"Alert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... very slow, and we spent the next day having baths in Souastre. On the 1st March we moved into the new front line, round the East edge of Gommecourt, while the Boche was still holding Pigeon Wood. The enemy was very alert, as General H.M. Campbell, the C.R.A., discovered; he went into the wood, thinking it unoccupied, and was chased out by a fat Boche throwing "potato mashers." In the evening the Headquarters moved into a German dug-out, but the enemy still ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... up the Capilano the banished chief had built his solitary home; for who can tell what fatal trick of sound, what current of air, what faltering note in the voice of the Medicine Man had deceived his alert Indian ears? But some unhappy fate had led him to understand that his solitude must be of ten years' duration, not ten days, and he had accepted the mandate with the heroism of a stoic. For if he had refused to ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... women on the platform gazed at the door of the Pullman car with expectant eyes. Judy Kean in a black velvet suit and a big picture hat headed the delegation. Only two passengers descended from the sleeper: a middle-aged, worn-looking woman in shabby black and a young man whose alert brown eyes took in at once the crowd of college girls and Judy, resplendent in ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... the chief difficulty consisting in putting myself in 2 places at once—one close to the depot of our goods in the barrow, the other before the officer with the keys. Kitty was wedged in a corner with a writing case and, I think, Donald's sword. My English companion was equally on the alert, but Farmer Dinmont would have excited all your compassion, or rather admiration; for here amidst the din of tongues and arms, unable to move hand or foot, he stood with a smile of mingled resignation and wonder; at length, the search being concluded to the satisfaction of both parties, we ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... of the matter about which you inquired. Even now I receive letters urging me to buy something or other about which I sent a letter of inquiry when I was in America. At night, if you stroll round the town you will be amazed by the ingenious and clever signs which the alert minds of the trades people have invented, such as revolving electric lights forming the name of the advertiser with different colors, or a figure or shape of some sort illustrating his wares. But even this is not thought sufficient. Circulars are often sent to everyone, ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... of a clean life of effort was upon them, and there was a certain lithe gracefulness in the unconscious poses of the straight-limbed men. There was no sign of limp slovenliness about them. Even in their relaxation they were intent and alert, and, as she watched them, Laura realized something of their restless activity and daring optimism. They believe in anything that is good enough in that country, and are in consequence cheerfully willing to attempt anything, even if to other men it would appear altogether visionary and impossible, ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... radiance as white as a bread-board. In the social hall, the happy exiles were rejoicing noisily, but Roddy stood apart, far forward, looking over the ship's side and considering bitterly the mistake of the morning. His melancholy self-upbraidings were interrupted by a light, alert step, and Pino Vega, now at ease, gracious and on guard, stood ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... deeply, and glad of a diverting subject, Elizabeth delivered John's report of Jean. The effect was most gratifying. Her aunt grew immediately alert and full of eager questions. Elizabeth had very little to tell. She wisely kept her own impressions of the young man to herself, but she dwelt upon the glowing report of Dr. Bagsley both John and Charles Stuart had given, not forgetting to add that he had greatly ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... twentieth time by her own unflagging counsel; even the judge became all but inattentive on the point, before it was finally dropped on an intimation from the jury that they had made up their minds about the chains; but no trace of boredom had crossed the keen, alert face of the unknown gentleman ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... along the shore, and announced that a boat, filled with white men, was coming up the river. This was by no means agreeable tidings to Mr. Hunt, who correctly concluded it to be the boat of Mr. Manuel Lisa; and he was vexed to find that alert and adventurous trader upon his heels, whom he hoped to have out-maneuvered, and left far behind. Lisa, however, was too much experienced in the wiles of Indian trade to be lulled by the promise of waiting for him at the Poncas village; on ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... enveloped in fog, succeeded to the fine night. Before seven o'clock—so watchful and alert are boys when mischief is afloat—most of those who had been in the conspiracy were assembled, and waiting round the schoolroom doors. Generally, they could tear up at the twelfth moment. They would not have missed the sight of Charles Channing's arrival for half-a-crown apiece, ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the usual school drone, and the boys under the floor resumed their game. It was an extremely interesting game, closely contested. Each player watched the other's actions with an alert and suspicious eye, and this want of confidence led directly to the boys' undoing; for presently Dick detected Jacker in an attempt to deceive, and signalled 'Down!' with an emphatic gesture. 'Gerrout!' was the word framed by the lips of the indignant ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... 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 ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... they look knowing, and you see, to your horror, that the girl is blushing. Evidently she is under fire too. Still, you keep it up. She makes a better comrade than any of the men. You feel that you are out of mischief when you are with her. She keeps you alert. You never are bored, but really you are not as fond of her as you were of your college chum even. She treats you a trifle, just a trifle, differently from all the other men. This goes to your ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... became alert, as the Master had been, listening to the song of the water-carrier, now becoming less ...
— Virgilia - or, Out of the Lion's Mouth • Felicia Buttz Clark
... was a small, alert man with a conciseness of speech and manner that is associated in my memory with the bristle of his red mustache cut short and hard across a decisive mouth. He radiated nervous vitality; and I understood, as I studied ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... a change in railroading since my time. Years ago I can remember when I used to ride in a caboose and enjoy myself, and before good fortune had made me the target of the alert and swift-flying whisk-broom of the palace car, it was my chief joy to catch a freight over the hill from Cheyenne, on the Mountain division. We were not due anywhere until the following day, and ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... thought of sleep was repugnant to him. He would often drop asleep at odd hours over the campfire whilst his comrades were discussing and planning, and they would let him sleep in peace at such times; but at night he was alert and wide awake, and they were glad enough to give him his request, and let him keep watch whilst they ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... transportation, and everything would have gone on very well indeed had it not been for the most culpable and unwarranted interference of that lawless party of men, who might almost be said to amount to a nationality, who were continually on the alert to take from Spain everything she could take from America. The English, French, and Dutch governments were generally at peace with Spain, but they sat by quietly and saw their sailor subjects band themselves together and make war upon Spanish ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... disgusting worship of the genius of the place.—From the dandy 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 description ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... they were on the alert for pursuing Indians, but by degrees they were able to feel confidently that they had journeyed beyond the territory occupied by the inimical people, and Brazier began his collecting once more, and the boys ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... had sunk to sleep he became further aroused by a very peculiar sound in the wall (as it seemed), close to which his bed was stationed; and instead of drowsing off again, he woke up with all his faculties on the alert, much as a watchdog does, and sitting up in bed he listened ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... found out something definite, something which the War Department could take hold of; a lever, as it were, to pry up the whole scheme. He was thinking of these things, but his mind was nevertheless alert to the little trail signs which it had become second nature to read. So he saw, there in the dust of the trail, where a buggy had turned around and gone back whence it had come. He saw that it had been traveling toward ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... quickly as might be. Down went the gallant little band — with the exception of two stalwart huntsmen and four of the younger amongst the boys, who were left to guard the head of the path — not knowing the risk they ran: whether they would find an alert and well-armed foe awaiting them at the bottom, or whether they might fall upon the enemy unawares. Very silent and cautious were their movements. The Huntsman and the Gascon brothers moved noiselessly as cats, and even the less trained youths ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... in fact never spent a thought on making life a good thing to the man she had married. She wished she had endeavoured or might now endeavour to make herself agreeable to him. But it was too late! Sir Wilton would instantly imagine a rumour of the lost heir, and be on the alert for her discomfiture! If only he had not yet made a later will! He must die one day: why not in time to make his death of use when his life was of none! No one would wonder he had preferred the offspring of her noble person to the lost brat ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... suffering badly from worms, and the remedies at our disposal, unfortunately, were not effective. All the fit dogs were being exercised in the sledges, and they took to the work with enthusiasm. Sometimes their eagerness to be off and away produced laughable results, but the drivers learned to be alert. The wireless apparatus was still rigged, but we listened in vain for the Saturday-night time signals from New Year Island, ordered for our benefit by the Argentine Government. On Sunday the 28th, Hudson waited at 2 a.m. for the Port Stanley monthly signals, but ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... walked, and I can still see Raffles in full-length silhouette upon a panel of palms and tree-ferns. I see the silhouette grow tall and straight again before my eyes, the door open, and Raffles listening with an alert lift of the head. I, too, hear something, an elfin hiss, a fairy fusillade, and then the sudden laugh with which Raffles rejoined us in the ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... how lovely was the look of this! Eight young girls,—young ladies, for those who prefer that more dignified and less attractive expression,—all in the flush of youth, all in vigorous health; every muscle taught its duty; each rower alert, not to be a tenth of a second out of time, or let her oar dally with the water so as to lose an ounce of its propelling virtue; every eye kindling with the hope of victory. Each of the boats was cheered as it came in sight, but the cheers for the Atalanta were naturally the loudest, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... fresh and cool. It was possibly the atmospheric clearance which accounted for the fact, that, however, fatigued he had been, or appeared to be, at the end of his conversation with the inspector, Monsieur Dupont was now particularly wide-awake and alert. ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... Shirley was alert as a cat. Van Cleft was too dazed to understand his sudden move, as the criminologist caught up the receiver, and placed his palm for an ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... the while; and there was never a time that the lookout did not have to keep his eyes on the alert, because of the traps and snares that lay in wait for the voyagers ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... bleached at the extremities to a hempen hue. His bristly hair was cut short, and stood aggressively erect upon a bullet head, his clothes were soiled and greasy beneath a gray coating of dust. A pair of alert, lead- blue eyes and a certain facility of movement belied the drawl that marked his nativity. He removed his hat and bowed at ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... of Cataluna, making his formal entry into Barcelona on the fifteenth of February, 1519. The Jeronymite fathers had arranged for the sale of the royal haciendas in Hispaniola, and Las Casas, ever on the alert to secure advantages for his colonists, presented a petition asking that they should be maintained for one year at the royal expense. The vexation of the Bishop of Burgos augmented visibly at this fresh claim for assistance, ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... 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 watcher ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... 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, ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... Honeychurch, suddenly alert. "I don't see any difference. Fences are fences, especially when they are in ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... on springs and leaned against the rail, looking down quizzically at the man who sat stolidly smoking in the deck-chair. No two people could have formed a stronger contrast—the yacht's captain, fair-bearded, with the features of a Viking—the yacht's owner, dark, alert, with a certain French finesse about him that gave a strange charm to a personality that otherwise ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... invoked carita. They accompanied this demand by the corrupted cry of "nix munjay"—nothing to eat,—which they enforced by most expressive gestures, extending their mouths, and exhibiting rows of ravenous-looking teeth. The caleche drivers, too, were on the alert, and respectfully taking off their turbans, proffered their services to convey the Signore to Floriana. Delme declined their offers, and, passing a draw-bridge which divides Valletta from the country, made his way through an embrasure, ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... Commander of the brig Alert, in October, 1817, saw A REEF extending for a considerable distance in a North-East and South-West direction. The Alert ran along the reef for twenty-five miles: about the centre Mr. Brodie saw two sand islets in latitude ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... convenience. If through cowardice or wavering she allowed the moment to pass, she could never again hope for another such opening. Already the Chieftain was watching her with surprise and curiosity, the softness of the last few minutes giving place to the usual alert good-humour. ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... newcomer was precisely a gay young man when he climbed into the omnibus; but, an hour later, as he stood in the doorway of the edifice he had indicated as his destination, depression seemed to have settled into the marrow of his bones. Plattville was instantly alert to the stranger's presence, and interesting conjectures were hazarded all day long at the back door of Martin's Dry-Goods Emporium, where all the clerks from the stores around the Square came to play checkers or look on at the game. (This was the club during the day; in the ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... with soldiers unless they were nicely massed into pretty formations and uncomfortable under the weight of a pack and rifle. Through this medley Dean and Gordon wandered; the former interested, made alert by the display of humanity at its frothiest and gaudiest; the latter reminded of how often he had been one of the crowd, tired, casually fed, overworked, and dissipated. To Dean the struggle was significant, young, cheerful; to Gordon it was ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... at last. He was a young, alert, beardless man, who whistled as he came. John Arniston was instantly beside him as he stooped to ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... the conversation, for each took his position behind the tree barricade with all senses alert for any indications of ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... dormant senses seemed to be on the alert. Fully fledged plans flashed through her brain. She went into the cabin, and barred the door. She made every movement swiftly, as if she had not an instant to spare. Who could tell? He might return even before dark. He had been hard to baffle, and she did not feel at all secure. It ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... one of the duties of the colony to preserve the seeds of different vegetables and grain, because the Professor intended to put out for their use, as soon as spring came, a garden, which would avoid the necessity of constantly putting them on the alert to hunt the different foods. Sometimes it was necessary to go considerable distances to get the various foods. As long as they were on the island it was the part of prudence to act like sensible business men, and ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... on the alert himself, and kept everybody else on board on the alert, in the hopes, by some means or other, of inflicting a heavy blow on the abominable slave-trade, for he felt as much interest in the matter as did ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... begun to show the strain to which you have been subjecting yourself. Your failure last Friday night to land Mrs. Gollet's ruby dog-collar when her French poodle sat in your lap all through the Gaster musicale is evidence to me that your mind is not as alert as usual. By all means, go away and rest up. I'll take care of ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... fear that he could not be frightened into running away. He ceased wagging his tail, and, though he continued to look up at her, his eyes no longer smiled. Her action and noise he identified as unfriendly, and he became alert and watchful, prepared for whatever hostile act she might ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... clothed with rank weeds and grass and small brush—but he knew it must be there. When he turned his horse from the water and went his way, his mind was no longer given up to idle dreaming of love words and a girl. This fencing business concerned him intimately, and his brain was as alert as his eyes. For he had not meant that Dilly should ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... 'consciousness of a presence.' But the difference for me between the two sets of experience is as great as the difference between feeling a slight warmth originating I know not where, and standing in the midst of a conflagration with all the ordinary senses alert. ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... laughing outright in the mist of smoke; the chatter narrowly escaped being a din; and at intervals a diminutive boy entered and bawled the name of a midget at the top of his voice, Priam was suddenly electrified, and Mr. Oxford, very alert, noticed the electrification. ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... though his mind seemed heavy enough, his body was on the alert; and he appeared before Mr. Bounderby came in. 'I didn't mean to be cross, Loo,' he said, giving her his hand, and kissing her. 'I know you are fond of me, and you know I am ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... he originally offered to the world his interpretation of dreams was as circumstantial as a legal record to be pondered over by scientists at their leisure, not to be assimilated in a few hours by the average alert reader. In those days, Freud could not leave out any detail likely to make his extremely novel thesis evidentially acceptable to those willing to ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... time, but the remark had set us all on the alert, straining ears and eyes—the musketeers with their pieces balanced in their hands, the captain out in the middle of the block house with his mouth very tight and a frown on ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that you are going to bring your account back to us, Mrs. Salisbury," said the alert salesman who waited upon them. "We are always sorry to ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris
... little withered old man. He was born in our house—I know, for it chanced that mention was made of it this very day I am describing. Pons was all of sixty years. He was mostly toothless, and, despite a pronounced limp that compelled him to go slippity-hop, he was very alert and spry in all his movements. Also, he was impudently familiar. This was because he had been in my house sixty years. He had been my father's servant before I could toddle, and after my father's death (Pons and I talked ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... their shirts into strips to make ropes to support the girls by sticks driven into the mountain side. It was in one of those intervals that the distinct strokes of a woodman's axe were heard high on the upland at the point where the trail descended to the canyon. Every ear was alert, but only those on one side of the canyon could get a fair view of the spot. This was the good fortune of Captain Fairfax and Georgy Piper, who had climbed to the highest bush on that side, and were now standing up, gazing excitedly in ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... distasteful task she set him. He submitted to the separation, wrote daily, but sent no tidings of his progress, told her nothing when they met that night, and had left her an hour before asking her to have patience till he could show his finished work. Now, with her eye upon the door, her ear alert to catch the coming step, her mind disturbed by contending hopes and fears, she sat waiting with the vigilant immobility of an Indian on the watch. She had not long to look and listen. Manuel entered ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... name William Pitt, very much resembled Diamond Tom, his illustrious grandfather—Nature bred back. William was strong in body, firm in will, active, alert, intelligent. Times had changed or he might have been a bold buccaneer, too. He was all his grandfather was, only sandpapered, buffed ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... warning. Near the middle of the following afternoon, a noticeable lull in the wind occurred, followed by a leaden horizon on the west and north. The next breeze carried the icy breath of the northwest, and the cattle turned as a single animal. The alert horsemen acted on the instant, and began throwing the cattle into a compact herd. At the time they were fully three miles from the corral, and when less than halfway home, the storm broke in splendid fury. A swirl of snow accompanied the gale, blinding the boys for an instant, but each ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... were seated, one March morning in 189—, in the private office of French and Company, Limited, on lower Broadway. Mr. Kirby, the junior partner—a man of thirty-five, with brown hair and mustache, clean-cut, handsome features, and an alert manner, was smoking cigarettes almost as fast as he could roll them, and at the same time watching the electric clock upon the wall and getting up now and then to stride restlessly back ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... drafted aboard the Dixie, where, within a week of his joining, he was promoted to be one of the four quartermasters. So much older than the majority of his comrades, quick, alert, obedient, and responsible, he was naturally amongst the first chosen for what are called leading seamen. Never was a man more in his element than George Raymond. He shook down into naval life like one born to it. ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... was not gone to bed!" exclaimed Blaize, "I had just taken a couple of rufuses, and was about to put on my nightcap, when, hearing a noise without, and being ever on the alert to defend my master's property, even at the hazard of my life, I stepped forth and ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... with a drizzle of rain, and through the slits in the temple walls we could see the many fires in the camp well cared for, the men and women in skins and rags toasting before them, with steam rising as the heat fought with their wetness. Folk seated in discomfort like this are proverbially alert and cruel in the temper, and Nais frowned as she looked on the inclemency ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... capable-looking Irishwoman, in a dress of dark-blue duck, with a white collar and white cuffs, heard a warming, big voice, and caught a ready and infectious smile. In all the surrounding confusion Mrs. O'Connor was calm and alert; so normal in manner and speech indeed that merely watching her had the effect of suddenly cooling Susan's blood, of reducing her whirling thoughts to something like their old, sane basis. Travel was nothing to Mrs. ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... Vodell 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 ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... him, shrewdly alert. He had never before ventured to utter words of counsel on this delicate subject. But having started, he was minded to make a neat job of it. Adam had never been the man to leave a thing ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... Cowboys hobbled by in their peggy, high-heeled gait, as clumsy afoot as penguins; men in white shirts without coats, their skin too tender to withstand the sun, walked with superior aloofness among the sheep which had come to their shearing pens, preoccupied in manner, yet alert, watching, watching, on ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... if to emphasize it all, with the exception that proves the rule, he detailed one slight case where he thought my father was at fault,—-a detail so slight that I now forget what it is. In reading the Log kept by the discharged mate, Amerzeen, on the return trip in the Alert, I find that every incident there recorded, from running aground at the start at San Diego Harbor, through the perilous icebergs round the Horn, the St. Elmo's fire, the scurvy of the crew and the small matters like the painting of the vessel, to the ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... But, between Goldsmith and Block, who were now in a state of frantic activity and full of insane suggestions, and the wardrobe mistress who was always having to be told how to do something, every minute was occupied. She would try desperately to keep an ear alert for what was happening on the stage, in order to be on hand for her entrances. But, in spite of her, it sometimes happened that she'd be snatched from something by ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... interval there came a knock at the box door. I said, "Come in!" The door opened, and there, to my utter amazement, stood Dale Kynnersley—Dale, sleek, alert, smiling, attired in the very latest nicety of evening dress affected by contemporary youth—Dale such as I knew and loved but ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... midnight, and the surf diminished rapidly, which caused us to be on the alert at a very early hour on the 22d, but we had to wait until six A.M. for the return of Augustus, who had continued out all night on an unsuccessful pursuit of deer. It appears that he had walked a few miles farther along the coast, than the party had done ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... and that only in cities is sexuality rampant and conspicuous. This is by no means true, and in some respects it is the reverse of the truth. Certainly, hard work, a natural and simple life, and a lack of alert intelligence often combine to keep the rural lad chaste in thought and act until the period of adolescence is completed. Ammon, for instance, states, though without giving definite evidence, that this is common among the Baden conscripts. Certainly, also, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... nearest chair and ran a hand across his fleshy face. He was balding and jowly, but his face was creased from a smile that was almost habitual, and his eyes were active and alert. ...
— The Dueling Machine • Benjamin William Bova
... eyes were ever on the alert, noticed that Roland gave some injunctions to The Lifter, and he likewise observed the latter lay his finger upon his lips. Turning to the Captain, he muttered a few words in a voice that was inaudible, and ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... the cliff, and when they stood on the hill Henry noticed again the thinness of his comrade. But the color was returning to his cheeks, and his eye had regained the alert, jaunty look of old. Henry calculated that in a week Shif'less Sol would be nearly as strong as ever. The shiftless one saw his ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to the little crab's claws. It is even said that the crab in recognition of the benefits bestowed by his indolent friend keeps him acquainted with what is passing on around, and as he is much more active and alert than his companion he sees danger much farther away, and gives notice of it, asking for the door to be shut by lightly pinching the mussel's gill. But this gratitude of the Crustacean towards a sympathetic ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... set about to search for that unknown human being with as much ardor as the mathematicians of the Bureau give to longitudes. They literally ransack the whole kingdom. At the first ray of hope all the post-offices in Paris are alert. Sometimes the receiver of a missing letter is amazed at the network of scrawled directions which covers both back and front of the missive,—glorious vouchers for the administrative persistency with which the post ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... miles of the British border at the Chinese fortlet of Settee, a palisaded camp whose gateway also was hung with heads of dacoits. A Chinese Shan was in command, a smart young officer with a Burmese wife. He was active, alert, and intelligent, and gave me the best room in the series of sheds which formed the barracks. I was made very comfortable. There were between forty and fifty soldiers stationed in the barracks—harmless warriors—who were very attentive. At nightfall the tattoo was beaten. The gong sounded; ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... exuberance was genial, hearty, and on occasion brutal; hers was exalted, impulsive, "head-long," [26] intense, and often fantastic and quaint. His imagination flamed forth like an intenser sunlight, heightening and quickening all that was alive and alert in man and Nature; hers shot out superb or lurid volcanic gleams across the simplicity of natural chiaro-oscuro, disturbing the air with conflicting and incalculable effects of strange horror and strange loveliness. It might have been averred of Browning ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... stepped to his side, so that the three of them faced the unknown together. It was just as well. Outlined in that circle of light, and not six feet in front of them, stood a great chair upon a wide platform; and seated in it, erect and alert, his wide open eyes staring straight into those of the three, was the frightful mountainous form of Strokor, the ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... precisely because it thinks within the limitations of politics. The more acute, the more alert it is, the more incapable it is of perceiving social crime. The classic period of political understanding is the French Revolution. Far from perceiving the source of social defects in the principle of the State, the heroes of the French Revolution rather perceived in social defects the ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... him think of his call for help that morning, the call made him think of the answer, the beautiful woman before him made him think that possibly she might be the answer instead of the other one. He rather doubted it, but it might be a chance. Mickey was alert for chances for Peaches, so he smiled again, then he asked: "Are you in such an ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... great orators, Michel de Bourges and Jules Favre, with their keen political perception, had declared from the first, save a slow long struggle, avoiding decisive engagements, changing quarters, keeping Paris on the alert, saying to each, It is not at an end; leaving time for the departments to prepare their resistance, wearying the troops out, and in which struggle the Parisian people, who do not long smell powder with impunity, would perhaps ultimately take fire. Barricades raised everywhere, ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... them, that they might take their places; others assert, that from a disorderly practice, too common in our bivouacs, of vociferating to each other, the name of Hausanne, a grenadier, being suddenly called out loudly, in the midst of a profound silence, was mistaken for the alert cry of aux armes, which announced a surprise by ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... encountered and vanquished in the open field by the Irish general, we should have expected that the details of such a glorious event would have been collected with the greatest care from the accounts of eye-witnesses. The bards and historiographers should have been on the alert to do justice to their country on so great an occasion. They were on the spot, they were beside the victors, and they had no excuse whatever for ignorance. Yet here is the miserably cold, jejune, feeble, and ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... stood the veteran sentinel, watching vigilantly over the interests of his country. With an eye undimmed by age, a quick ear, a ready hand, an intellect unimpaired, he guarded the citadel of liberty, ever on the alert to detect, and mighty to repel, the approach of the foe, however covert or however open his attacks. Never did the Union, never did freedom, the world, more need his services than now. A large territory, of sufficient extent to form several States, had been blighted by slavery, ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... departure there was a brief silence, during which all stood alert. Then, Tato, still half suspended against the cliff, said in ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... 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
... a parcel of poetical young sprigs, who had just weaned themselves of their mother university" and, having more wit, than experience, "put but a slender value, as yet, upon their maiden performances." Paced with this golden opportunity to attach a company of authors to his establishment, the alert Tonson baited his trap with mutton pies. In other words, according to Ward, he invited the poetical young sprigs to a "collation of oven-trumpery" at the establishment of one named Christopher, for brevity ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... now a question of how far they had gone. Should I follow and endeavour to overtake them? It was now bright daylight, and the risk would be great. Long before this, Gayarre and his friends would be up and on the alert. No doubt parties were already traversing the Levee Road as well as the bye-paths among the plantations. At every step I might expect to meet either ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... which had been lying in Miss Atwood's lap had gradually slipped forward and at this moment dropped to the floor. As she reached down to pick it up, Morgan's alert eyes noted a purplish mark on ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... then. Nobody has the same right to "bother" me, as you call it, that you have, for I love nobody so well; besides, as for Emily, she is a deuced deal quicker in her processes than you are, and snaps up one's affairs by the nape of the neck, as a terrier does a rat, and unless one is tolerably alert one's self, she is off with one in her zeal in no time, whither ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... shall find the biggest scoundrel of them all, no doubt," added mademoiselle, who was alert and cool. ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... her a look of unconscious admiration. Her pretty cousin's indifferent air seemed to support the theory that she had actually rejected the prince of partis, which, in fact, was exactly what it was meant to do. Hen had never really thought that Cally had it in her. She threw her alert eye around to see where they were. The car had turned south at Twelfth Street, had crossed Centre, and was now rolling into a quarter of the town very different-looking, indeed, from Washington Street. Hen said they were all right for Dunbar Street and told Cally to cheer up. ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... until 1868. He himself was an officer of the Irvin artillery, Cutts' battalion, being a part of Walker's artillery in Longstreet's corps. Entering the army at seventeen years of age, Charles E. Irvin was a veteran at twenty-one. He was brave, alert, tender, and true. He recalls that when his company joined the army in Richmond, Robert Toombs, then Secretary of State, gave them a handsome supper at the Exchange Hotel. "I remember," said he, "with infinite satisfaction, that during the seven months I accompanied ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... and a tremor passed through his frame as the rider drew near; otherwise he did not stir from his position; but it was enough. The girl turned, on the alert at once, and met him with a smile, and the young man looked at her as if an angel had deigned to smile upon him. There was a humility in his fine face that sat well with the courage written there, and smoothed away all hardness for the time, so ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... earth like a galloping herd. Bounds to profundity let there be none, Let there be nothing too madly absurd. Ponder on pebbles or stock exchange shares, On the mission of man or the life of a bug, On planets or billiards, policemen or bears, Alert all the time for the sight of ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... continually harassed by their father, who bemoans the fact that he has given them an education. Besides, another sadness troubles him: Nil, his adopted son, whom he has had taught the trade of a mechanician,—an alert and industrious fellow,—wants to marry Polya, a girl without a fortune. The father is beside himself, for, if Nil marries, he will never be in a condition to pay back the money that has been spent on him. But Nil protests: he is young, and, some day, he will repay his debt. He has not ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... earliest twentieth century books—Roberts's History of Letter Writing (1843) with Pickering's ever-beloved title-page and his beautiful clear print; the Litterature Epistolaire of Barbey d'Aurevilly—a critic never to be neglected though always to be consulted with eyes wide open and brain alert; finally, two Essays in Dr. Jessopp's Studies by a Recluse and in the Men and Letters of Mr. Herbert Paul, once a very frequent associate of mine. The title of the first mentioned book speaks it pretty thoroughly. "The Art ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... rapturous vision of the universe Kabr never loses touch with diurnal existence, never forgets the common life. His feet are firmly planted upon earth; his lofty and passionate apprehensions are perpetually controlled by the activity of a sane and vigorous intellect, by the alert commonsense so often found in persons of real mystical genius. The constant insistence on simplicity and directness, the hatred of all abstractions and philosophizings,[Footnote: Nos. XXVI, XXXII, LXXVI] the ruthless criticism of external religion: these ...
— Songs of Kabir • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... painter from his easel, to scan the effect of each new touch—to note what has been done and to measure what remains. It is a great living and breathing entity, informed with the concrete life of three generations of mankind the most alert and the most restless of all that have existed. This sensation of exceptional endowments is self-nourishing and ever-growing; and our little nook of time is coming to view all the paths of the past, broad or narrow, direct or interlacing, straight or obscure, as so many roads ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... was that of a private confessor in Bretagne, and whose temporary disguise was that of a horse-dealer. "Such a maid as thou describest is as certain to want and have a confidant as she is to wear that trumpery. Thou wilt find—or, rather, we shall find—the whole house up and alert, and ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... with which Ensign Butler advanced, running forward to reach a fence, and hold it as a cover from which to ply their rifles. Butler instantly proposed, and was permitted, to anticipate them. Calling upon some of the most alert and active men of the company, he ran directly to meet the Indians at the fence. He and his comrades out-stripped the enemy, and getting possession of the fence, kept the advantage of the position for their advancing friends. This incident, of however little importance as ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... and highly specialised duties all tending to one common end. The headquarters staff is a big one. There are superintendents in charge of the departments, men whom no emergency can ruffle—calm, methodical and alert, ready to act in the time one can make ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... was feeding on the edge of a cliff, moving here and there, leaping lightly across some gully, tossing its head up for a precautionary sniff. Suddenly it gave a bound and stood still, alert. Two great clumsy "Hirsch-kuehe" had taken fright at some imaginary danger, and, uttering their peculiar half grunt, half roar, were galloping across the alm in half real, half assumed panic with their ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... object; and not despair even if frequent failures attend the attempt. Ever since I left Baramula I have been endeavouring to catch another of the green butterflies, as beetles had eaten my first specimen. But they are very alert on the wing, and I could not get near one. The last two or three marches I had not seen any, having got out of their locality, but to-day a solitary one flew by me and I knocked it down, caught it, and secured it in my toper. Success ...
— Three Months of My Life • J. F. Foster
... our government with the Pacific railroads has created a strong prejudice among the masses against such subsidies as were granted to those corporations, but it is probable, with the people on the alert, that Congress would not again permit great impositions to be practiced against the government. When the great advantages to be derived by the people of the United States from the use of this canal and the small outlay required are considered, it would seem to be a wise policy for our ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... could have pictured a stranger or more unearthly sight than the wonderful "White Eagle" poised at ease amid the tossed-up clouds of spray flung from the seething mass of waters, while at her prow stood a woman fair as any fabled goddess—a woman reckless of all danger, and keenly on the alert, with bright eyes searching every nook and cranny that could be discerned through the mist. Clear above the roaring torrent her voice rang like a silver trumpet as she called her instructions to the two men who, equally defying every peril, ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... he wouldn't be telling me about it. But Henderson couldn't be rushed, and I knew it. I kept the alert look on my face and thought of other things, while waiting for him to ...
— The Risk Profession • Donald Edwin Westlake
... you ask me; I must be A member sure of some fraternity: Why no; I've taken no man's shilling; none Of all your fathers owns me for his son; Just where the weather drives me, I invite Myself to take up quarters for the night. Now, all alert, I cope with life's rough main, A loyal follower in true virtue's train: Anon, to Aristippus' camp I flit, And say, the world's for me, not ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... which photography offers are worth restating. It helps to draw one closer to nature and to seek fresh air. Through the exercise and cultivation of choice, it teaches how to decorate the home, to dress with taste, and to keep an alert eye and mind on the passing events of the world. Because the Association knows that photography is able to teach these things, it sought the aid of art museums and public libraries to conduct photographic exhibitions so that children and adults may not only see fine examples of the ...
— Pictorial Photography in America 1920 • Pictorial Photographers of America
... pickpockets may be better imagined than described. Many, doubtless, had come from great distances, confident of a golden harvest. Let us hope that the authorities of Toulon were equally on the alert. Marseilles no more resembles Lyons, Bordeaux, Nantes, than those cities resemble each other. Less elegant than Lyons, less majestic than Bordeaux, gayer by far than Nantes, the capital of Southern France has a stamp of its own. Today, as three thousand years ago, Marseilles may be called ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... word; that girl was Hester Thornton. She had been drawn into the circle by an intense curiosity; but she had made no comment with regard to Cecil's conduct. If she knew anything of the mystery she had thrown no light on it. She had simply sat motionless, with watchful and alert eyes and silent tongue. Now, for the first ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... that your mother need not be ashamed to let you write for her? Do you help her tactfully and consentingly—the only help which rests people—or do you argue each point, so that it is far less trouble to do the thing twice over than to ask you? Are you prompt and alert in your movements, or do you indulge in that exasperating slowness, which some girls seem to consider quite a charm? Do you wait till the last minute, and then leisurely put on your things, with serene unconsciousness of the fret it is to every one's temper? If you want to see ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... throughout all the Slave States, and from that time on, no serious agitation occurred in any one of them, looking toward even the most gradual emancipation. On the other hand, the advocates of the extension of the Slave-Power by the expansion of Slave-territory, were ever on the alert, they considered it of the last importance to maintain the balance of power between the Slave States and the Free States. Hence, while they had secured in 1819 the cession from Spain to the United States of the Slave-holding Floridas, and the organization of the ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... clearly, first of all—what, if it hadn't been for her preoccupation, his voice, tone, accent would have warned her to expect—so visibly a gentleman; and then, with the even pink of his complexion, his yellowish hair and beard, his alert, friendly, very blue blue eyes—with his very blue blue flannels too, and his brick-red knitted tie—he was so vivid ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... the clearing of the land before the cabin, and peers right and left up the trail and down the trail, and then leans and listens. Then he takes a glance back over his shoulder at his companion and follower, Gar Dosson, and being sure that he too is on the alert and close on his heels, he steps forward. Again the man leans and listens, but seeing no signs of life and hearing no sound, he straightens up, walks close to the cabin, ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... with the past in his thoughts. He was now safe from it beyond any possible peradventure, and he began to plan for the future. He had prepared himself for the all-night ride, if he should decide to take it, with a cup of strong coffee at Wellwater, and he was alert in every faculty. His mind worked nimbly and docilely now, with none of that perversity which had troubled him during the day with the fear that he was going wrong in it. His thought was clear and quick, and it obeyed his will like a part of it; that sense of duality in himself no ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... favour of the many-headed, Charlie now proceeded from threats to action. His right fist swung round suddenly. But Beale was on the alert. He ducked sharply, and the next moment Charlie was sitting on the ground beside his fallen friend. A hush fell on the Ring, and the little man in the purple tie was left repeating his ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... She knew the great white ewe with a blue ribbon on her neck, and the huge ram with twisted horns that made her half afraid. Would he mind Scotch plaid, she wondered, as he raised his head and eyed her? She sat alert, ready for swift flight up the slope behind her in case of attack, but he turned to his pasture in the pit with the air of one ready to waive trifles, and ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood
... dark and deserted, for the heavy-hearted people had nothing to call them out of their houses at that hour. Nevertheless, Ned was feverishly on the alert, and, almost without his knowing it, his machete had jumped out of its sheath, ready for whatever might ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... women of Johannesburg are doing noble work. Dr. Murray says it is astonishing how intelligently alert and self-sacrificing they are proving themselves to be. A story has been told me of a Boer woman who was fearfully mangled; she bore the necessary surgical operation with fortitude, but wept copiously when a green baize petticoat, which she had recently ...
— A Woman's Part in a Revolution • Natalie Harris Hammond
... health was now ruined, for fevers, sleeplessness, gout, and eyestrain kept him in constant pain, and at times made even that strong mind of his a little queer and wobbly. But on one point at least it remained alert and lucid,—he still could think out his course clearly. With a view to avoiding the treacherous winds and coastwise currents that had previously wrought such havoc with his ships, he set his rudders due east on leaving ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... incontestable. The greater losses of the British whenever the armies met on even terms proved the superior marksmanship of the American militiaman. The adaptation of the fast-sailing schooner to privateering was further evidence of an alert intellect which was quick to adapt means to ends. This quality, to be sure, has been bred in every frontier folk by the very necessities of existence, but it appeared in marked strength in the American of this time. While the shipbuilders of New England were laying the ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... "Alexis is right. This malady has taken the ambition out of me. I may be Immortal, but if I am, then I am an Immortal without ambition. I seem to be lost, to be suddenly diffused into space or time, to be a kind of vapour. Something has dissolved in me—something hard, bright, alert. I do not know why I am here. The car came round as usual to take me for my morning run. I got in—why I ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... busily and pleasantly engaged in eating that he paid no heed to the aspect of the sky. Nor, indeed, was there anything of very serious import in its changes. But Henry Burns, alert as ever, saw certain signs of wind in some light banks of cloud that began to gather in the western sky, in ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... valuable aid to my chief packer in watching the animals at night. His senses became so keen as to be quite reassuring in regard to robbers at night, and from that time on he was really a valuable man, active and alert. ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... that the former sense of security and indifference was a thing of the past. From this time on the scouts must keep constantly on the alert to guard against a sudden surprise. They must learn to watch for danger in every quarter, and not allow themselves ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... shewed she meant what she said. Like no client at law that ever sought his lawyer's chambers, on any errand. Before Mr. Inchbald had reached the first landing, she was posted before the desired door, and had tapped there with very alert fingers. ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... though he had never seen such a thing before. He was puzzled by me, but he soon decided that I was not worth bothering about, for he made no stay. He padded slowly on towards Chard, evidently well-pleased with himself. Suddenly he stopped dead, with one pad lifted, a living image of alert tension. He was alarmed by something coming along the road by which I had come. He turned his head slightly, as though to make sure with his best ear. Then with a single beautiful lollopping bound he was over the hedge to safety, going in that exquisite curving rhythm of movement ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... the senses, into the town, but cannot force the heart; and Mansoul is reduced to the greatest straits and sadness. In this extremity, prayers are incessantly offered up to Emmanuel; but, for a long time, they can obtain no satisfactory answers. Both parties are on the alert; but Diabolus finds it impossible, either by treachery or by storming with his legion of doubts, to gain possession of Heart-castle. Being worsted in a general engagement, the doubters are slain, and are buried ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... GODDARD'S aim; For he, as from the daily Press we learn, An obvious plagiarist of good JULES VERNE, Would have us build a Bertha fat enough To send a charge of high explosive stuff Across the intervening seas of space Bang into Luna's unoffending face. Meanwhile our own alert star-gazing chief, DYSON (Sir FRANK), is rather moved to grief Than anger by the astronomic pranks Played by unbalanced professorial cranks, Who study science in the wild-cat vein And ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... and population of Irkutsk were on the alert. The measures to repel an attack on the points hitherto unassailed had been taken. The Grand Duke and General Voranzoff visited the posts, strengthened by their orders. Wassili Fedor's corps occupied the North ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... to make notes, and he pulled out his little note-book. With that in hand he fell a-thinking again. Would that chap tell her the 'tecks were after them? If so, would she be as anxious to get away as HE was? He must be on the alert. If possible he must speak to her. Just a significant word, "Your friend—trust me!"—It occurred to him that to-morrow these fugitives might rise early to escape. At that he thought of the time and found it was half-past eleven. "Lord!" ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... of their stay in the mountains she revolved all these things in her mind as they lay side by side on their fir couch, he asleep in a deep, dreamless fatigue, she alert and tense after the long day in the spirituous air, the night wind sighing to her from the upper branches of the firs. To-morrow they would start for the West, to begin the prose of life. Suddenly a thought flashed over her that stopped ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... The castle guard, he gathered, was a little less than perfectly alert. This would be simple. He touched the controls of his body shield to raise himself a few inches above the cobblestones, and floated between the two sentries, going slowly to avoid making ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole
... years beforehand, and his is still the best refutation. A careful study of this Eighth Book settles the relation between balladist and poet by a simple presentation of the facts in their proper co-ordination, and also puts the alert reader on the track of the genesis of the Wolfian Prolegomena. For there can hardly be a doubt that Wolf, consciously or unconsciously, directly or indirectly, derived his main conception of Homer from the present Book and from the part that Demodocus, the bard, ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... always yearned for the recovery of the child; and, the wish being father to the thought, he fully shared with "Cobbler" Horn himself the expectation that she would eventually return. This expectation kept him on the alert; and there is little cause to wonder that even so slight a sign as the poise of the secretary's head, or the manner in which she walked, should have induced him to think, for some passing moments, that his long-cherished desire had been fulfilled ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... Belgian private, who had his headquarters in the Strafe-Barrack, showed us many little kindnesses. He had as his batman one of the prisoners whose term of punishment had expired, and Bromley, who was always quick-witted and on the alert, offered himself for the job, and was taken, and in that way various little favors came to us that we ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... Should Hester be strong in her purpose to remain seated as at present, she also must remain seated. Weariness and solicitude for her baby might perhaps drive the young mother to bed. Then she also would go to her bed,—and would rest, with one eye ever open, with her ears always on the alert. She was somewhat sure of herself. Her life had not been so soft but that she could endure much,—and of her purpose she was quite sure. Nothing would trouble her conscience if she could succeed in keeping her daughter separated from ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... his eyes on the alert for some shipyard, knowing that such a place would better accommodate the three power ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... BEVERAGES are those which contain a drug that stimulates the nervous and the circulatory system; that is, one that acts on the nerves and the circulation in such a way as to make them active and alert. Common examples of these beverages are coffee, tea, and cocoa or chocolate. If the nerves are in need of rest, it is dangerous to stimulate them with such beverages, for, as the nervous system indirectly affects all the organs of ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... Clara's alert wits perceived that so many private interviews had some signification; and Mrs. Frost found her talking it over with her brother, and conjecturing so much, that granny thought it best to supply the key, thinking, perhaps, that ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... One such work indeed there is, delightful in itself, technically exquisite, most interesting by its history, which properly finds its place beside the larger, the full-grown, physical perfection of the Discobolus, one of whose alert younger brethren he may be,—the Spinario namely, the boy drawing a thorn from his foot, preserved in the so rare, veritable antique bronze at Rome, in the Museum of the Capitol, and well known in a host of ancient and ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... he threw the line far out, with a strong, high swing of his long arm. And as she looked, a lusty bass—heavy, full of fight—took the hook, and she saw the man stand motionless, intent, alert, at the instant he first felt the fish. Then she caught the skillful turn of his wrist as he struck—quick and sure; watched, with breathless interest as—bracing himself—the fisherman's powerful figure became instinct with life. With ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... thrilling series of mystery stories for girls. Nancy Drew, ingenious, alert, is the daughter of a famous criminal lawyer and she herself is deeply interested in his mystery cases. Her interest involves her often in some very dangerous and ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... difference in Dotty's attitude. She walked as quickly as before but she was not quite so alert. Also, she kept turning her head suddenly from side to side with a gesture of an inquisitive bird, a little uncertain which way ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... however, of putting the garrison on the alert, for the messenger who came off with a request for me to land my men informed me that a party of midshipmen had brought in the intelligence of ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... his bow. The Leader, ever keen and alert, exclaimed in a hoarse whisper, "The fire! the fire!" Immediately many hands were rubbing the flaming wood into the earth. Commands were hastily given by the Leader; and the warriors, with palpitating ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... line of thought further, had not there occurred an incident which brought the conversation to a close. Looking up, the two saw approaching them across the lawn, evidently coming from the little railway station, and doubtless descended from this very train, the alert, quick-stepping figure of a man evidently a stranger to the place. Jim and Sarah Ann Bowles stepped to one side as he approached and lifted his hat with ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... as usual, her allotted household tasks. There was no change in the outer performance of the hours, but Mata remained alert, disturbed, and the girl tranquilly oblivious. The old face searching with keen eyes the young noted with troubled frown the frequent smile, the intervals of listless dreaming, the sudden starts, as by ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... Miss Wakeman's exaggeratedly tender "Good-by, dear Billy!" ringing in his ears, to provoke irrepressible smiles. The pulse of a free life, where men lived instead of vegetating, was in his veins. His footstep gave forth a ringing sound from the pavement; he felt himself stalwart, alert, his brain rejoicing in its sense of power. It was even with no sense of guilt that he heard the church clocks striking twelve as he reached the house where his wife had been awaiting ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... children in the principles of Safety; for they will be the future industrial workers and the representatives of public opinion; their interest must be aroused to practice and preach "Safety First" everywhere. Children can be taught to become alert to their own safety, and can influence their parents to a deeper ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey |
