"Alert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... until he was lost in the echoing caverns of imagination, and was wont to emerge from these absent fits suddenly with the air of a diver who comes to the surface with a great treasure. He came to life at this moment, his eyes wide open, his manner alert; "Eh, it will be a fulfilment o' the prophecy o' Jeremiah, 'Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land.' Eh, eh, out o' the north—the north—it would perhaps be meaning the Oa," he ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... morning. He had served my mass, and said his own in my little oratory; and he came down to breakfast, clean, alert, happy. I asked him how ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... him with a limp tongue lolling out between the ragged palings which stood him for teeth. In the middle of the Piazza was a fountain, and above the fountain a tall stone crucifix. Our friend mounted the steps of the cross in the alert way he had (like a little bird, the story says), and the wolf, after lapping apologetically in the basin, followed him up three steps at a time. Then with one arm round the shaft to steady himself, he made ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... with Yorkshire, as has been done, for Ireland once had a separate Parliament, and the Union was a matter of agreement, the outcome of which was that Mr. Childers's Commission found she was taxed three millions more than she should have been. The colonies are on the alert, with all the rather irritable uppishness of youth on the verge of manhood, and their younger generations are sure to take full advantage of any tactless conduct of the British Government. Such was Froude's view, and nothing has happened since his death to shake its inherent probability. ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... make all that she can out of her husband. So I did my best first of all to straighten up John's appearance. I shifted the style of collar he was wearing to a tighter kind that I liked better, and I brushed his hair straight backward instead of forward, which gave him a much more alert look. Mother said that John needed waking up, and so we did all we could to wake him up. Mother came over to stay with me a good deal, and in the evenings we generally had a little music or ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... understands, but one who understands quickly. On the other hand, one who learns the same things, but who takes a longer time in so doing, say two years instead of one, is slow. Of a "quick" child, the people say that "nothing escapes him"; his attention is always on the alert, and he is ready to receive every kind of stimulus: as a sensitive scale will show the slightest variation in weight, so the sensitive brain will respond to the slightest appeal. It is Equally rapid in its associative processes: "He understands in a flash" ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... was evidently on the alert—would arouse him should danger be near, again fell asleep. He did not awake Harry and Reggy, who slept on, notwithstanding Bruce's barking and his conversation with Bendigo. The black roused ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston
... at once the swain recollected the snake, which was as slender, and supple, and quick, and sparkling as the girl who lay there on the hill-side, and wept and made fun at the same time and looked oddly alert ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... head. It seemed natural to her to do whatever might be wanted, and to act upon her own responsibility. Her self-confidence reached the heroic point. She knew that she was right, and she knew moreover that in this whole matter she alone was right. Therefore the necessity of keeping up, of keeping alert and vigilant, of holding in her hand the threads of all these varied complications was not disagreeable to her, though she fully felt its importance—nay, almost exaggerated it in her own mind if that could be. She felt the dangerous character of the ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... had decided to kiss her at all costs, even with the certainty of being in disgrace with her for long afterwards, when she herself came up to bed. The tranquillity which followed my anguish made me extremely alert, no less than my sense of expectation, my thirst for and my fear ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... her husband, not quite understanding what Serge meant, but her mind was on the alert, and in an alarmed tone, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... over promoted the cause of liberty. Most frequently it has served as a pretext for reaction, or a red signal. In this instance—as afterwards in 1848—overt acts of violence made the powers of despotism more alert, and conduced with the half-hearted action of their adversaries to the suppression of the rising of 1820-21. Byron's sympathy with the movement seems to have been stimulated by his new associations. Theresa's brother, Count Pietro, an enthusiastic young soldier, having ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... standard in it with a flourish of trumpets. But nothing more could be done. Of Antrim's Irish contingent, which was to have been in the West Highlands by the 1st of April, there were no tidings; and Scotland all to the north of Dumfries was full of Covenanters now alarmed and alert. To try to dash through these at all hazards, so as to lodge himself in the Highlands, was his thought for a moment; but he had to give up the attempt as impossible. From Dumfries, therefore, he ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... sect? you ask me; I must be A member sure of some fraternity: Why no; I've taken no man's shilling; none Of all your fathers owns me for his son; Just where the weather drives me, I invite Myself to take up quarters for the night. Now, all alert, I cope with life's rough main, A loyal follower in true virtue's train: Anon, to Aristippus' camp I flit, And say, the world's for me, not ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... Violet was directly facing her now. Her eyes shone so fiercely, so unnaturally, bright that a queer little sensation of doubt pricked Olga for the first time, setting every nerve and every muscle on the alert for she knew not what. "You do know, Allegro! And so do I!" The full voice took a deeper note, it throbbed the words. "Do you think I haven't watched you, seen what was going on? Do you think it has all been ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... this duty irksome. The partridges were almost the sole birds remaining in the bleak woods, and, much as their curious ways of hiding in the snow, and the resounding thunder of their strange drumming, mystified and attracted me, I was not alert enough to catch them. All my devices of horse-hair and deer-hide snares were foolishness in their sharp eyes. The water-fowl, too—the geese, ducks, cranes, pokes, fish-hawks, and others—had flown, sometimes darkening the sky over our clearing by the density of ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... at breakfast on the first of November, waiting for the postman, while the unconscious Mr. Gribble went on with his meal. The double-knocks down the road came nearer and nearer, and Mr. Gribble, wiping his mouth, sat upright with an air of alert and pleased interest. Rapid steps came to the front door, and ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... their former prosperity; but the progress of resettlement was slow and painful. Fortifications were built, old and young trained for soldiers, watch and ward kept night and day, scouts ranged the surrounding forests, and all were constantly on the alert. All hunting or fishing, all labor in forest or field, all journeying, was at the imminent risk of life or liberty. From the nearest swamp or thicket, from behind some fence, stump, or clump of brake, at any moment might appear ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... mid-winter, Andros was informed of the fears entertained at Court of a movement of the Prince of Orange, he issued a proclamation, commanding His Majesty's subjects in New England, and especially all officers, civil and military, to be on the alert, should any foreign fleet approach, to resist such landing or invasion as might be attempted. Not causelessly, even if unjustly, the Governor's object was understood to be to hold New England for King James, if possible, should the parent-country ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... functions are struck at the same time with impunity. In order to achieve maximum results, the attacks will need to be evaluated quickly in order to define previously unknown elements of the system or how the enemy perceives the impact on his system. Finally, the attacker must be alert as to the interaction of the functions as the effects of these Deep Strikes begin to take hold. In order to achieve desired levels of Shock and Awe, the attacker must know the current and projected effects of his strikes against elements of the enemy's residual system. ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... vagrant faculty, it had all the merits claimed for it. I certainly never hunted any game better worth my powder; and to a young man with rare holidays and long working hours, its value was enhanced by the fact that one might bring it down at any turn, if only one kept one's eye alert and one's hand on ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... the wondrous deep, And well do the billows their secrets keep, And sound should those savage old sailors sleep, If sleep they may after such a life; Where every dark passion, alert and aleap, Made ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... services—see him drawing his cart in Belgium, rounding up the sheep into the fold on the Yorkshire fells, tending the cattle by the highway, warning off the night prowler from the lonely homestead, always alert, always obedient, always the friend of man, be he never so friendless.... Shall we go for ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... went in with them, and soon the same shouts which had been heard without were heard also within. The general, however, was on the alert, and as soon as the shouts arose inside the gens d'armes entered the church and arrested those who had caused the disturbance. The crowds tried to rescue them on their way to prison, but the general appeared ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... this thing out with all Prescott and Verde," said the captain at last. "I've sworn I wouldn't turn back, and so, by jinks, I'm going ahead. It's all open country around Snow Lake, and I can keep on the alert ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... 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 which plucked him off his torpedo ...
— Join Our Gang? • Sterling E. Lanier
... whose nervous twitches alone told of the surgings of hope and fear within. Katy was resting in a big chair near by, her wistful eyes fixed on Amy's little figure seen in the dim distance, her ears alert for ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... the stirrup, and he swung it idly. His left hand, in which he held the reins, rested lightly on the horn of his saddle, and his right gripped the cantle at his back. He hummed a ditty of the desert, but his gaze, keen and alert, continually sought the open stretches of trail above him, and at regular intervals flashed back along the ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... crimson: pupil deep blue-black. Tail slightly rounded. Remarkably strong canines, from which peculiarity it has obtained its native name of TAA, as it bites severely when taken, if the fisher be not on the alert. It is good to eat, but is not common. Caught by the hook ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... living up to Tess. Sometimes Missy couldn't help wishing that her chum were not quite so alert. Being all the while on the jump, mentally and physically, left you somewhat breathless and dizzy; then, too, it didn't leave you time to sample certain quieter yet thrilling enjoyments that came right to hand. For example, now and then, Missy secretly longed to spend a leisurely hour ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... deal with the most prosaic details of national income and expenditure, his eloquence rose to an unusual height and power. At the same time, he was a most vigilant guardian of the public purse, and he was incessantly on the alert to prevent the national wealth, which his finance had done so much to increase, from being squandered on unnecessary and unprofitable objects. This jealousy of foolish expenditure combined with his love of peace to make him very chary ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... room until her face had regained its natural look, but her door was always ajar, and Jane fancied she liked to hear Rebecca's quick, light step. Her mind was perfectly clear now, and, save that she could not move, she was most of the time quite free from pain, and alert in every nerve to all that was going on within or without the house. "Were the windfall apples being picked up for sauce; were the potatoes thick in the hills; was the corn tosselin' out; were they cuttin' the upper field; were ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... course of thought further, had not there occurred an incident which brought the conversation to a close. Looking up, the two saw approaching them across the lawn, evidently coming from the little railway station, and doubtless descended from this very train, the alert, quick-stepping figure of a man evidently a stranger to the place. Jim and Sarah Ann Bowles stepped to one side as he approached and lifted his hat with a ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... General, said to Mr. Brooks, rather mournfully, "It is about the worst thing I have seen since I have been down here." In further illustration of Hooker's confidence in himself, Mr. Brooks says: "One night, Hooker and I being alone in his hut, the General standing with his back to the fireplace, alert, handsome, full of courage and confidence, said laughingly, 'The President says you know about that letter he wrote me on taking command.' I acknowledged that the President had read it to me. The General seemed to think that the advice was well-meant, but unnecessary. Then he added, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... was ready, armed against fate, alert, watchful to ward off all that might harm or distress his eldest son. Peter spoke of their exodus from London, their sojourn in the country, told them anecdotes of big deals, and was, in his big, burly, shrewd way, amusing and less ruthlessly tactless than usual. He had long ago given up all ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... warning, in cases of emergency. The Puma of our northern forests, although by no means so terrible a foe as the Leopard, is still a blood-thirsty creature, and while he shuns the gaze of man with the utmost fear, he is nevertheless constantly on the alert to spring upon him unawares, either in an unguarded moment or during sleep. A hungry Puma, who excites suspicion by his stealthy prowling and ominous growl, may easily be led to his destruction at the muzzle of a gun, baited as we ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... they see you with her, they look knowing, and you see, to your horror, that the girl is blushing. Evidently she is under fire too. Still, you keep it up. She makes a better comrade than any of the men. You feel that you are out of mischief when you are with her. She keeps you alert. You never are bored, but really you are not as fond of her as you were of your college chum even. She treats you a trifle, just a trifle, differently from all the other men. This goes to your head. You begin ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... sat about the long tables had kindly eyes. The stamp of a clean life of effort was upon them, and there was a certain lithe gracefulness in the unconscious poses of the straight-limbed men. There was no sign of limp slovenliness about them. Even in their relaxation they were intent and alert, and, as she watched them, Laura realized something of their restless activity and daring optimism. They believe in anything that is good enough in that country, and are in consequence cheerfully ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... plate-glass into which a man might well have walked, and I can still see Raffles in full-length silhouette upon a panel of palms and tree-ferns. I see the silhouette grow tall and straight again before my eyes, the door open, and Raffles listening with an alert lift of the head. I, too, hear something, an elfin hiss, a fairy fusillade, and then the sudden laugh with which Raffles rejoined us in ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... invoked carita. They accompanied this demand by the corrupted cry of "nix munjay"—nothing to eat,—which they enforced by most expressive gestures, extending their mouths, and exhibiting rows of ravenous-looking teeth. The caleche drivers, too, were on the alert, and respectfully taking off their turbans, proffered their services to convey the Signore to Floriana. Delme declined their offers, and, passing a draw-bridge which divides Valletta from the country, made his way through an embrasure, and descending ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... curious to know whether Alvin and Mike had noticed anything of the by-play. The Irish lad for the time devoted himself to satisfying his vigorous hunger and cared for naught else. The same was to be said of the Captain. Chester remained on the alert. ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... know what the lure must be when a busy man, an active man, an alert man, a man saturated with the nervous spirit of American commercial life, sits down in one of the seats overlooking the Lake, or spreads out his full length upon the grass, or on the beds of Sierran moss, which ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... London club-room. It is an early hour and the dons of the gay metropolis have not yet put in an appearance. The handsomely-furnished rooms are almost silent while the endless array of porters and waiters are on the alert, and cooks are busy in getting up the various epicurean compounds for which they are noted and to which the gay votaries of these resorts are ever ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... the Christ), as the Hermit is called. Here, indeed, is an up-to-date hermit, not an antique troglodyte. Lean and lathy, he is, but not hungry-looking; quick of eye and gesture; quick of step, too. He seems always on the alert, as if surrounded continually with spirits. He is young, withal, or keeps so, at least, through the grace and ministration of Allah and the Virgin. His long unkempt hair and beard are innocent of a single white line. And his health? "Through my five and twenty years of seclusion," ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... love, suffering continual frustration from the evaporation of emotional interest that defies their own needs; the many types of efficient workers, alert, hard, self-satisfied, not wholly cynical, yet with a touch of something that borders on cynicism, submitting almost with a secret repugnance to the mysterious but supreme bond which holds the sexes miserably together; and the ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... nocturnal habitues had slunk away, and the day's trade had not yet begun. Higgins, drawn and haggard beneath his drunken flush, was babbling incessantly; Locke, as usual, sat facing the entrance, his eyes watchful, his countenance alert. In spite of the fact that he had constantly plied his companion with liquor in the hope of stilling his tongue, Higgins seemed incapable of silence, and kept breaking forth into loud, garbled recitals of the scene at Padden's, which caused the Missourian to shiver with apprehension. ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... quarter of an hour before anything returned to the ventilator. But at last came the same metallic interference again; the fans stopped and the face reappeared. Graham had remained all this time in the same place, alert and ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... that Claire's body could be nagged into going on any longer. Her muscles were relaxed, her nerves frayed. But the moment the Gomez started, she discovered that magic change which every long-distance motorist knows. Instantly she was alert, seemingly able to drive forever. The pilot's instinct ruled her; gave her tireless eyes and sturdy hands. Surely she had never been weary; never would be, so long as it was hers to ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... clerks across the way had thought of something humorous and was leaning forward to tell his vis-a-vis. It had been so vital that he had laid his pen down to tell it. He was talking with half-shut lips, with eyes that shifted back and forth alert for a glance of disfavour. His rusty black derby sat on the back of his head: his white pique tie had slipped away from a bright brass ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... her attributes were so 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 might escape as it was closing round ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... calm and simple. A note he makes in one of his diaries amusingly illustrates the simple side of his character. He is dining with the Emperor, when the Emperor, catching the Prince's eye, which we may be sure was on the alert to gather up any of the royal beams that might come his way, raises his glass in sign of amity. "I felt so overcome," notes the Prince, "that I almost ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... feat that required a steady nerve, a quick eye, and alert action, for the ice was constantly rising and falling upon the swell. Now and again there were gaps of several yards, where the ice had been ground into pieces so small that none would have borne his weight. He ran rapidly over these gaps, touching the ice as lightly as possible and not ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... her corner of the chesterfield and took up her knitting. He sat down, too, by her, all at once alert, surveying the flying movements of her dear hands; hands as tender and white ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... the two men paused at the door of the inner room, that the first wore a military fatigue-cap, and his alert carriage as he threw open his cape-coat indicated the bearing of an American army officer. He was of medium height, and his features and eyes implied that the storms and winds of the plains and mountains were familiar friends. This was Park Stanley, ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... chair; the dog, who had manifested a readiness to respond to the name of Sailor, leaped up and rushed to the bulwarks, where he reared himself upon his hind legs, emitting a succession of deep, alert barks; and the crew forward shambled over to the port ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... great relief to Margaret to carry her perplexities to Aunt Faith and talk them over. Mrs. Cheriton's mind and sympathies were as quick and alert as if she were still a young woman, instead of being near the rounding of the completed century. She listened with kindly interest, and her wise and tender words cleared away many of the cobwebs of anxiety ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... (whether by design or accident cannot be stated) had sped continually in the direction of New Boston, and was dashing down toward that point. The pioneers were on the alert, and the instant they could distinguish pursuers from pursued, they opened on the former, with the result of tumbling several from the backs of their steeds. This so disorganized the hot pursuit that ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... necks, where the no more than grateful coolness of the wafer gave my senses a delicious refreshment from the sultriness of the season, and made more alive, more happy in myself, and, in course, more alert, and open to ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... Kennedy, betrothed to one of those alert grim-jawed young Americans one sees in the advertising pages of The Ladies' Home Journal, learns of the suffering in Belgium at the beginning of the great War and finds she must do something about it. She can cook, so she will go and make soup for KING ALBERT's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... to pass that in the Sunday Advocate-Times, under a picture of Dr. Drew at his earnestest, with eyes alert, jaw as granite, and rustic lock flamboyant, appeared an inscription—a wood-pulp ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... listening to the dark sea, in its gentlest mood, caressing the beach: the wind flowed past them steadily, like a soft current, stirring the long fronds into purring contact. A sharp challenge from an alert native sentry rang clear, followed by the crunching sound of a heavy iron gate opening and closing with grating finality. The hourly call was sounded by a guard, who, unseen by them, paced the main entrance to the inclosure: "All's Well." It sounded six times from ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... crowded, requested the proprietors to close. This they did without demur, realizing that at a time of such peculiar danger, when no one knew what had happened, what was happening, or where the next outbreak might come, it was necessary for everybody to be on the alert. ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... and fine, and encouraged thereby, every man was keenly on the alert to try and sight one of the Spaniard's halting-places; but it was long before such an opening was found, and then when it was hailed with delight as their resting-place at the end of that day's work, it was forced upon them that they had never ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... 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 power ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... will not keep 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), ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... slim girlish figure of long soft curves, never seen it in a face of dewy freshness that could melt to the tenderest pity. She was like flint, and yet she could give herself with a passionate tenderness to those she loved. He had seen animals guard their young with that same alert eager abandon. His conviction was that she would gladly die for her father if it were necessary. As he looked at her with hard unchanging eyes, his blood quickened to a fierce joy in her it had known ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... all beasts to be powerful. He is a practical thinker and deals with each phenomenon as it presents itself, and particularly as it shows itself to be connected with his interests. He is constantly on the alert to distinguish between the profitable and the unprofitable, the helpful and the injurious. He himself is the center of his whole scientific and religious system, and the categories into which he divides all things are determined by ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... as to what such a movement as this portends. The judges who have shown themselves able and willing effectively to check the dishonest activity of the very rich man who works iniquity by the mismanagement of corporations, who have shown themselves alert to do justice to the wageworker, and sympathetic with the needs of the mass of our people, so that the dweller in the tenement houses, the man who practices a dangerous trade, the man who is crushed by excessive hours of labor, feel that their needs are understood ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... perfect.'' And then as if to emphasize it all, with the exception that proves the rule, he detailed one slight case where he thought my father was at fault,—-a detail so slight that I now forget what it is. In reading the Log kept by the discharged mate, Amerzeen, on the return trip in the Alert, I find that every incident there recorded, from running aground at the start at San Diego Harbor, through the perilous icebergs round the Horn, the St. Elmo's fire, the scurvy of the crew and the small matters ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... accordingly they 116 keep a large fire all night to deter the lions and other wild beasts from approaching. About two hours after midnight, my grey horse, who was an old campaigner, neighed and awoke us; this gave the alarm, and my people were presently on the alert, and perceived two men approaching our tents, crawling naked along the ground, which was of the same colour with their bodies. We did not wish to take them, fearing that the people of the Douar would espouse the cause of their countrymen, but my ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... feeding of the horses as if he were in his own stable on the Rappahannock. It takes all sorts of men to make a world, but I thought at the time that for this business the steel nerves of the Borderer were worth many quicker brains and more alert spirits. ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... in their places, alert in poised expectation, the attention of the whole field concentrating upon the central figure of the pitcher at whom the young girl also looked. A slim, straight statue he stood during a full moment, then slowly raised his arms above his head in a gesture of supple grace and ease. ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... this woodland world; the strange and lovely flowers we saw; the curious people we met, black and white, and the varieties of dialect which caught our ear; the details of our charming gypsy life, ashore and afloat, during which we were conscious of the red blood tingling through our veins, and, alert to the whisperings of Nature, were careless of the workaday world, so far away,—simply ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... every day afterward, from four to six, in the black silk, the mantilla, and the white straw. When Aunt Eliza went she was so on the alert for the Uxbridge family carriage that she could have had little enjoyment of the ride. Rocks never were a passion with her, she said, nor promontories, chasms, or sand. She came to Newport to be washed with salt-water; when she had washed ...
— Lemorne Versus Huell • Elizabeth Drew Stoddard
... and Jane, to Fred and Frank, To Theodore and Mary, To Willie and to Reginald, To Louis, Sue and Gary; To sturdy boys and merry girls, And all the dear young people Who live in towns, or live on farms, Or dwell near spire or steeple; To boys who work, and boys who play, Eager, alert and ready, To girls who meet each happy day With faces sweet and steady; To dearest comrades, one and all, To Harry, Florrie, Kate, To children small, and children tall, ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... speed, and the thread is wound evenly upon it. The operator must watch for broken threads, retie them, replace the empty bobbins by full ones and see that the empty ones are gathered up uninjured. She—the operator is usually a girl or woman—must be alert and active, and ...
— The Fabric of Civilization - A Short Survey of the Cotton Industry in the United States • Anonymous
... to make my compliments to General Franchet d'Esperay. He was a splendid person—as alert as a steel lance. He demanded ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... you draw a salary for?" He was immediately on the alert, but her eyes were candid and unsuspicious. ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... absence of his master, applied himself diligently to study, but he was unable to do his task. This much troubled him; and the devil, ever on the alert, met him in the likeness of a man, and said, "My son, what has ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... went on a trot to the residential part of the town. That same despatch had gone thundering down the whole valley. Johnstown heard the news and so did Conemaugh. No one believed it. It was what they called "a chestnut." But the cry had put the people a little on the alert. One hour after the despatch came the first warning note of the disaster. Mr. Nunamaker tells me that it took really more than that time for the head of the leaping cataract to travel the twenty-three miles. If that is so the ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... was not reproaching herself for the engagement, she affected the abject humility of a slave whom he had bought for his pleasure. Perhaps she was amusing herself with a new emotion, perhaps she wanted to keep him alert and suspended, perhaps she enjoyed the vision of herself torn between the two men who wanted her more than anything in the world. . ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... art, a member of the body of which it is your present thought to become; for, be assured, there will be suffering, which will dog your progress; aye, and the greater your talent, so much more will be jealousy of it, from those, at least, so on the alert to decry that which they cannot create; so much more will be contumely; so much more will be innuendoes which can not be met openly, as they certainly will not be in the slimy words and manner of utterance of bitter heartlessness, that is to say, if you be made of that stuff which presents ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... consideration to the conductor. While the train rumbled away in the distance, he stood in the shadow of a large pine tree by the track and looked about to get his bearings. Suddenly he heard not far from him the faint, weird cry of an owl. Instantly he was on the alert; for there was something familiar in the melancholy sound. It took him back to a night in Tarrytown, when he had cast a woman into the cemetery, and he remembered that she had said she lived in Ithaca. Superstition sent him deeper into the shadow for a moment; but he recovered himself and, shaking ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... preceded, followed, and flanked by destroyers; at night every glimmer of light eclipsed, the ships speeding ahead in perfect blackness, each inch of the sea swept by watchful eyes to discover the telltale ripple of a periscope or the trail of a torpedo, gun crews on the alert, depth bombs ready. Nor was the crossing anything like a vacation yachting cruise for the doughboys transported, packed as they were like sardines two and three decks below the waterline, brought up in shifts to catch a brief taste of fresh air, assailed at once by homesickness, seasickness, ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... perpendicular walls, and make of it a maddened torrent wilder than the rapids of Niagara. All honor, then, to Powell and his comrades who braved not alone the actual dangers thus described, but stood continually alert for unknown perils, which any bend in the swift, snake-like river might disclose, and which would make the gloomy groove through which they slipped a black-walled ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... one of his cousins were in the room, but his aunt, who was quite on the alert, soon got them out of it, and Frank and ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... of the Regency days. At any rate, after a hard morning's work on her new book she felt that her mind needed cooling, and found that the rush of air against her face effected this satisfactorily. The greater the rush, the quicker the cooling. However, as the alert inhabitants of Manhattan Island, a hardy race trained from infancy to dodge taxicabs and ambulance wagons, had always removed themselves from her path with their usual agility, she had never yet had ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... 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 ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... from him of Finisterra," replied Antonio. "This is a young Senorito, lately arrived from Madrid. He is not even a Gallegan. He is a mighty liberal, and it is owing chiefly to his orders that we have lately been so much on the alert. It is said that the Carlists are meditating a descent on these parts of Galicia. Let them only come to Finisterra, we are liberals there to a man, and the old valiente is ready to play the same part as in the time of the French. But, as I was telling you before, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... when his alert ear caught a sound from without, close at hand. He only crowded a little further back into the corner, that the light from the broken-in entrance, providing it was discovered and crushed, should not ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... attentive to the study of the 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 ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... 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 Express and backed his candidate with a powerful but (then) not very profitable newspaper. ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... aware of a faint, strange sound. It was a sound he had been endeavoring subconsciously to place during the period of his musing; he had almost identified it as his heart-beats. Now, alert and listening, he placed it. It was a tapping on the other side of the wall he leaned against, a light tap-tap-tap. It ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... is as ingeniously complicated as ever, the suspense as skilfully maintained; the characters seem to us as real as those in "Evelina," or "Cecilia," or in the "Diary" itself; the alternate pathos and satire of the book keep our attention ever on the alert. That it failed to win the suffrages of the public was certainly due to no demerit in the work. Many causes may have conspired against it. The public taste had long been debauched by novels of that nightmare school in which Mrs ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... 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 ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... this effect on the brilliant future in reserve for him, David by the help of his check-string kept himself on the alert to seize the time of earliest dawn for his rising and departure. His brothers, of course, were early risers, but he should anticipate them by at least an hour and a half, and the little room which he had to himself as only an occasional visitor, had its window over ...
— Brother Jacob • George Eliot
... informed by urgent telegrams. I am in hopes that Jelaladin's report will turn out to be greatly exaggerated, if not untrue. As, however, his intelligence is sure to spread and cause a certain amount of excitement, warn General Massy and Mr. Christie (the Political Officer in Kuram) to be on the alert.'] ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... to be played up in the first line of the introduction. It would be impossible to enumerate all the unexpected things that might happen during a fire. It is this element of unexpected possibilities that makes the reporting of fires interesting, and an alert reporter is ever on the lookout for a new and unusual development in the fire to be used as the feature of his story. Here are the leads of a few fire stories clipped from the ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... echo wildly ringing Through our country far and wide! Thousands leaving home and springing Into the resistless tide. Now our nation's roused from sleeping, All alert and wide awake. O, there's no such thing as keeping Folks asleep when gold's the stake! Old Oregon We'll look not on; Ho, for mines of wealth untold! We'll take our way, Without delay, In search of gold—of glittering gold! Here we go, amid the ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... is my fate. I seek not to shun it. I have walked into odium with every sense alert, fully conscious of every ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... into Chagford alone. The cottage shadows fell velvety black in a shining silence; their thatches were streaked, their slates meshed with silver; their whitewashed walls looked strangely awake and alert and surrounded the woman with a sort of blind, hushed stare. One solitary patch of light peered like a weary eye from that side of the street which lay in shadow, and Chris, passing through the unbolted cottage door, walked up the narrow passage ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... from common culprits, and to give this poor external evidence of his rank, with a hope that it might tell, to a certain extent at least, upon the feeling of the jury. When placed in the dock, a general buzz and bustle agitated the whole court His friends became alert, and whispered to each other with much earnestness, and a vast number of them bowed to him, and shook hands with him, and advised him to be cool, and keep up his spirits. His appearance, however, was any thing but firm; his ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... or so later, Joe surmised from the Frenchman's actions that they were approaching their destination. He seemed on the alert, and was constantly peering into the darkness ahead as though he expected to see something at any moment. Joe looked very hard, ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... far as it went, but the interest was affected by the young man's not being Chad. Strether wondered at first if he were perhaps Chad altered, and then saw that this was asking too much of alteration. The young man was light bright and alert—with an air too pleasant to have been arrived at by patching. Strether had conceived Chad as patched, but not beyond recognition. He was in presence, he felt, of amendments enough as they stood; it was a ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... perplexed admiration, shading his eyes with his hand. In her dinner dress she looked even younger than in street clothes, and, for all her composure and self-sufficiency, she seemed to him strangely alert and vibrating, as if in her, too, there were something never altogether at rest. He felt that he knew pretty much what she demanded in people and what she demanded from life, and he wondered how she squared Bartley. ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... influence a possible buyer of your best capabilities. You are continually within sight and hearing of people whose impressions of you might affect your chances to succeed in life. Therefore always be alert to grasp every ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... stopping place, were like the insects, always insolent, intrusive and gave her little rest. The cynicism prevailing among the convicts and their overseers was such that every woman, especially the young women, had to be on the alert. Maslova was particularly subject to these attacks because of her attractive looks and her well-known past. This condition of constant dread and struggle was very burdensome to her. The firm repulse ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... getting liberty by being ill and going south VIA the sickbed. It is not the old free-born bird that gets thus to freedom; but I know not what manacled and hide-bound spirit, incapable of pleasure, the clay of a man. Go south! Why, I saw more beauty with my eyes healthfully alert to see in two wet windy February afternoons in Scotland than I can see in my beautiful olive gardens and grey hills in a whole week in my low and lost estate, as the Shorter Catechism puts it somewhere. ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... right-hand man was "Stump," the collie, so named because he had no tail worth mentioning, but otherwise in full possession of his faculties. Stump was newly broken to his official duties and authority sat heavily on him. Keenly alert, he flew hither and thither, first after one straying member of the herd, then another, barking an early morning roll-call as he went. Two other male Brobdingnags came from some sequestered spot in the landscape and joined ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... vividness of my summers in the Adirondacks with Emerson. The last sight I had of him was when, on his voyage to Egypt, he came to see me at my home in London, aged and showing the decay of age, but as alert and interrogative as ever with his insatiate intellectual activity. And as I look back from the distance of years to the days when we questioned together, he rises above all his contemporaries as ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... search is over, a stout iron-bound bucket, precisely like a well-bucket, has been attached to one end of the whip; while the other end, being stretched across the deck, is there held by two or three alert hands. These last now hoist the bucket within grasp of the Indian, to whom another person has reached up a very long pole. Inserting this pole into the bucket, Tashtego downward guides the bucket into the Tun, till it ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... stated, have built their nests and are rearing their young at the very point of the Tower Bridge bascules. The S.P.C.A., always alert, is presumably moving in the matter with a view to the bridge being closed until the little family is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 25, 1914 • Various
... the alert, darting out of its hiding place, and slipping noiselessly up the stairs as quietly as the shadow it imitated; pausing to listen with anxious mien, stepping as a cloud might have stepped with no creak of stairway or sound ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... very strange about the crowd. Everyone was looking towards the market-place, and everyone's face was upturned as if they were watching a flight of birds. The square was empty, and no one attempted to advance further into it; nay, most stood in an alert attitude, as if prepared to run the other way. Yet all remained spellbound, looking up, with their heads turned towards the market-place, over which watched the minster church. There was no shouting, nor laughter, nor chatter; only the agitated murmur ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... gone from Harvard's attack, the Crimson made but a scant yard in two downs; then the little Broadhurst threw a long forward pass. The play was well screened; but an alert son of Yale, keenly on the job, managed to intercept the ball. He was ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... evening. King Edward was awake all night with anxiety, expecting every moment that Philip would come suddenly upon him. He rose at midnight, and ordered the trumpets to sound in order to arouse the men. The officers were all on the alert, the young prince among them. All was movement and bustle in the camp. As soon as the day dawned they commenced their march, Gobin leading the way. He was well guarded. They were all ready to cut him to pieces if he should fail to lead them to the ford which he had promised. But he found the ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Roanoke river. During the long dark nights the Valley City did not anchor, for it was rumored that the Confederate ram Albemarle might come down any night, and especially a very dark night under the cover of the darkness, so that the Valley City must be constantly on the alert. If the Albemarle did make her appearance at the mouth of the Roanoke river, the Valley City was to fire one gun as a signal to the fleet, which was anchored six miles farther down the Albemarle Sound, and then steam ...
— Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy • John M. Batten
... was a stand-up fight between the man of facts and the man of letters. Smedley was solid and imperturbable; he stood firm on his facts, and defended himself with figures. Tyson, a master of literary strategy, was alert and ubiquitous. Having driven Smedley into a tangled maze of controversy, Tyson pursued him with genial irony. When Smedley argued, Tyson riddled his arguments with the lightest of light banter; when Smedley hung back, Tyson lured him on with some artful feint; when ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... edge of the river's brink, seeking a place to cross. My mind was wondrously alert. At my right the dawn was lighting the sky. Behind me and at my left, I could hear the well-known sounds of a moving army—an army which had been my pride and now must be my enemy. How often had I followed the red flag! How I had raised my ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... them a military direction, for he had the air and franchise of an old French soldier. The plot had been betrayed; some were already arrested, and some had taken refuge in flight. The town was tranquil, but the guards were strengthened, and the popular party was actively on the alert. ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper |
