"Qui vive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... produces flowers without any petals! and in the pansy, that "the flowers turn towards the sun, and when many are open at once, present a droll appearance, looking like a number of faces all on the 'qui vive.'" But nothing of the difference between them, except something about 'stipules,' of which "it is important to observe that the leaves should be taken from the middle of the stem—those above ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... the qui vive for the outfit whose camp-fire they had sighted the night before. I was riding with Clay Zilligan on the left point, when he sighted what we supposed was a small bunch of cattle lying down several miles distant. When we reached the first rise of ground, a band of saddle horses came in view, ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... girdle, and a sword hung by his side. I was rather startled, for the man possessed a fierce and threatening aspect, and I was perfectly defenceless. Nevertheless there was are air of manly dignity about him which assured me that he was not likely to be unnecessarily savage. "Qui vive?" demanded he, sternly. I explained my views in coming to this secluded spot. He unbent his dark brow on hearing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 538 - 17 Mar 1832 • Various
... others, did not sufficiently take this fact into account, and was on the qui vive for other remarkable manifestations. They did not occur. As her father had predicted, life, in its outward conditions, resumed its normal aspects. Her mother laughed a little, sighed a little, when she heard the story of Mr. ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... indicated that immediately outside it were the 'gunyahs', or huts; and, "plenty you shoot," she added showing her white teeth as she grinned with glee at the thoughts of the cheerful surprise she had prepared for her old companions. We were not thoroughly on the 'qui vive', for we thought this unknown bay would be the very spot in which the blacks were likely to seclude any prisoners from the 'Eva', and accordingly willingly followed the lithe figure of our little guide, as she wound her way through the tangled brake, like ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... in his movements as in his ideas, short and squat in figure, with a thin nose, a fiery eye, an ear on the "qui vive," there was something of the hunting-dog about him. His brown face, very round and sunburned, from which the tanned ears stood out predominantly,—for he always wore a cap,—was in keeping with that character. His nose turned up; his tightly-closed ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... n'tait pas venu nous tirer de l, je crois que nous n'en serions jamais sortis. Il arriva vers nous, ttons, en criant: "Qui vive! qui vive!" A ce "qui vive!" bien connu, nous rpondmes: "amis!" tous les quatre la fois avec un bonheur, un soulagement inexprimable.... M. Eyssette nous embrassa lestement, prit mon frre d'une main, moi de l'autre, dit aux femmes: "Suivez-moi!" ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... thereby giving huge offence to old Afnn. We followed the long slope trending to the Wady el-Kurr, which drains the notable block of that name. Seeing the Wakl, and the others in front, cutting over the root to prevent rounding a prodigiously long tongue-tip, I was on the qui vive for the normal dodge; and presently the mulatto Abdullah screamed out that the Nakb must be avoided, as it was all rock. We persisted and found the path almost as smooth as a main road. The object was to halt for the night at a neighbouring water-hole in the rocks; and, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... circumspect in their company; the bourgeoisie, industrious and energetic, preserved much of the old Lombard shrewdness; there were no tables d'hote and public reunions. Gawtrey saw his little capital daily diminishing, with the Alps at the rear and Poverty in the van. At length, always on the qui vive, he contrived to make acquaintance with a Scotch family of great respectability. He effected this by picking up a snuff-box which the Scotchman had dropped in taking out his handkerchief. This politeness ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... like those of many deformed persons, turned from right to left of the face instead of dividing it down the middle. The mouth, contracted at the corners, like that of a Sardinian, was always on the qui vive of irony. His hair, thin and reddish, fell straight, and showed the skull in many places. His hands, coarse and ill-joined at the wrists to arms that were far too long, were quick-fingered and seldom clean. Goupil wore boots only fit for the dust-heap, ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... was none the less maintained. No hour of the twenty-four found either gun, forward or aft, wanting a full working crew on the keen qui vive. The life boats remained on outswung davits; boat drills for passengers as well as crew were features of the daily programme. Regulations concerning light and smoking on deck after dark were rigidly enforced. Fuel was never spared in the effort to widen the blue gulf between the steamship ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... you're planning to jump down and run for it," Athenais replied, "you're a fool. You'll not get far with a motor car pursuing you and sergents de ville abnormally on the qui vive because the crime wave that followed demobilisation as yet ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... o'clock in the morning, and as late as nine at night. So every journeyman blacksmith, baker or shoemaker may easily find four or five hours in the twenty-four for work on his allotment, after having completed the task or time due to his employer. He generally keeps a pig, and is on the qui vive to make and collect all the manure he can for his little farm. A field of several acres, thus divided and cultivated in allotments, presents as striking a combination of colors as an Axminster carpet. ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... completely spoiled, and the elephants very much reduced. There are now very few herds of elephants in Ceylon that have not been shot at by either Europeans or natives, and it is a common occurrence to kill elephants with numerous marks of old bullet wounds. Thus the animals are constantly on the "qui vive," and at the report of a gun every herd within hearing starts ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... visible form with an inward and spiritual glance, then repeated the magnificent gesture for my benefit. The four of us sat on the bench, with that faint air of excitement of passengers established in a railway carriage on the qui vive for the train whistle. Frau Godowska sneezed. "I wonder if it is hay fever," she remarked, worrying the satin reticule for her handkerchief, "or would it be the dew. Sonia, dear, is ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield
... or upon the vice-president. The president is naturally anxious to repose such powers in one of his confidants, but political exigencies have sometimes obliged him to soothe one of his rivals with the distinction and remain on the qui vive thereafter. More than one governmental delegate has overthrown the president and established himself ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... clifs were to high and the brave Montcalm dified Wolfe who lost 400 men and got word Amherst could not come and so himself took sick and went to bed. But a desserter from the french gave Wolfe the pass word and when his ships crept further up the rivver in the dark a french senntry called out qui vive and one of Wolfe's men who spoke french well ansered la france and the senntry said to himself they was french ships and let them go on. Next day Wolfe was better and saw a goat clime up the clifs near the plains of Abraham and said where a goat could go he could go to. ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... conscious of missing the periodic divisions of the Folk-song, we have to listen to more than one melody at a time. A fugue being a composition, as the French say, of "longue haleine," our attention, in order to follow its structure, must be on the "qui vive" every moment. The fugue, in fact, is an example of the intricate and yet organic complexity found in all the higher forms of life itself; and whenever a composer has wished to dwell with emphasis on a particular ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... displaced or surprised—thoroughly well-bred and at home. She might have had a private rehearsal of Othello in her own dramatic hall the evening before, from her air and mien. Mae, on the contrary, was alert, on the qui vive, as interested as a child in each newcomer, and, after the curtain ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... account. She believes now that the police are hunting these scoundrels in every hole and corner of London. In a sense, that is true, but we never know the moment some extraordinary action may be taken, so we remain constantly on the qui vive." ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy |
