"Alert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be content to remain below—nor was that unnatural. Aside from the fear I had of the sloop's yawing and possibly turning turtle, and so imprisoning me in the cabin with no hope of escape therefrom, I felt that I should be more on the alert to seize any opportunity for escape were I at the tiller. So I carried a Mexican poncho which I wound to the stern, draped it about me over the oilskins, and with the sou'wester tied under my chin I could defy the rain, nor did the ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... men rolled him roughly to one side, without arousing him to any sign of consciousness. Stone knew the man to be shamming, since there had been no show of even incipient drunkenness before the moment of the raid. He resolved to try a test at least, for he was alert to the hindrance the limp form would prove in the descent of the mountain. He thrust the body forward with his foot, close to one of the great "stands" of the mixture, and bade an appreciative assistant apply the ax to the slippery-elm hoops that bound the staves. ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... these Browning meetings they had each day. But Mrs. Taylor grew pleased. The kindly dame would sometimes cross the road to see if she were needed, and steal away again after a peep at the window. There, inside, among the restored home treasures, sat the two: the rosy alert girl, sweet as she talked or read to him; and he, the grave, half-weak giant ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... his great project of western exploration always in mind, he eagerly accepted the offer. For three or four years he remained in command of the Nipigon post, faithfully discharging his duties as a fur-trader, but with his mind always alert for any information that might help him later to discover a way ...
— Pathfinders of the Great Plains - A Chronicle of La Verendrye and his Sons • Lawrence J. Burpee
... to be, should change places so frequently, the old woman answered, 'That though her master was a deal on the wrong side of seventy, and though, to look at him, you'd think he was glued to his chair, and would fall to pieces if he should stir out of it, yet was as alert, and thought no more of going about, than if he was as young as the gentleman who was now speaking to her. It was old Mr. Reynolds's delight to come down and surprise his people at his different places, and see that they were ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... wondering if it was never coming—when suddenly the whole symphony would come to an end! Or he would read about a "quaint capering measure led off by the bassoons," or a "frantic sweep of the violins over a trombone melody," and he would watch for these events with eyes and ears alert, ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... took heed of his wife's presence, and he still paced the room, uttering a string of broken phrases. This excited the attention of the Countess, for her own threatened position caused her to be on the alert. ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... 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 ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... occupied nearly the whole day, proved very interesting to Fern Fenwick. With her note-book in hand, and her keen eyes on the alert to catch every salient point, she kept our hero busy answering a host of questions. It was a long, happy day for him! To sit so near her, to look into her smiling eyes, to listen to the musical tones of her voice, to answer her swiftly spoken questions, to respond to the pressure of her gloved ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... found to justify an accusation against him. According to the jurisprudence of the least thieving cook in Paris, he shared with the count in the profits due to his own capable management. This manner of swelling his fortune was simply a case of conscience, that was all. Alert, and thoroughly understanding the count's interests, Moreau watched for opportunities to make good purchases all the more eagerly, because he gained a larger percentage on them. Presles returned a revenue of seventy thousand francs net. It was a saying of the country-side ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... days that followed the boys were often close to the boundary, but it happened that Burns was working near and Guy had the quickest of eyes and ears. The little rat seemed ever on the alert. He soon showed by his long-distance remarks that he knew all about the boys' pursuits—had doubtless visited the camp in their absence. Several times they saw him watching them with intense interest when they were practising with ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... in the corridor. She had scarcely seen it. Rather she had felt its passing. But the dream was gone. She was alert, tense, expectant. Paris was near. And he was near. She linked the two together in her mind. And she felt that she was drawing close to a climax in her life. A conviction took hold of her that some big, some determining event was going to happen in Paris, that she would ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... a little room back of it. His personality divided itself. There was one Ross Wilbur—who could not make his hands go where he wanted them, who said one word when he thought another, and whose legs below the knee were made of solid lead. Then there was another Ross Wilbur—Ross Wilbur, the alert, who was perfectly clear-headed, and who stood off to one side and watched his twin brother making a monkey of himself, without power and without even the desire ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... Blake not being in the hall, Miss Anthony was made a committee of one to present Mrs. Catt to the convention. The women went wild as, erect and alert, she walked to the front of the platform, holding the hand of her young co-worker, of whom she is extremely fond and of whom she expects great things. Miss Anthony's eyes were tear-dimmed, and her tones were uneven, as she presented to the convention its choice of a leader in words freighted with ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... whom they were allowed to play frequently, except two boys, the sons of a government official, and the four boys' fertile brains were keen to think out all sorts of exciting and mischievous plans which kept their families on the alert to restrain their actions within the bounds of safety and propriety. The boys who were playmates of Tad and Willie were Budd and Hally Taft, and although they were older than the Lincoln boys, they were much like them in temperament ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... approach showed no derogation from the greatness which the story of his deeds conveyed. "Whether you surveyed his face, open yet well defined, dignified but not arrogant, thoughtful but benign; his frame, towering and muscular, but alert from its good proportions—every feature suggested a resemblance to the spirit it encased, and showed simplicity in alliance with the sublime. The impression, therefore, was that ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... shows ULRIK BRENDEL in at the door, then goes out and shuts the door after her. BRENDEL is a good-looking man with grey hair and beard; somewhat emaciated, but active and alert; he is dressed like a common tramp, in a threadbare frock coat, shoes with holes in them, and no visible linen at his neck or wrists. He wears a pair of old black gloves, carries a dirty soft hat under his arm, and has a walking-stick in his hand. He looks puzzled at first, then goes ...
— Rosmerholm • Henrik Ibsen
... situation in Ireland, it is not too much to say that all our forms of education, technical and general, hang loose. We lack a body of trained teachers; we have no alert and informed public opinion on education and its function in regard to life; and there is no proper provision for research work in all branches, a deficiency, which, I am told by those who have given deep thought and long study to these ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... prosperity; but the progress of resettlement was slow and painful. Fortifications were built, old and young trained for soldiers, watch and ward kept night and day, scouts ranged the surrounding forests, and all were constantly on the alert. All hunting or fishing, all labor in forest or field, all journeying, was at the imminent risk of life or liberty. From the nearest swamp or thicket, from behind some fence, stump, or clump of brake, ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... her? Do you help her tactfully and consentingly—the only help which rests people—or do you argue each point, so that it is far less trouble to do the thing twice over than to ask you? Are you prompt and alert in your movements, or do you indulge in that exasperating slowness, which some girls seem to consider quite a charm? Do you wait till the last minute, and then leisurely put on your things, with serene unconsciousness of the fret it is to ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... finger on, indigitate^, indicate; direct attention to, call attention to; show; put a mark upon &c (sign) 550; 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, the window, a book); breathless; preoccupied &c (inattentive) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... cleared early, and Holmes waited in his dressing-gown for the promised interview. Our clients were punctual to their appointment, for the clock had just struck ten when Dr. Mortimer was shown up, followed by the young baronet. The latter was a small, alert, dark-eyed man about thirty years of age, very sturdily built, with thick black eyebrows and a strong, pugnacious face. He wore a ruddy-tinted tweed suit and had the weather-beaten appearance of one who has spent most of his time in the open air, ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... remarkable for the manufacture of beautiful cut glass, but the industry has died away. The housekeeper who possesses specimens of the art considers herself lucky indeed in her possession, as collectors are continually on the alert to procure them. In the immediate vicinity of Waterford itself there are many beauty spots and places of interest. In the suburb of Newtown stands the paternal home of Lord Roberts of Waterford and Candahar, besides whom on its roll of famous children Waterford includes the names ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... by the morning ray, I see thee rise alert and gay, Then, chearful Flower! my spirits play With kindred motion: 60 At dusk, I've seldom mark'd thee press The ground, as if in thankfulness, Without some feeling, more ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... 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 ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... her stay, Mrs. Deane, let her stay," said Mr. Deane, a large but alert-looking man, with a type of physique to be seen in all ranks of English society,—bald crown, red whiskers, full forehead, and general solidity without heaviness. You may see noblemen like Mr. Deane, and you may see grocers ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... it was I who did the looking. Kellow had grown a pair of curling black mustaches since his release; he was well-dressed, erect and alert, and was smoking a cigar the fragrance of which made me sick and faint with an attack of the long-denied ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... gathered each year to make rose-pillows, besides fuchsias as large as young trees, and a thousand other blooms of incredible size and beauty. Loving them all, their little Spanish mistress flitted about among them like a bird, alert, active, bright-eyed, straight as an arrow, and as springy of step as a girl of sixteen, although even then she was past her ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... Alert and willing, Hillner at once placed the muzzle of his piece in the loop-hole. Just as he had covered the Swede, however, he lowered his weapon and ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... I reckoned minute after minute, as if they were so much drained from my own existence. Even, if I had been able to move, it was impossible to know where to follow him. His steps might have been watched. Doubtless the conspirators were on the alert to prevent any approach to the palace. He might have fallen by the pistol of some of those men, who had not scrupled to conspire against their monarch. The most miserable of nights at length wore away; but it was only to be succeeded by the most fearful of mornings. The career of Paul ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... circus. The horse, proud, dignified, began to pace slowly to the time of the accompanying music, executing difficult steps that must have tried the patience of both animal and trainer during the teaching period; the rider, lithe, alert, proud also, smiling ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... as keen as sportsmen now are to get to close quarters with game animals, will want to get into positions from which they will be able carefully to observe animals of all kinds and take note of every characteristic. These artists will have to be fully as alert as the sportsmen, and be able on the instant, and from a fleeting glimpse, to note the lines and shades and character of the animal. But, if they do this, they will, in all probability, bring back more lasting and deeper impressions of the animals than the sportsman with all his keen observation ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... him with interest—he was so dapper, so alert, so all that an office-boy in a staid lawyer's establishment ought to be. ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... deserted, in reality wide-awake men were stationed at posts within them, waiting for the clang of the alarm which the pressing of a button in any one of the lookout towers would effect. Lar Tantril's ranch was not asleep. It was as alert and wary as the beasts tracking through the jungle outside its fence, and all its defensive and offensive ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... spirit of the everlasting boy, Alert, elate, And confident that life is good, Thou knockest boldly at the gate, In hopeful hardihood, Eager to enter and enjoy ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... friendly indirectness, and banters us out of our folly with a foreign instance. Plutarch or Montaigne is not more happy in historical parallels, for personal reflection and sober application to actual duty. Never was fancy more alert in the service of piety. His imagination is as luminous as Sir Thomas Browne's, and, if less peculiar and original in its combinations, rises into identity with more child-like and lofty worship. Ever ready to fall on his knees, there is in his adoration no touch of cant, or of that other-worldliness ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... things, and showed that, although at a distance, he could perceive the signs of the times. Was it not incumbent, moreover, on a man who had to look after a number of poor and simple folks, that he should be on the alert? ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... arrangement of items from that source could becloud the essential nature of its Conductor: though "The So-Called Human Race" sometimes plays rather tartly and impatiently with men's follies and shortcomings, it clearly and constantly exhibits a sunny, alert and airy spirit to whom all things human made ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... so loudly that Carr could not fail to hear him, but he was quite prepared, and indeed had been on the alert. ...
— Tessa - 1901 • Louis Becke
... and communicated the secret to the king. Minuchihr immediately placed the army in charge of Karun, and took himself thirty thousand men to wait in ambuscade for the enemy, and frustrate his views. Tur advanced with a hundred thousand men; but as he advanced, he found every one on the alert, and aware of his approach. He had gone too far to retreat in the dark without fighting, and therefore began a vigorous conflict. Minuchihr sprung up from his ambuscade, and with his thirty thousand men rushed upon the centre of ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... rifles or shotguns between their knees, with their pistols on their hips, and eternal vigilance in their eyes. While listening to his sermon they kept their gaze fastened upon one another, lest an unwary moment bring upon them the alert shot ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... father with the beginning of anger, and then grinned. The elders were constantly keeping the young men alert with these tests. He checked back over his actions since he had ...
— The Return • H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... short-story, of which some thousands, more or less new, are issued every year in English, but oral story-telling is taking its deserved place in the school, the home, and among clubs specially organized for its cultivation. Teachers and parents must therefore be increasingly alert, not only to invent new stories, but—this even chiefly—to familiarize themselves with the ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... concerned, they were acquaintances; but to each other's inner life they were strangers. John Anderson has a fine robust constitution, good intellectual abilities, and superior business faculties. He is eager, keen and alert, and if there is one article of faith that moulds and colors all his life more than anything else, it is a firm and unfaltering belief in the "main chance." He has made up his mind to be rich, and his highest ideal of existence may be expressed in four words—getting ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... man straightened himself into an alert and dashing attitude, and looked steadily at the enemy. But the captain rose half up in ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... each to Chow his homage pays— So dark and changing are Heaven's ways. When we pour our libations here, The officers of Shang appear, Quick and alert to give their aid:— Such is the service by them paid, While still they do not cast aside The cap and broidered axe—their pride. Ye servants of our line of kings, Remember him from whom ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... trudged along a narrow trail leading through the woods. Gif was at the front, with Spouter and Jack close behind and the others following. Feeling that the rabbits might be on the alert, they relapsed into silence, making practically no ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... deals entirely with 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
... a man of fifty, unless hard conditions and want have ground interest and vitality out of him, ought to be at his best. He ought to be active, alert, OPEN TO ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... Austin to catch him alone, and turned sulky that instant. Austin was not clever like Adrian: he seldom divined other people's ideas, and always went the direct road to his object; so instead of beating about and setting the boy on the alert at all points, crammed to the muzzle with lies, he just said, "Tom Bakewell told me to let you know he does not intend to peach ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... The next Sunday, I was sitting outside the stockade, as customary, reading some translations of the Greek poets, when, on raising my eyes from the book to glance over the approach to my fort—I was always on the alert—I beheld a VISION. Remember, I had not seen a woman for a year and half! She was slowly advancing, riding with superb grace a horse of great beauty and value, richly caparisoned. She came slowly up ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... saw little fear of being taken by surprise, even if his presence there became known. Twice only in the twenty-four hours did it seem possible for any one to effect a landing there, and at those times he promised himself to be on the alert. ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... the alert. Sam was going to ask Jim to come with him; but as he was putting the saddle on Widderin he felt a hand on his arm, and, ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... making of an intelligent, alert, responsible citizenry, dedicated to being helpful to all people at all times, to keep themselves physically strong, mentally awake, morally straight, to do their duty to God ...
— Educational Work of the Boy Scouts • Lorne W. Barclay
... often heard from Joyce. She cheered him with words of love and comfort, but absolutely refused to come and see him, saying it would be dangerous. In this she was right, for Andrew Harmon was alert. He believed that Joyce had had something to do with the disappearance of Calhoun, and had her closely watched. Fortunately his suspicions did not extend to Abe, so that communication between Joyce ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... entrance, by the senses, into the town, but cannot force the heart; and Mansoul is reduced to the greatest straits and sadness. In this extremity, prayers are incessantly offered up to Emmanuel; but, for a long time, they can obtain no satisfactory answers. Both parties are on the alert; but Diabolus finds it impossible, either by treachery or by storming with his legion of doubts, to gain possession of Heart-castle. Being worsted in a general engagement, the doubters are slain, and are buried ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... in all matters which did not affect his superstitious prejudices) would suffer himself to be so easily entrapped. The very fact of there being a watch on deck at all was sufficient proof that he was upon the alert,—it not being usual except in vessels where discipline is most rigidly enforced, to station a watch on deck when a vessel is lying-to in a gale of wind. As I address myself principally, if not altogether, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... oboe-like air, passes, the goats scrambling ahead alert to steal a carrot or a bite of cabbage from the nearest cart. And when these have passed, the little orgue de Barbarie plays its repertoire of quadrilles and waltzes under your window. It is a very sweet-toned organ, this little orgue de ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... Erect, with his alert repose About him, and about his clothes, He pictured all tradition hears Of what we owe to fifty years. His cleansing heritage of taste Paraded neither want nor waste; And what he needed for his fee ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... kind of moose. In that case, of course, it became a question of antlers. Moreover, in his meetings with rival bulls it had never been his wont to depend upon a blind, irresistible charge,—thereby leaving it open to an alert opponent to slip aside and rip him along the flank,—but rather to fence warily for an advantage in the locking of antlers, and then bear down his foe by the fury and speed of his pushing. It so happened, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... arrival of a comfortable carriage drawn by four horses had never before taken place in the village. The agitation into which the people had been thrown by the murder of Alessandro had by no means subsided; they were all on the alert, suspicious of each new occurrence. The news had only just reached the village that Farrar had been set at liberty, and would not be punished for his crime, and the flames of indignation and desire for vengeance, which the aged Capitan had so much difficulty ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... that every man in the room was on the alert, for the skilled frontiersman, when watchful, has a sixth sense. None of them might have told you what he had heard. The next sound was the faint creaking of Colonel Clark's door as it opened. Wrapping a blanket around the lantern, Tom led the way, and we massed ourselves behind the front door. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... cries of alarm, the whole flock arose, but before they had fairly settled in their flight, two more fell pierced with arrows. The cats had been standing on the alert, and as the cry of alarm was given leaped overboard from the stern, and proceeded to pick up the dead ducks, among which were included that which had at first flown away, for it had dropped in the water about fifty yards from the boat. A dozen times the same scene was ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... facility with which a supply of water is obtained from the wild mountains above them. I have so frequently given the people elk and hogs which I have killed on the heights above their paddy-fields that they are always on the alert at the sound of the bugle, and a few blasts from the mountain-top immediately creates a race up from the villages, some two or three thousand feet below. Like vultures scenting carrion, they know that an elk is killed, and ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... in his revolving chair, and faced Tyrrel in an attitude of sharp practical eagerness. His eye was all alert. It was clear, the man was keen on every passing chance of a stray hundred or two extra. His keenness disconcerted the conscientious and idealistic Cornishman. For a second or two Tyrrel debated how to open fire upon so unwonted an enemy. At last he began, stammering, "I've a friend ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... alert, held tensely by the same sound. It was the low music of a girlish voice humming a snatch of song, and it was accompanied by the soft crackling of the needles that carpeted the grove of pine between the Spence and Brewster houses. In another instant ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... well to be on the alert to learn the proper quantity of food to buy at market, and the proper quantity of food to cook for a stated number of persons. She would make a sad failure who would prepare just enough rice to serve four persons when six were ...
— School and Home Cooking • Carlotta C. Greer
... the 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. He ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... moment watching the alert face which said as plainly as words: "Whatever you are going to do, I am eager to ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... Mattos had a headache which was so severe, she announced, that it would prevent her from landing; besides, she was not interested in convicts. Lady Gardiner, on the contrary, was greatly interested. Never had she been more alert; never had her black eyes been so keen. She wanted to go everywhere; she wanted to see everything. She thought Noumea a charming place; she had "really no sympathy for the prisoners." One might commit a crime solely for the pleasure of being ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... came in, and I ate moderately, and we spent the remainder of the evening, for the clock had then tolled nine, very cheerfully; for my Quaker was so rejoiced at my good fortune, as she called it, that she was very alert, and exceeding good company; and her wit, and she had no small share of it, I thought was better played off than ever ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... require of each of us is a constantly alert attention, that discerns the outlines of the present situation, together with a certain elasticity of mind and body to enable us to adapt ourselves in consequence."[Footnote: Laughter, p. 18 (Fr. p. 18).] The lack of tension and elasticity ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... any egg-destroying animals, whether reptiles or mammals, which could attack this great race at such a defenseless point would be rapidly followed by its extinction. We must accordingly be on the alert for all possible theories of extinction; and these theories themselves will fall under the universal principle of the survival of the fittest until we approximate or actually hit ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew
... appear an almost endless list. She had received Paul Overt very amiably on his breaking ground with her by the mention of his joy in having just made her husband's acquaintance, and struck him as so alert and so accommodating a little woman that he was rather ashamed of his mot about her to Miss Fancourt; though he reflected that a hundred other people, on a hundred occasions, would have been sure to make it. He got on with Ms. St. George, in short, ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... he saw the other, the real man, Lupin. He discovered the intense life in the eyes, he filled up the shrunken features, he perceived the real flesh beneath the flabby skin, the real mouth through the grimaces that deformed it. Those were the eyes and mouth of the other, and especially his keen, alert, mocking ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... out of the question, everything would have to be taken as it exists naturally. In a sense, such a competition would be a return to the contests organized in the early days of the automobile, the Paris-Bordeaux and Paris-Berlin races, when the driver had ever to be on the alert for unforeseen difficulties unknown on the racing-circuit as ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... figure—gazed at her with surprise, then thrust his head from the window and bowed with smiling, if somewhat exaggerated, politeness. The next moment carriage and traveler vanished down the road in a cloud of dust, but an alert observer might have noticed an eye at the rear port-hole, as though the person within was supplementing his brief observation from the side with a longer, if diminishing, ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... departure there 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
... reluctance. In spite of his virtues, he indulged certain desires, and became soaked in these impurities like a saint who defiles himself while saying his prayers. Perceiving which, the prince, on the alert to satisfy his ire and his bile, began to say ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... we might expatiate on her perfidy, and our tears fall copiously on the broken sceptre in the dust of Delhi. Ignorant and stupid as the king's ministers may be, the East India Company is well-informed on its interests, and alert in maintaining them. I wonder that a republic so wealthy and so wise should be supported on the bosom of royalty. Believe me, her merchants will take alarm, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... 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, ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... convoy.'[6] But here the old tactician was not holding up English methods as an example. He was citing them to show to what easy victories a navy exposed itself in which, by neglect of scientific study and alert observation, tactics had sunk into a mere senile formula. 'They know,' he continues, 'that we are in no state to oppose them with well-combined movements so as to profit by the kind of disorder which ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... the stout framework there escapes a dainty fly, a velvety flake, a soft fluff that astounds us by its contrast with the roughness of the depths whence it ascends. On this point, we know pretty well what there is to know. There remains the entrance into the cell, a puzzle that has kept me on the alert for ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... trees, most simple and aspiring; and certainly most perfect among evergreens, with their straight, faintly carmined shoots, their pliable strong leaves so subtly rippled at the edge, and their clean, dry fragrance; delicate, austere, alert, serene; such are the ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... grant, one who ached not a little after jolts and jars and the phantasmal mists of this engendering air. But none stirred, nor went, nor came. So resting my hands cautiously on a little witch's guild of toadstools that squatted cold in shade, I lifted myself softly and stood alert. ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... was an efficient and reliable man called Banglan, the sub-chief of Kaburau, who was alert and intelligent. He had only one hand, the result of a valorous fight with a crocodile, by which his prahu (native boat) had been attacked one day at dawn in a small tributary of the river. The animal ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... progress of events and their influence upon the established order. In 1773 he had visited France, and had returned displeased. It is remarkable with what accuracy he pointed out the ultimate tendency of much that he saw. A close observer of current phases of society, and on the alert to explain them in the light of broad and fundamental principles of human progress, he had every opportunity for studying social life at the French capital. Unlike the younger men of his times, he was doubtful, and held his judgment in suspense. The enthusiasm of even Fox seemed ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... life of Shakespeare's Plays came from the personality, the inmost, secretest life, of the man Shakespeare. We might, with the most alert sagacity, note and tabulate and aggregate his myriad phenomenal merits as a dramatic writer, but we might still be very far from that something back of them all, or rather that IMMANENT something, ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... the counties of England there were three whose rulers from an early time were allowed special privileges. Because Cheshire and Durham bordered upon the hostile countries, Wales and Scotland, and needed to be ever on the alert, their rulers, the earls of Chester and the bishops of Durham, were clothed with almost royal powers of command, and similar powers were afterwards granted through favouritism to the dukes of Lancaster. ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... apparent. The homesteader showed no sign of drowsiness or relaxed vigilance, but sat tranquilly alert, watching him through the curling smoke. It was also some distance to the door, which, from where Clavering sat, appeared to be fastened and he knew the quick precision with which the bushman can swing up a rifle, or if it suits him fire from the hip. A dash for ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... now, for the first time in 35 years, our strategic bombers stand down. No longer are they on round-the-clock alert. Tomorrow our children will go to school and study history and how plants grow. And they won't have, as my children did, air-raid drills in which they crawl under their desks and cover their heads in case of nuclear war. My grandchildren don't have to do that, and won't have the bad dreams ...
— State of the Union Addresses of George H.W. Bush • George H.W. Bush
... Darnley in such a manner as this, of course produced a vast sensation all over Scotland. Every body was on the alert to discover the authors of the crime. Rewards were offered; proclamations were made. Rumors began to circulate that Bothwell was the criminal. He was accused by anonymous placards put up at night in Edinburgh. Lennox, Darnley's father, ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... black fire-bird darts across the sky, making lightning with every flutter of his wings, which, underneath, are painted a bright, vivid red. Serpents of all colors and sizes creep silently in the undergrowth, or hang from the branches of the trees, their emerald eyes ever on the alert; and the broad-winged eagle soars above ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... his education in Dublin University, Bourke spoke the purest English known, or could when so minded, while his facile Irish tongue had caught the trick of an accent which passed unchallenged on the Boulevardes. He had an alert eye for pretty women, a heart as big as all out-doors, no scruples worth mentioning, a secret ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... weren't conscious in every nerve of the letter in her pocket, despite the fact that she didn't know a word it said. But she didn't eat much: the taste of food seemed to choke her. Her gaze wandered from Mother Jess to Father Bob and back, around the circle of eager, happy, alert faces. And she felt—poor Elliott!—as though her first discontent were a boomerang now returned to ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... ruined, for fevers, sleeplessness, gout, and eyestrain kept him in constant pain, and at times made even that strong mind of his a little queer and wobbly. But on one point at least it remained alert and lucid,—he still could think out his course clearly. With a view to avoiding the treacherous winds and coastwise currents that had previously wrought such havoc with his ships, he set his rudders due east on leaving Veragua; his idea ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... for England, he sought and secured the acquaintance of Rudyard Kipling, whose alert mind was at once keenly interested in what Bok was trying to do. He was willing to co-operate, with the result that Bok secured the author's new story, William the Conqueror. When Bok read the manuscript, he was delighted; he had for some time ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... and out among the rocks and underbrush; now it stands for a moment motionless, peering about in search of a victim, its slender little body arched up in the middle like an enraged cat. It is always on the alert, whisking here and there, sniffing at every hole and corner where perchance some rat or rabbit may ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... possession of his physical senses. They were, indeed, preternaturally keen and alert. Something in the awful disturbance of his organic system had so exalted and refined them that they made record of things never before perceived. He felt the ripples upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... of mock bombardment kept the garrison on the alert, awaiting an assault. "On the night of the fourth of March, and through all its hours, from candle-lighting time to the clear light of another day, the same incessant thunder rolled along over camps and city; the same quick flashes showed that fire was ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... which beard descended almost to the man's waist, and was of wonderful fineness and bushiness. At the first glance the impression produced by this strange apparition was that he was a man immensely old; but a closer examination might well raise doubts. The air and bearing of the man were strangely alert for an octogenarian, and the way in which he tackled the hard bread and cheese which still stood before him was scarcely like the fashion in which ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... back, until we were both concealed behind a fringe of leaves, his whole manner alert, every instinct of the ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... hour, riding or driving in a rapid business manner on the open roads or through the scraggy woods and avenues of that intricate amphibious Potsdam region, a highly interesting lean little old man, of alert though slightly stooping figure; whose name among strangers was King FRIEDRICH THE SECOND, or Frederick the Great of Prussia, and at home among the common people, who much loved and esteemed him, was VATER FRITZ,—Father Fred,—a name of familiarity which ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle
... as she moved slowly down along the shelves, very much like most of the librarians you see; alert, pleasant, slender, a little dishevelled, a little worn. But there was really no librarian there. There was only Phyllis Narcissa—that dreaming young Phyllis who had had to stay pushed out of sight all the seven years that Miss Braithwaite ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... lain all day among the heavy clouds in the plain, the two dined together. Mark had walked alone that day, and had lain upon the turf of the down, fighting against a weariness that seemed to be poisoning the very springs of life within him. But Roland had been brisk and alert, coming and going upon some secret and busy errand, with a fragment of a song upon his lips, like a man preparing to set off for a far country, who is glad to be gone. In the evening, after they had dined, Roland had let his fancy ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... An alert, peppy, gray-haired man sprang up to greet me, his eyes, the eyes of youth, his step firm and sprightly, his handclasp steady and strong. And yet ...
— The Goat-gland Transplantation • Sydney B. Flower |
