Wilson with a bright, alert, nimble mind; Cairns with an intellect massive like his bodily frame, and characterised chiefly by strength and momentum; and yet the two fitted into each other, and when they really got to know each other it might truly be said of them that the love between them was wonderful, ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... intermittently, as they could. Nor is Rauch's grand equestrian Sculpture a thing to be believed, or perhaps pretending much to be so. The commonly received Portrait of Friedrich, which all German limners can draw at once,—the cocked-hat, big eyes and alert air, reminding you of some uncommonly brisk Invalid Drill-sergeant or Greenwich Pensioner, as much as of a Royal Hero,—is nothing but a general extract and average of all the faces of Friedrich, such as has ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... was meant. But there was need for a caution. "You won't say anything of this till I tell you," said she. "Not even to Mrs. Burr. It would only make her uncomfortable." For why should all the old lady's belongings be put on the alert to discover flaws in her understanding? Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar gave the pledge asked for, and Gwen went on reading. They just recognised the water-mill as an acquaintance of last year—not as a subject of frequent conversation with Dave. Aunt M'riar seemed greatly impressed ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... the Fiftieth and Fifty-first Congresses, and served his State with that fidelity which had characterized his every act through life—faithful, conscientious, and painstaking—ever alert to the interests of his constituents and seeking only how he could ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various
... him waiting longer than I can avoid:" and muttering a resumption of his last sentence, on went the lawyer's indefatigable pen; and away flew the merry little Busy Bee, bounding off with her droll, tripping, elastic, short-stepped run, which suited so well with her little alert figure, and her dress, a small plain black velvet bonnet, a tight black velvet "jacket," as she called it, and a brown silk dress, with narrow yellow stripes (chosen chiefly in joke, because it was the colour of a bee), not a bit of superfluous shawl, boa, or ribbon about her, but all ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... behaved in such an extraordinary way, that she several times just stopped and stared at her. When it came to supper-time, and Mildrid, instead of taking her place at the table, went and sat down outside, saying that she had just had dinner, Beret was as intensely on the alert as a dog who scents game at hand. She took her supper and went to bed. The sisters slept in the same bed, and, as Mildrid did not come, Beret got up softly once or twice to look if her sister were still sitting out there, and if she were alone. Yes, ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... very first requirements for a man who is fit to handle pig iron as a regular occupation that he shall be so stupid and so phlegmatic that he more nearly resembles in his mental make-up the ox than any other type. The man who is mentally alert and intelligent is for this very reason entirely unsuited to what would, for him, be the grinding monotony of work of this character. Therefore the workman who is best suited to handling pig iron is unable to understand the real science of doing ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... subjected to brutal violation, and then turned out naked, with their children, to starve on the barren heaths. One whole family was enclosed in a barn, and consumed to ashes. Those ministers of vengeance were so alert in the execution of their office, that in a few days there was neither house, cottage, man, nor beast, to be seen in the compass of fifty miles: all was ruin, silence, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... tote-road driver. He took the word of his guide about the fishing in prospect. In his new and ebullient spirits he felt that he could hardly wait two weeks for the spectacle—Whittaker in the middle seat of a buck-board, on that six-mile carry road. And when the day came, Jerrard, now bronzed, alert and agile walked out over the Poquette Carry, paddled down to Sunkhaze, and received his superior ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... rustle, some stealthy creeping step to guide my next blow, I thrust away my pistol and changing my staff to my right hand, drew forth the broad-bladed sailor's knife I carried, and so waited mighty eager and alert, but heard only the far-off booming of the wind. Then a floorboard creaked faintly to my left, and turning short, I whirled my staff, felt it strike home and heard a fierce cry and the uneven ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... loosened the tongue of the terrified warrior, who, seeing his captor raise his head from sighting along the barrel, though he kept the weapon leveled, obeyed the beckoning motion of Deerfoot, and crept noiselessly out of the cavern. On the alert for any chance, he was ready to seize it, but the first object on which his eye rested in the dim moonlight was the figure of the young Shawanoe holding his gun in such a position, that, should it be necessary, he could ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... was clear and dark, the pike a pale limestone gleam between the shadowy hills. Hour by hour there sounded a clattering of hoofs, squads of cavalry, reports, couriers, staff. There was, too, a sense of Stonewall Jackson somewhere on the pike, alert with grey-blue eyes piercing the dark. Toward one o'clock firing burst out on the north. It proved an affair of outposts. Later, shots rang out close at hand, Fremont having ordered a cavalry reconnoissance. The grey met it with clangour and pushed it back. ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... Mr. Cartwright said. "I imagine that your arrival upset all their plans; they were so close behind you that they must have heard the knocking and the door open and close. The appearance of lights in the mill and the barking of the dog, would, at any rate, have told them that we were on the alert, and seeing that they ran on and opened fire I have no doubt that their plan was to have stolen quietly up to the windows and commenced an attack upon these in several places, and had they done this they would probably have forced an entrance before we could have got together to resist ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... progressive of all countries, with a population of nearly seventy millions of people alert to every profitable, legitimate business, mushroom-growing, one of the simplest and most remunerative of industries, is almost unknown. The market grower already engaged in growing mushrooms appreciates his situation and zealously guards his methods ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer
... moment, without measure. The men stood, nervous and alert, watching the row of leadys in front ...
— The Defenders • Philip K. Dick
... of the dog on the scene with his fine pointed nose, alert eyes, incessantly vibrating little tail, and miniver black and white coat picked out with tan, caused May as much excitement and delight as if she did not know one Greek letter from another, and were innocent of Latin ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... Vedas, that are devoted to the service of their preceptors, that are observant of penances and excellent vows, that are firm in truth, that never utter anything that smacks of disobedience or enmity to their preceptors, that are always alert, and ever ready in service of seniors and preceptors,—they repair, O great Rishi, to such regions, they that are pure (of mind and body), that are endued with cleansed souls, that are of restrained speech, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... to be pretty risky work," he continued. "Not but what there's always plenty of risk about a job of this kind, but to-night there's more than usual. The fierce fighting to-day has got the enemy all stirred up and he'll be on the alert. Likely enough he'll have scouting parties of his own out, and we may run across them in the dark. Then it will be a question of who is the quicker with knife or bayonet. Now you boys scatter and get your crawling suits and hoods and ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... coloured dark blue. In the space between Australia and New Caledonia, called by Flinders the Corallian Sea, there are numerous reefs. Of these, some are represented in Krusenstern's "Atlas" as having an atoll-like structure; namely, BAMPTON shoal, FREDERIC, VINE or Horse-shoe, and ALERT reefs; these have ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin
... question, and drove his points well home. And yet he did not seem to be in the field best adapted for his peculiar gifts. He was too judicial, too reluctant to put a good face upon a bad cause, not enough of a rhetorician, and not sufficiently alert in changing front, or able to handle topics with the lightness of touch suitable to the peculiar tastes of a parliamentary Committee. Thus, though he invariably commanded respect, he failed to show the ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... eighteen or two dozen in each, and lowered overboard. The cutter's two boats then took them in tow, and approached the beach. As they drew near, a small light, shown for an instant, warned them that the preventive men were on the alert. A weight sufficient to moor each parcel was on this dropped overboard, and the boats hung ...
— The Ferryman of Brill - and other stories • William H. G. Kingston
... secret to the king. Minuchihr immediately placed the army in charge of Karun, and took himself thirty thousand men to wait in ambuscade for the enemy, and frustrate his views. Tur advanced with a hundred thousand men; but as he advanced, he found every one on the alert, and aware of his approach. He had gone too far to retreat in the dark without fighting, and therefore began a vigorous conflict. Minuchihr sprung up from his ambuscade, and with his thirty thousand men rushed upon the centre of the enemy's troops, and in the end encountered Tur. The struggle was ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... turned sharply, for his own ears were attuned to the stillnesses of the western forests and his hearing was unusually acute. He had just heard a sound on the wall, not far away. Instantly the young engineer was on the alert. ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... her regard him as anything else than a butler. "Bad for discipline, too!" he reflected. Therefore Allenby was lonely. He read the Daily Mail in the seclusion of his pantry, and then, strolling through the hall, with a watchful eye alert lest a speck of dust should have escaped Sarah, he saw his master cross the garden and strike across the park in the direction of Hawkins' farm. Every one else was out, Allenby knew not where. An impulse for fresh air fell upon him, and he sauntered ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... as much as you please. Our enemies are on the alert, and we must crush them instantly, or not at all. I have made a mistake. I have been on the wrong track; it is an accident liable to happen to any man, no matter how intelligent he may be. I took the effect for the cause. The day I was convinced that culpable relations existed between Raoul ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... place of respect. Theoretically, a thousand chivalrous swords should leap from their scabbards to succour the distressed woman. In practice this may only mean that the thousand owners of these metaphorical weapons are on the alert to take advantage of the ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... to be asleep except these two men—one motionless on the bridge, the other alert in the dimly lighted wheelhouse. The Croonah herself seemed to slumber with the regular beating of a great restless heart far down in ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... and puts all precedent things at sixes-and-sevens. At any rate, be the cause what it may, there is seldom anything worth seeing—within the scope of a railway traveller's eye; and if there were, it requires an alert marksman to take a flying shot ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... difference in Dotty's attitude. She walked as quickly as before but she was not quite so alert. Also, she kept turning her head suddenly from side to side with a gesture of an inquisitive bird, a little ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... well, are absolutely convinced that there is not a living creature in it except one or two old women gathering firewood. Then Ihle, Karl, and the two dogs make their way through the cover, emitting the most strange and horrible sounds, especially Ihle; father stands there motionless and on the alert with his gun cocked, just as though he really expected to see something. Ihle comes out just in front of him, shouting 'Hoo lala, hey heay, hold him, hie, hie,' in the strangest and most astonishing manner. Then father asks me if I have seen nothing, and I with the most natural ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... man of fifty, unless hard conditions and want have ground interest and vitality out of him, ought to be at his best. He ought to be active, alert, OPEN ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... a lurking watch for ships making home ports by way of the North Channel; or circled the Isle of Man, ran thence across to Morecambe Bay, and so down the Lancashire coast the length of Formby Head, where the Mersey tenders, alert for the Jamaica trade, relieved them of their vigil. Dublin tenders guarded St. George's Channel, aided by others from Milford Haven and Haverfordwest. Bristol tenders cruised the channel of that names keeping a sharp eye on Lundy Island and the Holmes, where shipmasters ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... require the large wings of the females that only deposit their eggs and die. They are very heavy, and if forced to flight must have big wings to support them. I was so interested in this that I slightly chloroformed the female, and made a study of the pair. The male was fully alive and alert, but they had not mated, and he would not take wing. He clung in his natural position, so that he resembled a big fly, on the smooth side of the sheet of corrugated paper on which I placed the female. His wings folded over each other. The abdomen and the antennae ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... Path by the Bazaar every eye among the hillsmen and among the handful of British was alert. Suddenly a savage murmuring among the natives in the Bazaar broke into a loud snarl, and it seemed as if a storm was about to break; but as suddenly, at a call from Cumner, the hillsmen, the British, and a thousand native soldiers, faced the Bazaar in perfect silence, their ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... from the older man's face, and his eyes became alert, renewing from another angle their investigation of the stranger. Warrington. So this was the man? He could understand now. Who could blame a girl for making a mistake when he, a seasoned veteran, had been beguiled by the outward appearance of the man? ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... to her husband, not quite understanding what Serge meant, but her mind was on the alert, and in an alarmed ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... gently to the man he used to be. Then, as in the sad days of her bridal home-coming, the dear immortal memory of him rose up before her, and pleaded mercy for the insufferably mortal man. She saw him, with the body and the soul that had been once so familiar to her, slender, alert, and strong, a creature of appealing goodness and tenderness and charm. And she was troubled with a great longing for the presence of the thing she had so loved. She yearned even for signs of the old brilliant, startling personality, ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... or rather a horizontal section of the splash; but you are able to recognize some of the configurations already described, and will be the more willing to believe that a momentary view is after all sufficient to give much information if one is on the alert and has acquired skill ...
— The Splash of a Drop • A. M. Worthington
... of any importance had been undertaken since the great repulse of the English at Ticonderoga. Skirmishes indeed occasionally took place along the border, and one expedition under Major Rogers, on the shore of Lake Champlain, kept the French on the alert. Whilst Montcalm was unable for want of a sufficiently numerous army to undertake any great offensive movement, Abercromby, disheartened by his late fruitless attempt on Ticonderoga, lay almost inactive in ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... as he did not want the fellow to suspect that the inmates of the house were awake and on the alert. The youths, gripping tightly their rifles and muskets, waited. Their hearts were beating more rapidly than was their wont, but it is safe to say that no feeling of fear had place in their hearts. Only expectation, and eagerness to get at ...
— The Dare Boys of 1776 • Stephen Angus Cox
... were on the alert. They had missed Courtland from the festivities the night before, but were so thoroughly occupied with their own part in the busy week that they had little time to question him. Later in the day Tennelly began to wonder why Courtland had not brought Gila, as he intended, for the class play, but ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... self-regard. The ever-growing delight in these inanimate things, the constant discovery of new charms as knowledge widened with experience, united to prevent stagnation and despair; they kept heart and mind alert for the perception of new glories; and it is from a clear sense of their salutary power that I dwell upon them in this record of a self-tormented life. How should he find life colourless whose eyes are often fixed upon the sky, who sees grey zones of cloud flush crimson ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... former affluence of greedy and interested hearts, you will soon see revealed and diminishing; probably your eyes, which are so alert, have already remarked this diminution. The monarch no longer loves you; coolness and inconstancy are maladies of the human heart. In the midst of the most splendid health, our King has for some time past ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... photograph. He now understood the meaning of the laugh with which Doctor Lombard had given him leave to carry away all the details he could remember. The picture was so dazzling, so unexpected, so crossed with elusive and contradictory suggestions, that the most alert observer, when placed suddenly before it, must lose his coordinating faculty in a sense of confused wonder. Yet how valuable to Clyde the record of such a work would be! In some ways it seemed to be the summing up of the master's thought, the key ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... towards the evening, when he became excited by the expectation of his father's arrival. He sat, pillowed high up, each respiration an effort that spread a burning crimson over his face, while eye and ear were nervously alert. ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... should like that to be known. He was perfectly cool and alert. I had thought at the very beginning of taking the bank, and he read ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... on his little platform to see him clearly as he then was, and even as he has largely not ceased to be. I, at least, have only known him in his middle age; yet I think I can see him, younger yet only a little more alert, with hair more red but with face yet paler, as he first stood up upon some cart or barrow in the tossing glare ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... Before setting out they counted well the cost. Being aware that fifteen had left their neighborhood only a few days ahead of them, and that every slave-holder and slave-catcher throughout the community, were on the alert, and raging furiously against the inroads of the Underground Rail Road, they provided themselves with the following weapons of defense: three revolvers, three double-barreled pistols, three single-barreled pistols, three sword-canes, four butcher knives, one ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... be sure," the other shrugged. "You're most alert, Officer—right on the job, as they ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... me; the grass-stems spired up to my fired fancy like great trees. Among them I used to minish myself to the size of an ant and become a pioneer hewing out a pathway through virgin thickets. I had my ears alert for the sound of a horn, of a galloping horse, of the Questing Beast and hounds in full cry. But I never looked to encounter a fairy in these most fairy solitudes. Beleaguered ladies, knights-errant, dwarfs, churls, fiends of hell, leaping like flames out of pits in the ground: all these, but ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... to, that a considerable portion of it becomes submerged; at the same time it is sufficiently buoyant to admit of its saucer-like hollow top being always above the surface. In this wet depression five or six eggs are laid. The bird, always most alert, is still more so now, and scarcely ever admits of a near examination of the nest-making, or of a view of the eggs. In favorable situations, however, and with the aid of a telescope, the process may be watched; and it is not a little ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... transformed, the despondent droop of his lean body replaced by an alert energy. "Now, Job," he coaxed, "I jus' wants yoh foh to come along wif me peaceable, sah. I'se after yoh to save yoh ol' hide ...
— Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration • Leona Dalrymple
... Pen was pleased with Blanche. His spirits came back: he laughed and rattled till Laura wondered to hear him. It was not the same Pen, yawning in a shooting jacket, in the Fairoaks parlour, who appeared alert and brisk, and smiling and well dressed, in Lady Clavering's drawing-room. Sometimes they had music. Laura had a sweet contralto voice, and sang with Blanche, who had had the best continental instruction, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... same Ferriss to whom she had said good-bye on that never-to-be-forgotten March afternoon, with its gusts and rain, four long years ago. The Ferriss she had known then had been an alert, keen man, with quick, bright eyes, alive to every impression, responsive to every sensation, living his full allowance of life. She was looking now at a man unnaturally old, of deadened nerves, listless. ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... Major arrived, and began the business of sorting them. He was brisk and alert, and he called them one by one to stand before him. They shuffled up to his little table, wavering, deprecating, humble, and answered his brief impatient questions. And on the spot he made snap diagnoses, such as rheumatism, bronchitis, kicked by a horse, knocked down ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... the parody of a parody, the music of yesterday masquerading as the music of to-morrow. Alixe nervously watched the critic. He stood at the end of the piano and morosely fumbled his beard. Again a wave of anxious hatred, followed by forebodings, crowded her alert brain. She desperately clutched her husband's shoulder; he finished in a burst of sheer pounding and brutal roaring. Then she threw her arms about him in an ecstasy of pride—her confidence was her ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... fleshing it in the heart of him who had darkened her life? Did he understand as fully the marvellous change in the beautiful face, that had lured him from his chapel tryst with his betrothed? He was on the alert for signals of distress, of embarrassment, of terror; but what meant the glad light that leaped up in her eyes, the quick flush staining her wan cheek, the triumphant smile curving lips that a moment before might have belonged to Guercino's Mater Dolorosa, the relaxation of figure and ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... gay transformation in my shop-mates when the whistle blew on Saturday night. The dullest and most morose showed intelligence then. The prospect of rest, be it ever so remote—even in the hereafter—roused them from their lethargy. How alert and cheerful we were on holidays, even the prolonged holiday of a strike brought its pinched joys. Quite a number of my ancient comrades of industry looked forward to the Poor House with a hopefulness born of thwarted toil. The luckiest ones out of the thousands whom ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... he asked one of the clerks to send Saunders to him if he was quite disengaged. A moment later his partner entered. The last five years had served him well. He had never looked better. His skin was clear, his eyes bright, his movement calm and alert. ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... 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 middle men ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... accepted the bill gladly, and led the way back to the house. Jim Farland refused to use the elevator; he insisted on walking up the stairs, and on going up noiselessly. When they reached the third floor, he was doubly alert. ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong
... thanked him in a way he found bewildering. He was very goodly in his flannels, with his alert slender darkness and his bright eyes, softened now as ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... easily imagine that at the period of the year when these flights occur, every sportsman is on the alert; and, as I am only occupied in the evening at the theatre, I am fortunately able to dispose of my mornings as I like. It was in 1810 or '11, I was five-and-thirty years of age; that is to say, gentlemen, rather more active than I am ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... of the most delightful of men. His English style, both in conversation and in public speaking, was fresh and original, well adapted to keep his hearers expectant and alert, and to express the delicate and subtle shades of meaning that were required for the service of his delicate ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... nothing and stuck his tongue in his cheek. A warmly pleasant glow permeated his being. It was good to have a friend like Swing Tunstall—one who would not interfere but who would be in alert readiness for any contingency. And Racey was well aware that in his impending visit to the Starlight the contingencies were apt to be many ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... consultation with Philip had put the other party on the alert; they too held council, and kept their arms by their sides. As the breeze died away, they were not two miles from the land, and once more they drifted back into the ocean. Philip's mind was borne down with grief at the loss of Amine; but it recovered to a certain degree when he thought ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... twenty-four Guelphic citizens, appointed for the purpose. This provision tempered for a time the power of the Capitani, so that the admonitions were greatly diminished, if not wholly laid aside. Still the parties of the Albizzi and the Ricci were continually on the alert to oppose each other's laws, deliberations, and enterprises, not from a conviction of their inexpediency, but from a hatred of ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... the alert young widow made her court and ruled as a queen. Here little Jim slept away his babyhood and grew to consciousness with sounds of coming horses, going wheels; of chicken calls and twittering swallows in their nests; shouts of men ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... he was observant of a corresponding change in Harcourt, when a moment later he entered the room. That individuality which had kept the former shopkeeper of Sidon distinct from, although perhaps not superior to, his customers—was strongly marked. He was perhaps now more nervously alert than then; he was certainly more impatient than before,—but that was pardonable in a man of large affairs and action. Grant could not deny that he seemed improved,—rather perhaps that the setting of fine clothes, cleanliness, and the absence of petty worries, made his characteristics ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... in the schoolroom, the class being divided into groups of ten or twelve players each. It is also an excellent parlor game, and is full of sport if played by quick, alert players. ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... were gone through, and when the foreman of the jury stood up every neck was craned forward, and every ear was on the alert to catch the words that fell from his lips. The prisoner flushed a little and then grew pale as death, giving a quick, nervous glance at the quiet figure in black, of which he could just catch a glimpse. Then came the verdict, sharp and decisive, ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... though he was promoted through various ranks to that of Admiral of the Blue (1801). He became commander in chief at the Nore in 1798, and at Plymouth in 1799. Had he received other sea commands, his vigorous, alert young aide-de-camp might have continued to serve with him, and would thus have just missed the opportunities that came to him in his next sphere of employment. What young officer would not have eagerly followed a gallant and warm-hearted ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... fingers And toes. The chance of escape was, I felt, almost desperate. The previous evening a rumor had circulated that the British general had stormed Ciudad Rodrigo, and might therefore be already hastening in his seven-league boots, toward Badajoz. The French were consequently more than ever on the alert, and keen eyes watched with sharpened eagerness for indications of sympathy or correspondence between the citizens and the advancing army. I jumped up as soon as the sergeant-major had disappeared, and was about to follow, when the mistress of the place approached, and said, hastily, 'I ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... he could carry, or that could carry itself—such as a young foal; even the little black boy had been taken on speculation—and so indeed had the big Abyssinian, who, though dumb, was the most useful, ready, and alert of his five slaves. Every bargain seemed to occupy at least an hour, and perhaps Yusuf lingered the longer in order to give Arthur more time for consideration; or it might be that his native tongue, once heard, exercised an irresistible fascination over him. ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... at command, the muscles seem to spring to their places, tense, alert. "Easy." Yes, truly, but by no means "slow." "Easy," the great hammer swings about his head in whirling circles, swift and ever swifter. Once—and twice—the great muscles in back and arms and back and legs ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... at it; and presently you become conscious of a difference between it and all the other houses. They are all alert, busy, noisy, crowded with life in every storey, oozing vitality from every window; but of all the narrow vertical strips that make up the houses of the street, this strip numbered thirty-seven is empty, ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... were soon on the alert: the rain came down in a steady shower; and as soon as they were wet through, they took off their shirts, and dabbling them into the water as it ran down to leeward, squeezed it out into their mouths, ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... leisure or in your active moments, if you wish to advance, you must be alert. Know for yourself the reasons for things, and you will thereby form the stepping stones that will lead you upward ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... folded her arms, and closed her eyes. "Laws a massy!" she exclaimed. "What next? Old Tom, drunken Tom, swearin' an' ravin' Tom Brent's boy a preacher!" Then suddenly she opened her eyes and sat up very erect and alert as she broke forth, "Sally Martin, what air you a-tellin' me? It ain't possible. It 's ag'in' nature. A panther's cub ain't a-goin' to be a lamb. It 's downright wicked, that 's what ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... was becoming unbearable to him and he sauntered into the building at about five in the afternoon. There, as a matter of course, he found Dolly Longestaffe drinking sherry and bitters. 'Where the blessed angels have you been?' said Dolly. Dolly was at that moment alert with the sense of a duty performed. He had just called on his sister and written a sharp letter to his father, and felt himself to be ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... come back there was nothing to be gained by seeking him, for all the rest would quit in the meantime. Everything went, during the strike, and the packers paid. Before long Jurgis found that the custom of resting had suggested to some alert minds the possibility of registering at more than one place and earning more than one five dollars a day. When he caught a man at this he "fired" him, but it chanced to be in a quiet corner, and the man tendered him a ten-dollar bill and a wink, and he took them. Of course, before ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... wall. Since that period, it has been found necessary gradually to raise the strength of the garrison from 800 to 4000 men, one-fourth of whom are always European soldiers—and though no attack in force has lately been made by the Arabs, the necessity of being constantly on the alert against their covert approaches, renders the duties of the garrison harassing to the last degree. Though a considerable trade now exists with the African coast, scarcely any commercial intercourse has yet been established with the interior ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... different sort of person—gay, alert and all the time dancing, talking, laughing and gesticulating with every one, as though his good ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... the play began in the early afternoon, usually between two and three o'clock, and lasted for about two hours. The audience was an alert one, neither jaded by a long day's business nor rendered impatient by waiting for the adjustment of scenery. The Elizabethans constituted a vigorous audience, eager to meet the dramatist and actors more than half way in interpreting ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... family perish was monstrous to suppose. He kept his good looks and his fresh complexion; even now some maiden would easily be found to answer his Olympian nod; and a vein of recklessness sometimes cropped up through his habitual caution, and kept his friends alert for surprises. In the hunting-field, for instance,—and he rode to hounds twice a week,—he made a rule of avoiding fences; but the world quite rightly set this down to a proper care for his person rather than to timidity, since on one ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the clock, for the man under whose charm he had come was to call at a certain hour, to confer with him in regard to the magazine. He could hear him coming (stepping briskly and whistling a "Moore's Melody") before the rap upon the door announced him. He came in with the bright, alert air of a man ready for action for which he has appetite. His rarely heard laugh rang out, fresh and spontaneous, several times during the interview. His manners were at all times those of a prince, but Mr. Graham had never seen him so genial, so gay. The mantle ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... of Dr. Holmes's comment on life, and of the phrase wherein he secures it, arises from his singular vigilance. He has unpreoccupied and alert eyes. Strangely enough, by the way, this watchfulness is for once as much at fault as would be the slovenly observation of an ordinary man, in the description of a horse's gallop, 'skimming along within a yard of the ground.' Who shall trust ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... in August, a brilliant sunny, breezeless day, such a day as would under ordinary circumstances conduce to certain drowsiness even in the most piously disposed, the church-goers of Little Branston were preternaturally alert, if not quite so attentive as usual. For behold! Corporal Richard Baverstock, Widow Baverstock's only son, and the father of Matilda Ann, the three-year-old darling of the village, had returned from the wars with a very brown face, a medal, two or three ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell) |
