"Alert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... scarcely ever has more than one cub and lives on roots and grass, when he cannot get meat. The great Grizzley loves colts and sheep, they cannot get a deer for the reason that they smell so fowl that a deer can smell them too far. The bald face is much like a great Grizzley only smaller and more alert. The Kodiak Grizzly, lives further north than any of the rest and is at least as big and twice as agressive as the other kind. They inhabit the wilderness from B.C. To Gnome Alaska. All of these bear are bold and genuine bluffers. they never snoop. they depend upon their size and name to carry ...
— Black Beaver - The Trapper • James Campbell Lewis
... Jack kept his eyes on the alert for some shipyard, knowing that such a place would better accommodate the three power boats ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... did when she was here in the house four or five years ago," answered Bertram; "like this, for instance." And he pulled into a better light a picture of a laughing, dark-eyed girl holding against her cheek a small gray kitten, with alert, bright eyes. "The original and ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... for them," said Tom, late that afternoon. But no queer call came in that day. It was the next morning, about ten o'clock, after Mrs. Damon had passed a restless night, that the telephone bell rang. Tom, who was on the alert, was at his auxiliary instrument in a flash. He motioned to Mrs. Damon to answer on ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... rinsed her mouth and washed her hands, she betook herself eventually to T'an Ch'un's quarters, where she discovered the courtyard in perfect stillness. Not a soul was about beyond several maids, matrons and close attendants of the inner rooms, who stood outside the windows on the alert to obey any calls. P'ing Erh stepped into the hall. The two cousins and their sister-in-law were all three engaged in discussing some domestic affairs. They were talking about the feast, to which they had been invited during ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... Mathias and were imbued with much respect for him as a teacher, and were willing to instruct Joseph in psychology, taking up the lesson where Mathias closed the book. So, putting his conscience behind him, Joseph listened, his ears wide open and his mind alert to understand that it was a child's story—the report in Jerusalem that the end of the world was approaching, and that God would remould it afresh—as if God were human like ourselves, animated with like business and desires! He heard for the first time that to arrive at any clear ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... act and make him elastic. Their bodies always tend to snap back to these positions. Whenever the clown wants to rest, he has to get in the somersault position. The boy pitcher sleeps in the position of "winding up" to throw the ball. The one who was yawning and stretching has to be always on the alert, because the instant he stops holding himself in some other position, his mouth flies open, his arms fly out, and every one thinks he ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... owned it must be either very dull of heart and mind, or self-contained and of self-control beyond the common. But whatever the heart might be, no one ever took the eyes for the eyes of a fool. They were keen, alert, perpetually on guard. There is a letter extant—it was indeed a dear friend who wrote it—which mocks at Harry for his "curst stand-and-deliver stare." But it is a queer thing that most men had to know Harry Boyce a long ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... money, banking, credits, corporations, and business in their broad relations to the people, the American Government, and natural law, and the relation each holds to the other, or is your knowledge confined to the skimming and smattering such as any alert and bright stock speculator would naturally pick up in years of experience as a ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... himself, and kept everybody else on board on the alert, in the hopes, by some means or other, of inflicting a heavy blow on the abominable slave-trade, for he felt as much interest in the matter as did the old commodore himself. It reconciled him completely to being compelled to command a steamer, which ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... he hear again the curious stifled cry which had seemed to ring in his ears the night he arrived. He was constantly on the alert for it, both by night and day, while he was confined to his room and later when he was able to get out on to the verandah. But there was no repetition of it, until at last he had perforce to accept the doctor's view and regard it, as well as the other memory, as merely the vagaries ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... ship traveled on slowly, before she stopped and fired again. She shot away many rounds that time. I was sick and weary of the firing as I sat on the deck by the doctor's cabin. My colleague was much more alert and cheerful. He had secured a shell-case by the naval commander's bounty. 'They make such splendid trophies,' he told me. But I did not covet one much. I thought of how such war trophies were in demand for Christmas decoration vases in a church ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... Annie was destined to meet her mother Eve's experience; and with the energy and promptness of evil Gregory was keenly on the alert for anything to ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... Bashar al-ASAD, was approved as president by popular referendum in July 2000. Syrian troops - stationed in Lebanon since 1976 in an ostensible peacekeeping role - were withdrawn in April 2005. During the July-August 2006 conflict between Israel and Hizballah, Syria placed its military forces on alert but did not intervene directly on behalf of ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... came off to visit the general; who, being apprized of his coming, ordered all the ships to be dressed out in their flags. He likewise made all the sick and infirm men to be kept out of sight, and brought a good many of the most alert men from the other ships, whom he ordered to be secretly armed, in case of any violence or treachery on the part of the Moors. The governor came on board, accompanied with many men, all well apparelled in silk, having many ivory trumpets ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... the apex shall be ourselves and the elephants. You will draw lots for positions among yourselves. The bases of the triangle shall be the beaters, and the flanks the stops posted up trees, who shall see that the tigers do not turn and break out of the beat. You will please be alert, with rifles cocked and barrels and cartridges examined beforehand. There must be no undue noise or haste. Remember, the clink of a finger-ring on a barrel or the gleam of the sun on a bright muzzle may turn ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... half-past seven in the evening, he entered Lady Charlotte's drawing-room, gayer, brisker, more alert than ever. ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... talk impossible, or she took little Fina with her, or maybe she entangled Mrs. Corfield in the conversation so that she should not leave them alone, the vague fear and distaste possessing her making her strangely rusee and on the alert. But one day she was caught. It had to come, and it was only a question of time. She knew that, as we know when our ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... foresail tore suddenly between two cloths, and then split to either hand. It was for all the world as though some archangel with a huge sword had slashed it with the figure of a cross; all hands ran to secure the slatting canvas; and in the sudden uproar and alert, Tommy Hadden lost his head. Many of his days have been passed since then in explaining how the thing happened; of these explanations it will be sufficient to say that they were all different, and none satisfactory; and the gross fact remains that the main boom gybed, carried away the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... now nearly dark, and the crowd, having satisfied its idle curiosity, began slowly to disperse. The Signor Viti remained till the last, conceiving it to be his duty to be on the alert in such troubled times; but, with all his bustling activity, it escaped his vigilance and means of observation to detect the circumstance that the stranger, while he steered into the bay with so much confidence, had contrived to bring up at a point where ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... cherry-tree, where she got the green stains on her frock, that have already been mentioned as likely to wear Betty's life out. In spite of this 'hidden worm i' th' bud,' Betty was to all appearance strong, alert, and flourishing. She was the one crook in Miss Eyre's lot, who was otherwise so happy in having met with a suitable well-paid employment just when she needed it most. But Betty, though agreeing in theory with her master when he told her of the ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... starvation and sleeplessness, it is terrible to have to walk the room with a crying child! I thought as I lay, worn out even to childishness, obliged for the baby's sake to have a bright sunlight streaming into the chamber, and to keep my eyes and ears on the alert for the same cause, how still we used to think the house must be left when my father had these headaches and how mother busied herself all day long about him, and how nice his little plate of hot steak ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... different sort of person—gay, alert and all the time dancing, talking, laughing and gesticulating with every one, as though his good ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... due weight to the strange inherent power of the mind to rise to the occasion of a sudden emergency—to stretch itself long to the length of an event; I do not hesitate to say that no combination of circumstances can defeat a vigorous brain fully alert, and in possession of itself. With a quickness to which the lightning-flash is tardy, I remembered that this was a spot indicated by the symbols on the papyrus: I remembered that this same papyrus was always placed under the tongue of ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... glamour. There seemed to be a great tradition which enriched and upheld him. Mr. Beagle senior used to stand on the little balcony at the rear of the main floor, transfixed with the pleasure of seeing Gissing move among the crowded passages. Alert, watchful, urbane, with just the ideal blend of courtesy and condescension, he raised floorwalking to a social art. Female customers asked him the way to departments they knew perfectly well, for the pleasure of hearing him direct them. ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... regular marts for their sale were established on the Stock Exchange of Amsterdam, in Rotterdam, Harlaem, Leyden, Alkmar, Hoorn, and other towns. Symptoms of gambling now became, for the first time, apparent. The stockjobbers, ever on the alert for a new speculation, dealt largely in tulips, making use of all the means they so well knew how to employ, to cause fluctuations in prices. At first, as in all these gambling mania, confidence was at its height, and everybody gained. The tulip-jobbers ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... in fact never spent a thought on making life a good thing to the man she had married. She wished she had endeavoured or might now endeavour to make herself agreeable to him. But it was too late! Sir Wilton would instantly imagine a rumour of the lost heir, and be on the alert for her discomfiture! If only he had not yet made a later will! He must die one day: why not in time to make his death of use when his life was of none! No one would wonder he had preferred the offspring of her noble person to the lost ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... with a different body of preconceptions this line is not drawn precisely as we draw it to-day. In the savage or the barbarian scheme of life it is drawn in a different place and in another way. In all communities under the barbarian culture there is an alert and pervading sense of antithesis between two comprehensive groups of phenomena, in one of which barbarian man includes himself, and in the other, his victual. There is a felt antithesis between economic and non-economic phenomena, but it is not conceived in the modern fashion; it lies not ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... Room shook with the conflict, and the battle prolonged itself into a midnight session at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. The din of the tumult had penetrated to the upper chambers of journalism. Reporters were on the alert. The great dailies magnified the struggle, and the Associated Press spread intelligence of the excitement to remote sections. When Friday opened clear and calm, the pavement of Broad and New streets soon filled ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... into the back of his comrade as a warning for him to be alert; but there was no response. Roswell had been asleep for an hour. It was too dark to perceive anything within the tent, though all was clear outside; but the lad's senses were in that tense condition that he heard the man lift the flap of the tent and move softly over ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... indeed helped to produce this swell and overflow of the heart, and the eclaircissement that followed. In the morning at breakfast, Frank took the cakes I usually eat to hand to me; and Clifton, whose watchful spirit is ever alert, caught up a plate of bread and butter, to offer me at the same instant. His looks shewed he expected the preference. I was sorry for it, and paused for a moment. At last the principle of not encouraging Frank prevailed, and I took some bread and butter ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... ten-foot barren ran the quail, their crests cocked forward, their trim figures held close as a sprinter goes, rank after rank, their heads high in the alert manner ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... the preservation of peace. We more than doubled our acquisition rate of Polaris submarines—we doubled the production capacity for Minuteman missiles—and increased by 50 percent the number of manned bombers standing ready on a 15 minute alert. This year the combined force levels planned under our new Defense budget—including nearly three hundred additional Polaris and Minuteman missiles—have been precisely calculated to insure the continuing strength of our ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John F. Kennedy • John F. Kennedy
... that for an advertisement," cried the ever alert showman, slapping his thighs. "Emperor, the performing elephant of the Great Sparling Combined Shows, jailed for assault. Fine, fine! How'll that look in the newspapers? Why, men, it will fill the ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... this unexpected peace and quiet on Stratton, however, was precisely opposite from the one he presumed was intended. He had a feeling that it was a calm before the storm, and became more alert than ever. The unnatural placidity weighed on him, and as day followed day serenely his ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... him. Instinctively she took a fancy to this little man, whose flannel shirt and faded purple necktie, whose blue, unshaven face and tousled black hair seemed incongruous with an alert, business-like, and efficient manner. His nose, though not markedly Jewish, betrayed in him the blood of that vital race which has triumphantly survived so many ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... simplicity of his heart) announced to her as a great and curious piece of news that Mr. Fenwick was going to marry Mrs. Nightingale, she did not even look up from her knitting to reply: "What did I say to you, Conny?" For his name was Conrad, as Sally had reported. His discretion was not on the alert on this occasion, for ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... strangely, the cloud of terror seemed to roll away. Her faculties cleared. Her mind was all alert and quickened. She thought of things she had heard of years before, and long forgotten. That a wet cloth about the face would defend from smoke. That down low, close to the floor, was always ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... possession of the harbour, and has established some formidable batteries. On the other side, Mr. Grey may form and execute more serious projects; he is at present in my neighbourhood, and I am obliged to keep myself still more on the alert, because the stations which I occupy extend from Seconnet Point, which you may see on the map, to Bristol. I hope all this will soon end, for we are now in a ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... was not only partly human, but entirely so. 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
... Herr Kraft, though his faith is active, zealous and infectious, has nothing in common with the visionaries or illuminati. He is a man of about fifty, vigorous, alert and enthusiastic, but at the same time well-balanced; accesible to every idea and even to every dream, yet practical and methodical, with a ballast of the most invincible common-sense. He inspires from the outset that fine confidence, frank and unrestrained, which instantly disperses ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... brush—but he knew it must be there. When he turned his horse from the water and went his way, his mind was no longer given up to idle dreaming of love words and a girl. This fencing business concerned him intimately, and his brain was as alert as his eyes. For he had not meant that Dilly should fence any ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... 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 ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... and passed it aft to Ben Price. Ben—a bald-headed but able seaman—eyed it a moment, rubbed it the right way dubiously with his elbow, and handed it on to the mate; who in turn smoothed it with the palm of his hand, which—being an alert obliging man—he had dexterously wetted overside before the Captain could ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... took five thousand men, one thousand horsemen, under guides from the castle on Mount Zion, and departed from his camp at Emmaus by night, with a view of surprising and capturing the Jewish force. But Judas was on the alert, and obtained information of the intended attack. So he broke up his own camp, and resolved to attack the main force of the enemy, weakened by the absence of Gorgias and his chosen band. After reminding his soldiers of God's mercies ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... of Charlemagne, always described with the properties of a borderer, valiant, alert, ingenious, rapacious, and unscrupulous. Better known in the ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... thy servant here, Still at thy back alert and prompt to be; But when together yonder we appear, Then shalt thou do the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... affluence of greedy and interested hearts, you will soon see revealed and diminishing; probably your eyes, which are so alert, have already remarked this diminution. The monarch no longer loves you; coolness and inconstancy are maladies of the human heart. In the midst of the most splendid health, our King has for some time past experienced ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... approach without an emotion. I shall suffer with fools, without having any malice to our enemies, who act sensibly from principle and from interest. Ruling parties seldom have caution or common sense. I don't doubt but Whigs and Protestants will be alert enough in trying to recover what they ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... our ever-listening ears. It was the voice of a warbler, and a most alluring song. Such indeed we found it, for on the instant the Enthusiast sprang to her feet, alert to her finger-tips, crying, "That's the bird we're after!" adding as usual, as she started across the field, "You sit still! I won't go far," while as usual, also, I snatched my ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... eyes wary and alert for sign of his prey. At any second he might be greeted by a salvo of bullets, and every fiber of his lean body ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... at the boy's eagerness. "She's rather alert," I said, "but, of course, quiet and respectful. I never looked at her with any personal interest, so I can only give you ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... theory of asepsis has, to be sure, been widely accepted and is practiced so far as possible wherever obstetrical patients are attended, but only in the hospital can the underlying principles be applied with complete thoroughness and persistence. The hospital is constantly alert, whereas in private houses carelessness or ignorance, or both, often lead to lax technique. As a result, statistical evidence indicates that two to three infections occur among those delivered at home for one at ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... unthinking, reposeful and hopeless, with a face grim and blank—a sixty-year-old child of the mysterious sea. The thoughts of all his lifetime could have been expressed in six words, but the stir of those things that were as much part of his existence as his beating heart called up a gleam of alert understanding upon the sternness of his aged face. The flame of the lamp swayed, and the old man, with knitted and bushy eyebrows, stood over the brake, watchful and motionless in the wild saraband of dancing shadows. Then the ship, obedient ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... his chair in the smoking-room with a frown on his face when Blake joined him. He had a nervous, alert look, and was dressed with ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... proud enough of it. Those who had taken their whole winter's coal out of the share were quite jubilant. Once a week the workmen had a meeting, and discussed matters a little. Three men had been reprimanded, but on the whole the morale was excellent. Winston was on the alert continually, east, west, anywhere, buying here, selling there, seeing in every thing the promise ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... from the struggle, stood Rita, alert as a fawn and ready to flee. In the other doorway, likewise flame- checked, stood Ernestine in the commanding attitude of the Mother of the Gracchi, the wreckage of her kimono wrapped severely about her and held severely ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... Anthony, "when Mrs. Stanton is first vice-president? It would be not only an insult to her but a direct violation of parliamentary usage. I shall never consent to it." Finding that, nevertheless, there was a scheme to carry out this plan, she put Mrs. Stanton on the alert and, as the officers filed on the platform, gave her a gentle push to the front, whereupon she opened the convention ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... the lethargic attitude of the officials whose duty it was to see that they were captured. At this time lawlessness was rampant in those parts, and it would have been beyond the capacity of even a more alert and energetic officialism to subdue its ferocious and determined attacks. In addition to the open brigandage that was carried on, several captains who for some reason were detained ashore until after dark were obliged ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... skywards of main and mizzen poles. The model of this Russian ship was as memorable as a Greek statue. It is a ship's sheer which gives loveliness to her model, like the waist of a lissom woman, finely poised, sure of herself, in profile. She was so slight a body, so tall and slender, but standing alert and illustriously posed, there was implied in her slenderness a rare strength and swiftness. And to her beauty of line there went a richness of colour which made our dull parish a notable place. She was of wood, painted white. Her masts were of pine, veined with amber. Her white ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... figure sitting rigid, tense, and alert, and you destroy the sense of repose at once, and you are obliged also to resort to angles, still more emphatic where strong action is to be expressed; while to express continual or progressive movement, a choice of associated lines ...
— Line and Form (1900) • Walter Crane
... Aurelius, pale and silent, on his right hand, and on his left Marius, thin-lipped and alert, all the soldier in him roused. And Marius, of all the men present, ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... she knew something was at work close by and believed it to be some sort of an animal. Most girls would have screamed under similar conditions. Harriet Burrell did not. She lay perfectly still listening, with every faculty on the alert. ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... whom long practice of dissimulation had enabled to model his very gait and footsteps to aid the purposes of deception, walked along the stone passage, and up the first flight of steps towards Miss Vere's apartment, with the alert, firm, and steady pace of one who is bound, indeed, upon important business, but who entertains no doubt he can terminate his affairs satisfactorily. But when out of hearing of the gentlemen whom he had left, his step became so slow and irresolute, as to correspond with his doubts and his fears. ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... to what was proposed, and the change of baggage was hastily achieved; for the single word "outlaws" rendered every one sufficiently alert, and the approach of twilight made the sound yet more impressive. Amid the bustle, Gurth was taken from horseback, in the course of which removal he prevailed upon the jester to slack the cord with which his arms were bound. It was so negligently refastened, ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... cried the professor, keenly alert for whatever might ensue; but the words were barely across his lips when, with a vicious snarl, a furry shape came flying through the air, knocking Featherwit over as he instinctively ducked his head with arm flying up as ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... showed the correct procedure, and the Yanks, watchfully alert to his every move, changed their method and signified their pleasure with the expression of "Trays beans," ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... we will talk as much as you please. Our enemies are on the alert, and we must crush them instantly, or not at all. I have made a mistake. I have been on the wrong track; it is an accident liable to happen to any man, no matter how intelligent he may be. I took the effect for the cause. ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... always to be alert on the side of the humanities. It Ought to encourage provisions for economic justice for the defenseless. It ought to extend its relief through its national and local agencies, as may be appropriate in each case, to the suffering and the needy. It ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Calvin Coolidge • Calvin Coolidge
... been on the alert for another outbreak, showed up at the same time; but Davis was so bewildered that it was several moments before he could ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... eyes, the eagerness with which standing back from the group he watched us all, told me everything. Marie Ivanovna had been kind to him, and when I found her in the centre of them, her whole body alert with excitement, I forgot my anger at her earlier unkindness or, if I remembered it, laid it to the charge of my own ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... explanation was correct. The dull rabbits, the sleepy Persian cats, and the silly sheep had died outright of lethodyne; the cunning, inquisitive raccoon, the quick hawk, and the active, intense-natured weasels, all most eager, wary, and alert animals, full of keenness ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... declined to command her guns in order to let Irby have them. Why? In kindness to his cousin, or in mild dislike of a woman's battery? If intuition was worth while, this man was soon to be a captain somewhere. Here was that rare find for which even maidens' eyes were alert those days—a born leader. No ladies' man this—"of all things on God's earth!" A men's man! And yet—nay, therefore—a man for some unparagoned woman some day to yield her heart and life to, and to have for her very own, herself his consummate ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... to count three, and when I say 'Three', you will open your eyes and come out of the passive state in which you are now. You will come out of it quite naturally, without feeling in the least drowsy or tired, on the contrary, you will feel strong, vigorous, alert, active, full of life; further still, you will feel very cheerful and fit in every way. 'ONE—TWO—THREE—' At the word 'three' the subject opens his eyes, always with a smile and an expression of well-being and contentment ...
— Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion • Emile Coue
... of six distinct genera were found, including the large red howler, inert and easily located by its deep, roaring bellow which can be heard for a distance of several miles; the giant black spider monkey, very alert, and, when frightened, fairly flying through the branches at astonishing speed; and a woolly monkey, black in color, and very intelligent in expression, frequently tamed by the savages, who "enjoy ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... eye upon Mexican and Indian bazaars, and Chinese bric-a-brac collections; she made a study of Colorado gems, and knew where the prizes lay hidden; she ran through the books in the bookstores; she was alert for new inventions in harness decoration and bridle trimmings; she gave hints ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... detective resumed at once his brisk voice and alert manner. He seemed to dismiss Servettaz's admission from his mind. Ricardo had the impression of a man tying up an important document which for the moment he has done with, and putting it away ticketed in some pigeon-hole in his desk. "Let us see ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... felt strangely out of place in the streets of New York, they looked more so. As they sauntered along, in their leisurely southern fashion, their picturesque appearance arrested the gaze of many a hurrying passer-by. In contrast to the up-to-date, alert, keen-eyed crowd upon the busy streets, the air of distinction which marked them everywhere was more pronounced than ever. They gave the impression of a certain exquisite fineness of quality, combined with quaintness, that one is sensible of ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... Madden became instantly alert. "Jump overboard! What for?" A sudden thought hit him. Maybe this was the way they all went? Then another ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... given situation, features interesting and intelligible to men of other ages and climes. They are lucid and well constructed. Their plots turn about a simple action with unique effect. Their style is alert, urbane, discreet, and rich, seeking its effect only through concrete and simple means. They deal but very slightly with lyrical emotion, they deal with passions and ...
— Quatre contes de Prosper Mrime • F. C. L. Van Steenderen
... same night there came a frantic pounding at Driscoll's door, where he was quartered in the sacristy of the old Capuchin church. "Well?" he muttered, alert already. ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... and good of its kind, and conversation was alert and merry, as it is apt to be in a large family party. So far, the boycott seemed to have anything but a depressing effect, though Harold could not help smiling as he realised how it would have crushed to powder more than one estimable ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... sternly, "if it cannot be done by admonition; if we had no more 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 to do us mischief." ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... meant that, despite the novelty and the strangeness of his situation, he was very well, indeed; feeling, doubtless, that he was finally where he had a right to be and that his alert face was turned the ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... identity. I am bound to say she stood out from the other women of Red Gap by reason of a certain dash, not to say beauty. Rather above medium height and of pleasingly full figure, her face was piquantly alert, with long-lashed eyes of a peculiar green, a small nose, the least bit raised, a lifted chin, and an abundance of yellowish hair. But it was the expertness of her gowning that really held my attention at that first view, and the fact that she knew ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... constantly exposed from the daring acts of those infamous marauders, who are divided into small parties, and are designated by the name of the principal ruffian at their head, of whom one Michael Howe appears to be the most alert in depredation. The accounts received by the Kangaroo, which commence from the beginning of November, state that on the 7th of that month, the house and premises of Mr. David Rose at Port Dalrymple, were ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... in the front trenches was alert. Post commanders moved about supervising, and the attached New Zealanders imparted useful information in regard to trench warfare methods, such as how to outwit the wily Turk; the essential discipline; and precautions to ensure safety to the individual. ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... and Tahori, seizing the bondman by his arm, led him out to the open, and stood by, club in hand, on the alert. ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... Lodore is only 20 miles long, but it is 20 miles of concentrated water-power energy and grandeur, the fall being about 400 feet, the walls 2700. Never for a moment does it relax its assault, and the voyager on its restless, relentless tide, especially at high water, is kept on the alert. The waters indeed come rushing down with fearful impetuosity, recalling to Powell the poem of Southey, on the Lodore he knew, hence the name. The beginning of the gorge is at the foot of Brown's Park through what is called the ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... one of her guns gave notice of her approach. The comparative regularity, however, of the winds in Eastern seas caused 'seasons' in which vessels might be expected; and when a season arrived, the look-out who happened to be on duty on the Fort flagstaff must have been particularly alert. Ay, and there must have been much hurrying to and fro in the streets of White Town when the signal had been given and the news had spread that the sails of a Company's ship had been sighted, and while ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow
... in these questions through which the intuitions of the lad saw help, both for his father and himself. Hope strung his little muscles in an instant, his attitude became alert, and he replied: ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... to see something of the practice of the art of healing under widely different conditions, and I know none who better represents the most humane and most exacting of all professions than yourself. The good doctor of this story—the born surgeon and healer, the ever young and alert, the self-forgetful, the faithful friend, gifted with "that exquisite charity which can forgive all ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... him had hurried him out of the synagogue after its own desire, he seemed to have become primitive, conscious of the human creature in him. Now, though he rode through a bewitching air through an enchanted land, he did not ride in a dream. All his being was alert and sagacious. Though the confusion of footprints in the dust showed plainly where men had passed by thousands, he did not follow their lead. Over the tangle of marks lay a slim paw-printed, confident, careless trail of a jackal, following the scent to a well. The Maccabee was ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... wait. Only a few minutes elapsed before the door flew open and Richford came out so gently that Beatrice had barely time to step into a friendly doorway. Her senses were quick and alert now in the face of this unknown danger, and the girl did not fail to note the pale face and agitated features of the man who had so grievously harmed her. Evidently Richford had been drinking no more, but certainly he had had some great shock, the effects of which had not passed away. ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... truly a spartan band, the colored men and women. The naming of a few would be invidious to the many who were ever keenly alive to the proscription to which they were subject, and ever on the alert for measures to awaken the moral sense of ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... he considered the information unreliable, still he resolved to be prudent, and keep a sharp lookout for "breakers ahead." The usual military precautions which govern an advance into a hostile country were taken by him, and the advance guard and commanding officers warned to be on the alert. ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... It was an unusually mild winter, with so little snow that Anne and Diana could go to school nearly every day by way of the Birch Path. On Anne's birthday they were tripping lightly down it, keeping eyes and ears alert amid all their chatter, for Miss Stacy had told them that they must soon write a composition on "A Winter's Walk in the Woods," and it ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... excellent results, in "David Copperfield," in "Dombey," in such inimitable short papers as "Old Cheeseman." And while thus, half unconsciously perhaps, assimilating the very life of the school, he was himself a thorough schoolboy, bright, alert, intelligent; taking part in all fun and frolic; amply indemnifying himself for his enforced abstinence from childish games during the dreary warehouse days; good at recitations and mimic plays; and already possessed ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... that he was not read, not recognized by the people who admired Ford Lankester. He felt their silence and their coldness strike through the warm comfort of his vogue. We, Burton and I, must have made him a bit uneasy. I never in my life saw anybody so alert and so suspicious, so miserably alive to the qualifying shade, the furtive turn, the ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... feeling passed, and she came again under the spell of the trail, riding with eyes and ears alert, sitting at ease in the saddle, and taking each new crook in ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... of a secret being in so many hands was felt in the result. Those whom it was most important to keep in ignorance were the first on the alert. The weakness of the Queen in insisting upon taking a remarkable dressing-case with her, and, to get it away unobserved, ordering a facsimile to be made under the pretext of intending it as a present to her sister at Brussels, awakened the suspicion of a favourite, but false female ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... mountains, and parched alkali deserts. And besides these barriers of nature which lay between the West coast and the settled eastern half of the country, there were many fierce tribes of savages who were usually on the alert to oppose the movements of the white race through ...
— The Story of the Pony Express • Glenn D. Bradley
... 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 with their armour; yea, all that did but smell of a Diabolonian Doubter. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... alert the three young soldiers proceeded slowly. Soon they came to the spot where the passage led off to the left. Jacques peered cautiously around the corner and quickly drew ...
— Fighting in France • Ross Kay
... alert and alive to limit his share in legislation to a single subject or class of subjects. Save that he does not appear to have taken up the tariff question in any conspicuous way, he had a leading part in all the important discussions of his time, whether in ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... enjoying himself, thriving. Once again he was an important personage, listened to by strangers, doling out information. Nor did his audience now consist of ladies only—indeed, no; this was something new, a change; these were keen, alert gentlemen from ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... replied that sleeping or waking he was always on the alert, and went out to the little log stable, which did duty as a barn, to saddle his horse. A long lane led through the negro quarter to the field in which the hands were putting in the time in clearing out fence corners and burning brush, while waiting for the ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... wits were alert as he bore Shaver homeward. By this time it was likely that the confiding young Talbots had conferred over the telephone and knew that their offspring had disappeared. Doubtless the New Haven police had been notified, and he chose his route with discretion to avoid unpleasant encounters. Shaver, ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson
... Commander-in-Chief was on the alert, and had laid his plans. He stood in the chamber of death where the mourners were weeping. He watched with keen eye the movements of Rambosalama, and when that Prince left the room for the purpose of giving the signal ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... magnificent city is Milan! The great houses are all of stone, and stand regular and in order, along wide straight streets. There are swift cars, drawn by electricity, for such as can afford them. Men are brisk and alert even in the summer heats, and there are shops of a very good kind, though a trifle showy. There are many newspapers to help the Milanese to be better men and to cultivate charity and humility; there are banks full of paper money; there are soldiers, good pavements, ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... characteristic of the Phalaropes, though I did not observe it, and is thought to be a snapping-up of minute Crustacea. But in the case of the Black Guillemot, I question if this be its true explanation. The bird makes this movement only when on the alert. Several of them are frolicking together; you show yourself, and instantly their bills begin to dip,—each movement being quick as lightning, but with a second of space between. I thought it partly an escape-valve for their nervous excitement, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... were alert to the sounds and appearances about him, and at the same time his mind was busy with the perplexities of that riddle. Was the jungle just an aimless pool of life that man must drain and clear away? ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... poor market for itself when pitted against an arm which had been trained by the first masters of Europe in single-stick, quarter-staff, and every art and trick of swordsmanship. The little King stood, alert but at graceful ease, and caught and turned aside the thick rain of blows with a facility and precision which set the motley on-lookers wild with admiration; and every now and then, when his practised eye detected an opening, and a lightning-swift rap upon Hugo's head followed as a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... that Claire's body could be nagged into going on any longer. Her muscles were relaxed, her nerves frayed. But the moment the Gomez started, she discovered that magic change which every long-distance motorist knows. Instantly she was alert, seemingly able to drive forever. The pilot's instinct ruled her; gave her tireless eyes and sturdy hands. Surely she had never been weary; never would be, so long as it was hers to keep the ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... and then at first blush of morning they continued their journey. Wild beasts were sometimes seen walking on the shores or quenching their thirst in the river. The hunting instincts of the younger Indian boatmen were so strong that they begged to be allowed to fire; but Samuel, ever on the alert, and seeing the ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... other side of the clover field there was an open gap in the fence. All at once the danger signal sounded again. Thump! thump! thump! Again every rabbit squatted, with ears and eyes alert to catch sound or sight of ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... tacitly acknowledged the right of the police-officer's presence in their camp, and allowed him to move about apparently unnoticed. He wound his way amongst the huts and tents, ever watchful and alert, always aiming for Gautier's hut. He knew that in this place at night his life was not worth much. A quick aim, and a shot from behind, and no one would ever know who had dropped him. But the Canadian police are accustomed to take desperate chances in their work, and think less ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... what the lure must be when a busy man, an active man, an alert man, a man saturated with the nervous spirit of American commercial life, sits down in one of the seats overlooking the Lake, or spreads out his full length upon the grass, or on the beds of Sierran moss, which make a deliciously restful cushion, and stays there! He ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... of sex and reproduction may either be actual questions more or less explicit, or they may be subtler seekings for light,—hints, vague inquiries, gropings after what he cannot phrase or hesitates to utter; these inward stirrings are vital, and the alert and sympathetic and patient parent can in the main perceive them and bring them to light. But success need not be hoped for in this respect unless first the beginnings are attended to; uncounted parents can testify to the infinite difficulty ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... Wellesley's conduct in India before the public, by an impeachment; and it was pretty generally believed that he would come in for Westminster at the head of the poll. The moment that the Parliament was dissolved, he and his friends in Westminster were upon the alert, and a meeting was called at the Crown and Anchor, to consult upon the best means of securing his return, which was doubted by no one; however, the cursed bane of all political liberty, jealousy interposed. Sir F. Burdett ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... I was upon my feet. A rude step had gone up the stairs a few minutes before and I was all alert to follow. But I presently considered that my wisest course would be to sound the landlady and learn if possible with what sort of characters I had to deal. Routing her out of the kitchen, where at that early hour she was already engaged in domestic duties, I drew her into a retired ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... he realized the necessity. The events that had hedged him about since he had begun work on his giant cannon made him suspicious. He did not quite know whom to suspect, nor the reasons for their actions, but he had been on the alert for several days, and ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... Of Antrim's Irish contingent, which was to have been in the West Highlands by the 1st of April, there were no tidings; and Scotland all to the north of Dumfries was full of Covenanters now alarmed and alert. To try to dash through these at all hazards, so as to lodge himself in the Highlands, was his thought for a moment; but he had to give up the attempt as impossible. From Dumfries, therefore, he backed again, most reluctantly, into the North ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson |
