"Alert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mr. Foxcroft was ordained at New Gloucester. We had a pleasant journey home. Mr. L. was alert and kept us all merry. A jolly ordination. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... conducted in perfect silence, except for an occasional whispered command, while outside, guard was kept by an alert figure, slender and upright, the figure of the aged hostess of the spies, who, it is said, was never visible to the spies and never slept by day or night as long as these men were being sheltered ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... The young woman who controls the sale of miscellaneous goods was alert and smiling behind her counter. Whatever Crossan might be doing she at all events was attending to her business. Godfrey took no notice of her. He led me through the shop to the yard behind it. He pushed open the door of one ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... climbed up the rugged bank of the Creek, the towering trees were not the only things that watched silently. Although the happy young mortals were deaf and blind to the many alert curious eyes that followed their movements, still those eyes were there, wondering at this daring trespass over their domains. Some of these wildwood inhabitants were furtively anxious, some hostile, but all were curious to follow the movements ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... all this has to be stated here is simply that women, who could state it much better, have almost unanimously refrained from discussing such matters at all. One finds, indeed, a sort of general conspiracy, infinitely alert and jealous, against the publication of the esoteric wisdom of the sex, and even against the acknowledgment that any such body of erudition exists at all. Men, having more vanity and less discretion, area good deal less cautious. There is, in fact, a whole ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... places merely because, for one reason or another, they attract me. Then, if it happens that I get close enough to the life, I may later find that I have something to write about. A man rarely writes anything convincing unless he has lived the life; not with his critical faculty alert; but whole-heartedly and because, for the time being, it is ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... lurked under this friendly seeming, and the adventurers were only saved from destruction by the careful vigilance of their leader. At daybreak the following morning, the Indians made a sudden attack upon their guests; the French, however, being thoroughly on the alert, repulsed the assailants, and slew several of the bravest warriors. Infuriated by the treachery of the savages, the victors followed the customs of Indian warfare, and scalped those of the enemy who ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... easy by the intervention of the alert young woman in grey. She caught sight of the restricted adventurers—or one of them, to be quite accurate—and, after speeding a swift smile of astonishment, turned ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... who darts out upon the car, and seizes a vacant place in it. Presently all the places are taken, and before we reach Temple Street, where helpless groups of women are gathered to avail themselves of the first seats vacated, an alert citizen is stationed before each passenger who is to retire at the summons, "Please pass out forrad." When this is heard in Bowdoin Square, we rise and push forward, knuckling one another's backs in our eagerness, and perhaps glancing behind us at the tumult within. Not only are all our ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... a storm of indignation and horror, might have lost all dignity and discretion if she had not been checked by reverence for the dumb anguish and misery of her favourite daughter. She had some notion of the thoughts that must pass in Rose's mind, now dull and heavy, now alert and inflicting sudden deep incisions into the quivering soul. Marriage had been to them both very sacred. They hated, beyond most good women, anything that seemed to materialise or lower the ideal. If there can be imagined a scale of standards for the ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... painter had already achieved a daringly suggestive impression in pastels of the familiar night-scene which he now described: the streaming, vivid torches, their rays struggling and drowning in the murky water, glimmering faintly in the windows of the black warehouse barely suggested at the side; the alert, swarming sailors, busy with ropes and tackle; and in the middle the dark, steep leviathan, fresh from the sea-storms, growing, as it were, out of the impenetrable chaos of the foggy background, in which the river-lights gleamed like opals set in ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... said De Coude; "but yet it will do no harm to be on the alert, and to know that you have made at least one enemy today who never forgets and never forgives, and in whose malignant brain there are always hatching new atrocities to perpetrate upon those who have thwarted or offended him. To say that Nikolas Rokoff is a devil would be to place a ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Americans were being swiftly, cozily carried to their new home in litters of oriental comfort and elegance, fanned vigorously from both sides by eager boys. First came the Brownes, eager-faced, bright-eyed, alert young people, far better looking than their new enemies could conscientiously admit under the circumstances; then the lawyer from the States; then a pert young lady in a pink shirt waist and a sailor hat; then two giggling, utterly un-English maids—and all of them lolling in luxurious ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... the correct procedure, and the Yanks, watchfully alert to his every move, changed their method and signified their pleasure with the expression of "Trays ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... however, he felt that there was a change in the atmosphere, and he saw by the strained looks and the compressed lips of the men that something desperate was expected. The officers gave their orders with more sternness than usual; every one was alert. ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... the village of Stony Creek, about nine miles from the British camp at Burlington Heights, with the purpose of attacking and taking the British position next day. But General Vincent was on the alert to obtain information as to the enemy's strength and movements, and dispatched Colonel (afterwards Major-General) Harvey, with two companies, to reconnoitre their camp at Stony Creek, and, from the report received, determined to attack them that ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... wit and the trances of religion. We are to dignify to each other the daily needs and offices of man's life, and embellish it by courage, wisdom and unity. It should never fall into something usual and settled, but should be alert and inventive, and add rhyme and reason ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... (whether by design or accident cannot be stated) had sped continually in the direction of New Boston, and was dashing down toward that point. The pioneers were on the alert, and the instant they could distinguish pursuers from pursued, they opened on the former, with the result of tumbling several from the backs of their steeds. This so disorganized the hot pursuit that in the flurry of the ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... that dance away Existence in a summer ray, These gay things, born but to quadrille, The circle of their doom fulfil— (That dancing doom whose law decrees That they should live on the alert toe A life of ups-and-downs, like keys Of Broadwood's in a long concerto:—) While thus the fiddle's spell, within, Calls up its realm of restless sprites. Without, as if some Mandarin Were holding there his Feast of Lights, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... call attention to; show; put a mark &c. (sign) 550 upon; call soldiers to "attention"; bring forward &c. (make manifest) 525. Adj. attentive, mindful, observant, regardful; alive to, awake to; observing &c. v.; alert, open-eyed; intent on, taken up with, occupied with, engaged in; engrossed in, wrapped in, absorbed, rapt, transfixed, riveted, mesmerized, hypnotized; glued to (the TV); breathless; preoccupied &c. (inattentive) 458; watchful ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... easier than writing about you; which has been my employment of late, at leisure moments,—that is, moments of leisure from idleness, not work. As you partly guessed, I took in hand a Review of Teufelsdrockh—for want of a better Heuschrecke to do the work; and when I have been well enough, and alert enough, during the last fortnight, have tried to set down some notions about Tobacco, Radicalism, Christianity, Assafoetida and so forth. But a few abortive pages are all the result as yet. If my speculations should ever ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... the words quite clearly and as they fell from his lips the half-breed, partly concealed in the gloom behind him, straightened with the alert quickness of a cat. He leaned forward eagerly, his black eyes gleaming, and then rose softly from his seat. His moccasined feet made no sound as he came up behind Howland. It was the big huskie who first gave a sign of his presence. For a moment the upturned eyes of the young engineer met those ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... Never had she felt more isolated amid that ordered beauty which gives a social quality to the very stones and mortar of Paris. All about her were evidences of an artistic sensibility pervading every form of life like the nervous structure of the huge frame—a sensibility so delicate, alert and universal that it seemed to leave no room for obtuseness or error. In such a medium the faculty of plastic expression must develop as unconsciously as any organ in its normal surroundings; to be "artistic" ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... through here sooner or later, except perhaps, the law of righteousness. Here comes Horace, he's not bearing it, I am sure. How do you do, Horace?" Penfield, admirably dressed, slim, self-possessed and alert, bent over her hand, ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... on the grass, his eyes on the glimmering fire, and his ears alert for any sound. But all was still; and he soon fell to picturing the scene at the castle,—Lady De Aldithely and Josceline, mounted for their journey, going out at the postern gate at the head of the train of sumpter mules and attended by the band of serving-men ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... has succeeded in attaining. The poem may be read with interest as a record of experience without attention to its inner meaning, but its full interest is only felt when this inner meaning is traced, and the moral significance of the incidents of the story apprehended by the alert intelligence. The allegory is the soul of the poem, but like the soul within the body it does not show itself in independent existence. It is, in scholastic phrase, the form of the body, giving to it its special individuality. Thus in order truly to understand and rightly appreciate the poem the ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... one to another, as if to find answer to the question half formed in his mind, What business can these have with me? He became calm, with every sense on the alert, for the question was succeeded by another, ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... weed-grown, floorless room, unplastered, an ancient fireplace, vacant windows, a ruinous staircase; and here, there, and everywhere hung ragged and abandoned cobwebs. They presently entered, softly, with quickened pulses, talking in whispers, ears alert to catch the slightest sound, and muscles tense and ready ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... at him in surprise. He was well dressed, with alert eyes and strong, pleasing face. I had never ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson
... 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, had ventured on this ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... clear moonlight, with fog towards daybreak. A British army of twenty-five thousand men was only some six hundred yards from the American lines. A few miles from the shore lay at anchor a great British fleet with, it is to be presumed, its patrols on the alert. Yet, during that night, ten thousand American troops were marched down to boats on the strand at Brooklyn and, with all their stores, were carried across a mile of water to New York. There must have been the splash of oars and the grating of keels, orders ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... proportion to it, she never had remained. There she was, and she could not get away again. The subtle dexterity which had served her in coming might desert her in returning. Had their senses been on the alert they might have heard ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... 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 a little jealousy would do Jem no ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was entirely alert. He did not doubt, as he stood there, that he would be caught and delivered and hanged. He, himself, would take no steps to prevent such a catastrophe. He would leave the body there as it was: to-night, to-morrow they would find it,—the rest would follow. ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... scene that was pictured on the back of his eye. Attention, the direction of the mind to the sensation, is necessary; and it appears that it is very difficult (to some more than to others) to hold the attention alert, and to give it to the unexpected. In fact, to a very large extent we can only "see" (using the word to signify the ultimate mental condition) that which we are prepared to see or that which we expect to see. In the absence ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... as yet formed a part, my poor Mary herself, were forgotten. I thought only of the strong man there perishing; of me in my lusty manhood, in the sharp vigor of my dawning prime, with faculties illimitable, with senses all alert, battling there with physical obstacles which men like myself had brought together for my undoing. The Eternal could never have willed this thing! I could not and I would not perish thus. And I grew strong in insolence of self-trust; and I laughed aloud as I dashed ...
— The Man In The Reservoir • Charles Fenno Hoffman
... a day or two on a matter of business when Virgie's imploring epistle arrived—a circumstance for which his sister was most thankful, for it was no trifling matter for her to be always on the alert to intercept the letters that passed, through the bag at Heathdale. But she had succeeded in accomplishing this by having had an extra key made for the lock and always accompanying the carriage when it ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... saved—for other men to take care of. And what frauds these women were! All allurement and gentleness till they had entrapped their victims, then fiends of exaction, without sympathy for the big work of men, without interest in the world's problems, alert to ridiculous suspicions, reckless with accusations, incapable of equity, ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... his rifle to his right shoulder. "I'll walk me post in a military manner, keepin' always on the alert and observin' everything that takes place within sight or hearin', accordin' to Gin'ral Order Number Two. There won't be no war unless somebody starts somethin'. Hey, there, buddy, would ye smoke a God's-country cigarette if I ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... waited, muscles tense and brain alert. He even suspended the chewing operation. A dull, padding sound ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... her fortunes must be very rapidly followed by that of his own. By nature bold, unscrupulous, and resourceful, he was not a man to lose the game without playing it out to the very end with all the energy and cunning of which he was capable. Keenly alert to all that passed, he had, from the time that he first heard the rumour of the king's intention, haunted the antechamber and drawn his own conclusions from what he had seen. Nothing had escaped him—the disconsolate faces of monsieur and of the dauphin, the visit ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... not so much game here, for the Indians were ever on the alert and the roving bands always on the verge of starvation. But once in a while there was a feast of fresh meat and Mere Dubray made tasty messes for ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... he could reach Tanis shortly, but once within the capital of the Pharaoh, he was near to Har-hat and within reach of the fan-bearer's potent hand. When he entered the city he must be mentally and physically alert. He had not slept since the last daybreak, and he was weary ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... that some mischief was intended against us. We took up our quarters in some buildings which consisted of large halls and inclosed courts, and orders were issued that none of the soldiers were to go out of their quarters, and that all were to be on the alert to guard against surprize. On the soldiers being dismissed to their respective quarters, the Captains Alvarado and De Oli, with some soldiers, among whom I was, went up to the top of a lofty temple, from which we had a commanding view, to observe what was going on in the neighbourhood. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... independence! Of course his plumage is firm, his color decided, his wit quick. He understands you at once and tells you so; so does the hawk by his scornful, defiant whir-r-r-r-r. Hardy, happy outlaws, the crows, how I love them! Alert, social, republican, always able to look out for himself, not afraid of the cold and the snow, fishing when flesh is scarce, and stealing when other resources fail, the crow is a character I would not willingly miss from the landscape. I love to see his track in the snow ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... at the beginning He loathed a skulker I'm for a rational Deity Loathing of artifice to raise emotion Nevertheless, inclinations are an infidelity Published Memoirs indicate the end of a man's activity The despot is alert at every issue, to every chance Things were lumpish and gloomy that day of the week We shall want a war to teach the country the value of courage You'll have to guess at half of everything he tells you You're going to be men, meaning ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... lean man, clad in buckskin like a savage, brown almost as a savage, as active and as alert, seemed to fit not ill with these environments, nor to lack either confidence or contentment. He walked on steadily, following the path along the bayou bank, and at length paused for a moment, throwing down his burden and stooping ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... than the recruits of that drunken martinet to cope with, it would be no hard task to drive them into the sea; but I learned in my prison that horse are expected on the shore with the dawn; there is one they call Dillon, who is on the alert ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... their annonae without delay. Think what a life of hardship the soldier leads in those frontier forts for the general peace, thus, as at the gate of the Province, shutting out the entry of the barbarous nations. He must be ever on the alert who seeks to keep out the Barbarians. For fear alone checks these men, whom honour will not ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... tail thumped the ground, then they felt it stiffen, and were again on the alert. Venning ran his fingers lightly along the jackal's back till he reached the nose, which was pointing straight up. Without a moment's delay he raised ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... and with it carry your bait can half filled with wet moss or soft moist earth. You will find, if the conditions are right, swarms of worms along the edges of beaten paths, or in the short grass alongside. Usually the worm has one end of its body in a hole, and as it is very alert, you must catch it before it has time to think, perhaps I should say, to act. For this purpose the bait gatherers will do better in pairs. One holds the can and lantern, while the other seizes the worm. Always grab the worm at the ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... think nor live; we float along through space in delicious inertia. The air which is bearing us up has made of us all beings which resemble itself, silent, joyous, irresponsible beings, intoxicated by this stupendous flight, peculiarly alert, although motionless. One is no longer conscious of one's flesh or one's bones; one's heart seems to have ceased beating; we have become something indescribable, birds who do not even have ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... No, I can't say that. It seems to me you've grown more than I have-I don't mean physically, I mean mentally," he explained as he saw her smile in the defensive way a fleshy girl has, alert to ward ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... like spectators at a performance of a specially hazardous feat, and held their breath. But each was on the alert to rush to Ted's assistance the moment he ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... a stinging reproof for the maitre d'hotel trembled on his tongue's tip; but that one was busily avoiding his eye on the far side of the table, drawing out a chair for "mademoiselle," while Velasco and the Weringrode were alert to read Lanyard's countenance and forestall any steps he might contemplate in ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... keep his pledge to her. He makes him stand up reluctantly. Meanwhile, he who had missed striking him comes at him as fast as he can and, raising his arm again, expects to split his head to the teeth with the axe. But the other, alert to defend himself, thrusts the knight toward him in such a way that he receives the axe just where the shoulder joins the neck, so that they are cleaved apart. Then the knight seizes the axe, wresting it quickly from him who ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... scene grows dark 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
... to subject themselves to the danger, almost the certainty, of dropping off, and getting drowned; and, notwithstanding their need of sleep, increased by fatigue, and the necessity of keeping constantly on the alert,—up to that moment not one of them had obtained any. The thrill of pleasure that passed through their frames as they felt their feet upon terra firma for a moment aroused them. But the excitement could not be sustained. ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... as much on the alert as her sister. She had been for the last six months her mother's pet, as Sarah Jane had been her father's darling. There was some excuse, therefore, for Maryanne when she endeavoured to get what she could in the scramble. Sarah Jane played the part of Goneril ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... long," she rejoined, taking the stairs at a rate that 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. Winthrop opened ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... father would pay you anything in reason." Her throat was parched, but her eyes were hard and bright. No lithe young panther of the forest could have been more alert than she. ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... gray-haired, 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. O'Connor; farewells ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... Then his natural love of adventure blazed up once more. His moment of weakness had passed. The thrill was in his blood, his nerves were tightened. He was ready for what might come, seemingly still half asleep, yet, indeed, with every sense of intuition and observation keenly alert. ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... colours shew, he 's in a glow, Like the stubble of the barley. Onward, 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 ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... other places of business. Some of such places give one an air of confidence and trust; others create a feeling of suspicion and distrust; some convey an impression of active, wideawake management, while others impress one as being behind the times, and suffering from a want of alert, active management. These differing mental atmospheres are caused by the different prevailing mental attitudes of the owners of the respective establishments. The managers of business places send forth thought-waves of their own, and their employees naturally falling into ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... His alert faculties of observation belied the leisurely manner of his approach to the main street. He was a keen-strung, watching, listening machine. The lighting and smoking of a cigarette was mechanical pretense—he ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... come with the coroner, had said little but had listened to all. Occasionally he would dart from the room, and return a few moments later, scribbling in his notebook. He was an alert little man, with beady black eyes and ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... lively, cheerful, sociable race, and on the very best of terms with the Nutcracker Grays. Young Tip Chipmunk, the oldest son, was in all respects a perfect contrast to Master Featherhead. He was always lively and cheerful, and so very alert in providing for the family, that old Mr. and Mrs. Chipmunk had very little care, but could sit sociably at the door of their hole and chat with neighbours, quite sure that Tip would bring everything out right for them, and have ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... looking towards the aperture in the roof what was our astonishment at beholding the faces of two Indians, calmly surveying us in the quiet occupation of their abode. In an instant we shouted—"The Indians!" and in a moment every one was on the alert, and each taking his arms rushed to the door—not a creature was to be seen; in vain we looked around;—no trace, save the marks of footsteps on the snow, was to be discovered, but these seemed almost innumerable. We fired about a dozen shots into the woods, and then retired to our dwelling. —— ...
— Lecture On The Aborigines Of Newfoundland • Joseph Noad
... cove, (which is of circular form) as if jealous of a descent in those parts; they appear very numerous, and may amount to about one thousand six hundred men, besides their cavalry, who are cloathed in blue, and mounted on neat horses of different colours; they seem very alert, parading and counter marching between the woods on the heights in their rear, and their breastworks, in order to make their number show to the greater advantage. The lands all around us are high and commanding, which gave the enemy an opportunity ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... two shells from our guns. Everyone was alert. I sprang to my camera. Two men were standing by me, ready to take down the screen. Boom came another shell, and at a sign the men dropped ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... felt, rather than heard, hasty, heavy footsteps on the bank above me. As soon as I knew anything clearly, I knew that the tree had been pulled away, and that Alaric was bending over me. He had, with ears alert for any sound, and with footsteps kept as near to me as they might be with obedience to my order, come rushing to my aid at the sound at my first revolver-shot. But the distance was so great that he did not arrive until my fight ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... sentiment. It is obvious now that, in the midst of all this agitation about other matters, Mr. Calhoun and the South Carolinians never lost sight of the conflict for which they were preparing, and that they were on the alert to bring nullification to the front in a more menacing and pronounced fashion than ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... was good to hear the rich old tongue again. I smiled, and the foreman of the leprechauns—if that's what he was—saw me smile and became stiff and alert for a moment, as though suspecting that perhaps I actually could see him. Then he shrugged and turned away, clearly deeming ...
— Houlihan's Equation • Walt Sheldon
... Clemens' used to say later that the Paige type-setter would do everything that a human being could do except drink and swear and go on a strike. He might properly have omitted the last item, but of that later. Paige was a small, bright-eyed, alert, smartly dressed man, with a crystal-clear mind, but a dreamer and a visionary. Clemens says of him: "He is a poet; a most great and genuine poet, whose sublime creations are written ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... brags about it. Guthrie bribed him, and I've got enough left to give Stitz and Guthrie a good shot. I'll leave Skinner and Miss Briggs out, but I'll go for Stitz and Guthrie. I'll show them that in Kilo the press is alert, wide awake, and not to be trifled with. I'll ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... marriage, when a thoughtless girl, with a drunken, dissolute boy; the quarrels, brutal beatings; the haste to secure a divorce; the contamination of the crowded hotels in Heron Lake, where this slender young girl—naturally pure, alert, quick of impulse—was like a lamb among lustful wolves. His heart ached ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... the iron pot, he filled it with fresh water. All the while he moved soundlessly, and Paul's deep, peaceful slumber was not disturbed. He took on for the time many of the qualities that he had learned from his Indian captors. Every sense was alert, attuned to hear the slightest sound that might come from the forest, to feel, in fact, any alien presence as it ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... tremendous war whoop and from the woods on the other side of the ice came an answering whoop. He was trapped between them, and they could afford to be deliberate. His heart sank, but as usual his courage came back in an instant, stronger than ever. Alert, resourceful, the best marksman in all the West, he did not mean to be taken or slain, and he looked about for the means of defense. As it was not a lake, upon the frozen surface of which he stood, merely ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... May, at that hour when Hyde Park is fullest, and the carriages move slowly in triple rank along the Lady's Mile, and the mounted constables jog up and down with a business-like air which sets every one on the alert for the advent of the Princess of Wales, just at that hour when Lesbia sat in Lady Kirkbank's barouche, and distributed gracious bows and enthralling smiles to her numerous acquaintance, Mary rode slowly down the Fell, after a rambling ride on the safest and most venerable of mountain ponies. The ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... to help the class on the hard points not only in assigning the lesson, but also in the recitation. The alert teacher will in almost every recitation discover some points which the class have failed to understand or master fully. It is the overlooking of such half-mastered points as these that leaves weak places in the pupil's knowledge and brings trouble to him later on. These ...
— The Recitation • George Herbert Betts
... conditions that exist in our rural schools and outlines only such plans and schemes as can be carried out, even in adverse circumstances, by alert trustees, sympathetic inspectors, ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario
... safety. And how could he gain the open country? If he succeeded in reaching one of the gates—St. Antoine, or St. Denis, in itself a task of difficulty—it would only be to find the gate closed, and the guard on the alert. At last it flashed on him that he might cross the river; and at the notion hope awoke. It was possible that the massacre had not extended to the southern suburb; possible, that if it had, the Huguenots who lay there—Frontenay, and Montgomery, and Chartres, with the ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... cold day. We kept on our overcoats and hats. Middle-sized and spare, his eyes alert in a long, Roman-nosed countenance, X walked on his neat little feet, with short steps, and looked at my collection intelligently. I hope I looked at him intelligently, too. A snow-white moustache and imperial made his nutbrown complexion ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... all vigilant. It was the first time that the Sussex lads had been in face of an enemy, and the stillness of the night, the sombre forest in front of them, and the possibility of a savage and unknown foe lurking there, kept them thoroughly on the alert. Once or twice Wulf and Osgod went forward to examine some bush that had seemed to the imagination of a sentry to have moved, but in each case the alarm ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... poisoned. What was the dwarf doing in the tree with a bow and poisoned arrow, she wondered? Suddenly a sound seemed to strike her ear, the sound of a man's footsteps walking over grass, and she perceived that the figure of the dwarf, crouched upon the bough, became tense and alert, and that his fingers tightened upon the bow-string until the blood was driven from their yellow tips. Following the glance of his wicked black eyes, she saw advancing through the shadow a tall man clad in a dark ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... a dash for him, but the stranger was agile and alert, and ran swiftly away and out of the ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... seemed to him a good deal like playing at soldiers. Even when the distant sound of the big guns and the rattle of small arms touched his ear, the slumber of unbelief was only broken—not quite dispelled. But now, weighted with the deadly missiles, with rifle in hand, with ears alert to every sound, and eyes open to every object that might present itself on the sandy waste beyond the redoubt, and a general feeling of expectancy pervading his thoughts and feelings, he became clearly convinced that the recent past was no flight of the imagination—that he was in ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... There is something very melancholy and very ludicrous in all this, and though that great bull calf the public does not care about such things, and is content to roar when he is bid, there are those on the alert who will turn such trilling and folly to account, and convert what is half ridiculous into something all serious. Winchelsea and Newcastle after all did not vote the other night; they said they wanted no evidence, that they would have no such Bill, and would not meddle with the discussion ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... self-development. If he has not these three qualifications he will make but little progress; but, fortunately, any lacking quality can be evolved and if one does not possess these three necessities his first work is to create them. These three things are an ardent desire, an iron will and an alert intelligence. Why are these three qualifications essential to success and what purpose ...
— Self-Development and the Way to Power • L. W. Rogers
... to slowly ascend the hill, the sheriff close on his heels, alert, tingling, and watchful of every movement. For a few moments this strain upon his faculties seemed to invigorate him, and his gloom relaxed, but presently it became too evident that the prisoner's pinioned arms made it ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... hops brought it opposite to my post of observation. Here it halted as though it seemed to see me. At any rate it sat up in the alert fashion that hares have, its forepaws hanging absurdly in front of it, with one ear, on which there was a grey blotch, cocked and one dragging, and sniffed with its funny little nostrils. Then it began ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... herd of swine who surrounded them. Pamela, Harriet Byron, Clarissa, Amelia, and Sophia Western were all equally delightful, and it was not the negative charm of the innocent and colourless woman, the amiable doll of the nineteenth century, but it was a beauty of nature depending upon an alert mind, clear and strong principles, true womanly feelings, and complete feminine charm. In this respect our rival authors may claim a tie, for I could not give a preference to one set of these perfect creatures over another. The plump little printer and the worn-out ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... by Mr. Gwynn," explained Richard, with an alert mendacity which would have done honor, to Senator Hanway himself, "that he will hold anything short of calling upon you once a day as barefaced ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... picturesque group they made, as the moonlight streamed white and clear into their swarthy faces, and glittered upon the metallic ornaments about their persons and the polished blades of their long spears. Their high cheek-bones, bold, alert eyes, and straight, coal-black hair, suggested an intimate relationship with our own Indians; but the resemblance went no further. Most of their faces wore an expression of bold, frank honesty, which is not ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... came to pass that in the Sunday Advocate-Times, under a picture of Dr. Drew at his earnestest, with eyes alert, jaw as granite, and rustic lock flamboyant, appeared an inscription—a wood-pulp tablet ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... usually gravely absorbed in himself. The excessive gravity of the American in khaki has astonished the men of the other armies who feel that, life being uncertain, it is well to make as genial a use of it as possible while it lasts. The soldier from the U.S.A. seems to stand always restless, alert, alone, listening—waiting for the call to come. He doesn't sink into the landscape the way other troops have done. His impatience picks him out—the impatience of a man in France solely for one purpose. I have seen him thus a thousand times, standing at street-corners, in the crowd but not of ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... forgotten and extirpated in the busy and active? I walk twenty miles in an indolent and half determined temper and am extremely fatigued. I walk twenty miles full of ardour, and with a motive that engrosses my soul, and I come in as fresh and as alert as when I began my journey. Emotion excited by some unexpected word, by a letter that is delivered to us, occasions the most extraordinary revolutions in our frame, accelerates the circulation, ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... also joined by the Margrave of Baden. The courage of the count palatine revived, and he labored assiduously to arouse his Protestant brethren. Meanwhile, the generals of the emperor were on the alert, and the rising hopes of Frederic were dissipated by the victories of Tilly. The count palatine was again driven from his hereditary dominions, and sought refuge ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... whipped child, his lips muttering something indistinguishable. The Sergeant, satisfied, turned and floundered through the drifts to the bank of the stream. He was alert and fearful, yet determined. No matter what danger of discovery might threaten, he must build a fire to save Carroll's life. The raging storm was not over with; there was no apparent cessation of violence in the blasts of the icy wind, and the ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... was he must have been alert, alive, for now, suddenly, he broke his moody reverie at some sound which he heard on ahead. He reined in for just an instant, then loosed the bridle and leaned forward. The horse under him sprang forward in ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... following day, at the appointed hour, Kai Lung was again led before the Mandarin Shan Tien. To the alert yet downcast gaze of the former person it seemed as if the usually inscrutable expression of that high official was not wholly stern as it moved in his direction. Ming-shu, on the contrary, disclosed all ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... leading members of the Committee on Appropriations. His committee work therefore covers a wide range of subjects. Never has he been known to fail in the performance of his duties in all these connections. Moreover, he is a constant attendant upon the sessions of the Senate, and one of the most alert of its members. Apparently, often, he is impulsive and explosive, and occasionally under the excitement of debate says what seems to be a harsh thing. If, however, his manner is indicative of feeling, such a feeling, like ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... Cul-de-Sac, where no white influence reaches. No one who knew Haitian conditions doubted that revenge would be sought for Charlemagne's death, and all through the winter of 1919-1920, the Marines were on the alert ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... cotton becoming a prominent industry in New England at this time, the alert mind of Daniel Anthony conceived the idea of building a factory and using the waters of Tophet brook and of a rapid little stream which flowed through the Read farm. This was done, and proved a success from the beginning. A document is still in existence by ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... midnight. But he could tell nothing of the ship's course. He turned the subject over in his mind as he lay on his bunk in that peculiar state half-way between sickness and health, when the body is relaxed by a purely accidental illness and the mind is abnormally alert. He wished intensely for a bath, a shave, and a fair complement of clothes. He longed also to go up the hatchway for a breath of air, and was considering the possibility of doing this later, with a blanket and darkness for a shield, when he became conscious of ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... daybreak. They now followed the stream down the valley until they came to a small wood. Here they lay down to rest, one being planed upon the lookout. Two hours later the sentry awoke them with the news that a party of men were coming op the valley. All were at once upon the alert. ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... was very much alert just then. It was as though some hidden monitor within me had taken control to guide me through a maze of unknown dangers. It was that inner prompting which had forbidden me to say ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... ci-devant Colonel was on full retreat for Scotland, carrying off poor Julia along with him. I understand from those who conduct the heavy baggage that he takes his winter quarters at a place called Woodbourne, in —-shire in Scotland. He will be all on the alert just now, so I must let him enter his entrenchments without any new alarm. And then, my good Colonel, to whom I owe so many grateful thanks, pray ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... please them all for the sake of the past and present friendship. But she had a doubt of Mrs. Underhill's approval. She might give in as she had to Delia; and now she had really begun to find virtues in Ben's wife. But with Jim's brilliant nature always on the alert for amusement, she, Daisy, would be worn out trying to keep up ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... straightened up, tense and alert. He had no desire, very far from any desire to be caught here, or to figure publicly in any way in the case. The street door had opened and closed again. Footsteps, those of three men, his acute, trained hearing told him, sounded on the stairs. Again there came that queer, ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... of wine at dinner had been, like Mr. Poe's conversation with his soul, "serious and sober." In the cellar no drop had passed our mouths. I was alert as a lark when I entered: I came out in a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... see two or three Federal cruisers lying anchored off the outer bar, just out of reach of the guns of shore-batteries. It was a service of no little danger for the blue-jackets. The enemy were ever on the alert to break the blockade by destroying the ships with torpedoes. Iron-clad rams were built on the banks of the rivers, and sent down to sink and destroy the vessels whose watchfulness meant starvation to the Confederacy. The "Albemarle" and the "Merrimac" were ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... 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 ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... energetic boy, had coal black hair and bright, black eyes which looked out upon the world with the alert glance of a squirrel ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... the Prime Minister in the British Parliament ignores the attacks of the lesser men. Gladstone could not ignore Lloyd George. He had to answer him. Sometimes he condescended to berate him, much to the enjoyment of the assembly. Lloyd George always came up unhurt, alert, ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... axiomatic truths, it is certain that our highest conception of truth must be taken as our only and necessary guide; but, knowing the variable part of our judgment, and knowing how very likely we are to be mistaken in our "think so's" and "feel so's," we should ever be on the alert to verify or rectify our convictions by the help of experience and facts. The question as to how much of our intellectual power is intuitive and innate, or how much is acquired and dependent upon truth learned by ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... be constantly on the alert, and my impatience and perplexity may be imagined as hours elapsed and there were still no signs of my approaching deliverance. The storm had long since passed over, and darkness was settling down when I again felt a pull at the rope, and continued ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... her eyes shone with a malice I knew already. It meant that she had heard some scandal about one of her friends, and the instinct of the literary woman was all alert. ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... his full height, thin, venomous, alert, rather enjoying the encounter, which "let off the steam" of ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... especially in medicine. Denial may be given to this statement, nevertheless it is true, and I have had practical exemplification of it in my own experience. Observation is perhaps more powerful an organon than either experiment or empiricism. If the eye is always watching, and the mind on the alert, ultimately chance ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... hands full of business. As the mare had been deprived of an opportunity to kick him, by the suddenness with which he sprang upon her back, she concluded to try her next favorite line of strategy and shake him off. So down went her head and up went her heels, and, had he been less on the alert, he must have gone to earth; but, with his knees dug into her sides as if they were the opposite jaws of a vice, for every jerk of her head down he gave one with the reins up, and at each jerk the hoe-handle gave her a rap over the ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... squads of six, not reckoning in either Jacob or me, and these he gave stations at different points within a mile of the settlement, cautioning every one to be on the alert, for now had come the time when it was possible for them to prove the value of the Minute Boys as soldiers. It was to be their duty, by night as well as by day, to keep careful watch lest the Indians ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... character. I am not here concerned so much with the exact nature of these troubles as I am with the avoidable errors in the management of sick childhood. If I can make the mother more thoughtfully alert, less disposed to terror and exaggeration, less liable to be led by her emotions, I shall have fulfilled my purpose without such discussion as is out of ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... this door was a single sheet of plate-glass into which a man might well have walked, and I can still see Raffles in full-length silhouette upon a panel of palms and tree-ferns. I see the silhouette grow tall and straight again before my eyes, the door open, and Raffles listening with an alert lift of the head. I, too, hear something, an elfin hiss, a fairy fusillade, and then the sudden laugh with which Raffles rejoined us in ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... Jackson, equally alert, but having a longer distance to march from the extreme right along the military road, arrived about eight A.M., took command, and, as was his wont, ordered an immediate advance, throwing Owens's regiment of ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... during the exit, placed himself at the bottom of the great staircase. He had enlisted two of his friends. "Come," he had said to them, "I will show you the most beautiful woman in Paris." While he was speaking, two steps away from the prince was an alert young man who was attached to a morning paper, a very widely-read paper. The young man had sharp ears, he caught on the fly the phrase of the Prince Agenor, whose high social position he knew; he succeeded in keeping close to ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... toward the communicator controls unhappily, then reached out and dialed a number. The sphere lit and an alert face looked at ...
— Indirection • Everett B. Cole
... had been sleeping he did not know, when suddenly he found himself awake and alert. Something had aroused him, and he sat up and listened. For a time he heard nothing, save the heavy breathing of Skipper Zeb and Toby, and he was about to lie down again when there came the sound of footsteps in the slightly crusted snow ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... sent him into the trees again—into the lower terrace where he could watch the ground below and catch with ears and nose the first intimation of actual contact with his quarry. Nor was it long before the ape-man came upon Bara standing alert at the edge of a moon-bathed clearing. Noiselessly Tarzan crept through the trees until he was directly over the deer. In the ape-man's right hand was the long hunting knife of his father and in his heart the blood lust of the carnivore. Just for an instant he poised above the unsuspecting ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... at every third step, the even numbers turning to the one hand, the odd to the other hand, alternately, and all stamping together as they complete the turn at each third step. The turning to right and left symbolises the alert guarding of the heads which are supposed to be carried by the ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... because nobody is strong and clever enough to rearrange it. Their experience of it is a satisfactory experience. On the other hand, the better off one is, the wider is one's outlook and the more alert one is to see the risks and dangers of international dissensions. Travel and talk to foreigners open one's eyes to aggressive possibilities; history and its warnings become conceivable. It is in the nature of things ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... "there is not much to fear from that fellow!" and he resolutely descended, eyes alert, pistol in hand. Halfway down, he stopped in amazement, for the front door swung wide open. But at last he finished the descent ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson |
