"Alert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sight-seeing had become for the present a weariness, and after Bonn, with its memories, had been left behind, it was a rest to the royal travellers—as to most other travellers at times—to turn away their jaded eyes, relinquish the duty of alert observation, forget what was passing around them, and lose themselves in a book, as if they were in England. Perhaps the home letters had awakened a little home-sickness in the couple who had been ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... a fair informant, seldom offering more information than was asked for and clearly enjoying the business of making a white man work for every scrap of information. He was also given to dropping subtle hints and waiting with stolid indifference to see if I had been alert. He did not deny his shamanistic practices but was less than willing to discuss them ...
— Washo Religion • James F. Downs
... history but it may be fondly spoken by parents, sisters, brothers, schoolmates, friends. In a thousand gracious ways she can make the hours, days and years good and golden for her own precious self and for all who know her. She must be thoughtful and intelligently alert to the opportunities lying all about her ready to be fashioned into shining deeds. She must know that she is a precious craft on the sea of life and that she must not be permitted to drift from the harbor of youth and of home without a ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... guards in the posts are to be continued as large as at any time, & be very vigilant & alert. All the Regts are to lie on their arms this night & be ready to turn out at the shortest notice, as it is not improbable we may be speedily attacked. Gen. Wadsworth to send an adjutant to Head Quarters tomorrow ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... to the woman who rides might be made the text for a long sermon; but long sermons are never popular; therefore, it may be better to state briefly that he must always be on the alert to assist his fair companion in every way in his power—he must be clever enough to repair any slight damage to her machine which may occur en route, he must assist her in mounting and dismounting, pick her up if she has a tumble, and ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... long while I lay there, full in the heat of the fire, half dozing, then sleeping, then suddenly alert, only to look about me to see the Countess with eyes closed, motionless in her arm-chair, only to hear the muffled thunder of ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... down their weapons and disperse. The disarmament proceeded quietly till one of the company-leaders refused to part with a bombard, the new invention, of which he was very proud. A trumpeter, seeing the man hesitate, sounded a warning, and the containing troops stood on the alert. Readiness led to action. Suddenly they fell on the helpless horde, for whom there was no safety but in flight. A thousand were massacred before Nassau and his confederates could ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... immediately after it she was taken as a treat to see the Borghese Gardens by her uncle and aunt! It behooved her not to be tired by more sightseeing, since her betrothed would arrive when they returned for tea, and would expect her to be bright and on the alert to please him, Aunt Caroline felt. As for Stella, as that moment approached it seemed to her that the end of ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn
... river watched them idly, waiting where he was, puffing slowly at his pipe, until they drew almost level with him. Then he stiffened suddenly, and an alert ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... grips of his guns. And Bedloe saw that Thornton carried a burning cigarette in his left hand, that his right, with thumb caught in the band of his chaps, was careless only in the seeming and that it, too, was alert and tense. And he remembered the lighting quickness ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... enough for everything to be still before him, and he possessed the poor man's alert imagination; the great world and the romance of life were the motives that drew him through the void, that peculiar music of life which is never silent, but murmurs to the reckless and the careful alike. Of the world he knew well enough that it was something incomprehensibly vast—something ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... of the green leaf, which must put forth in the spring, bringing bud and flower and fruit after it. Yet, I repeat, Sarah Burns was unconscious, actually and absolutely unconscious. Do not suppose she cared specially about Hiram Meeker. She did not. Her nature only was on the alert, not she. Hiram, all things considered, was the most agreeable man she had met, and why should she not be attracted by him—to an extent? I say attracted: I do not mean anything else. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... he has within himself and about him for self-development and improvement. A child's vocabulary increases rapidly through new experiences. A mature person can create new surroundings. He can deliberately widen his horizon either by reading or association. The child is mentally alert. A man can keep himself intellectually alert. A child delights in his use of his powers of expression. A man can easily make his intercourse a source of delight to himself and to all with whom he comes in contact. A child's imagination is kept stimulated ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... under the Emir Fakreddin, were on the alert; and while a bell, that had remained in the great mosque of Damietta ever since John de Brienne seized the city in 1217, tolled loudly to warn the inhabitants of the danger, the Moslem warriors got under arms, and with cavalry and infantry occupied the whole of that part ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... cascade of exquisite turquoise blue, melting away at the sides into iridescent opal. Sometimes a great cloud of steam from the pit below passes across the mouth of the crucible, and then the torrent of molten steel takes on all the colours of the rainbow, and the great shed, with its alert, swiftly moving figures, is suffused with ...
— Tales of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... hands we have fallen. How keen he is, how alert, how well prepared! By Jove, if he does not kill any one, and spares the property of those who are so terrified, he will be in high favor. I talk with the tradesmen and farmers. They care for nothing but their lands, ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... broken English was set to music for me, and the very silences were eloquent of thrill. Early I discovered that I had not appreciated fully her mental powers, on account of a habit she had of falling into a shy silence when several were present. She had a nimble wit, an alert fancy, and a zest for life as earnest as it was refreshing. A score of times that day she was out of the shabby chaise to pick the wild flowers or to chat with the children by the wayside. The memory of her warm friendliness to me stands out the more clear contrasted with the ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... the sheet across the room he half turned in his chair, so that the yellow light fell across his face. Fidget, the pup, always alert for action, was on her feet in a moment, eager to lead the way to the door and whatever adventure might lie outside. But Grant did not leave his chair, and, finding all her tail-waving of no avail, she presently settled down again by the stove, ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... only about two hundred yards now intervened between the vessel and the rocky shore. He proceeded to lash a spar across the two water barrels, which he emptied and bunged up, and then stood ready to jump overboard with them, when the vessel struck. I also was on the alert with my coil of rope, following the vessel as she drifted slowly along the shore, till she neared a spur of cliff, which runs out near the watch-house, close to the homestead, and here she came in full contact with a mass ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... the core of a 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
... imperative need of a strong ally if his mercantile attack on England were to have even a chance of success. With Austria he had employed all the diplomatic arts of Talleyrand and Andreossy to no avail: the Polish campaign had made Francis alert, that of Russia was reviving the bellicose spirit of the Austrian army. Negotiation with Frederick William had failed because based on the concept of a new Prussia eastward of the Elbe, a menace alike to Russia and Austria, and a ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... Every sense alert the three young soldiers proceeded slowly. Soon they came to the spot where the passage led off to the left. Jacques peered cautiously around the corner and quickly drew back ...
— Fighting in France • Ross Kay
... but I never knew him to kick about it before. We're a fair field for missionary work, Mr. Holcombe, all of us—at least, some of us are." He glanced up as Carroll came back from out of the lighted room with an alert, brisk step. His manner ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... or more, When suddenly I looked up at a star, And then, a thought I could not fail to heed, From the soul's awful region unexplored, Rushed, crying, 'Back! Go back!' And back I went, As hastily as if it were a thing Of life or death. I did not stop to pull The door-bell, but sprang up alert and still To the piazza of the open window, Drew back a blind inaudibly, looked in, And through the waving muslin curtain, saw— Well, she was seated in a young man's lap, Her ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... was a moderate-sized man, indeed almost small, (reminded me of old Booth, the great actor, and my favorite of those and preceding days,) well advanced in years, but alert, with mild blue or gray eyes, and good presence and voice. Soon as he open'd his mouth I ceas'd to pay any attention to church or audience, or pictures or lights and shades; a far more potent charm entirely sway'd me. In the course of the sermon, (there was no sign ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... one problem—closely affecting Oliver's disappearance. The other had nothing to do with Oliver's disappearance—nevertheless, it interested Richard Copplestone. He was a young man of quick perception and accurate observation, and his alert eyes had seen that the Squire of Scarhaven occupied a position suggestive of power and wealth. The house which stood beneath the old Keep was one of size and importance, the sort of place which could only be kept up by a rich man—Copplestone's ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... the same instant Beaumaroy's right hand shot out from his pocket towards the sideboard, as though to snatch up something from it. Then he drew the hand as swiftly back again; but his eyes watched Mary's with an alert and suspicious gaze. That was for a second only; then his face resumed its amused and nonchalant expression. But the movement of the hand and the look of the eyes had not escaped Mary's attention; her voice betrayed ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... fore. It is they who have carried on the banner of idealism which Germany herself uplifted when she was a small people or a group of small peoples. It is they who have really had prosperous, healthy, independent, and alert populations. How much more interesting, we may say, would Europe be under the variety of such a regime than under the monotonous bureaucracy and officialism of any Great Power! And to some such scheme we must adhere. It would mean, of ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... small stature and unimpressive appearance, he was somewhat lame from birth, a fact which was used as an argument against his succession, an oracle having warned Sparta against a "lame reign.'' He was a successful leader in guerilla warfare, alert and quick, yet cautious—a man, moreover, whose personal bravery was unquestioned. As a statesman he won himself both enthusiastic adherents and bitter enemies, but of his patriotism there can be no doubt. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... that, According to Isidore (Etym. x), a man is said to be solicitous through being shrewd (solers) and alert (citus), in so far as a man through a certain shrewdness of mind is on the alert to do whatever has to be done. Now this belongs to prudence, whose chief act is a command about what has been already counselled ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... rousing greater desire in such as Clare and Tommy. Not one opportunity of appropriation presented itself, else it would have gone ill with Tommy, now that the eyes and ears of his guardian were on the alert. For Clare thought of him now as a little thievish pup, for whose conduct, manners, and education he ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... steal a couple of cigars?" echoed Garrison, keenly alert to the vital significance of this new evidence. "Did he take ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... until well after noon, but as usual his awakening was instantaneous, that is, all his faculties were keenly alert at once. He glanced down the valley and saw the buffalo and deer feeding, and the great chorus of birds was going on. The shiftless one, leaning against his bank of leaves, his rifle on his knee, was regarding the valley with ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and anxiety, working many plans in his mind, while devising by what means or contrivances he could conduct his soldiers who were accustomed to a cold climate through a country parched up with heat; or how he could catch an enemy always on the alert and appearing when least expected, and who relied more on surprises and ambuscades than ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... was rushing through the drawing-room. At the French windows she caught sight of him, walking up and down in his usual quick, alert manner, now smelling flowers, now staring up into the trees, now scrutinizing the upper windows of the house. She drew back, waited until she had got her breath and had composed her features. Then, with the long ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... librettos, plays, romances, memoirs, pamphlets, and innumerable articles. I wish I knew what to say about the man himself, his unwearying goodness, his loyalty, his scrupulousness, his good humor, his originality, his continual common sense, and his intellect, alert to ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... ground, and not realizing the danger of delay in such a case. But if you had brought the document to me, you would have found me by far your best customer. You would have convinced me quite as effectually as you have done now that you are a very alert young woman, and I certainly would have been willing to give you four or five times as much as the Graphite will be able ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... reaction, of eager vigorous young minds, where the instructor is the agency of interpretation and the inspiration! To conduct such an exercise with from thirty to fifty bright college students and keep them on the alert is no lazy man's task. It requires brains and skill, whereas anybody can do the other thing! President Foster is correct in saying, "There should be fewer lectures ... the easiest of ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... mingling that day with the crowd of other guests, there was a more than ordinarily groomed look, an alert, inquisitive assurance, a brilliant respectability, as though they were attired in defiance of something. The habitual sniff on the face of Soames Forsyte had spread through their ranks; they ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... under the Sherman Act to restrain the great packers from continuing their alleged combination. A temporary injunction was granted. The slow machinery of chancery bade fair to work out a decree, but long before it was on record, alert spirits among the packing firms evolved a new plan not obnoxious to decrees, ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... is one thing common to all the newly arrived in France, be they Y. M. C. A. secretaries, Knights of Columbus workers, Red Cross men, or just the common garden variety of "investigators," and that is that for about two weeks they are alert to hear the bloodiest, most drippy, and desolate-with-danger stories that they can hear, for the high and holy purpose of writing back home to their favorite paper, or to their wives or sweethearts, of how near they were to getting killed; of how the bombs fell just a few minutes ...
— Soldier Silhouettes on our Front • William L. Stidger
... Alert as the Frenchman was, he was not quick enough to quite conceal from the wife that his present obsequious manner had been suddenly assumed for her benefit directly she had entered the room. She had overheard voices, as she reached the landing, and the abrupt manner in which these sounds ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... nervous spider monkeys of the tangled tree branches alongshore—all these he watched quietly as the boat forged on. And the sinister Francisco, watching him in turn, and the paddlers throwing occasional glances his way, came to regard him as the only alert member of ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... abandon all attempts to go to sleep without seeing Mamma, and 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 ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... had always been drawn to Stepan, from a couple of terms at Oxford before the Russian was sent down for a mad freak, and did not return. He was such a mixture of idealism and brutal commonsense, a brain so alert and the warm heart of a generous child—capable of every frenzy and of every sacrifice. They had planned great things for their afterlives before the one joined his regiment, and learned discipline, and the other wandered over many lands—and as they sat there in the Cafe de Paris, the ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... when the veteran chambermaid was awakened by the sound of crackling wood and the smell of stifling smoke. To spring out of bed was the work of a moment, the aged limbs obedient to her call; then all her faculties alert, she thrust her hand into a hidden recess of the mattress, and clutching a bulky package from its depths, made her way out into the corridor, where the smoke was still thicker, on down the stairs from the servants' dormitory to the floor below. Staggering to the manager's ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... 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
... roar his orders in every direction. His object was to put the yacht around so that he could get out of the course of the Dunkery Beacon and pass her in the opposite direction to which she was going, but nobody on board seemed to be sufficiently alive to the threatening situation, or to be alert enough to do what was ordered at the very instant of command; and Burke, excited to the highest pitch, began to swear after a fashion entirely unknown to the two ladies and the members of the Synod. His cursing and swearing was of such a cyclonic and all-pervading character ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... They are, in spite of their clumsy build, as quick and active as polo ponies, and are the only beasts I know of capable of leaping into full speed ahead from a recumbent position. In thorn scrub they are the worst, for there, no matter how alert the traveller may hold himself, he is likely to come around a bush smack on one. And a dozen times a day the throat-stopping, abrupt crash and smash to right or left brings him up all standing, his heart racing, the blood pounding through his veins. It is jumpy work, ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... sure that the weedy-looking man with the alert face was really pursuing me. When I went faster, he went faster too; when I gave him a chance to pass me, he kept close at my heels, and appeared to be keenly watching the style of my ankle-action. I gathered ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... sudden he was awake, his eyes staring into the dark, his whole body nervously, acutely, on the alert. He had heard a cry—of a nightjar—but so strange and eerie that it made him hold ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... his awful thirst, so Sharon tries To purchase happiness that age denies; Obtains the shadow, but the substance goes, And hugs the thorn, but cannot keep the rose; For Dead Sea fruits bids prodigally, eats, And then, with tardy reformation—cheats. Alert his faculties as three score years And four score vices will permit, he nears— Dicing with Death—the finish of the game, And curses still his candle's wasting flame, The narrow circle of whose feeble glow Dims and diminishes at every throw. Moments his losses, pleasures ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... an hour later in a huge light room, with a floor like a dance hall and much strange paraphernalia against the walls. Little of it she was able to identify, though she took it all in with alert and eager eyes. This was the chiefest part of his life, so she must not even seem to slight it. The Indian clubs and dumb-bells—but they were easy. And the roped-off square at one end. That was ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... stupor, she aroused him again, to eat. He could take but little of the food, but called for more of the drink, and felt the soul of it thrill along his frozen nerves until they awoke, sharpened, alert, and eager. He lay so, with closed eyes a little time, floating in an ecstasy that seemed to be half stupor and half of keenest sensibility. Then he opened his eyes. She was kneeling by the couch on which he lay. He ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... on my feet in a moment, and looking towards the French coast, I saw a lugger about two miles off, running down to us. All hands were on the alert, and every preparation was made to ensure the success of our enterprise. We hauled our wind, and steered a course so as to intercept her, without, if possible, exciting the suspicion of the smugglers till we were alongside. As the sea was perfectly smooth and the wind light, we should ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... big department store in New England there was a girl a few years back with an alert mind, an assertive personality, and a tremendous fund of energy. She was in the habit of giving constructive suggestions to the heads of the departments in which she worked, and because of her youth and manner, they resented it. "I took her into my office," the manager ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... spectres with a grim purpose in view, and as the officer of the division strode back and forth, alert and watchful, they followed his movements with their eyes, eager for the word that would set them in action. They were not veterans, and their experience in war could have been measured by days, but they were honestly ready to fight and to ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... companion's astonishment. Mrs. Smith had completely collapsed into her seat, 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, ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... Museum of the American Society for Scientific Research. In a room of the biological department there, the precious fragment of golden quartz lies guarded. A microscope is over it, and there is never a moment of the day or night without an alert, keen-eyed ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings
... lay in a pandemonium of noise. After a while they would become used to it as do the workers in a stampmill, but that night it deafened them, kept them awake and alert, fearful, with the tremendous cannonading. The bite of the frost made the timbers of the Karluk creak and its thrust continually worked among the stranded masses with groaning thunders and shrill grindings, while the surf ever boomed on ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... taking exercise is before dinner, for the body is then more vigorous and alert, and the mind more cheerful, and better disposed to enjoy the pleasure of a ride or walk. Exercise after a full meal disturbs digestion, and causes painful sensations in the stomach and bowels, ...
— A Lecture on the Preservation of Health • Thomas Garnett, M.D.
... was instantly alive, and Woods was wakened. A faint click went away on the night breeze, and a moment later three jets of flame carried warning to the up-creeping foe that the whites were both alive and on the alert. ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... a sort of gladiatorial freedom. But the Hellenic sculptor would have found the head suited to his use as well as the torso and limbs, for it was a head well shaped and well carried, dominated by eyes alert with ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... evils, none of which are of hysterical character. I am not here concerned so much with the exact nature of these troubles as I am with the avoidable errors in the management of sick childhood. If I can make the mother more thoughtfully alert, less disposed to terror and exaggeration, less liable to be led by her emotions, I shall have fulfilled my purpose without such discussion as is out of ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... of ringing followed this application to the thumbscrew arrangement on the door, for the colonel had taken the bell away long ago. But there resulted a clucking, which brought the colonel to the portal frowning and alert, warming in the expectation of having somebody whom he ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... his holidays was Leonard Everard, now a tall, handsome boy. He was one of those boys who develop young, and who seem never to have any of that gawky stage so noticeable in the youth of men made in a large pattern. He was always well-poised, trim-set, alert; fleet of foot, and springy all over. In games he was facile princeps, seeming to make his effort always in the right way and without exertion, as if by an instinct of physical masterdom. His universal success in such matters helped ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... 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
... guard against surprises, we are all warned to pay especial attention to the beat of the drum; always halting when they hear the long roll beat, and marching at the beat of the long march. We are more on the alert regarding the enemy now. We have our advanced pickets doubled, and two sentries at every post. The men on the advanced pickets are constantly under arms, with fixed bayonets, all through the night, and relieved ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the detective resumed at once his brisk voice and alert manner. He seemed to dismiss Servettaz's admission from his mind. Ricardo had the impression of a man tying up an important document which for the moment he has done with, and putting it away ticketed in some pigeon-hole in his desk. "Let us ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... He preferred cigars, a habit he'd acquired from the days when he'd filched them from his father's cigar case, but his mental picture of the fearless and alert young FBI agent didn't include a cigar. Somehow, remembering his father as neither fearless nor, exactly, alert—anyway, not the way the movies and the TV screens liked to picture the words—he had the impression that cigars looked out of ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... was formed from the younger domestics of the place, fifty in number, the officers being sons of the boyars or lords. But these were required by the alert boy to pass through all the grades of the service, which he also did himself, serving successively as private, sergeant, lieutenant, and captain, and finally as colonel of the regiment which grew from this youthful company. Peter called ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... new experience in her meeting with the members of the firm to which she had consigned her sheep, and others with whom her business brought her in contact about the crowded Exchange. These prosperous, clean-cut men, alert, incisive of speech and thought, were an unfamiliar type. Their undisguised approbation, their respect, their eagerness to be kind brought a new sensation to Kate, who had grown up and lived in an atmosphere of prejudice. There were moments when the ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... evils which these nations have inflicted on us would ever have taken place.[10] Even as it was, when the Saracens threatened the West, the Popes were the chief agents in organising resistance, and giving spirit and animation to the defenders of Europe. Their alert vision saw that to crush for ever that formidable enemy, it was not enough to defend ourselves against his assaults; we must attack him at home. The Crusades, vulgarly treated as the wars of a blind and superstitious piety, were in truth wars of ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... provide by law for the trial and punishment as pirates of Spanish subjects who, escaping the vigilance of their Government, shall be found guilty of privateering against the United States. I do not apprehend serious danger from these privateers. Our Navy will be constantly on the alert to protect our commerce. Besides, in case prizes should be made of American vessels, the utmost vigilance will be exerted by our blockading squadron to prevent the captors from taking them into Mexican ports, and it is not apprehended that any ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... concentrated water-power energy and grandeur, the fall being about 400 feet, the walls 2700. Never for a moment does it relax its assault, and the voyager on its restless, relentless tide, especially at high water, is kept on the alert. The waters indeed come rushing down with fearful impetuosity, recalling to Powell the poem of Southey, on the Lodore he knew, hence the name. The beginning of the gorge is at the foot of Brown's Park through what is called the Gate of Lodore, an abrupt gash in the Uinta Mountains ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... their size, be able to get the story, and be the biggest little people in the kindergarten by showing what they could do with it. Again there was an undefined problem thrown at them, as it were—an element of wonder. They did not know just what was coming and they were mentally alert, waiting, on the lookout. The way for the story was open.—This is what you want, for no matter how perfect a gem of folk-lore you tell, it will fall heedless if the children do ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... and as regular in his habits as any old-clothes man in Monmouth Street. He kept all the cockpitonians on the qui vive, and as every recommendation went through him to the admiral it was but good policy for the mids to be on the alert. As all the lieutenants were constantly changing, those promoted making room for others, I shall not describe their characters, except noticing that the generality of them were good officers and gentlemen. A month after I joined we were ordered to sail, and on going out of ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... you looking?" he asked. "We may be able to direct you to your friend," he added, more courteously, his alert eyes taking in every detail of the man's face, figure ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson
... with the expression of positive anger, the name of Gallia escaped his lips, as though he were dreaming that his claim to the discovery of the comet was being contested or denied; but although his attendant was on the alert to gather all he could, he was able to catch nothing in the incoherent sentences that served to throw any real light upon the problem that they were all eager ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... 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 token ...
— The Staircase At The Hearts Delight - 1894 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... monasteries and palaces, on both sides of the Pacific and the Atlantic, have cast new light upon the fascinating theme. Both Christian and non-Christian Japanese of to-day, in their travels in the Philippines, China, Formosa, Mexico, Spain, Portugal and Italy, being keenly alert for memorials of their countrymen, have met with interesting trovers. The descendants of the Japanese martyrs and confessors now recognize their own ancestors, in the picture galleries of Italian nobles, and in Christian churches ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... could see two or three Federal cruisers lying anchored off the outer bar, just out of reach of the guns of shore-batteries. It was a service of no little danger for the blue-jackets. The enemy were ever on the alert to break the blockade by destroying the ships with torpedoes. Iron-clad rams were built on the banks of the rivers, and sent down to sink and destroy the vessels whose watchfulness meant starvation to the Confederacy. The "Albemarle" and the "Merrimac" were notable instances ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... as though fascinated. The change in Mr. Moss was amazing. His reckless air of enjoyment had departed. He was still smoking, but he was all alert, like a cat ready to spring. Mr. Parker, too, was interested. I saw him whisper something in Mr. Moss' ear and I felt a cold foreboding of what was ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... eating. Does that astonish you? For my part, I am astonished that we do not see it. Not far from my estate this spring some moujiks were working on a railway embankment. You know what a peasant's food is,—bread, kvass,* onions. With this frugal nourishment he lives, he is alert, he makes light work in the fields. But on the railway this bill of fare becomes cacha and a pound of meat. Only he restores this meat by sixteen hours of labor pushing ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... may be very true; but the affair of Andre has made us on the alert. When treason reaches the grade of general officers, Captain Wharton, it behooves the friends of ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... Thompson from being run over by the big touring car had not shaken Jane's nerve in the least. It had shaken Tommy's only briefly. Tommy, supple and alert, had leaped from the road just in time to avoid being run down by the car. A second's delay on her part would undoubtedly have proved serious if ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... taken the lute and raised his eyes. In the hall conversation had stopped, and people were as still as if petrified. Terpnos and Diodorus, who had to accompany Caesar, were on the alert, looking now at each other and now at his lips, waiting for the first tones of ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... wagons. I have seen two thousand of them halted for the night in a single park, and such trains on the march six to ten miles long were not unusual. It will readily be seen that to have them within easy reach, and prevent their falling into the hands of an alert enemy, was a tremendous problem in all movements ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... answer readily. He was too busy thanking God for the great gift of perfect understanding. Moreover, he had a perforated lung and a heart whose duties had suddenly been increased a thousand-fold, if it was to hold inviolate this sacred joy of possession which thrilled him now. He was alert and conscious, despite the shock of his wound, and the reserve strength in his six feet of splendid manhood was coming to his aid. When he could trust ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... together. Mark had walked alone that day, and had lain upon the turf of the down, fighting against a weariness that seemed to be poisoning the very springs of life within him. But Roland had been brisk and alert, coming and going upon some secret and busy errand, with a fragment of a song upon his lips, like a man preparing to set off for a far country, who is glad to be gone. In the evening, after they had dined, Roland had let his fancy rove ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... a strange-looking procession that trudged into barracks. Twenty beautiful, spirited horses, six hangdog-looking thieves, with a single exhausted horse in the rear, on which was mounted an alert, keen-eyed and very hungry young soldier who wore a scarlet tunic and buffalo-head buttons. The next day Corporal Black had another stripe on his sleeve." [The foregoing story is an actual occurrence. ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... beyond the walls of her prison. She may have a father, a mother, a dear brother, or a sister, who, if they knew one-sixteenth part of her wrongs and sufferings, would fly at once to see her and sympathize with her in her anguish. But the Jesuit confessor attached to the prison is ever on the alert. Those ladies who appear the most unhappy, and unreconciled to their prison, are compelled to attend the confessional every day; and thus the artful Jesuit, by a thousand cross questions, is made to understand ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... while the two chess-players were absorbed in their game and the other two kept watch and ward. Then, towards midnight, while Fion was alert and wakeful, he saw Chluas sink his chin on his breast, overcome by an unnatural sleep. Thrice Chluas strove to rouse himself, but thrice he sank into ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... House of Mammon his priesthood stands alert By mysteries attended, by dusk and splendors girt, Knowing, for faiths departed, his own shall still endure, And they be found his chosen, untroubled, ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... than she is permitted; and the terrible strain of twelve hours' work, every day except Sunday, for the past six months, where every faculty, from hand and foot to body, eye and brain, must be alert and alive to watch and piece the never-ceasing breaking of the threads, had already begun to undermine the half-formed ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... a generation of naturalists, and he might have been a mere naturalist among them. There are traces enough in his work of that alert sense of outward things, which, in the pictures of that period, fills the lawns with delicate living creatures, and the hillsides with pools of water, and the pools of water with flowering reeds. But this was not enough for him; he is a visionary painter, ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... melted down displeasure and threatened to betray all the policy depending on it; for in the main never a bit of ill heart had Colin, though doubtlessly he had in him, deeply established, a trim of rebellion against education that seemed ever on the alert, and which repulsed even its portended approach with a vigour resembling the electric energy of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... one. This staggered him. It was as if his wife had dissolved into thin air. True, she might have eluded him by slipping out into the hall by means of door two at the moment he entered door one; and alert to this possibility, he hastened back into the hall to look for her. But she was nowhere visible, nor had she been observed leaving the building by the man stationed at entrance A. But there was ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... 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 of Arabia, (notwithstanding ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... in its thoroughness, for a well-played game gives the right balance to the activities: drill is more specialised, and has specialisation for its end: a game calls on the whole of an individual: he must be alert mentally and physically; and at the same time the sense of fairness cannot be too strongly insisted on; no game can be tolerated as part of education where there is looseness in this direction, from the skittles of the nursery class to the cricket and hockey of the seventh ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... relationship to the things for which he has cause to be thankful. If in our daily life the phrase 'the goodness of God' is to have a deepening and cumulative significance, it must be informed and vitalized continually by an alert and responsive recognition of the forms in which that goodness is ever freshly manifested to us. Whilst the roots of the tree of praise lie deep beneath the surface, and wind their thousand ways into dim places where memory itself cannot ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth
... to the interest of society to have the relationship orderly and permanent," continued his partner. "That is why the state is so alert with regard to divorce proceedings and vigilant to prevent fraud or collusion. You may say that the state is always a party to every matrimonial action—even if it is not actually interpleaded—and that such proceedings are triangular and minus many of ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... Rosa's alert ear caught the hurried murmur which succeeded, and was muffled, so to speak, by her ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... her to hear it from lips which may more successfully offer counsel afterward. A certain confidence in her own charms gives a sensibly reared young woman a poise and self-possession which is to be desired. A touch of feminine vanity renders a woman more anxious to please, and more alert to keep ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... was Al-Iskandar (he of Macedon) and he had a number of men who used to relate to him imaginary stories and provoke him to laughter: he, however, designed not therein merely to please himself, but that he might thereby become the more cautious and alert. After him the Kings in like fashion made use of the book entitled 'Hazar Afsan.' It containeth a thousand nights, but less than two hundred night- stories, for a single history often occupied several nights. I have seen it complete sundry ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... reached the landing at the top of the stairway, he stopped to look about the place with curious, alert interest, noting with quick glances every object in the immediate vicinity of the hut, as if fixing them in his mind. Satisfied at last by the thoroughness of his inspection, he went toward the house, but his step on the board walk made no sound. ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... nature, a simple, frank character, clear judgment, upright intentions, penetrating intelligence, and profound good sense. The Talmudic maxim might be applied to him: "Study demands a mind as serene as a sky without clouds." His was a questioning spirit, ever alert. He had the special gift of viewing the outer world intelligently and fixing his attention upon the particular object or the particular circumstance that might throw light upon a fact or a text. For instance, although he did not know Arabic, he remembered certain ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... she will create, monotony, stupidity, antagonisms cannot come. Her foresight will provide occupations and amusements; her loving and alert diplomacy will fend off disputes. Unconsciously, every member of her family will be as clay in her hands. More anxiously than any statesman will she meditate on the wisdom of each measure, the bearing of each word. The least possible governing which ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... Dick and Joe plunged into a forest of gum-trees, their eyes alert on all sides, and their fingers on the trigger. There was no foreseeing what they might encounter. Without being a rifleman, Joe could handle ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne |
