"Alert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... garb of mystery. The Self as a primary, determining entity, he would not therefore admit. He represented an empiricism which, so far from refuting, was actually based on, idealism, and yet was alert to expose the fallacies of a particular idealist construction (see his essay in Ethical Democracy, edited ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... have walked, and I can still see Raffles in full-length silhouette upon a panel of palms and tree-ferns. I see the silhouette grow tall and straight again before my eyes, the door open, and Raffles listening with an alert lift of the head. I, too, hear something, an elfin hiss, a fairy fusillade, and then the sudden laugh with which Raffles rejoined us in ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... and alert, stood glowering for a moment, then deliberately hit Bob again. The others fell back, Bob faced his opponent, and, goaded now beyond the power of self-restraint, struck with all the power of his young arm at Micmac John. The latter was on ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... citing the fact that the American Revolution "really began when * * * that government (of England) sent stamps for newspaper duties to the American colonies" has been alert to the possible uses of taxation as a method of suppressing objectionable publications.[187] Persons engaged in the dissemination of ideas are, to be sure, subject to ordinary forms of taxation in like manner as other persons.[188] With respect to license or privilege ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... the outline of his plan; but, being no pedant, he varied it at will: nor was he likely to court defeat through lack of resource. Accomplished as he was in his proper business, he was equally alert to meet the accompanying risks. He had brought the art of cozening strange dogs to perfection; and for the exigence of escape, his physical equipment was complete. He would resist capture with unparalleled determination, and though he shuddered at the shedding of blood, he never ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... the alert and heard the din, forthwith assembled as many of his men as possible, and defended himself so stoutly that the enemy, in spite of their numbers, were for a long time unable to prevail against him. But at last, hearing that the Duke of Najera was taken, and that the Turks ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... 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 ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... man straightened himself into an alert and dashing attitude, and looked steadily ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... all been foreseen, and Robertson must have been constantly on the watch. The tramp stopped, mind you, in Phillimore Terrace for some moments, lighting a pipe. The accomplice, then, was fully on the alert; he slipped the bolts of the back garden gate. Five minutes later Knopf was in the house, in a hot bath, getting rid of the disguise of our friend the tramp. Remember that again here the detective did ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... moved forward small, alert ghosts rose from the undergrowth and scurried silently thence: a circumstance which made him very unhappy. Even a brilliant chorus of sharp barks from an adjacent street failed to convince him that he had merely disturbed a pack of jackals, after all, and not the disconsolate ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... little mother, of small stature, but keen of wit and sense, and was, night and day, alert to care for her darling chicks. How proudly she stepped and clucked through the arching woods with her dainty brood behind her; how she strained her little brown tail almost to a half-circle to give them a broader shade, and never flinched ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... men prey on their kind, must be alive and alert to what is going on, or while he dreams, his competitor will seize upon his birthright. And so you see why poets are poor and artists ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... is now, the thing I most dread at sea—excepting fire. It seems needless to say that a bright lookout was kept on board the "Vigilant" that night; a man on each cat-head, two in the waist—one on the weather and one on the lee side—and our two selves aft were kept constantly on the alert; and with these precautions I was obliged to rest satisfied. As it happened, our elaborate precautions proved unnecessary, for not a single sail passed us during the night; and at four o'clock next morning, when the watch was relieved, ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... of the court, he also met the person to whom he had waved his hand from the store-door. If you had looked for the stature of a man you would have been doubly mistaken,—first in sex, next in size. It was neither a man nor a woman. There, in a blustery doorway, shaking with cold, but ever on the alert, crouched a little girl. She wore a knitted hood, and out of it fell overflowing curls; but her poor, attenuated little body was ill-assorted with plenty of any kind, and the wealth of curls mocked the ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... Hampstead, and back again. All was so quiet that we almost thought of nothing,—when, as we drove down Constitution Hill, very fast, we heard the report of a pistol, but not at all loud, so that had we not been on the alert we should hardly have taken notice of it. We saw the man seized by a policeman next to whom he was standing when he fired, but we did not stop. Colonel Arbuthnot and two others saw him take aim, but we only heard the report (looking both the other ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... when, as sometimes happened, he stooped to arrange a pillow, or lift the wheel-chair over the threshold, he did it so gently and yet in such a matter-of-fact manner that one scarcely noticed it. They were simply eager, alert, bubbling, interested boys together, and as the effect of the friendship showed itself in Laurie's shining eyes, ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... Peter's way to sit back and listen: his steady eyes were always alert, good-humored, but he talked very little. That night he was unusually silent. He sat in the shadow away from the lamp and watched the two at the piano: McLean playing a bit of this or that, the girl bending over a string of her violin. Anna came in ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... his dying master, but still no trace of The Rose of the Morning could be discovered, and Lasalle strenuously denied all knowledge respecting it. The family offered large rewards for its recovery, and the detectives of all the large cities of Europe have been for some time on the alert to discover it, but in vain. As soon as I heard this story, I thought that I could make a tolerably shrewd guess as to the whereabouts of the missing jewel; and I caused investigations to be set on foot in New York by a trusty agent, which resulted in the discovery that The Rose ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... had befallen the usually alert young artist that he received this unexpected change in his situation as apathetically as a horse which is led from one stall to another, and, instead of questioning him, thought only of hastening his interview with the goldsmith? If his mistress, who had left him full of anxiety from the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... terrible city Cortes moved alert and silent, courteous to all, every nerve as sensitive to new impressions as a leaf to the wind. He knew that strong as the priesthood of the fierce gods undoubtedly was, there was surely an undercurrent ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... seen, as the two men paused at the door of the inner room, that the first wore a military fatigue-cap, and his alert carriage as he threw open his cape-coat indicated the bearing of an American army officer. He was of medium height, and his features and eyes implied that the storms and winds of the plains and mountains were familiar friends. This was Park Stanley, charged at that time with the construction ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... time, he kept himself alert for the other gliders. It seemed probable, since the enemy forces had two, that they would use them in relays. Which meant, in turn, that it was unlikely Joe would find them both in the air at once. In other words, if he attacked the one, possibly shooting ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... step in the hall behind him, and Willett was there, alert and resourceful. "Pray don't be troubled yet, Miss Archer," he called reassuringly, and barely noticing Strong. "The messenger's been stampeded before this, the men tell me. He's too badly scared to know the truth. It may be there's been a fire. I think ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... go rapidly down the hill toward the place. As I came near, I saw both horses prick their ears. Jones was sitting on the ground, with his gun in his lap, alert toward the west; I was in his rear. Suddenly he, too, saw the movement of the horses; he sprang quickly to a tree, from behind which I could now see the muzzle of his gun ten paces off. I whistled. The gun dropped, ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... several days, but still hopeful and cheerful; and as the weather mended, and the calm brightness of October set in, he rallied, and came downstairs again, not looking many degrees more wan and hectic than before, with a mind as alert as usual, and his kind heart much gratified by the many attentions of his ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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 and ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... laburnums at the bottom of the garden; the still grey night lay around; the little stars did their best to outshine one another and were lost in the vast expanse of sky. To the east the rounded edges of the spreading clouds were tinged with a faint flush of dawn. Suddenly Nejdanov trembled and became alert. Something squeaked near by, the opening of a gate was heard; a tiny feminine creature, wrapped up in a shawl with a bundle slung over her bare arm, walked slowly out of the deep shadow of the laburnums into the dusty road, and crossing ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... like a very bored young man on the verge of dozing off. But actually he was very much alert indeed. He had the feeling of eyes upon him for a while. Then that sensation ceased and he settled himself to wait. And meantime he felt a particular, peculiar gratitude to the late American consul at Puerto Pachecho for his interest in ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... intonation which they gave to their voices; for as to their words, of these I could make nothing. Having just been stuffed with a tale of their lawless habits, the sight of these persons threw me, of course, on the alert. I grasped the butt of my gaff-stick,—an excellent weapon, about the length and weight of a policeman's staff,—and braced up my nerves for the melee. But when we stood face to face, all idea that they would venture to begin the fray vanished. Though they were young men, in the prime of life, probably ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... 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 its ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... the same girl? No, I can't say that. It seems to me you've grown more than I have-I don't mean physically, I mean mentally," he explained as he saw her smile in the defensive way a fleshy girl has, alert to ward off ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... how it feels to fish. You throw in your hook with such blissful certainty that no fish can possibly resist the temptation you are dangling before its eyes. There is suppressed excitement all over you. You are all on the alert, feeling for imaginary nibbles, for bites that are not there. Sometimes, of course, the dreams come true, and the bites are realities; but these occasions are sadly outnumbered by the times when you ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... is alert and discovers wastes and leaks in his business, the employes will discover them too, and the business will ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... back, leave the pair a space! Let civilians be instructed: henceforth simply ply the pen, Fly the sword! This clerk's no swordsman? Suit him with a pistol, then! Even odds! A dozen paces 'twixt the most and least expert Make a dwarf a giant's equal: nay, the dwarf, if he's alert, Likelier hits the ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... fascinated. The change in Mr. Moss was amazing. His reckless air of enjoyment had departed. He was still smoking, but he was all alert, like a cat ready to spring. Mr. Parker, too, was interested. I saw him whisper something in Mr. Moss' ear and I felt a cold foreboding of what was going ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... never taken the presence of snakes into serious consideration, the horrible effect of the bite upon the dogs made every one on the alert during the march over the rocky and bushy country from our camp to Evdimu. Our guide scorned a beaten track, and after having kept the regular path along the sea-coast for a mile, he struck directly up the mountain, which descended in a steep cliff to the shore, against which the ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... scuffle and a cry, and Ralph was in a moment beyond the mule with his sword out. He said nothing but stood there fierce and alert as the crowd sucked back, and the servant gathered up the things. There was no more trouble, for it had only been a spasmodic snatch at the wealth, and a cheer or two was raised again among the grimy faces that stared at the fine ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... that stretched for miles above Quebec offered a guaranty of security in that direction, and to prevent any doubt, Bougainville, a capable officer—in later years famous as a navigator—was on the alert with a force of upwards of two thousand soldiers. He had double work to do, to guard these apparently impregnable cliffs, and to assure the arrival of provisions from the country by river and land. It was the expected arrival of a convoy of provisions that proved an important factor in ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... as soon as possible, take possession of them. What may we then expect? When, in the last extremity, we shall be drawn to arms in defense of our indisputable rights, where now slumbers on his post the sluggish Spaniard we shall be hailed by the vigilant and alert French grenadier; and in the defenseless garrison that would now surrender at our approach we shall see unfurled the standards that have waved triumphant in Italy, surrounded by impregnable ramparts and defended by the disciplined veterans of Europe. I am willing ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... What a liar I am!" he murmured fervently, addressing his reflection in the glass. His wife's face appeared over his shoulder, bright, alert, and pleased. She said, as she adroitly assumed the office vacated by the discarded Grindlay, who discreetly delayed his re-entrance ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... for that unknown human being with as much ardor as the mathematicians of the Bureau give to longitudes. They literally ransack the whole kingdom. At the first ray of hope all the post-offices in Paris are alert. Sometimes the receiver of a missing letter is amazed at the network of scrawled directions which covers both back and front of the missive,—glorious vouchers for the administrative persistency with which the post ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... what a life of hardship the soldier leads in those frontier forts for the general peace, thus, as at the gate of the Province, shutting out the entry of the barbarous nations. He must be ever on the alert who seeks to keep out the Barbarians. For fear alone checks these men, whom ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... observation which the surgeon apparently did not hear. He was thinking, now, his thin face set in a frown, the upper teeth biting hard over the under lip and drawing up the pointed beard. While he thought, he watched the man extended on the chair, watched him like an alert cat, to extract from him some hint as to what he should do. This absorption seemed to ignore completely the other occupants of the room, of whom he was the central, commanding figure. The head nurse held the lamp carelessly, resting her hand ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... solely from the feelings of others? It is necessary to this art that the mind should have, as it were, a double consciousness, in which all the emotions proper to the occasion may have full swing, while the actor is all the time on the alert for every detail of his method. It may be that his playing will be more spirited one night than another. But the actor who combines the electric force of a strong personality with a mastery of the resources of his art must have a greater ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... is as though some creeper that had enfolded and enringed a house with its tendrils, creeping under window-ledges and across mellow brickwork, had been suddenly cut off at the root, and hung faded and lustreless, not even daring to be torn away. Yet I am alive and well, my mind is alert and vigorous, I have no cares or anxieties, except that my heart seems hollow ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Being rather alert, considering her age, she presently regained the top of the tower, and bade her son suspend the sacrifice ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... One, what he likes best is prowling and hunting. He snuffs at all the interesting and exciting smells there are on the breeze; that dark breeze that tells him the secrets the jungle has hid: every nerve in his body is alert, every hair in his whiskers; his eyes gleam; he's ready for anything. He and Life ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... the deAngelis flared to a 98.4 then started inching down again. The young reporter sat up, alert, from where he had been dozing. The loud clang of a bell had brought ...
— The Circuit Riders • R. C. FitzPatrick
... genial visit by means of the long-boat with all the circumstance of courtesy and amiability. instead of desiring to make conquests, I am glad enough to be tolerated. I dare, too, to say what I think, not alert for any symptoms of contradiction, but fully aware that my own point of view is but one of many, and quite prepared to revise it. In the old days I demanded agreement; I am now amused by divergence. In the old days I desired to convince; I am now only ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... were, for the resources of the state were then undeveloped, cast their mite of wealth into the national treasury. Northerly and isolated as she is, her cities were burned, and her frontiers jealously watched by an alert and cruel enemy. Here, too, Arnold sowed his last seeds of virtue and patriotism, in his arduous march through the wilderness of Maine to the capital of the Canadas, an exploit which, considering the season, the poverty of numbers and resources, combined with the wild, unknown, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... every other grade of solid rather than to himself. Accustomed to observe what we think an unwarrantable conceit exhibiting itself in ridiculous pretensions and forwardness to play the lion's part, in obvious self-complacency and loud peremptoriness, we are not on the alert to detect the egoistic claims of a more exorbitant kind often hidden under an apparent neutrality or an acquiescence in being put out ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... Thou insect vulture, seize thy helpless prey! No ceremony! (I'd have none with thee, Could I but find thee.) Fainter now and farther The tiny war-whoop; now I hear it not. A cowardly assassin he; he waits, Full well aware that I am on the alert, With murderous intent. Perchance he's gone, Hawk-eye and nose of hound not serving him To find me in the dark. With a long sigh, I beat my pillow, close my useless eyes, And soon again my thoughts whirl giddily, Verging towards dreams. Starting, ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... I stood motionless and with heavy eyes at the helm —for I had not slept well—I began to weary anxiously for daylight, and peered towards the horizon, where I thought I observed something like a black cloud against the dark sky. Being always on the alert for squalls, I ran to the bow. There could be no doubt it was a squall, and as I listened I thought I heard the murmur of the coming gale. Instantly I began to work might and main at my cumbrous tackle for shortening ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... In Emma McChesney's alert, electric mind there leapt about a dozen plans for winning this man over. For win him she would, in the end. It was merely a question of method. She chose the simplest. There was a set look about her jaw. Her eyes flashed. Two spots of carmine glowed ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... somewhere in the house that wonderful, God-given child was still with them. Not as a memory but as a real and living presence. When at night the professor and his wife sat at either end of the study table, reading by the same lamp, he would see her suddenly lift her head, alert and eager, as though from the nursery floor a step had sounded, as though from the darkness a sleepy voice had called her. And when they would be forced to move to lodgings in the town, to some students' boarding-house, ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... old Spanish house (one of the finest specimens in Sulaco) open for the dispensation of the small graces of existence. She dispensed them with simplicity and charm because she was guided by an alert perception of values. She was highly gifted in the art of human intercourse which consists in delicate shades of self-forgetfulness and in the suggestion of universal comprehension. Charles Gould (the Gould ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... Onward, gallants! onward speed ye, Flower and bulwark of the Gael; Like your flag-silks be ye ruddy, Rosy-red, and do not quail. Fearless, artless, hawk-eyed, courteous, As your princely strain beseems, In your hands, alert for conflict, While the Spanish weapon gleams.— Sweet the flapping of the bratach,[143] Humming music to the gale; Stately steps the youthful gaisgeach,[144] Proud the banner staff to bear. A slashing weapon on his thigh, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... is found a large herd of cows; but the milk goes to the creameries. The women, however, still share in the milking, and there is much of unaffected simplicity in the ways of the household. On days when work is not pushing, the men are likely to go hunting or fishing, and they are always alert to observe chances to take advantage of those little gratuities which nature in the remoter rural regions is constantly offering, both in the matter of game and in that of herbs and ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... timid green of dawn peeped MYalu through the gate of the zareba of Moonspirit to discover the gaunt form of Bakahenzie squatted by the embers of a fire within a deserted compound. Bakahenzie's quick eyes, on the alert for ghosts or any moving thing, saw him; so coldly MYalu advanced and sat beside him, ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... the plains, is one of the most docile creatures in the world, and will permit any one save an Indian to approach it without making an effort to escape; consequently, the more I thought of the matter the more singular it seemed. Returning to camp, I found old Jerry awake and on the alert, and briefly told him what I had seen, asking him if he did not think it a strange thing for the animal ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... time had 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 ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... musing on the means of renewing the negotiation without giving too much advantage to the other side. It was perhaps fortunate for him that the keen and bright eyes of Judith were as vigilant as ever. At the instant when the young man was least on his guard, and his enemy was the most on the alert, she called out in a warning voice to the former, most opportunely ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... there was no great Thrill from England or from home. The slowness, the absence of colour, imagination, rhythm, baffled me, while the ugliness of common things and common usages afflicted my new sensitiveness. Not that I am peculiarly alert to beauty, nor claim superior perception—I am no artist, either by virtue of vision or power of expression—but that a certain stagnant obtuseness, a kind of sordid and conservative veneration of the ugly that the English favour, distressed and even tortured me in a way I had never realized ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood
... for the reins. She had held the black horse before. Besides, she had driven her Cousin Tom's pair of big draught horses up in the Michigan woods, and Mr. Henry Sherwood's half-wild roan ponies, as well. Her wrists were strong and supple, and she was alert. ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... to her feet, alert, fearful. With a swing of her arm, she pulled the great oaken door to and dropped the bar into its place. Over the dead she spread a clean white sheet. Into the fire she thrust pine-knots. They glared in vague red, and shadowy brilliance, waving and quivering and throwing ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... dullard mentally, while Mary's mind was keen and alert—two facts of which the girl was perfectly aware—so it was no wonder she had such confidence in herself. When she first heard of Brandon's sentence her fear for him was so great, and the need for action so urgent, that ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... the religious reformation that permitted freedom of belief, and the French Revolution, which permitted freedom of political action. It was the rediscovery of the human mind, a quickening of intellectual liberty, a desire of alert minds for something new. It was a call for humanity to ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... Turks, and the secret cargoes are yet run from Anapa up the Golden Horn. The slave bazaar of the Ottoman capital still presents its bevy of fair creatures from the north, and the Sultan's agents are ever on the alert for the most beautiful to fill the monarch's harem. The Brother of the Sun chooses his favorites from out a score of lovely Georgians and Circassians, but he does not forget her who had so entranced his heart, so enslaved his affections, and then ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... meantime Gipsy's friends had not altogether abandoned her, as she supposed. They had been on the alert all the morning to discover some means of communicating with her, though, owing to Miss Poppleton's vigilance, their efforts had so far met with ill success. Any girl found loitering in the vicinity of the passage that led to the dressing-room ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... the animal perversely clung to its wild instincts. A weakness in that thong, a slip of the collar, and Wolf would have bounded joyously into the forests to seek for ever the packs of his fathers. Now the babeesh rope was taut, Wolf's muzzle was turned half to the sky, his ears were alert, half-sounding notes rattled in ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... smooth heavings as the clumsy boat advanced upon it. The white houses on the hills gleamed out from their palms. As the boat came closer to the wharf, the travelers could see the crowds of foreign-looking people, with swarthy faces and cheap, ungraceful clothes, looking out at the boat with alert, speculative, unwelcoming eyes. The noise of the city streets, strange to their ears after the days of sea silence, rose clattering, like a part of the brilliance, the sparkle. The sun broke through the clouds, poured a flood of glory on the refulgent city, and shone hotly on the pools of dirty ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... feet, tumbled off and gave vent to his feelings in a belated "chirr." Overhead somewhere a raven croaked dismally and cynically at intervals. Ralph's ears heard these things as he waited, with every sense on the alert, at the place of ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... has become so gay and worldly-minded, since her signal triumph with the American countesses in her merry widow, that we are continually reminded of the "Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary," and Lydia and I have to be on the alert to draw her away from the attractions of windows where millinery is displayed, lest she insist on investing in a grenadier, or in that later and even more grotesque device of the ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... doubted their response for one moment, and he was not disappointed in the vigor with which they followed him as he led them into this final fight. As they dashed forward their advance was quickly discovered by the alert enemy, and a destructive fire of carbines was opened upon them. At that moment they were at the trot. Instantly Duncan ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... least, there are no others which can be compared to them. The Hans Imhof shows a shrewd and forbidding schemer for gain on a large scale—a face which produces the impression of a trap or closed strong box, but, being so alert and intelligent, seems to demand some sort of commiseration for the constraint put upon its humanity in the creation of a master, a tyrant over himself first and afterwards over an ever-widening circle of others. The unknown master who is represented in Mrs. Gardner's beautiful ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... hear him speak, but watched him going about with a silk hat, much too large, pushed back on his head; his sharp eyes peering into everything, curious about everything. 'Here,' said I to myself, 'is a countryman who has got away from home, and intends to see all that is going on'—such an alert, interested air! That evening a friend came to me and in a voice full of awe and enthusiasm said, 'Emerson is in town!' Then I knew who the alert, sharp-eyed stranger was. We went to the meeting and met our hero, and the next day walked and talked ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... to make an onset to-night, at Bowleg's saloon, and I want you to be within call in case I should need you," explained the detective, at the same time revealing his badge of office. "There's money in it if you're alert, my friend." ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton
... so later, Joe surmised from the Frenchman's actions that they were approaching their destination. He seemed on the alert, and was constantly peering into the darkness ahead as though he expected to see something at any moment. Joe looked very hard, but saw ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... a gruesome mandate. She had scant choice. She did not doubt that this was the fugitive, the "wolf's head," and should she turn to flee, he could stop her progress with a pistol-ball, for doubtless he would fancy her alert to disclose the discovery and share in the reward. Perhaps feminine curiosity aided fear; perhaps only her proclivity to find an employ in the management of others influenced her decision; though ...
— Wolf's Head - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... to the separation, wrote daily, but sent no tidings of his progress, told her nothing when they met that night, and had left her an hour before asking her to have patience till he could show his finished work. Now, with her eye upon the door, her ear alert to catch the coming step, her mind disturbed by contending hopes and fears, she sat waiting with the vigilant immobility of an Indian on the watch. She had not long to look and listen. Manuel entered hastily, locked the door, closed the windows, dropped the curtains, then ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... Every moment the Forward threatened to snap her cables; there was danger, too, lest the mountain should be driven by the wind and crush the brig. The officers kept on the alert, owing to their extreme anxiety; besides the snow, large lumps of frozen spray were blown about by ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... discovered that Craig, reinforced by enthusiastic onlookers from the sidelines, had seventeen men in his team. Dick, on the other hand, kept an alert eye to see that no more than eleven ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... suddenly I looked up at a star, And then, a thought I could not fail to heed, From the soul's awful region unexplored, Rushed, crying, 'Back! Go back!' And back I went, As hastily as if it were a thing Of life or death. I did not stop to pull The door-bell, but sprang up alert and still To the piazza of the open window, Drew back a blind inaudibly, looked in, And through the waving muslin curtain, saw— Well, she was seated in a young man's lap, Her ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... habitual fatalism of his nation, had resigned himself in advance to whatever might happen and drove straight onward with his eyes impassibly fixed upon the horses. Not so with Peppino; the wily and well-posted Italian was constantly on the alert, scanning every thicket, clump of trees or turn of the road with a searching look long before they came to it; although nothing suspicious had as yet met his gaze, he was not by any means ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... slipped the photograph into his pocket and shook hands with the banker. Somehow his confident, alert bearing inspired the old man with more hope than he would have cared to admit, for, as a general thing, he despised the ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... his bills; and the momentary sensation produced upon the throng of business men by the sudden change on the two faces, vanished like the furrow cut by a ship's keel in the sea. News of the greatest importance kept the attention of the world of commerce on the alert; and when commercial interests are at stake, Moses might appear with his two luminous horns, and his coming would scarcely receive the honors of a pun; the gentlemen whose business it is to write the Market Reports would ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... nearer to the up-spouting column of flames the airship winged her way. Tense and alert, Tom sat at the wheel guiding his craft with her load of fire-defying chemicals. Behind him were Ned, Mr. Damon and Mr. Baxter, ready to drop the ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... look of unconscious admiration. Her pretty cousin's indifferent air seemed to support the theory that she had actually rejected the prince of partis, which, in fact, was exactly what it was meant to do. Hen had never really thought that Cally had it in her. She threw her alert eye around to see where they were. The car had turned south at Twelfth Street, had crossed Centre, and was now rolling into a quarter of the town very different-looking, indeed, from Washington Street. Hen said they were all right for Dunbar Street and told Cally to ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... torn from their places, and wrecks of boats, float or protrude from the bottom of this brown lake. And when the flood subsides, the current often chooses a new and changed channel. Amid the ever-varying dangers of such a river the only safety for steamboats is in a race of pilots so learned and so alert as to have the shifting bars and courses always in their minds. In 1839, when steamboats were the only means of rapid transit in the West, when there were more of them in the harbor of the little town of Saint ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... for the convenience of the great procession that was to tramp across it that day. Hundreds of people were marching to and fro, laughing, chattering, singing, gesticulating as happy Frenchmen do. There is no pleasanter sight than a French crowd on the alert for a festival, and nothing more catching than their good-humor. As for the notion which has been put forward by some of the opposition newspapers that the populace were on this occasion unusually solemn or sentimental, it would be paying ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")
... Bompain, but the unfortunate fellow knows nothing of Paris; he has been, as it were, bewildered ever since his arrival. You will tell me that you also come straight from the country, but that does not matter. Well brought up as you are, a southerner, alert and adaptable, you will quickly pick up the routine of the Boulevard. For the rest, I myself undertake your education from that point of view. In a few weeks you will find yourself, I answer for it, as much at home in Paris ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... effectually wishes to own important colonial possessions, must have a stalwart and increasing people. And it is a real source of weakness that there should yet be in France so many Royalists constantly on the alert and hoping always for a change in the ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... labours. And now this pleasurable sensation went out of him with something resembling a physical shock, and was replaced by a special kind of interest in his work of social protection—an improper sort of interest, which may be defined best as a sudden and alert mistrust of ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... still; the soldiers, who were tired, went to sleep, with the exception of the sentries, who were well on the alert. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... Grace of Monmouth spoken of. It was Mr. Sheppard who spoke the name; and in an instant I was on the alert again. What he said fell very pat with what I was thinking of ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... within two miles of the town. Here arms were distributed and orders given by their leader, named Roche. Silently and quickly they reached the town they hoped to surprise. But the regular troops, of which the garrison was chiefly composed, were on the alert, though their preparations were made full as silently. When the peasantry emerged from Tullow Street, into an exposed space, a deadly fire was opened upon them from the houses on all sides. The regulars, in perfect security themselves, and abundantly ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... of time and place. The sage can invest this prosaic water-trough with all its pristine dignity and romance by an unfailing expedient. He closes an eye. It is an art he learns early in life; a simple art, and one that greatly conduces to happiness. The ever alert, the conscientiously wakeful—how many fine things they fail to see! Horace knew the wisdom of being genially unwise; of closing betimes an eye, or an ear; or both. Desipere in ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... in their teens and aged by fifty, and quicker in thought and act than we are all the time. The marvel of drugs has always been great to my mind; you can madden a man, calm a man, make him incredibly strong and alert or a helpless log, quicken this passion and allay that, all by means of drugs, and here was a new miracle to be added to this strange armoury of phials the doctors use! But Gibberne was far too eager upon his technical points ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... height, his round, ruddy, clean-shaven face encircled by the fringe of iron-grey whiskers running round from ear to ear beneath the chin. His broad shoulders were held square, his back straight, his head poised firm and alert on a splendid ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... arriving there about a quarter before eleven, after I had waited a few minutes in one of the small parlors, the President came down the stairs rapidly, and I took note that his movements were very alert. I had not seen him since the night when Mrs. Garfield had notice of the illness that had become alarming, and from which she was now convalescent, and said first: "Mrs. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... densely crowded, and the tension of a charged moment might be felt. Men sat gaping, their eyes wandering from the jury to the witness or the gray-haired coroner; to young Lord Tatham sitting beside the tall dark man who had been Mr. Melrose's agent, and was now the inheritor of his goods; to the alert and clean-shaven face of Undershaw, listening with the concentration of the scientific habit to the voice from the witness-box. And through the strained attention of the room there ran the stimulus of that gruesome new fact—the presence overhead of yet another dead man, dragged only ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... after city of the world explored. Thus mutual they conferr'd, nor leisure found Save for short sleep, by morning soon surprized. Meantime the comrades of Telemachus Approaching land, cast loose the sail, and lower'd Alert the mast, then oar'd the vessel in. 600 The anchors heav'd aground,[71] and hawsers tied Secure, themselves, forth-issuing on the shore, Breakfast prepared, and charged their cups with wine. When neither hunger now, nor thirst remained ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... than one Mrs. Budlong kept Carthage on the writhe. Christmas was merely the climax of a ceaseless activity. All the year round she was at work like a yeast alert ...
— Mrs. Budlong's Chrismas Presents • Rupert Hughes
... valley until they came to a small wood. Here they lay down to rest, one being planed upon the lookout. Two hours later the sentry awoke them with the news that a party of men were coming op the valley. All were at once upon the alert. ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... 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 ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... Every sense 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 ...
— Fighting in France • Ross Kay
... give him a sense of liberty. He liked the night, the dark rain, the river, and even the traffic. He enjoyed the sense of friction he got from the streaming of people who meant nothing to him. It was like a fox slipping alert among ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... most advanced position on the Franklin pike, examined the positions of the troops, approved the same, and ordered that the enemy should be vigorously pressed and unceasingly harassed by our fire. He further directed that I should be constantly on the alert for any opening for a more decisive effort, but for the time to bide events. The general plan of the battle for the preceding day—namely, to outflank and turn his left—was still to be acted on. Before leaving me, the commanding ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... when we are entertaining strangers whose good opinion we wish to propitiate. We dress ourselves with care, we study what it will be agreeable to say, we do not suffer our natural laziness to prevent our being very alert in paying small attentions, we start across the room for an easier chair, we stoop to pick up the fan, we search for the mislaid newspaper, and all this for persons in whom we have no particular interest beyond the passing hour; while with those friends whom we love ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... character is the direct result of the golden law 'If one will not work, neither let him eat'; a law whose stern kindness, unflinchingly applied, has produced whole nations of living creatures, without a pauper in their ranks, flushed with health, alert, ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... purposes in the street. Potsdamer Platz presents a difficult problem at all times of the day, especially when the crowds are coming from or going toward home, but a few ropes and iron standards, and four alert Irish policemen, would make it far plainer sailing than now it is. It is to be remembered, too, that the traffic is a mere dribble as compared to a torrent, when one remembers Paris, New York, and London. ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... turn-about exchange of ideas, yet most people seem to regard it as a monologue. Bronson Alcott used to say that many could argue, but few converse. The first thing to remember in conversation, then, is that listening—respectful, sympathetic, alert listening—is not only due to our fellow converser but due to ourselves. Many a reply loses its point because the speaker is so much interested in what he is about to say that it is really no reply at all but merely an ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... the sight of the other boat and its crew was beautiful, how lovely was the look of this! Eight young girls,—young ladies, for those who prefer that more dignified and less attractive expression,—all in the flush of youth, all in vigorous health; every muscle taught its duty; each rower alert, not to be a tenth of a second out of time, or let her oar dally with the water so as to lose an ounce of its propelling virtue; every eye kindling with the hope of victory. Each of the boats was cheered as it came in sight, but the cheers for the Atalanta were naturally the loudest, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist) |
