"Alert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... spoken, to awaken the drowsy, and to excite the torpid. The instant he found each man on the alert, he resumed his orders, with a calmness that gave a direction to the powers of all, but still with an energy that he well knew was called for by the occasion. The enormous sheets of duck, which had looked like so many light clouds in the murky and threatening heavens, ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... river-drivers with their long poles and quick movements, looking not unlike a band of savages, have enough to do, with steady feet, and eyes on the alert. For of all the vast array of logs—and I once saw twenty-four thousand in one drive—not one goes through the sluice but is guided on to it by one or more of the drivers. They often ride standing on the floating logs, conducting this, pushing that, ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... sheet of tracing paper and trace each small a, letting them follow each other on the line, with about a quarter inch of space between each letter. During the process of tracing, the eye must be on the alert for peculiarities, notably the roundness or otherwise of the circle as a whole, the curve or angle of the arc and hook, the relative position of the toe. Note the shank, whether looped or barred, whether the top of it is above or below the body of the circle, whether it is vertical ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... guests would mingle with the rest, lending with their silken gowns and silken manners a touch of picturesqueness to the scene. I can well remember seeing the famous Wu Ting Fang, whose alert manner made him a general favourite. He prided himself upon it—and rightly. "How old do you think I am?" he asked his host one day. "Perhaps forty-five," was the reply. "Forty-five! What a guess! Sixty-five would have been nearer—and I mean to ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... submitted these instructions to my father, he at once took up a certain routine of duties that never varied. He brushed Monsieur Maurice's clothes, waited upon him at table, attended him in his bed-room, was always within hearing, always on the alert, and haunted the prisoner like his shadow. Not even a housemaid could go in to sweep but he was present. Now the man's perpetual presence was intolerable to Monsieur Maurice. He had borne all else with patience, but this last ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... "Always alert and on the spot at the right time!" cried the Emperor, then added mournfully, "So was our ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... financier, and already the possessor of a large fortune. Having served in the Thirty-first Congress, he had returned in 1859, after an absence of eight years, to remain four years longer. Strong, alert, and sufficiently positive to be stubborn, he possessed the confidence of Thaddeus Stevens, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, who approved his plan of issuing $100,000,000 legal-tender, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... excelled young Charles of Sweden. Reckless in the face of danger, and brave as he was reckless, he was ever on the alert for any novelty in the manner of hunting that should make the sport even more dangerous and exciting. So young Arvid Horn was not surprised when the king said ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... individual member must hold himself constantly alert to find what his "people" at home want: always on the lookout for signs of approval or disapproval from his constituency. And the constituency on its side does not hesitate to let him know just what it thinks of him and precisely what jobs it ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... insight; and, north of the Alps at least, there are no others which can be compared to them. The Hans Imhof shows a shrewd and forbidding schemer for gain on a large scale—a face which produces the impression of a trap or closed strong box, but, being so alert and intelligent, seems to demand some sort of commiseration for the constraint put upon its humanity in the creation of a master, a tyrant over himself first and afterwards over an ever-widening circle of others. The ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... alert and watchful, on the lookout for submerged trees and floating debris; for at the swift rate we were now floating, any collision would have ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... girlhood to old age, under every conceivable condition, and is brought face to face with all kinds of persons and trials. In all circumstances Becky is true to herself; her ingenuity, her wit, her selfishness, her audacity, her cunning, her clear, cool, alert brain, even her common sense, her spirit of justice, when she herself is not concerned, and her good-nature, when it could cost her nothing—all this is unfailing, inimitable, never to be forgotten. Some good people cry out that she is so wicked. Of ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... 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 ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... imprisoned earth. It would whisper at night at the windows, it would smile invisibly under the sun, it would steal into men's minds and work its will upon them. And already Henrietta felt its power. She was in a new world, dull but magical, torpid yet alert. ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... fragments with fulminates, it would seem that the peace of the neutral States is the result, not of their being more civilized, but less heavily armed. And when we see that the effect of the enterprise is not to redouble civil vigilance and stimulate the most alert and jealous political criticism, but on the contrary to produce an assumption that every constitutional safeguard must be suspended until the war is over, and that every silly tyrannical expedient such as censorship of the press, martial law, and the like, ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... at the man. His thin lips had come together in a straight line. His hollow cheeks were flushed. Every sense was as alert as a fencer's. If he had lived long like that, no wonder his eyes had gone bad. Yet last night Monte himself had lived like that, pacing his room hour after hour. Only it was not work that had given a cutting edge to each minute—not life, whatever Noyes meant by that. His thoughts ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... with the second speed clutch on when a grating sound came to my alert ears, and with it an unnatural shudder of the machinery. I threw off power and applied the brakes. As the car stopped the deep rolling bass of the thunder rumbled over ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... day, whenever Charlotte could bring her work into the sitting-room, she sat facing the glass door. She was not exactly happy; she was too strangely excited for happiness; but she was keenly awakened and alert. Every nerve in her seemed keyed up to its ultimate tension, and if the shadow of a cloud passed, even if a red leaf fell outside, she looked ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... was but a moment's work to feel his way to the velvet folds and draw them aside, fortunately without rattling the brass rings from which the curtain depended. And then Maitland was in the passage, acutely on the alert, recognizing from the continued click of metal that his antagonist-to-be was still at his difficult task. Inch by inch— there was the tapestry! Very gently the householder ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... at papa and Seryozha, thinking, "I wonder if they saw that I took that skull for a hare." But papa would be sitting keen and alert on his English saddle, with the wooden stirrups, smoking a cigarette, while Seryozha would perhaps have got his leash entangled and could ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy
... on and for a long time neither man moved. At last Rios, if Rios it was, withdrew a little, slipped behind a tree, passed to another and disappeared. Kendric did not see him again though he kept alert every instant. At last came the time when the sun slipped down behind the ridge and the dusk thickened and the stars came out. Kendric rose, stiff and weary, and began his slow, tedious way down into the canon. His long enforced stillness during which he had not dared doze a second, had served ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... lamentable, though, in fact, not worse than that of the few white loyalists who had been true to the Union during the war. These last were singled out as special objects of attack, and were, therefore, obliged at all times to be on the alert for the protection of their lives and property. This was the natural outcome of Mr. Johnson's defiance of Congress, coupled with the sudden conversion to his cause of persons in the North—who but a short time before had been his bitterest enemies; for all this ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... shelter beneath some large tangled roots on the opposite bank. As he crossed the river, I put a third bullet into him, firing from the saddle, and as soon as he came to bay I gave him a fourth, which finished him. This leopard was a very fine old male. In the conflict, the unfortunate Alert was wounded as usual, getting his face torn open. He was still going on three legs, with all his breast laid bare by ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... town, but cannot force the heart; and Mansoul is reduced to the greatest straits and sadness. In this extremity, prayers are incessantly offered up to Emmanuel; but, for a long time, they can obtain no satisfactory answers. Both parties are on the alert; but Diabolus finds it impossible, either by treachery or by storming with his legion of doubts, to gain possession of Heart-castle. Being worsted in a general engagement, the doubters are slain, and are buried with their ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... extemporized at a few moments' 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
... own face in a glass—as the speech of my own tongue. I got up, but did not go. I looked; I stirred the fire, and I looked again: but she drew her bonnet and her bandage closer about her face, and again beckoned me to depart. The flame illuminated her hand stretched out: roused now, and on the alert for discoveries, I at once noticed that hand. It was no more the withered limb of eld than my own; it was a rounded supple member, with smooth fingers, symmetrically turned; a broad ring flashed on the little finger, and stooping forward, I looked at ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... before their mood could alter, the Pretty Lily scourged them with the tongue of a humorous woman. She held her course, moreover; the two boats drifted so quickly apart that when she turned, to fling a comic farewell after the white men, they could no more than descry her face, alert and comely, and the whiteness of her teeth. Her laughing cry still rang, the overthrown leader still floundered in the water, when the picture blurred and vanished. Down the wind came her words, high, voluble, quelling all further mutiny aboard ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... possible for them to do it. But destiny, my special destiny, was at work. I was standing near, talking with affected gaiety to several young ladies, who, however, must have remarked my preoccupation; for my second sense of hearing was alert to what was being said by the group of which the girl in white was the center, when I heard her say: "I think his playing of Chopin is exquisite." And one of my friends in the group replied: "You haven't met him? Allow me——" Then turning to ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... made the man respond immediately to any noise or unusual sight. There was no period of stretching or yawning. Mick was asleep one instant, and fully awake the next and shouting "Daylight". The black boys were also light sleepers, trained out of their native laziness by association with alert whites. There was Yarloo, who had come in from the west with Boss Stobart's message and had joined the white man's plant at once; and Ranui, a tall fine man from North Queensland, who showed both in his build and name a trace of Malay blood; and Ted and Teedee, two boys who had been with Mick ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... and from him she did hear about the robbery all that he knew or heard. When three days had passed,—when six days, and even when ten days were gone, nobody had been as yet arrested. The police, according to Frank, were much on the alert, but were very secret. They either would not, or could not, tell anything. To him the two robberies, that at Carlisle and the last affair in Hertford Street, were of course distinct. There were those who believed that the Hertford Street thieves and the Carlisle ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... attorney, and Harry Stevens, whose father was a well-known automobile manufacturer, were the other members of the group. These latter two were members of the Black Bear Patrol of New York. All the lads appeared to be about eighteen years old. Their tidy uniforms, their well-knit frames and their alert attitudes bespoke the constant ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... a little room back of it. His personality divided itself. There was one Ross Wilbur—who could not make his hands go where he wanted them, who said one word when he thought another, and whose legs below the knee were made of solid lead. Then there was another Ross Wilbur—Ross Wilbur, the alert, who was perfectly clear-headed, and who stood off to one side and watched his twin brother making a monkey of himself, without power and without even the desire of ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... coming in such style, was, of course, likely to be honoured in every possible way by the landlord of the inn, and accordingly he was shown most obsequiously to the handsomest apartment in the house, and the whole establishment was put upon the alert to attend to any orders he might choose ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... shall we be so near them, and not eat them? This night these flocks and women shall be ours." They plunged into the water, but were soon entangled in the holes and mud of the narrow passes. The La Salas, too, were on the alert, poured showers of arrows upon them, and pushed forward their cavalry. The Arabs were totally discomfited, and Barca Gana was wounded in the back through ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... is very shy, and is always on the alert. Its sense of hearing, of smell, and of sight is very acute, and the most skillful hunter will sometimes search the mountain pastures for days without securing his game. When the troop is grazing, a sentinel is always appointed, who stands on the watch sniffing the air. At the least ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... love of adventure blazed up once more. His moment of weakness had passed. The thrill was in his blood, his nerves were tightened. He was ready for what might come, seemingly still half asleep, yet, indeed, with every sense of intuition and observation keenly alert. ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... balustrade, making no attempt to defend himself, and seemed, in his sudden terror, anything but the bold, alert fellow who had ascended the stairs two minutes before. 'I was a fool,' he groaned. 'I saw your man Simon here; and Fanchette, who is as good as a man, was with her mistress. And I went to stable the horses. I thought no evil. And now—My God!' he ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... Mr. Gladstone upon the interpretation of Genesis. His supposed] "unjaded appetite" [for controversy was already satiated; and he begged leave to retire from] "that 'atmosphere of contention' in which Mr. Gladstone has been able to live, alert and vigorous beyond the common race of men, as if it were purest mountain air," [for the] "Elysium" of scientific debate, which "suits my less robust constitution better." [A vain hope. Little as he liked controversy at bottom, in spite of the ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... perhaps a 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
... these and other facts of their appearance, and curiously questioned whether this were the best that a great material civilization could come to; it looked a little dull. The men's faces were shrewd and alert, and yet they looked dull; the women's were pretty and knowing, and yet dull. It was, probably, the holiday expression of the vast, prosperous commercial class, with unlimited money, and no ideals that money could not realize; fashion and comfort were ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... blacker than when one rides into them conscious of the presence of enemies and alert for signs and sounds. But custom dulls the edge of apprehension. De Spain rode slowly up the main road without expecting to meet any one, and he reached the rise where the trail forked to Duke's ranch unchallenged. Here ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... head and the other holding a glowing cigar, he contemplated the scene, his favourite hour of the day. Each moment another and another light flitted across the heavy blackness, showing red or green, while the lights on the moving sampans darted back and forth in the darkness, restless and alert. He had left it to Walker. He had stopped thinking of his impending nephew for a few moments, and his mind had relaxed, as the mind relaxes when an evil has been postponed from time to time, and normal feeling reasserts itself after the ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... be useful to France. But this was an enterprise not easy either to inaugurate or carry out. The colonial establishments of Spain were at that time hermetically sealed against all intercourse with foreign nations. Armed ships, like watch-dogs, were ever on the alert, and foreign merchantmen entered their ports only at the peril of confiscation. It was necessary for Spain to send out annually a fleet, under a convoy of ships of war, for the transportation of merchandise and supplies for the colonies, returning ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... Eaton, was later to upset the equilibrium of the Jackson Administration—and other favorite lodging houses were the scenes of midnight conferences, intimate conversations, and mysterious comings and goings which kept their oldest and most sophisticated frequenters on the alert. "Incedo super ignes—I walk over fires," confided the straitlaced Adams to his diary, and not without reason. A group of Clay's friends came to the New Englander's room to urge in somewhat veiled language that their chief be promised, in return for his support, a place in the Cabinet. A Missouri ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... other tables mechanically alert to Plank's cards dropping in rapid sequence as he played alternately from his own hand and the dummy, permitted her thoughtful eyes to wander toward Agatha from moment to moment. How alluring her subtle beauty, in its own strange way! How perfect her accord with her ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... a smile and a jest, They'll respond with a jest and a smile, for there's life in each age-burdened breast, And confidence, comfort, and cheer. Here again clustered close round the fire Are a number of grizzle-look'd men, every one is a true "hoary sire," Bowed, time-beaten, grey, yet alert and responsive to kindness of speech; And see how old eyes can light up if you promise a pipe-charge a-piece. For the comforting weed KINGSLEY eulogised is not taboo in this place, Where the whiff ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 5, 1892 • Various
... the pistol and with no powder upon his person for further reloading, he could not share Jack's eagerness to meet the Committee again. When Surry gave over rolling with his tongue the little wheel in his bit, and with lifted head and eyes alert perked his ears forward towards the hill they had just crossed, he slipped the hackamore hurriedly into place and ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... word or two that she tosses you as misers count their treasures; and you pocket the change for a five uncomputed. Perhaps the brass-bound inaccessibility multiplies her charms—anyhow, she is a shirt-waisted angel, immaculate, trim, manicured, seductive, bright-eyed, ready, alert—Psyche, Circe, and Ate in one, separating you from your circulating medium after your ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... seemed to ripple through the room. The atmosphere grew tense, electric—alert as with ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... continued disastrously. At last, when darkness came on, both sides were forced to cease firing. Now and then, only when a flash of lightning lit up the terrible scene, the firing of bullets demonstrated that the Boers were still thoroughly on the alert. ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... and simple in manner as most men who have spent their lives "east of the Suez". After five minutes in his society one understands why he is the idol of the neighbourhood. He looks ill, poor dear, but his blue eyes are still clear and alert, and he twinkles them at you in such a shrewd, ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... a moment he tried to appear alert, earnest, ambitious but not too ambitious, fearless, devoted to the cause, and indispensable. For a moment. Then he gave it up and ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... 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 that some ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... were the only organisers in the world!—We've taught them better!' he said, with a laugh in his pleasant eyes, the whole man of him, so weary the night before, now fresh and alert in the ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... obtaining food—unlike the herbivora—is irregular and often at long intervals, gorge themselves upon opportunity and are in the habit of sleeping after a meal. The frugivora and herbivora, however, are alert and ready to fly from their enemies should such appear. The conveying of so much nourishment to the liver and blood stream at one time, is probably a greater tax on them. A light lunch between the ...
— The Chemistry of Food and Nutrition • A. W. Duncan
... cannot spare Hill, can you not send me some other troops? If we cannot be successful in defeating the enemy should he advance, a kind Providence may enable us to inflict a terrible wound and effect a safe retreat in the event of having to fall back. I will keep myself on the alert with respect to communications between us, so as to be able to join you at the earliest possible moment, if such a movement becomes necessary."* (* O.R. volume ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... approvingly; he was behaving calmly, and didn't need being put at ease. They talked at random—at least, Hauserman tried to make it seem so—for some time about his work, his book about the French Revolution, current events. He picked his way carefully through the conversation, alert for traps which the psychiatrist might be laying for him. ...
— The Edge of the Knife • Henry Beam Piper
... incidents of the trip had been stored away for this very purpose. They ceased to be trivial when recorded as Mary Lee's alert eyes had seen them, and with the colour her amusing descriptions lent. It was a letter that seemed to carry a breath of fresh air with it into the stuffy dining-room on Bank Street, where her mother first ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... promised five guineas to the man who should discover the objects of our search. Often did Tom and I climb to the mast-head and scan the horizon, and so did many others: but those who were stationed at the look-out were equally on the alert. The ship's company were now in a very fair state of discipline, owing to the incessant practice, and every evening the hands were turned up to skylark—that is, to play and amuse themselves. There was one amusement which was the occasion of a great deal of mirth, ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... "wakeful Palinurus" of old song Drowsed at the last, and floods his corpse did whelm; But thou hast ever been alert as strong, Pilot who never slumbered at the helm. Impetuous youth aspires to rear a realm, And the State-bark to steer In other fashion. Is it faith or fear Fills the old Pilot's spirit as he moves Slow from ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 29, 1890 • Various
... England, he sought and secured the acquaintance of Rudyard Kipling, whose alert mind was at once keenly interested in what Bok was trying to do. He was willing to co-operate, with the result that Bok secured the author's new story, William the Conqueror. When Bok read the manuscript, he was delighted; he had for some time been reading Kipling's work with enthusiasm, ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... to any of you to indulge a vein more serious than befits the wine-cup, marvel not. It has long been my wont to share our city's passion for noble-natured souls, alert and emulous ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... Harriet Byron, Clarissa, Amelia, and Sophia Western were all equally delightful, and it was not the negative charm of the innocent and colourless woman, the amiable doll of the nineteenth century, but it was a beauty of nature depending upon an alert mind, clear and strong principles, true womanly feelings, and complete feminine charm. In this respect our rival authors may claim a tie, for I could not give a preference to one set of these perfect creatures over another. The plump little printer and the worn-out man-about-town ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a brother pilgrim upon the weary road. But hark you, friends! when we are in arms and the good work is to be done, on the march, in the field, or on parade, then let your bearing be strict, soldierly, and scrupulous, quick to hear and alert to obey, for I shall have no sluggards or laggards, and if there be any such my hand shall be heavy upon them, yea, even to the cutting of them off. I say there shall be no mercy for such,' here he paused and ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... finds much to perplex, to weary, and to sadden. So it was with the Swiss professor. He was always in the sanctum sanctorum of his spirit, striving to attain the truth; with Hamlet-like irresolution he poised in mind before the antinomies of the universe, alert to see around a subject, having the modern thinker's inability to be partisan. This way of thought is obviously unhealthy, or at least has in it something of the morbid. It implies the undue introspection which ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the window, alert and tense. He flew to the desk, found the envelope, steamed it open at the kettle, extracted the sealed envelope and Colonel Hare's note. He smiled as he read the letter and changed his plans completely. He would not play messenger; he would use ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... spots of reddish brown. Freak situations in which to locate their nests are often chosen by these birds, such as the brake beam of a freight car, in the crevices of old wells, hen houses, etc. The birds are one of the most useful that we have; being very active and continually on the alert for insects and beetles that constitute their ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... wooden leg; it was then that the full significance of 'lamiter' came to her. He was covered, however, as Salemina had supposed, and the occurrence gave us a precious opportunity of chaffing that dungeon of learning. He was tolerably alert and vigorous, too, although he certainly did not impart elegance to a vehicle, and he knew every street in the court end of Edinburgh, and every close and wynd in the Old Town. On this our first meeting with him, he faltered only when Francesca asked him last of ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... young woman who controls the sale of miscellaneous goods was alert and smiling behind her counter. Whatever Crossan might be doing she at all events was attending to her business. Godfrey took no notice of her. He led me through the shop to the yard behind it. He pushed open the door of one ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... of the mysterious sea. The thoughts of all his lifetime could have been expressed in six words, but the stir of those things that were as much part of his existence as his beating heart called up a gleam of alert understanding upon the sternness of his aged face. The flame of the lamp swayed, and the old man, with knitted and bushy eyebrows, stood over the brake, watchful and motionless in the wild saraband of dancing shadows. Then the ship, obedient to the call of her anchor, forged ahead slightly and ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... his eyes on the alert for a good spot where they could pass the next night, and it lacked half an hour to sunset when he gave utterance to a shout, and pointed with his ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... who had sent them, for Kingston had herself seen him carrying the flowers and entrusting them to a commissionnaire with a message for Miss Brooke. She believed, too, that Lesley knew from whom they came. But she was not sufficiently alert and interested just then to make these matters of great importance to her. She did not think it worth her while to say how much she knew. With a short quick sigh she turned away, and expected to see her young mistress quit the room at once, still with that ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... of the Boulevard and the "Cafe Anglais," let us turn to the dandy of "Flicoteau's" and the Pays Latin—the Paris student, whose exploits among the grisettes are so celebrated, and whose fierce republicanism keeps gendarmes for ever on the alert. The following is M. de Bernard's ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... when I was in the French quarter at dinner I became alert to the conversation of two men sitting at a near table. They spoke familiarly to each other, almost as brothers. But I sensed that they had been separated for some time. At last one of them made references to France and England, and I concluded that ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... description. For all the marks of his profession that he bore on his face, in the shape of lumps and scars, he might have been a curate. His face looked tough, and his eyes harboured always a curiously alert, questioning expression, as if he were perpetually "sizing up" the person he was addressing. But otherwise he was like other men. He seemed also to have a pretty taste in Literature. This, combined with his strong and capable air, attracted Sheen. Usually he was ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... good couriers for the conveyance of despatches back across the Danube to Bucharest, whence everything was telegraphed to London; but they were essentially fair-weather men. The casual courier may be alert, loyal, and trustworthy; he may be relied on to try his honest best, but it is not to be expected of him that he will greatly dare and count his life but as dross when his incentive to enterprise is merely filthy lucre. ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... 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 ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... the suppressed excitement of this last half hour will ever be forgotten by those who were present. No one could tell at the last minute what would happen. Would the enemy be surprised or would he be ready on the alert to pour a terrible fire on the boats as they ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... past midnight before we slept. The child was restless, and urged her grandmother to tell her Eskimo stories. O Duk Dok slept heavily, unconscious of all around her. My own senses were on the alert. I listened intently to catch every sound, but we were too far away from the hotel to hear the carousal that I well knew was there in progress. The mushers from the dance were hourly expected home, and would then add their part to the midnight orgies. The low droning of the old Eskimo ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... up to the tent and looked in, the beating of his own heart nearly choking him. Dr. MacTavish slept on the lounge, the peaceful sleep of a child, or of a man who has done good work. Beside the bed sat Dr. Clay, watching, alert, hopeful. From the tent door where he stood he could see the little white face on the pillow and he knew from the way the child breathed that she was sleeping easily. The eastern wall of the tent was rosy with the dawn. Then he went back to the stable, hitched up his ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... running with their necks stiff and their heads stretched out. The contempt, conceived from their appearance, they took pains to increase; sometimes falling from their horses, and making themselves objects of derision and ridicule. The consequence was, that the enemy, who at first had been alert, and ready on their posts, in case of an attack, now, for the most part, laid aside their arms, and sitting down amused themselves with looking at them. The Numidians often rode up, then galloped back, but still contrived to get ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... repeated General Jackson's order to my brigade commanders and directed them to listen to the sound of Stuart's guns. We all confidently expected to hear the welcome sound by two o'clock at least, and as that hour approached every ear was on the alert. Napoleon at Waterloo did not listen more intently for the sound of Grouchy's fire than did we for Stuart's. Two o'clock came, but nothing was heard of Stuart. Half-past two, and then three, and ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... so many of their countrymen to the horrors of penal servitude. But they saw no reason to suppose that the swoop was about to be made on them. On the fifteenth day of September, 1865, there were no perceptible indications that the authorities were any more on the alert in reference to Fenian affairs then they had been during the past twelve months. It was Friday; the Irish People had been printed for the next day's sale, large batches of the paper had been sent off to the agents in town and country, the editors and publishing clerks ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... to be graceful, steady, strong; The Eye to be alert and observing; The Memory to be accurate and retentive; The Heart to be ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... before night. 'Then come in the sweets of the evening':—the Queen, the coronation, the last new play, the next fight, the insurrection of the Greeks or Neapolitans, the price of stocks, or death of kings, keep them on the alert till bedtime. No question comes amiss to them that is quite new—none is ever heard of that is ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... that the gentlemen entered, so there was no further talk of painted ladies; and, besides, Maurice was alert to catch Eleanor's eye, and go home! "Edith is capable of saying anything!" ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... rage and jealousy, shot through Esmond's heart, as he caught the look she gave the Prince; and he clenched his hand involuntarily and looked across to Castlewood, whose eyes answered his alarm-signal, and were also on the alert. The Prince gave his subjects an audience of a few minutes, and then the two ladies and Colonel Esmond quitted the chamber. Lady Castlewood pressed his hand as they descended the stair, and the three went ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... 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 ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson
... advance: "Now help, Death, help!" And the other one, who seemed to lag too much, Was shouting: "Lano, were not so alert ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... eventually would lead to Jim's vindication; she deplored my lack of faith in my companion; she marveled that I, too, should have fallen so easily a prey to the sharpers who were deceiving her hot-headed, obstinate father, whose senses were alert for every word or sign that would smirch, by even so much as a shadow, the man he would overthrow. If it had been possible for Gabrielle Tescheron to understand that I had read her impulsive father's character aright, and that my loyalty to Jim Hosley at the ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... flared to a 98.4 then started inching down again. The young reporter sat up, alert, from where he had been dozing. The loud clang of a bell had ...
— The Circuit Riders • R. C. FitzPatrick
... and the Seraglio by the sea, a town within a town; and southward the Sea of Marmora, blue-and-white, and vast, and fresh as a sea just born, rejoicing at its birth and at the jovial sun, all brisk, alert, to the shadowy islands afar: and as I looked, I suddenly said aloud a wild, mad thing, my God, a wild and maniac thing, a shrieking maniac thing for Hell to laugh at: for something said with my tongue: 'This ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... or two to keep watch and to attend upon the horses. About an hour after midnight, when the moon was about going down, a distant shout was heard—presently a second, more distinctly and nearer to us. We were immediately upon the alert, and the shouts being repeated, we could no longer doubt but that the Armenian was at hand. We then shouted in return, and not very long after we saw him appear. He was almost exhausted with fatigue, but still strong enough to be able to relate his adventures ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... expansion. Despite the extreme cold, his sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, and the red wrists and hands were well covered with tough, seasoned flesh. The eyes that watched the roasting bird were intent, alert, keenly interested in that particular task, and in due course, in any other ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... taken her bag, found a vacant seat, put her next the window and sat down by her before Lydia, quite breathless with the shock of seeing him, could do more than notice how vigorous he looked, his tall, spare figure alert and erect, his ruddy hair and close-clipped beard contrasting vividly with his dark-blue flannel shirt and soft black hat. He was on a business trip, evidently, for on his knees he held a tool-box with large ungloved ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... knowledge may be read in two moods. The reader may keep his mind passive, willing merely to receive the impress of the writer's thought; or he may read with his attention strained and alert, asking at every instant how the new knowledge can be used in a further advance, watching continually for fresh footholds by which to climb higher still. Of Shelley it has been said that he was a poet for poets: so Darwin was a naturalist ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... were constantly passing and repassing, apparently engaged in their ordinary pursuits; but a close observer could detect by the interchange of a word, a motion, or a significant glance, that they had a mutual understanding and a common purpose, and were on the alert and quick and observant of all that ...
— A Sketch of the Causes, Operations and Results of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856 • Stephen Palfrey Webb
... sent me on to Scandor. I had now learned enough of the Martian language to speak, imperfectly. That mental facility, which is the amazing and most wonderful thing in Mars, was perhaps more slowly roused in me. But daily I became known, and more alert and inflamed with thought and the eager intuition ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... spot, so I went with him, and together we took a big circle through the encinal, keeping alert for game signs. Before we had gone far, evidence became plentiful, not only of turkeys, but of peccary and deer. Where the turkeys had recently been scratching, many times we dismounted and led ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... on a couch, indicates that false hopes will be entertained. You should be alert to every change of your affairs, for only in this way ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... a prominent industry in New England at this time, the alert mind of Daniel Anthony conceived the idea of building a factory and using the waters of Tophet brook and of a rapid little stream which flowed through the Read farm. This was done, and proved a success from the beginning. A document is still in existence by which "D. Read agrees ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper |
