"Alert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... head slightly to one side, had been regarding Hector McKaye with alert curiosity mingled with furtive apprehension. As he glanced at her now, she remembered her manners and dropped him a courtesy—an electric, half-defiant jerk that reminded The Laird of a similar greeting customarily extended ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... Hamilton taken in charge by certain mystical kinsmen. Evidently he was well cared for, as he grew into a handsome, strong lad—small, to be sure, but finely formed. Where he learned to read, write and cipher we know not; he seems to have had one of those active, alert minds that can acquire ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... that these regional groups can be of particular value in working with the experiment stations and legislatures to promote the interests of the Association. The state associations should be on the alert to build on the interests of conservation departments as related to wildlife preserves and sportsmen's clubs and other agencies which put the growing of nut trees in proper perspective. I am not at all in favor of securing ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting - Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 • Various
... and displayed his standard in it with a flourish of trumpets. But nothing more could be done. Of Antrim's Irish contingent, which was to have been in the West Highlands by the 1st of April, there were no tidings; and Scotland all to the north of Dumfries was full of Covenanters now alarmed and alert. To try to dash through these at all hazards, so as to lodge himself in the Highlands, was his thought for a moment; but he had to give up the attempt as impossible. From Dumfries, therefore, he backed again, most reluctantly, into the North of England, pursued ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... the generals would sit in a ring upon the floor playing hunt the slipper. Musical chairs made the two hours between bed and dinner the time of the day they all looked forward to: the steady trot with every nerve alert, the ear listening for the sudden stoppage of the music, the eye seeking with artfulness the likeliest chair, the volcanic ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... stationed in Lebanon since 1976 in an ostensible peacekeeping role - were withdrawn in April 2005. During the July-August 2006 conflict between Israel and Hizballah, Syria placed its military forces on alert but did not intervene directly on ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Cowley, and Gray. His dramatic productions were of a higher order than Davenant's. They have found a place in Dodsley's and the several subsequent collections of early dramas, not conceded to the plays of the latter. Masque-making, however, was not in his line. His invention was not sufficiently alert, his dialogue not sufficiently lively, for a species of poetry which it was the principal duty of the Laureate to furnish. Besides, it is highly probable, his sympathies with rebellious Puritanism were already so far developed as to make him an object of aversion to the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... He realised that his attention was wandering. For a time all his senses were very alert. The uproar of the Falls was very confusing, and it mixed in all sorts of sounds, like feet walking, like voices talking, ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... as they sit. Their eyes are full of tears. Presently one looks up, listening, then another, then another. They are all alert.] ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... in the lines of Preston's figure impossible to describe, stiff and motionless though he was; something which prepared one for a lax and careless movement when he moved. Perhaps this was fancy and only arose from my knowledge of the fact; but with the other no such fancy was possible. Still, but alert; motionless, but full of vigour; I expected what came; firm, quick, and easy action, as soon as he should cease ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... the dearest friend he had in this world—was the younger son, George, afterwards the well-known chemist and Professor of Technology in the University of Edinburgh. No two men could be less alike—George Wilson with a bright, alert, nimble mind; Cairns with an intellect massive like his bodily frame, and characterised chiefly by strength and momentum; and yet the two fitted into each other, and when they really got to know each other it might truly be said of them that the ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... keenly alert to their work. "Quick work." Platoons march. The camp at Agua Dulce. On a ticklish mission. On the trail of the hidden rifles. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... keen of vision at long distance and close at hand, and ever were they in motion, swiftly turned sidewise this way and that, peering far ahead or looking backward to note what enemies of the wood might be upon the trail. So, swiftly along the glade and ever alert, went the father and mother of Ab, carrying the strong child ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... them the waste food, and they have installed themselves as our protectors, whether out of a feeling of gratitude or in hope of favours to come I cannot tell, but probably from a mixture of wise motives. They are alert, savage beasts, of a hopelessly mixed breed, but no wild boar will come rooting near the camp now, nor will any thief, however light-footed, yield to the ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... Hotel had accorded her but scant interest. She had, it was true, accepted doubtfully the pen he had offered. She had not been sufficiently prompted in relation to the ways of caravansaries; but her mind had been alert and receptive. Almost at once she had comprehended that she was expected to write down her name and address, which she did, in slanting cobwebby lettering, perhaps a trifle laboriously. Ruth Enschede, Hartford, Conn. ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... toddled after the chaplain, his toe having given him an alert hint to quit the dining-table, though he saw every feature in the poor woman's face swoln with desire to procure information concerning the ways and customs of the place, passed on the other side of the way, regardless of her agony ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... again the curious stifled cry which had seemed to ring in his ears the night he arrived. He was constantly on the alert for it, both by night and day, while he was confined to his room and later when he was able to get out on to the verandah. But there was no repetition of it, until at last he had perforce to accept the doctor's view and regard it, as well as the other ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... it. It would afford her an immediate income, and it would give her the opportunity which she craved for giving public expression to her ideas and fixing attention on herself. There was room for more than one Mrs. Earle in Benham, for Benham was growing and wide-awake and on the alert for originality of any kind—especially in the way of reportorial and journalistic cleverness. Selma had no intention of becoming a second Mrs. Earle. That is, she promised herself to follow, but not to follow blindly; to imitate judiciously, but ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... with an alert, bright glance. She was a little creature, and something still girlish lingered in her straight, slender figure and the poise of her head. "Old Lady Lamson" was over eighty, and she dressed with due deference to custom; but everything ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... walls to find where the gold is masoned in. By the time this cautious search is over, a stout iron-bound bucket, precisely like a well-bucket, has been attached to one end of the whip; while the other end, being stretched across the deck, is there held by two or three alert hands. These last now hoist the bucket within grasp of the Indian, to whom another person has reached up a very long pole. Inserting this pole into the bucket, Tashtego downward guides the bucket ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... trouble appeared in Russia, but the government was on the alert and took strong means of suppression. Nicholas I, the man with the iron will, had sent an average number of 9,000 persons annually to Siberia; this number under Alexander the Liberator increased to from 16,000 to 20,000. ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... hackney coach, bribed the coachman to drive very fast to Mr. Manessa—found Manessa and Jacob going to bed sleepy—but at sight of me Jacob was alert in an instant, and joyfully ready to go with me immediately ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... listening for some rustle, some stealthy creeping step to guide my next blow, I thrust away my pistol and changing my staff to my right hand, drew forth the broad-bladed sailor's knife I carried, and so waited mighty eager and alert, but heard only the far-off booming of the wind. Then a floorboard creaked faintly to my left, and turning short, I whirled my staff, felt it strike home and heard a fierce cry and the ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... my friend's name had an extraordinary effect upon the little man. The look of anger passed in an instant from his face. His features became tense and alert. ...
— The Adventure of the Dying Detective • Arthur Conan Doyle
... by many odds. And—and, Master Lindley, wait in your lodgings until you hear from me. Wait there unless it nears ten o'clock. If you've not heard from me by then, you'll find me there, where Lord Farquhart is to be sentenced, and—and be on the alert for any signal that may be made to you by anyone, and—and——" He had buckled Lindley's sword about his waist, he had wrapped himself in Lindley's coat, and still he hesitated. Suddenly he dashed his hand across his eyes. "Ah, I've no ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... speak, and I catch a vision of an old Southern home with its lofty pillars and its white pigeons fluttering down through the golden air. I see women with strained and anxious faces, and children alert yet helpless. I see night come down with its dangers and its apprehensions, and in a big homely room I feel on my tired head the touch of loving hands—now worn and wrinkled, but fairer to me yet than the hands of mortal woman, and stronger yet to lead me than the hands of mortal man—as they ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... as it was discovered that both lieutenants were keenly alert to their duties, greater speed was shown in assembling the men. Five minutes later all the soldiers had turned out, ready. Some of the men in Hal's platoon began ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... place. I've seen it before." He squinted, his eyes growing accustomed to the dark. Suddenly he became alert. "This is—" ...
— The Skull • Philip K. Dick
... at his approach with a boyish, alert movement, and lifted her eyes to his. He likened them half-unconsciously to the purple-blue of hare-bells, in the ardent light of the ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... because it is especially noteworthy or exceptional, but because it illustrates the endurance and the capacity for sustained toil in unfavorable circumstances, which are quite as characteristic of the modern war correspondent as are his courage and his alert readiness for ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... didn't know anything to say; so it was awkward, for she kept looking at me; but Seppi was alert and ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... them as containing your sweetest hope; your most thrilling joy? Can you submit to the thought that you should be torpid in your endeavors to disperse them, while the rest of Christendom is awake and alert? Shall you hang back in heartless indifference, when princes come down from their thrones, to bless the cottage of the poor with the gospel of peace; and imperial sovereigns are gathering their fairest honors from spreading abroad the oracles of the Lord your God. Is it possible that you ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... boy risen From caves of music where the water spins Wet sand into the shapes of flowing flowers; David with limbs all bright with the sun's tones, And ruddy locks curling with youth and light, His body all alert on steady loins, Clean spun of flesh that knew the winter snows, And mellow pools of summer, and the dews Dropping among the crocuses of dawn. His sandle-straps bound ankles as a girl's, And fluttering to his knees the sheepskin hung, ...
— Preludes 1921-1922 • John Drinkwater
... carita. They accompanied this demand by the corrupted cry of "nix munjay"—nothing to eat,—which they enforced by most expressive gestures, extending their mouths, and exhibiting rows of ravenous-looking teeth. The caleche drivers, too, were on the alert, and respectfully taking off their turbans, proffered their services to convey the Signore to Floriana. Delme declined their offers, and, passing a draw-bridge which divides Valletta from the country, made his way through an embrasure, and ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... cafe on the boulevards on a public festival and observing his neighbours and the passers-by: their imperturbable good humour; their easy manners; their simple enjoyments; their quick intelligence, alert gait and expressive gestures; the wonderful skill of the women in dress. The glittering halls of pleasure that appeal to so many visitors, the Bohemian cafes of the outer boulevards, the Folies Bergeres, the Moulins Rouges, the Bals Bulliers, with their meretricious ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... us up again; but the wind continuing light, the California set hers, and it was soon evident that she was walking away from us. Our captain then hailed and said that he should keep off to his course; adding, "She isn't the Alert now. If I had her in your trim she would have been out of sight by this time." This was good-naturedly answered from the California, and she braced sharp up, and stood close upon the wind up the coast; while we squared away our yards, and stood before the wind to ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... houses, and turning to his right, scampered down in the direction of the town. The shouts and firing had spread an alarm in the Carlist camp, the soldiers were turning out on all sides, and the outposts on the alert. Paco approached the latter, and saw a sentinel in a straight line ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... a third question on her lips but checked it as she met Kitty's saucy eye. Kitty, known as "Little Miss Why," was always on the alert to bequeath the name to a successor. But Sarah saw none of the by-play ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... turned on the author, a man of doubtful reputation, always on the alert for any occasion ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... all wondered, the boy was in command of the situation. Everything seemed so reasonable, that all were prompt and alert to serve him. ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... for their sale were established on the Stock Exchange of Amsterdam, in Rotterdam, Harlaem, Leyden, Alkmar, Hoorn, and other towns. Symptoms of gambling now became, for the first time, apparent. The stockjobbers, ever on the alert for a new speculation, dealt largely in tulips, making use of all the means they so well knew how to employ, to cause fluctuations in prices. At first, as in all these gambling mania, confidence was at its height, and everybody gained. The tulip-jobbers speculated in the rise and fall of the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... he stood with clenched fists and heaving breast; then, with grim eagerness, with every sense supernaturally alert, with nerves tense, quick eyes and ready muscles, he went forward on ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... Alert, kindly, cordial, Mark greeted me and taking a seat, fixed his keen blue, kindly eyes upon me. "I'm glad to see you," he said, and I believed he meant it. He went on, "This is the psychological moment for us both. I am looking ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... of his guards were in his house with him. Three were outside." Jimmy had been leaning weakly against the instrument as if for support. Now he came out of it. He was the alert ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... those who observed this absence from the crowd in the ante-rooms. In the midst of so much intrigue and continual striving for power, designing men, on the one hand, were ever on the alert for what they imagined would prove willing instruments; and on the other, the Prince's councillors kept a watchful eye on the dispositions of every one of the least consequence; so that, although but twenty-five, Felix was already ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... ago, a more definite fear came to me," he continued in his low, pained voice. "It happens that I have known Mr. Marcy here for years; we were friends in college, though we had lost track of one another till his business brought him here. A few small circumstances—my suspicion was already on the alert—made me guess that Mr. Marcy was about to give Doctor West a bribe for having awarded the filter contract to his company. I got Mr. Marcy alone—taxed him with ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... being shrewd and alert, had escaped the conflagration. She had taken alarm early, having seen a fire in the woods once before and conceived an appreciation of its powers. Instead of flying straight before it, and being inevitably overtaken, she ran at once ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... whom the slave ushered in a few minutes later was old, spare and bent, but he was alert and restless. His eyes were brilliant and over them arched eyebrows that were almost white. ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... young man utter a similar phrase and in such an accent. The image returned to him, by way of contrast, of Dorsenne, alert and foppish, the dandy of literature, so gayly a scoffer and a sophist, to whom antique and venerable Rome was only a city of pleasure, a cosmopolis more paradoxical than Florence, Nice, Biarritz, St. Moritz, than such and such other cities of international winter and summer. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... he broke out with a fierce oath, and strode away down the yard and into the road. On the way to his house he met Duclosse the mealman and Garotte the lime- burner. He wondered what they would do. He could see the fat, wheezy Duclosse hesitate, but the arid, alert Garotte had determination in every motion and look. They came nearer; they were about to pass; ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Mother Aloysius patiently awaited the result of the examination, but he finally went to the window, and a certain unmistakable expression of countenance which can be compared only to a locking of mouth and eyes, warned her that he was alert and inflexible. With a smothered sigh she ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... performance of sacrifices, duly goes through this mode of life and properly discharges all its duties, obtains blessed rewards in heaven. Upon his death, the rewards desired by him became deathless. Indeed, these wait upon him for eternity like menials ever on the alert to execute the commands of their master.[194] Always attending to the Vedas, silently reciting the mantras obtained from his preceptor, worshipping all the deities, O Yudhishthira, dutifully waiting upon and serving his preceptor with his own body smeared with ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... on and as quitting time approached, he became more tense—more alert. Five minutes before the whistle, he faded back into the building and hurried to the lavatory. He went into the booth furthest from the entrance and locked the door. Now there was nothing to do but wait. Another of ...
— The Stowaway • Alvin Heiner
... a middle-aged, tidy woman, with that alert precision of movement which seems to come from an active, orderly mind; and as she now turned her head briskly at the sound of the parson's footstep, she showed a countenance prepossessing though not handsome,—a countenance from which a pleasant, hearty ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Honeychurch, suddenly alert. "I don't see any difference. Fences are fences, especially when they are ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... 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 ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... helpless and dared not say or do anything against the English. Nor was this feeling confined to the Creoles of Vincennes; it had spread to most of the points where trading posts existed. Hamilton found this out too late to mend some of his mistakes; but he set himself on the alert and organized scouting bodies of Indians under white officers to keep him informed as to the American movements in Kentucky and along the Ohio. One of these bands brought in as captive Colonel Francis Vigo, of St. Louis, a Spaniard by birth, an American by adoption, ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... a magic power in a task well done, There's a charm in solid reason, There's a mighty force in a victory won, Which an alert mind will seize on, And with giant strength that is thus acquired March on till the fields of science And the zones of thought wherein man aspired ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... it to any one; and if a man lay off and forgot to come back there was nothing to be gained by seeking him, for all the rest would quit in the meantime. Everything went, during the strike, and the packers paid. Before long Jurgis found that the custom of resting had suggested to some alert minds the possibility of registering at more than one place and earning more than one five dollars a day. When he caught a man at this he "fired" him, but it chanced to be in a quiet corner, and the man tendered him a ten-dollar bill and a wink, and ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... of Far Lands is an interesting, wholesome presentation of something that a keen-eyed, alert traveler with the faculty of making contrasts with all classes of people in all sorts of places, in such a sympathetic way as to win their esteem and confidence, has been able to pick up as he has roamed over the face of the earth for a ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols
... with that which he was now facing; so, for safety's sake, and to avoid being blown ashore, he was compelled to stand off the coast a good deal farther than he had originally intended. He knew that he was in a position of some danger, and, besides being himself additionally on the alert, he posted an extra look-out, with orders to keep his eyes wide open for the first signs of light or loom of moving ship upon that black, rushing ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... overlooked where the gay world had been summoned with an accompanying blast from the public press; therefore he had gone to Rosamund with the curtest of hints; but he had remained, standing before her, checked, not condescending to irritation, but mentally alert to a new element of resistance which he had not expected—a new force, palpable, unlooked for, unclassified as yet in his schedule for his life's itinerary. That force was the cohesive power of abstract caste in the presence of a foreign irritant threatening its atomic disintegration. That ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... in the daily avocations of the Rectory, where Alick was always a very different person from what he appeared in Lady Temple's drawing-room, constantly engaged as he was by unobtrusive watchfulness over his uncle, and active and alert in this service in a manner that was a curious contrast to his ordinary sauntering ways. As to Rachel, the whole state of existence was still a happy dream. She floated on from day to day in the tranquil activity of the Rectory, without daring to look back on the past or ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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 laden with cargoes of almost priceless value. Champlain, ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... oft made this duty irksome. The partridges were almost the sole birds remaining in the bleak woods, and, much as their curious ways of hiding in the snow, and the resounding thunder of their strange drumming, mystified and attracted me, I was not alert enough to catch them. All my devices of horse-hair and deer-hide snares were foolishness in their sharp eyes. The water-fowl, too—the geese, ducks, cranes, pokes, fish-hawks, and others—had flown, ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... the place, which stood a little apart from the others and was half-surrounded by mud walls. Into this walled-in court her camel was led and halted and jerkingly it accomplished its collapsing descent, and Arlee found herself on her feet again, quite breathless, but very alert. ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... 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 ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the nature of dogs and men, the watchdog was never more numerous nor more alert than today. He was never in better voice, and having nothing whatever to do, he does it to the highest artistic perfection. At least one justification remains. Civilization has not done away with the ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... time, the Captain could not but observe that Mrs Bokum kept her eyes steadily on the bridegroom, and that whenever they came near a court or other narrow turning which appeared favourable for flight, she was on the alert to cut him off if he attempted escape. The other lady, too, as well as her husband, the short gentleman with the tall hat, were plainly on guard, according to a preconcerted plan; and the wretched man was so secured by Mrs MacStinger, that any effort ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... to wait. Only a few minutes elapsed before the door flew open and Richford came out so gently that Beatrice had barely time to step into a friendly doorway. Her senses were quick and alert now in the face of this unknown danger, and the girl did not fail to note the pale face and agitated features of the man who had so grievously harmed her. Evidently Richford had been drinking no more, but certainly he had had some great shock, ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... possession of his chart was the one stimulant that helped Ann to endure this long day of inactivity. It was like a small thimbleful of wine to one who longed for a generous draught; there was nothing else to do but to wait, alert for all chances that might help her. Evening closed in; the sisters were left alone. Christa returned indolently to lounging upon the bed and reading her novel. If Ann had had less strength, she would have paced the floor ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... a good deal more than we do," says he. "How much is not done by us! or what if we had been taken sick?" And then, with a stab of satire, he describes contemporary mankind in a phrase: "All the day long on the alert, at night we unwillingly say our prayers and commit ourselves to uncertainties." It is not likely that the public will be much affected by Thoreau, when they blink the direct injunctions of the religion they profess; and yet, ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ships at Abydos, which had nevertheless been warned by their approaching friends to be on the alert to prevent their sailing out, at dawn they sighted the fleet of Mindarus, which immediately gave chase. All had not time to get away; the greater number however escaped to Imbros and Lemnos, while four of the hindmost were overtaken off Elaeus. One of these was stranded opposite to the ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... threatened revolt in the mountains were also passing; some of them stopped at the house of Mr. Plummer, in Boise, and upon the trail of one of these telegrams, a forcible one, came a thin-faced and quiet but alert man, Mr. Henry Crayon, who in his way was a power in both the financial and political worlds. Mr. Crayon was perhaps the most trusted of the lieutenants of the Honorable Clinton Goodnight, and the two had held a long conference before his departure for the West, agreeing at the end of it that ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... eyebrows, and the smile that flitted across his face, he might have suspected that the other entertained serious doubts concerning the wisdom of depending wholly on his continuing to be on the alert during that coming period when the rest of them would give ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... 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 ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... their size, be able to get the story, and be the biggest little people in the kindergarten by showing what they could do with it. Again there was an undefined problem thrown at them, as it were—an element of wonder. They did not know just what was coming and they were mentally alert, waiting, on the lookout. The way for the story was open.—This is what you want, for no matter how perfect a gem of folk-lore you tell, it will fall heedless if the children do ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... found a use for everything. She told many a good story about Miss Crawley's illness in after days—stories which made the lady blush through her artificial carnations. During the illness she was never out of temper; always alert; she slept light, having a perfectly clear conscience; and could take that refreshment at almost any minute's warning. And so you saw very few traces of fatigue in her appearance. Her face might be a trifle paler, and the circles round her eyes a little blacker than usual; ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hero stalked ahead, stroking his luxuriant whiskers ever and anon, we pursued him at an interval so great that not the most alert citizen of Little Arcady could have suspected this sinister undercurrent to ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... in themselves so very much. What is far more serious is that the criteria of efficiency would become blunted, and the clear aims of management would be confused in fog. It is essential that every manager should be on the alert to eliminate waste and to improve efficiency, that he should be always trying to secure the best results; but how can he do this if he has no simple means of measuring what results are good and what are bad? The measure which he has at present is that of price, ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... he would not move the Admiralty to work a submarine or two up the Straits at once so as to prevent reinforcements and supplies coming down by sea from Constantinople. By now the Turks must be on the alert and it was commonsense to suppose they would be sending some sort of help to their Forts. However things might pan out we could not be going wrong if we made the Marmora unhealthy for the Turkish ships. Lord K. thereupon made the remark that if we could get one submarine into ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... gallants! onward speed ye, Flower and bulwark of the Gael; Like your flag-silks be ye ruddy, Rosy-red, and do not quail. Fearless, artless, hawk-eyed, courteous, As your princely strain beseems, In your hands, alert for conflict, While the Spanish weapon gleams.— Sweet the flapping of the bratach,[143] Humming music to the gale; Stately steps the youthful gaisgeach,[144] Proud the banner staff to bear. A slashing weapon on his thigh, He tends his charge ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... 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 ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... alert without the door, was told to bring Dr. Beswick in the carriage, and in a very short space of time Beswick was there, having left Mrs. Beswick sure that success and renown could not be far away when her husband was ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... hear. He was thinking, now, his thin face set in a frown, the upper teeth biting hard over the under lip and drawing up the pointed beard. While he thought, he watched the man extended on the chair, watched him like an alert cat, to extract from him some hint as to what he should do. This absorption seemed to ignore completely the other occupants of the room, of whom he was the central, commanding figure. The head nurse held the lamp ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... past. And it will be achieved, to the signal detriment of British interests, both commercial and political, unless all the energies and watchfulness of the distinguished statesmen who preside at the Foreign Office and the Board of Trade be not unceasingly on the alert. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... never sent to the public schools, but had a governess, yet Mortimer Conklin, who was always alert for the call, could not understand why the people never summoned him to any office of honour or trust. He kept his brass signboard polished, went to his office punctually every morning at ten o'clock, and returned home to dinner at five, and made clients wait ten ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... was a brief silence, during which all stood alert. Then, Tato, still half suspended against the cliff, said in a ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... conditions at important points. At such times bankers having money on deposit at those points are apt to become influenced by the drift of sentiment and to draw down their balances. Here, again, operators in exchange, keenly on the alert for such chances, will very likely begin to sell the exchange market short and often succeed in breaking it to a degree entirely unwarranted ...
— Elements of Foreign Exchange - A Foreign Exchange Primer • Franklin Escher
... Yet he still lay along the pinon limb, every sense on the alert. He was not sure that it was not a trick to draw him out. He already was too good a woodsman to be caught napping ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... kept a steady watch over all. His argus-eye was ever on the alert lest, despite his vigilance, the Catholic priest should be smuggled into ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... Genevieve and Mrs. Kennedy, arm in arm, came through the front door—with eyes indeed, a little misty, but with lips cheerfully smiling—every vestige of constraint fled. Genevieve, once more in her pretty linen frock, was again the alert little hostess, and very soon they were all off to inspect the flower garden, the vegetable garden, the cow corral, the sheds, the stables, and the blacksmith's shop, not forgetting Teresa, the cook, who was making tamales in the kitchen for them, nor Pepito, ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... 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 in ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... handsome, high-bred face, clever, a bit weak,—and tears were wet on his cheeks. He glanced about as if fearing to be seen as he wiped them away, and at the moment there was a light bustle, low voices down the hall. The young man sprang to his feet and stood alert as a step came toward him. He caught a sharp breath as another man, iron-gray, professional, stood in ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... keen. He was neatly dressed, with the quiet precision which seems as a rule to characterise the travelling American. He was apparently of a little less than middle-age, clean-shaven, broad-shouldered, with every appearance of physical strength. He seemed like a man on wires, a man on the alert, likely ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Old Jack Rabbit hopped before him, Then sat up, to watch him pass, Dusky horned-toads scurried nimbly Through the withered buffalo grass. Here and there the buzzing rattler Whirred a warning, head alert, Then retreated from the snapping, Stinging strokes of Billy's quirt. Day by day the wild breeze flying, With'ring in its scorching heat, Hummed a tune to labored beating ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker
... invalidism, following the death of Mr. Purnell, two years before. The town called them Easterners because their home was as far East as Michigan, but they had never been city dwellers, as Dorothy's fresh complexion and lithe, alert figure bore witness. ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... only a rather heavy breathing. At one Mrs. Dane came to relieve her. Lilian was on the alert quite early and her ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... idea. We'll use that for an advertisement," cried the ever alert showman, slapping his thighs. "Emperor, the performing elephant of the Great Sparling Combined Shows, jailed for assault. Fine, fine! How'll that look in the newspapers? Why, men, it will fill the tent when we get to the next stand, whether ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... any further an outburst of song interrupted his words as the whole band broke into an Anarchist war-whoop. This over, my attention was arrested by the groans of a dark young man of extraordinarily alert physiognomy who had shed his boots and was gazing dolefully at his wounded feet. "What would I not give," he exclaimed, "to be back in prison in Lugano! Oh for the rest and comfort of those good old times!" He was utterly worn out, poor ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... Yet I'm thinking of the great danger you'd be running. At this moment Terrero's spies must be plentiful in Rio Janeiro. Why, even every steamer that leaves New York for Brazil may carry his men aboard, alert, watchful and deadly. You don't know what a man like Terrero is like. ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... feet alert and ready, and two or three pieces were shot off, but no foe appeared, and no reply was made ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... missing from the group. Her arms were thrown about a tanned, alert little woman. What she was saying the girls could not hear, ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... now so pulled about by different alarms that, while one portion of his mind was still alert and cunning, another trembled on the brink of lunacy. One hallucination in particular took a strong hold on his credulity. The neighbour hearkening with white face beside his window, the passer-by arrested by a horrible surmise on the ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... intellectual passion. Sitting behind her, he watched her with perplexed admiration, shading his eyes with his hand. In her dinner dress she looked even younger than in street clothes, and, for all her composure and self-sufficiency, she seemed to him strangely alert and vibrating, as if in her, too, there were something never altogether at rest. He felt that he knew pretty much what she demanded in people and what she demanded from life, and he wondered how she squared Bartley. After ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... some blankets in which they rolled themselves and then lay down before the fire, which their host kept alive with fuel all through the night. Trot wakened several times and found the Mountain Ear always alert and listening intently for the slightest sound. But the little girl could hear no sound at all except the ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... countenances of the Sengalese, with eyes of fire, and thick, bluish blubber lips; some showing the good-nature and sedentary obesity of the middle-class man suddenly converted into a warrior; others sinewy, alert, with the aggressive profile of men born to fight, and experienced in ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... distinctness; their vision penetrates the tangle and obscurity where that of others fails, like a spent or impotent bullet. How many eyes did Gilbert White open? how many did Henry Thoreau? how many did Audubon? how many does the hunter, matching his sight against the keen and alert senses of a deer, or a moose, or a fox, or a wolf? Not outward eyes, but inward. We open another eye whenever we see beyond the first general features or outlines of things—whenever we grasp the special details and characteristic markings that this mask covers. Science confers new powers of ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... eventually to T'an Ch'un's quarters, where she discovered the courtyard in perfect stillness. Not a soul was about beyond several maids, matrons and close attendants of the inner rooms, who stood outside the windows on the alert to obey any calls. P'ing Erh stepped into the hall. The two cousins and their sister-in-law were all three engaged in discussing some domestic affairs. They were talking about the feast, to which they had been invited during the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... declares she cannot think of retaining the wife of Matthew Loyd in the character of a servant; and she foresees, that on such an occasion the woman will expect some gratification for her past services. As for Clinker, exclusive of other considerations, he is so trusty, brave, affectionate, and alert, and I owe him such personal obligations, that he merits more than all the indulgence that can possibly be ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... excited my imagination. It was beyond my comprehension why he should at one moment charge me sternly to continue my journey, and then, in almost the same breath, invite me most cordially to seek the shelter of his hut. On all these points I was keenly on the alert for an explanation. Yet I endeavoured to conceal my feelings, and to assume the air of a man who finds everything quite natural about him, and who is much too absorbed in his own personal wants to have a thought to spare ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... this afternoon," she remarked carelessly. He was sitting so that the light fell sidewise on his face. She noted how alert it became, but he ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... although profound for three or four hours was subsequently restless. The mind, when agitated, watches for the body, and wakes it at the time when it should be on the alert. Newton woke up: it was not yet daylight, and all was hushed. He turned round, intending to get up immediately; yet, yielding to the impulse of wearied nature, he again slumbered. Once he thought that he heard a footstep, roused himself, and listened; but ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... herself an hour later in a huge light room, with a floor like a dance hall and much strange paraphernalia against the walls. Little of it she was able to identify, though she took it all in with alert and eager eyes. This was the chiefest part of his life, so she must not even seem to slight it. The Indian clubs and dumb-bells—but they were easy. And the roped-off square at one ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... larger towns, he sought by choice the loneliest paths that looped its quiet hills; such as passed the time of day with him were few and for the most part peasants, a dull, dour lot, taciturn to a degree that pleased him well. So that he soon forgot to be forever alert for the crack of an ambushed pistol or the pattering footfalls of an assassin ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... finding that the white men were on the alert, the blacks withdrew some distance, where their spears and arrows were not so effective. Our friends, including Andy Foger, and the German, kept up a hot fire whenever a skulking black form could ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... continually growing excitement that he saw nothing clearly except the central group of objects: that is to say, a narrow bed, whose burden was screened from him by its foot, a table, an empty chair, the gas-globe luminous against a dark-green blind, and Hilda in black, alert and erect beneath the down-flowing light. The rest of the chamber seemed to stretch obscurely away into no confines. Not for several seconds did he even notice the fire. This confusing excitement was not caused by anything external such ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... insects had subdued their irritating din, as is their wont toward the dawn; the watch-fire had smouldered down to a heap of grey, feathery, faintly-glowing ashes; the two sentinels at the entrance of the bush-path had ceased their alert pacing to and fro, and, having grounded their muskets, were now drooping wearily upon them with their hands crossed over the top of the barrels; whilst the Malay who had been detailed to watch the prisoners, having some half a dozen ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... weather and small rain. I think I am warranted from experience in saying constantly, for in twenty-three instances that have occurred since I first made the observation it has invariably obtained; and the knowledge has been of vast service to me, as I have got out of the Channel when other men as alert, and in faster ships, but unapprised of this circumstance, have not only been driven back, but ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various |
