"Alert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the fugitive prince now became one of unceasing adventure. He made his way by covert paths towards Egypt, wandering through the desert in company with bands of Bedouins, living on their scanty fare, and constantly on the alert against surprise. Light sleep and hasty flittings were the rule with him and his few attendants as they made their way slowly westward over the barren sands, finally reaching Egypt. Here he was too near the caliph for safety, and he kept on westward to Barca, where he hoped for protection ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... earlier than usual she could have plenty of time to go to Crum Elbow and return before the family were assembled. Splendid! Daisy went down the back stairs, and gave her orders in such a way that they should not reach Ransom's ear. If not put on the alert he was sure to be down to breakfast last of anybody. So Daisy went to bed and to sleep with her ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Captain Bruno, leaping down from the taffrail. "All hands on deck! Swing up the long guns! We must try to wing this fellow before he contrives to clip our feathers." In an instant everybody was alert: tackles were rove, and, in a short time, two long and very heavy guns, with their carriages, were hoisted up from the hold. The guns were quickly mounted and run out, and a brisk fire kept up at the corvette. She also continued to fire, but as to do ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... surgeon, he left Punch's side again soon after, and it was dark ere he returned, to find the boy fast asleep. He sank down and listened, feeling now but little fatigue, starting up, however, once more, every sense on the alert, as there came a series of sharp commands at the hut-door, and he realised that he must have dropped off, for it was late in the evening, and outside the soft moonlight was making the scene look ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... Brentford. But hardly had he been here three weeks, when a rumor again got afloat that he was a Yankee prisoner of war. Whence this report arose he could never discover. No sooner did it reach the ears of the soldiers, than they were on the alert. Luckily, Israel was apprised of their intentions in time. But he was hard pushed. He was hunted after with a perseverance worthy a less ignoble cause. He had many hairbreadth escapes. Most assuredly he would have been captured, ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... under rifles, while the rest lay down with their arms by their side, ready to fall in at a moment's notice. A dropping fire was kept up on both sides, but this was rather for the purpose of showing that they were on the alert than with any idea of ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... the missive, and sitting down, rapidly covered a sheet of paper with small, cramped, but legible writing, while I stood on guard and alert, half expecting a sudden attack from ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... impossible to believe the horse to be quite sound, and if it had depended on me, the "Dodger" would instantly have been unharnessed and put back in his stable. But the moment had come to unmask him. His master stepped forward, and pulling first one cunning ear, on the alert for every word, and then the other; cried, "It wont do, sir! step out directly, and don't let us have any nonsense." The "Dodger" groaned again, this time from his heart probably, shook himself, and, leaning well forward in his big collar, stepped out without a murmur. The lameness ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... clearness by the way in which he managed his horse. He jerked and wrenched savagely at his bridle, stopping the hard-breathing animal with a furious pull near the colonel of the regiment. He immediately exploded in reproaches which came unbidden to the ears of the men. They were suddenly alert, being always curious about black words ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... means (it would almost appear some especial sense) the workman seems to scent the approach of a reformer even before his arrival in town. Their suspicions are thoroughly aroused, and they are on the alert for sweeping changes which are to be against their interests and which they are prepared to oppose from the start. Through generations of bitter experiences working men as a class have teamed to look upon all change as antagonistic to ...
— Shop Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... Montfanon heard 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 ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... from this on, I wish to take all necessary precautions. I will divide the night with you. After two o'clock I wish you to go through the cars once every two hours and see that the recruits are quiet and the guard alert, also to step outside to the platform when we stop at stations. Better turn in now and get ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... all the contemplation had departed from his attitude, now as alert as that of a fox-terrier which imagines he has seen a rat. His vast ears were cocked, his huge bulk trembled, his ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... 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. The day I was convinced that culpable relations existed between ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... thoroughly alive was not likely to prove a good listener. But after I had had a talk with him I determined to give him a trial. Of one thing I was satisfied: he would keep awake. He was a man of cheerful aspect; alert in motion, glance, and speech. His age was about forty; he was of medium size, a little inclined to be stout, and his face, upon which he wore no hair, was somewhat ruddy. In dress he was neat and proper, and he had an air of friendly deference, ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... it, I shall be very angry if I see you sad and fretting, or seated alone. For you must know, Blanche, that that is all selfishness. God made us, not to indulge only in crystal pictures, weave idle fancies, pine alone, and mourn over what we cannot help, but to be alert and active,—givers of happiness. Now, Blanche, see what a trust I am going to bequeath you. You are to supply my place to all whom I leave; you are to bring sunshine wherever you glide with that shy, soft step,—whether to your father when you see his brows knit and his arms ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... along the landing from her lair, and upstairs and downstairs; she could see nothing but senseless carpets and brass rods and steps and banisters; but she knew that the entire household—she had the sensation that the very house itself—was alert ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... for the Great Northern, and I met him also in consultations which took place. Since then I have crossed swords with him too, and always I must confess with keen enjoyment. His knowledge of railway matters was so remarkable, his mind so practiced, alert, and luminous, that it was rare excitement to undergo cross-examination at his hands. In his book, Forty Years at the Bar, he himself says: "I have not had many opportunities of giving evidence, but I confess that when I have been called as a witness I have enjoyed myself." ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... later that Pen came home one evening, alert of step, bright-eyed, his countenance beaming with ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... enveloped in fog, succeeded to the fine night. Before seven o'clock—so watchful and alert are boys when mischief is afloat—most of those who had been in the conspiracy were assembled, and waiting round the schoolroom doors. Generally, they could tear up at the twelfth moment. They would not have missed the sight of Charles Channing's ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... this, that the tranquil and pervasive sadness of all Hawthorne's writings, the kind of heartache that they leave behind, seem to spring from the fact that his nature was related to the moral world, as his own Donatello was to the human. "So alert, so alluring, so noble", muses the heart as we climb the Apennines towards the tower of Monte Beni; "alas! is he human?" it whispers, with ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... instinctive attitude, other people noticed it. For the world is sharp-eyed, and its attitude is always alert, ears pricked forward even when its tail ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... understand the influence of the ill-constituted around her, and did not understand the pain which now and again thrilled through her being, provoking sighs and word-sighs. Then those friend-acquaintances, ever on the alert for an expression of real meaning, interpreted her sighs and longings for ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... the first half of the eighteenth century the sentiment of education was universal. Among the leading people, the sentiment was intense. Colonel Otis, of Barnstable, was alert with respect to the discipline and development of his children. He gave to them all, to the sons especially, the best advantages which the commonwealth afforded. James Otis was assigned to the care of Reverend Jonathan Russell, the minister at Barnstable, who prepared the ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... not answer readily. He was too busy thanking God for the great gift of perfect understanding. Moreover, he had a perforated lung and a heart whose duties had suddenly been increased a thousand-fold, if it was to hold inviolate this sacred joy of possession which thrilled him now. He was alert and conscious, despite the shock of his wound, and the reserve strength in his six feet of splendid manhood was coming to his aid. When he could trust himself ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... been my intention to be up and doing early on the following morning, but my slumbers proved so profound, that I did not wake until about eight; on arising, I again found myself the sole occupant of the apartment, my more alert companion having probably risen at a much earlier hour. Having dressed myself, I descended, and going to the stable, found my horse under the hands of my friend the ostler, who was carefully rubbing him ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... now distinctly contemplated 'Origin of Species.' His way was to make all sure behind him, to summon up all his facts in irresistible array, and never to set out upon a public progress until he was secure against all possible attacks of the ever- watchful and alert enemy in ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... cause of the harm upon which the action is founded. But here there is usually no question of negligence in guarding the beast. It is enough in most, if not in all cases, that the owner has chosen to keep it. Experience has shown that tigers and bears are alert to find means of escape, and that, if they escape, they are very certain to do harm of a serious nature. The possibility of a great danger has the same effect as the probability of a less one, and the law throws the risk of [155] ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... Theater I had gained my experience of long rehearsals. When I arrived in Bristol I was to learn the value of short ones. Mr. Chute took me in hand, and I had to wake up and be alert with brains and body. The first part I played was Cupid in "Endymion." To this day I can remember my lines. I entered as a blind old woman in what is known in theatrical parlance as a "disguise cloak." Then, throwing it off, ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... my forehead. But I pulled myself together again. At least I was an able-bodied man. I was willing to work, had a record of honesty and faithfulness, and was intelligent as men go. I didn't care what I did, so long as it gave me a living wage. Surely, then, there must be some place for me in this alert, hustling city. ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... in Harcourt, when a moment later he entered the room. That individuality which had kept the former shopkeeper of Sidon distinct from, although perhaps not superior to, his customers—was strongly marked. He was perhaps now more nervously alert than then; he was certainly more impatient than before,—but that was pardonable in a man of large affairs and action. Grant could not deny that he seemed improved,—rather perhaps that the setting of fine clothes, cleanliness, and the absence ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... 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
... article in which Yusuf preferred to deal, though nothing came amiss to him that he could carry, or that could carry itself—such as a young foal; even the little black boy had been taken on speculation—and so indeed had the big Abyssinian, who, though dumb, was the most useful, ready, and alert of his five slaves. Every bargain seemed to occupy at least an hour, and perhaps Yusuf lingered the longer in order to give Arthur more time for consideration; or it might be that his native tongue, once heard, exercised an irresistible fascination over him. He ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his character. He had the head of a gladiator, round; compact, combative, with something alert and snake-like in its movements. The black, closely-shorn hair was erect and bristling. The forehead was lofty and narrow. The features were, handsome, the nose regularly aquiline, the eyes well opened, dark piercing, but with something dangerous and sinister in their expression. There was an ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... a free electronic mailing list, *NewsNet,* that issues periodic email messages on the subject of copyright. The messages alert subscribers to hearings, deadlines for comments, new and proposed regulations, new publications, and other copyright-related subjects of interest. NewsNet is not an interactive discussion group. To subscribe, send a message to listserv@rs8.loc.gov. In the body of the message say: ...
— Copyright Basics • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.
... it is that by being lost in her I save myself; that I lose only that which hinders my activity, not that which fosters it. For when is my hand most itself? When separated from the body, by paralysis or amputation? Or when, in vital union with the brain, with every fibre alert and every nerve alive, it obeys in every gesture and receives in every sensation a life infinitely vaster and higher than any which it might, temporarily, enjoy in independence? It is true that its capacity for pain is the ...
— Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson
... her fortunes must be very rapidly followed by that of his own. By nature bold, unscrupulous, and resourceful, he was not a man to lose the game without playing it out to the very end with all the energy and cunning of which he was capable. Keenly alert to all that passed, he had, from the time that he first heard the rumour of the king's intention, haunted the antechamber and drawn his own conclusions from what he had seen. Nothing had escaped him—the disconsolate faces of monsieur and of ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... there was a brief silence, during which all stood alert. Then, Tato, still half suspended against the cliff, said in a clear, ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... are much influenced by the general state of the child's health. Like migraine, cyclic vomiting appears to be a symptom of nervous exhaustion. It affects, for the most part, children who are intellectually alert, impressionable, and forward for their age, and who, when well, throw themselves into work or play with a great expenditure of nervous energy. Often their physical development is unsatisfactory, and we must set ourselves to correct this as the first step in prevention. ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... said the alert veteran; "get your ammunition in, and the cattle killed. Send down to the borough-town for what meal you can gather. We must not lose an instant.—Had not Edith and you, sister, better return to Charnwood, while we have the means ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Dutch Schiedam, and if I cannot get the one I may perhaps get the other; and there is less danger in coming to Dunkirk and making across to Harwich than there is in landing from Calais or Nantes on the south coast, where the revenue men are much more on the alert ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... lines her hands have laden, A laundress with white hair appears, Alert as many a youthful maiden, Spite of her five-and-seventy years; Bravely she won those white hairs, still Eating the bread hard toll obtained her, And laboring truly to fulfil The duties to which ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... could to prevent the building of railroads, and that learned gentlemen made eloquent speeches which proved to the entire satisfaction of their authors that railways would disarrange all the conditions of society and business and bring untold evils in their train. If the alert and progressive Anglo-Saxon took this initial position, is it surprising that it should be taken with far greater intensity by Orientals who for uncounted centuries have plodded along in perfect contentment, and who now find that the whole order of living to ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... the trenches with the speed of lightning; but the squadrons that came after him could not pass so rapidly; and none but a few horsemen, among whom Franz Albert, Duke of Sachsen-Lauenburg, is mentioned, were alert enough to keep beside him. He galloped right to the place where his infantry was most oppressed; and while looking round to spy out some weak point, on which his attack might be directed, his short-sightedness led him too ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... in which Ypres was not shelled by long-range high velocities which came howling overhead as I heard them scores of times in passing through those ruins with gas-mask at the alert, according to orders, and steel hat strapped on, and a deadly sense of nostalgia because of what was happening in the fields of horror that lay beyond. Yet to the soldier farther up the Menin road Ypres was sanctuary and ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... engaged in anything beyond a scientific expedition into the wilds of the New World. His trunk was always full, not of money and valuables, but of natural history specimens; and while we were lying on the grass on the alert for the least noise which might reveal the approach of the enemy, he would be absorbed in the analysis of some plant or insect. He was an admirable young man, as pure as an angel, as unselfish as a stoic, as patient as a savant, and withal cheerful and affectionate. When we ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... same intention; and advice had been sent respecting us along the coast, both to the north and south, with orders to equip what strength there was to catch us. All night, the people of Pisco were on the alert, continually firing guns, to give us an earnest of what we were to expect if we attempted to land, but ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... it to his passengers. The woman said nothing. Her pale face, pitifully tiny and appealing within a sailor's tarpaulin hat, showed an innocent mind startled by the brutality of a world she did not know, but a mind controlled and alert. You could guess she expected nothing now but the worst, and had been schooling herself to face it. Her husband, when he knew what was on that ship, repudiated the vessel with horror. Yet we had no sooner fallen ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... the alert, darting out of its hiding place, and slipping noiselessly up the stairs as quietly as the shadow it imitated; pausing to listen with anxious mien, stepping as a cloud might have stepped with no creak of stairway or sound of ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... numerous villages have sprung up from the 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 they ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... many trips to the little spring with the iron pot, he filled it with fresh water. All the while he moved soundlessly, and Paul's deep, peaceful slumber was not disturbed. He took on for the time many of the qualities that he had learned from his Indian captors. Every sense was alert, attuned to hear the slightest sound that might come from the forest, to feel, in fact, any alien presence as ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... a moment, moved subconsciously by the life-time habit of making sure what Vincent was up to. He smiled at the keen look of alert, prick-eared attention which the other was still giving to that room! Lord, how Vincent did love to get things all figured out! He probably had, by this time, an exact diagram of the owners of the house all drawn up in his mind and would probably spend ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... brooding when he reached New York, and was the old, alert, bubbling Jimmy when he reached his firm's headquarters, where he was prepared to wrangle with the auditor over items on his expense list, demand better samples than the last lot, suggest some special cartoons for a special trade, cajole the house in sending out some special souvenirs for some special ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... also was thin and white. Her eyes, which were big and gray like Darby's, and usually soft and calm in their glance, were alert, bright, and restless, as if always on the watch for something they could not see, while in her nut-brown hair there were nearly twice as many silver streaks as had been visible when Darby ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... flute, the sighing of the fiddle, the grunt of the double bass, the clear call of the cornet, the bray of the trombones, all went on together. The confused hubbub of sound was indescribable. Suddenly a slim, alert figure leaped upon the estrade and struck the desk sharply with a baton. It was the maestro! There was instant silence. He looked to the right; looked to the left; raised his baton; and lo! full, rich, sweet, melodious, blending ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... Bangweolo of Livingstone, and the Upper Congo of Stanley, all obsolete for practical purposes years before this map was printed. Most of our home map-makers were very slow in availing themselves of the rich materials constantly supplied for the maps by the army of explorers in Africa. But the most alert cartographers, particularly between 1880 and 1895, could not keep their maps abreast of the news of discovery as it came to Europe. More men and energy and money were utilized in those fifteen years of African discovery than in the first ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... the lights were put out; and all had betaken themselves to their hammocks. The sentries (not a few,) passed backwards and forwards outside, or stood at ease in their boxes. The picquets went the rounds every half-hour. Each soldier on guard was on the alert, and had need to be. Silence and slumber fell on all but the many watchers in that ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown
... you notice as they ride along through the comparatively safe region of the coast range that Jim and Juarez are ever on the alert, glancing this way and that, halting to examine some peculiar mark on the trail, and not a motion of tree or bush upon either mountain slope escapes their attention. They had lived too long in the midst of ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt
... wind continuing light, the California set hers, and it was soon evident that she was walking away from us. Our captain then hailed and said that he should keep off to his course; adding, "She isn't the Alert now. If I had her in your trim she would have been out of sight by this time." This was good-naturedly answered from the California, and she braced sharp up, and stood close upon the wind up the coast; while we squared away our yards, and stood before ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... a time, but the remark had set us all on the alert, straining ears and eyes—the musketeers with their pieces balanced in their hands, the captain out in the middle of the block house with his mouth very tight and ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the prosecution, a little, alert, grey, decided man, above military age, began detailing the circumstances of the crime. Mr. Bosengate, though not particularly sensitive to atmosphere, could perceive a sort of current running through the Court. It was as if jury and public were thinking rhythmically ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Monterey, and to watch well the shore on their side of the river; for we were to fall upon the enemy during their surprise, occasioned by such an unusual display. All happened as was intended. At the first rocket, the Bonnaxes, Callapoos, and Umbiquas were on the alert; but astonishment and admiration very soon succeeded their fear of surprise, which they knew could not be attempted from their opponents in front. The bombs burst, the wheels threw their large circles of coloured sparks, ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... was instantaneously gauged as dyspeptic or eupeptic, friend or foe. On the march, Javert was on the alert, snuffing up the air, until some savory odor crossed his path, when he would shut himself up, like a snail within his shell. Yet he was not sleeping, for no titbit ever passed the portals beneath. Perhaps, however, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... answer, did not so much as seem to hear. He was standing before the Brigadier. His eyes gleamed in his alert face—two weird ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... knew the camping spot, so I went with him, and together we took a big circle through the encinal, keeping alert for game signs. Before we had gone far, evidence became plentiful, not only of turkeys, but of peccary and deer. Where the turkeys had recently been scratching, many times we dismounted and led our horses—but either the turkeys ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... hadn't suited him to, and he had drunk to stupefy himself. It was no doubt from him that she inherited the longing to be alive and to live among the living. She could not take her eyes from the keen, alert face, and she felt a stream of life and power flowing to her ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... two great orators, Michel de Bourges and Jules Favre, with their keen political perception, had declared from the first, save a slow long struggle, avoiding decisive engagements, changing quarters, keeping Paris on the alert, saying to each, It is not at an end; leaving time for the departments to prepare their resistance, wearying the troops out, and in which struggle the Parisian people, who do not long smell powder with impunity, would perhaps ultimately take fire. Barricades ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... trout stream. There was a certain amount of furtive haste mingled with the stateliness of their advance, as though hostile search-lights might be turned on them at any moment; and, as a matter of fact, they were not unobserved. Matilda Cuvering, with the alert eyes of thirteen years old and the added advantage of an exalted position in the branches of a medlar tree, had enjoyed a good view of the Stossen flanking movement and had foreseen exactly where it would break down ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... of the duties of the colony to preserve the seeds of different vegetables and grain, because the Professor intended to put out for their use, as soon as spring came, a garden, which would avoid the necessity of constantly putting them on the alert to hunt the different foods. Sometimes it was necessary to go considerable distances to get the various foods. As long as they were on the island it was the part of prudence to act like sensible business men, and ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... in the year 1636, that 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 ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... minute, stopped to pick up a wisp of wool, when from right at hand there burst forth the most frightful growl that I ever heard. It broke on the utter stillness of that quiet nook like a thunder peal and it so wrought on my already alert senses that I yelled ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... eyes gleamed—like the alert eyes of a robin who suddenly perceives the crumbs some kindly hand has scattered on ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... difficulty about utterance now; the words flowed in a torrent. "How can Judaism—and it alone—escape going through the fire of modern scepticism, from which, if religion emerge at all, it will emerge without its dross? Are not we Jews always the first prey of new ideas, with our alert intellect, our swift receptiveness, our keen critical sense? And if we are not hypocrites, we are indifferent—which is almost worse. Indifference is the only infidelity I recognize, and it is unfortunately as conservative as zeal. Indifference ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... come," and then dashed up to their room, emptied the savings bank, packed their few necessities into small bundles and, carefully avoiding the rear of the section house where the kitchen was located, and keeping on the alert to prevent meeting or being seen by any of the section men or train crew, they ran down the side of the train, which was just pulling out of the siding, climbed—as they had so often seen hoboes do—into an empty box car, and slinking back ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... principal gates, while the others patrolled the streets shouting, "The city taken! Down with the Papists! A new world!" Hearing this, the Protestants in the city recognised their co-religionists, and the Catholics their opponents: but whereas the former had been warned and were on the alert, the latter were taken by surprise; consequently they offered no resistance, which, however, did not prevent bloodshed. M. de St. Andre, the governor of the town, who during his short period of office had drawn the bitter hatred of the Protestants on him, was ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... malpractices. I had my arsenal in pretty good fighting order, and determined, if they persisted in attacking me, to let some of them know the consequences. I was afraid that some might spear me from behind while others engaged me in front. I therefore had to be doubly on the alert. A mob of them came, and I fired in the air, then on the ground, at one side of them and then at the other. At last they fell back, and when the others and the horses appeared, though they kept close round us, watching every movement, ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... that girl was Hester Thornton. She had been drawn into the circle by an intense curiosity; but she had made no comment with regard to Cecil's conduct. If she knew anything of the mystery she had thrown no light on it. She had simply sat motionless, with watchful and alert eyes and silent tongue. Now, for the ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... 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 the new year festivities by Lai Ta's wife, and various details ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... mountain, however, the greater peril began to assert itself. For a time the Irishman kept himself fully awake and alert by pushing the 956 to the ragged edge of hazard, scurrying over the short tangents and lifting her around the curves in breath-taking spurts. Later this expedient began to lose its fillip. Since the train was ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... wanderer in all the oceans for 42 years, lucky in none; coming home defeated once more, now, minus his ship —resigned, uncomplaining, being used to this." "What a rattling chapter Howells would make out of the small boy Alfred, with his alert eye and military brevity and exactness of speech; and out of the old landlady; and her sacred onions; and her daughter; and the visiting clergyman; and the ancient pianos of Hamilton and the venerable music in vogue there ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... more hops brought it opposite to my post of observation. Here it halted as though it seemed to see me. At any rate it sat up in the alert fashion that hares have, its forepaws hanging absurdly in front of it, with one ear, on which there was a grey blotch, cocked and one dragging, and sniffed with its funny little nostrils. Then it began to talk to me. I do ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... the girls on their punctual return, before any of her guests had arrived. She was rather stout and very comfortable. Behind her stoutness and her comfort there beat a heart of gold, and an extremely acute brain, which was not always allowed for, was alert and watchful. A heart of gold is considered as not incompatible with comfort and stoutness, but nobody who had not come to grips with her, or been her ally in some affair that called for diplomacy or tact, knew how excessively ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... the sickbed. It is not the old free-born bird that gets thus to freedom; but I know not what manacled and hide-bound spirit, incapable of pleasure, the clay of a man. Go south! Why, I saw more beauty with my eyes healthfully alert to see in two wet windy February afternoons in Scotland than I can see in my beautiful olive gardens and grey hills in a whole week in my low and lost estate, as the Shorter Catechism puts it somewhere. It is a pitiable blindness, this blindness of the soul; I ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... quietly, keenly alert, each hoping to make the discovery first. To Jasper there seemed something uncanny about the way they moved so silently onward at that weird morning hour. A spirit of depression came upon him, and his companions appeared like enemies. He felt that in some unaccountable way they believed that ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... sharpshooters; red heads, faces of Mohammedan olive and the black countenances of the Sengalese, with eyes of fire, and thick, bluish blubber lips; some showing the good-nature and sedentary obesity of the middle-class man suddenly converted into a warrior; others sinewy, alert, with the aggressive profile of men born to fight, ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... provision tempered for a time the power of the Capitani, so that the admonitions were greatly diminished, if not wholly laid aside. Still the parties of the Albizzi and the Ricci were continually on the alert to oppose each other's laws, deliberations, and enterprises, not from a conviction of their inexpediency, but from ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... the stillness and the greyness of the hour before dawn. It is the work of a woman who is not perfectly alive. So far from having had her great awakening, Charlotte is only half awake. Her intellect is alert enough and avid, faithful and subservient to the fact. It is her nerves and senses that are asleep. Her soul is absent ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... which the wounded were labelled as they were sent off to the Base. Far off we could hear the noise of the shells, and occasionally one would fall in the town. When the ambulances (p. 141) arrived everyone would be on the alert. I used to go out and stand in the darkness, and see the stretchers carried in gently and tenderly by the bearers, who laid them on the floor of the outer room. Torn and broken forms, racked with suffering, ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... was restored, yet long the influence remained; and nought but the still life I led, apart from all, which left my soul to seek its old delights, could e'er have brought me thus far back to peace." No reader, alert to the subtle and haunting music of rarefied blank verse (and unless it be rarefied it should not be put forward as poetry), could possibly accept these lines as expressionally poetical. It would seem as though, from the first, Browning's ear was keener for the apprehension than for the sustained ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... forenoon Monsieur de Beaufort had a game of tennis with La Ramee; a sign from Grimaud put him on the alert. Grimaud, going in advance, followed the course which they were to take in the evening. The game was played in an inclosure called the little court of the chateau, a place quite deserted except when Monsieur de Beaufort was playing; and even then the precaution seemed superfluous, ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... village of Luss, where, as we entered, we were welcomed by the warbling of a robin singing out right merrily, as if to announce our arrival. Our first impression soon told us that Luss was well patronised by visitors and by artists ever on the alert for scenery such as here abounded. It was quite an English-looking village, with a small quarry, not as extensively worked as formerly, we were informed, for only about twenty men were ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... that day four wide-awake and alert boys, neatly clad in summer suits, boarded the local train bound east for Albuquerque. The last hand they shook was that of ...
— The Air Ship Boys • H.L. Sayler
... 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
... officious, sprightly, alert, expeditious, prompt, spry, brisk, industrious, quick, supple, bustling, lively, ready, vigorous, busy, mobile, restless, wide ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... miseries, these two years in Paris were the least unhappy time in his life. He was in the great centre where the fame which he longed for was earned and liberally awarded. A year of intercourse with so full and alert and brilliant a mind as Voltaire's, must have been more to one so appreciative of mental greatness as Vauvenargues, than many years of intercourse with subalterns in the Regiment of the King. With death, now known to be very near at hand, he had made his account before. 'To ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 2 of 3) - Essay 1: Vauvenargues • John Morley
... a run across the snow, his traces trailing behind him. And there, out in the snow of their back track, was the she-wolf waiting for him. As he neared her, he became suddenly cautious. He slowed down to an alert and mincing walk and then stopped. He regarded her carefully and dubiously, yet desirefully. She seemed to smile at him, showing her teeth in an ingratiating rather than a menacing way. She moved toward him a few steps, playfully, and then halted. One Ear drew near to her, still alert ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... information than was asked for and clearly enjoying the business of making a white man work for every scrap of information. He was also given to dropping subtle hints and waiting with stolid indifference to see if I had been alert. He did not deny his shamanistic practices but was less than willing to discuss them ...
— Washo Religion • James F. Downs
... tug would hit a large stretch of clear water, and at such times the jingle-bell would sound in the engine-room and the Quinn would shoot forward at a rate that fairly lifted the rowboat out of the water, while Dan, kneeling astern, oar in hand, muscles tense, and mind alert, was ready to do anything that lay in his skill to ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... is one of light! All the doors and windows are open. His correspondences are perfect and unbroken. He is of "quick understanding," keen-scented to discern the essences of things, alert to perceive the reality behind the semblance, to "see things as they are." All the great primary senses are awake, and He has knowledge ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... said he; but the hurrying sounds in the hall warned him—he sprang down to the drawing-room. Even Charles was on the alert, standing, leaning against the table, and looking eager; but Guy had not time to let him speak, he only shook hands, and wished good-bye, with a sort of vehement agitated cordiality, ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wore on and as quitting time approached, he became more tense—more alert. Five minutes before the whistle, he faded back into the building and hurried to the lavatory. He went into the booth furthest from the entrance and locked the door. Now there was nothing to do but wait. Another of the ...
— The Stowaway • Alvin Heiner
... as unusual and exotic. And for the unusual and exotic the British employer of labour—of whatever sort—has, it must be conceded, but little use. He is half afraid, half contemptuous of it, instinctively disliking anything more alert and alive than his own most stolid self. But while men, distrusting the distinctness of his personality and his good looks, refused to give Dominic work, women, relishing them, were only too ready to give him enjoyment—of a kind. The boy, in those solitary wanderings, ran the gauntlet ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... No! with the memory of that last wonderful moment when the music had blended into the fire of his tenderness, he could not go back. Invisible, Adam Craig would still be pervasive. He would jar the idyl into a mockery, the indefinable malignity of him, alert and silent up there at the head of the stairs, floating down like an evil wind to mingle with the reminiscent ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... intelligent intercourse with them. They were curious to know the objects of the visit of the white strangers to their country. Always suspicious of strangers—supposing all, like themselves, treacherous and cruel—they kept on the alert and were chary of giving any information they might possess as to this, or any other matters about which the white men asked; but, watchful of their movements, and seeing from their explorations their intentions, they became convinced of the sincerity of their inquiries, and readily pointed ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... islands. Still, as we have ascertained by inquiry that this unfortunate man did undoubtedly spend several days and nights wandering about our city when in an infectious condition, it will be as well that the authorities should be on the alert. We do not want that hoary veteran—the smallpox scare—to rear its head again in Dunchester, least of all just now, when, in view of the imminent election, the accustomed use would be made of it by our prejudiced ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... shot of which rang in the ears of the astounded attorney as it whizzed past him. "Drag him into the mouth of the vault," thundered Turpin: "he will be a capital cover in case of attack. Look to your sticks, and be on the alert;—away!" ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... While the grand conspiracy was hastening to its accomplishment Madame Bonaparte and I had contrived a little plot of a more innocent kind. We let no one into our secret, and our 16th Brumaire was crowned with complete success. We had agreed to be on the alert to prevent any fresh exchange of angry words. All succeeded to the utmost of our wishes. The conversation languished during dinner; but it was not dulness that we were afraid of. It turned on the subject of war, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... to accomplish some work in prose at this period, but the painful condition of his health forbade it. "I am forbidden to use my poor head," he said, "so I have to get along as I can without it. The Catholic St. Leon, thee knows, walked alert as usual after his head was ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... two faithful lieutenants were awake and alert; but I saw nothing of Helena that day, nor had message either from her or her aunt in the full round of twenty-four hours since last we met. Had she sought deliberately to repay me for the grief I caused her, Helena could have devised no better plan than her silence and her absence ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... speculations. A little tract, published towards the end of the seventeenth century, entitled 'The Growth of Deism,' brings out these points; and as a matter of fact we find that for the next half century the minds of all classes were on the alert—some in sympathy with, many more in bitter antagonism against Deistical speculations. In his later writings, Toland went much further in the direction of infidelity, if not of absolute Atheism, than he did in ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... and poisoned arrow, she wondered? Suddenly a sound seemed to strike her ear, the sound of a man's footsteps walking over grass, and she perceived that the figure of the dwarf, crouched upon the bough, became tense and alert, and that his fingers tightened upon the bow-string until the blood was driven from their yellow tips. Following the glance of his wicked black eyes, she saw advancing through the shadow a tall man clad in a dark robe. Now he emerged ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... again the flag of the United States of America could rightfully wave from every building in the land. At the beginning of the war, when Betty took on herself the role of Federal Secret Service agent, she was light of heart, alert of body and mind. Now, for four years, she had born a heavy burden of fear and of crushing responsibility, for the sake of a cause for which she was willing to sacrifice comfort, wealth and other things ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... what you want to do, that's why I told the people here to alert me if you tried to clear a ship. You don't know what you're doing ... and I'm not going ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse
... young woman who controls the sale of miscellaneous goods was alert and smiling behind her counter. Whatever Crossan might be doing she at all events was attending to her business. Godfrey took no notice of her. He led me through the shop to the yard behind it. He pushed open the door of one ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... complete man. The only difference lies in that civilized man penetrates and dominates a larger portion of the universe with his theoretic and practical activity. We cannot claim to be more spiritually alert than, for example, the contemporaries of Pericles; but no one can deny that we are richer than they—rich with their riches and with those of how many other peoples and generations ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... local militia. To his son Gustav he transmitted real military capacity, which led to a distinguished career and a patent of nobility in the Austrian service. Harry Heine inherited his father's more amiable but less strenuous qualities. Inquisitive and alert, he was rather impulsive than determined, and his practical mother had her trials in directing him toward preparation for a life work, the particular field of which neither she nor he could readily choose. Peira, or Betty, Heine ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... this annoyance." The Thunderer's son answered, "The best plan would be to steal the thunder-weapon from my old dad."[52] "I'd do it if it were possible," answered the Devil, "but old Kou is always on the alert. He keeps watch on the thunder-weapon day and night; and how is it possible to steal it?" But the Thunderer's son still maintained that the feat was possible. "Ay, if you would help me," cried the Devil, "we might perhaps ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... the knights return to arms, alert and strong. From the array before Oxford rides out a knight of great renown; Percival the Welshman, was he called. As soon as Cliges saw him ride forth and heard the truth as to his name—for he heard him called Percival—he greatly longs to ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... Wetzels, particularly, knew no other occupation. They had attained a wonderful skill with the rifle; long practice had rendered their senses as acute as those of the fox. Skilled in every variety of woodcraft, with lynx eyes ever on the alert for detecting a trail, or the curling smoke of some camp fire, or the minutest sign of an enemy, these men stole onward through the forest with the cautious but dogged and persistent determination that was characteristic of ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... Frank was an alert little fellow, with a jaunty air, to whom, by tacit consent, all the openings for jokes were left, as he had a taste ...
— The Old Folks' Party - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... in our day the water has been burned, it cannot have been oftener than once in a way, and probably no great harm has resulted. Nor can the game be worth the candle, one could imagine, for watchers now are many and alert, in the execution of their duties much more conscientious than was common in days gone by. There are none now, we may hope, like the bailiff of Selkirk in the early part of last century, who constantly find salmon in close time mysteriously ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... afternoon there were only a few loungers, and these not very alert, about the station when the little train wheezed and puffed its way into it. It had been so long since anyone save those whom they knew had alighted at Miltonville that the loungers had lost faith, and with it curiosity, and now they ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... was now so pulled about by different alarms that, while one portion of his mind was still alert and cunning, another trembled on the brink of lunacy. One hallucination in particular took a strong hold on his credulity. The neighbor hearkening with white face beside his window, the passer-by arrested by a horrible ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... sensitiveness of world-wide commerce, when market movements are reported from hour to hour instead of from week to week, has greatly increased the difficulty. And apart from the rapidity with which information may be gathered through this alert and intimate sympathy between Exchanges, there is the still more important fact that with wireless the speed of conveying naval intelligence has increased in a far higher ratio than the speed of ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... at respectable inns; if not, a lodging in a cow-shed or beneath any poor roof which suffices to keep off the rain. The voyagers had constantly to meet the accusation of being peddlers. They denied it and were suspected afresh while the denial was on their lips. The public mind was singularly alert and critical on ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... an instant's silence, a man's ringing laugh of triumph; next, in a girl's voice, a little breathless but of a quality to make the listener prick up ears already alert, ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... natural abilities and quickness, rare talents for attaining such knowledge as was possible, knowledge of all woodcraft and of nature, knowledge of musical instruments, and acquaintance with arms. Clean of limb and sure of foot, ready of repartee, fearless and alert, he was, even as a boy, something of what he was to become in maturity, one of the greatest men of his own or any age. Unique in some capacities, versatile and varied in arts and accomplishments, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... (though wholly unable to estimate its nature) of distinction, selection, refusal, amid the various elements of the fervid and corrupt life across which they were moving together:—some secret, constraining motive, ever on the alert at eye and ear, which carried him through Rome as under a charm, so that Marius could not but think of that figure of the white bird in the market-place as undoubtedly made true of him. And Marius was still full of admiration for this ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... hundreds who were busily at work within the great building. It was the dinner hour, and a throng of men, women and children poured out of the great portals and hastened to their homes or boarding houses to dine. Among them was Robert Rushton. As he was walking homeward with his usual quick, alert step, he came upon Halbert Davis, at ...
— Brave and Bold • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... 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 ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the gold is masoned in. By the time this cautious search is over, a stout iron-bound bucket, precisely like a well-bucket, has been attached to one end of the whip; while the other end, being stretched across the deck, is there held by two or three alert hands. These last now hoist the bucket within grasp of the Indian, to whom another person has reached up a very long pole. Inserting this pole into the bucket, Tashtego downward guides the bucket into the Tun, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... waves; and the spray swept over us like driving rain, and was bitter cold; and the mist fell thick and swift upon the coast beyond. Jacky, forward with the jib-sheet in his capable little fist and the bail bucket handy, scowled darkly at the gale, being alert as a cat, the while; and the skipper, his mild smile unchanged by all the tumult, kept a hand on the mainsheet and tiller, and a keen, quiet eye on the canvas and on the vanishing rocks whither we were bound. And forth and ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... to be sharp and cunning; always on the alert; always bright, and ready skillfully to meet any approaches towards a discovery of his wrong-doing by his employer, who ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... sunny spot, where his restless, bright eyes could sweep the lane, up and down; and he could there also give vent to his superfluous energy by lording it over a few sparrows and other small birds that visited the spot. I greatly admired the fine, alert figure of the pugnacious little creature, as he perched there so close to me, and so fearless. His striking resemblance to the robin in form, size, and in his motions, made his extreme familiarity seem only natural. The robin is greatly distinguished in a sober-plumaged company by the ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... the while; and there was never a time that the lookout did not have to keep his eyes on the alert, because of the traps and snares that lay in wait for the voyagers up ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... attributes were so generous, her manner unconquerably gracious, her movements indolently active, her face so candid that you must swear her every thought lived always in the open. Yet, with it all, she was a wild thing, alert, suspicious of the lasso, nosing it in every man's hand, more curious about it than about aught else in the world; her quivering delight was to see it cast for her, her game to elude it; so mettlesome ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... inconvenient. Besides, cousin though she was, or perhaps for that very reason, Wilfred was far less amenable to her voice than Agatha's; and if she attempted authority it was sure to rouse all the resistance left in him. Agatha had been constantly on the alert, liable to be called on every half-hour, to soothe fretful distress over impossible impatience at delay, anger at want of comforts, and dolefulness over the chances of improvements, and abuse, whether just or not, of the ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... had been bad before, it was worse now, and it was a perfect marvel how the horses kept their feet. I was somewhat unfortunate in my horse Alat, who was blind in one eye, so that I always had to guide him over difficult places. This kept me for ever on the alert, and became trying. At every hut we pulled up and asked for milk, but invariably got "Nema" (I have none) for an answer. The Montenegrins are ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... warmly, O praefect of Rome," suddenly interposed Hortensius Martius who had followed every phase of the discussion with heated brow and eyes alert and glowing. "Thou art ready to continue this life of submission to a maniacal tyrant, ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... vehicle, equipped with all the paraphernalia of a kitchen, stopped near them, and men, trim and neatly dressed, served hot food and steaming coffee. General Vaugirard had alighted also, and John noticed that his step was much more springy and alert than that of some officers half his age. His breath came in great gusts, and the small portion of his face not covered by thick beard was ruddy and glowing with health. He drank several cups of coffee with startling rapidity, ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... hour's honest toil, she would wipe the copious sweat of it off with her sleeve, and panting, look up with a smile at John Galbraith and an expectant expression, waiting for his next command, which reminded Rose of the look of a terrier alert for the stick his master means to throw for him. Her speech was unaffectedly that of a Milwaukee Avenue gamin, and it served adequately and admirably as a vehicle for the expression ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... standing joke in the school that Mrs. Stone slept like a cat, with one eye open and one ear alert for every sound, for she was continually hearing burglars, or marauders of some sort or other. So it is not surprising that before that ghost had gone very far another white figure popped its head out into the hall and uttered a smothered exclamation ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... as the money went, but I could see by his appearance that there was no business in him. Our clerk must be quick, sharp, alert. The young man ...
— Walter Sherwood's Probation • Horatio Alger
... Though his manner and appearance gave the effect of recklessness, Big Bill knew quite well what he was doing. He was a magnificent driver, and however seemingly careless he might be, his whole mind was alert and intent on his work. The road, hard and white, glistened in the moonlight. Straight and clear, it seemed truly to lead directly into the great yellow disk, now dropped almost low enough ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... age may one day be regarded as the culminating point since which humanity has been steadily deteriorating; but the universe does not know the meaning of the word discouragement; it will commence anew the work which has come to naught; each fresh check leaves it young, alert, and full of illusions. Be of good cheer, Nature! Pursue, like the deaf and blind star-fish which vegetates in the bed of the ocean, thy obscure task of life; persevere; mend for the millionth time the broken meshes of the net; repair the ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan |
