"Alertness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his signet ring was not a real onyx, it looked quite as well at a distance, and the absence of a crest was not conspicuous. He spoke with a very good imitation of the accent of the officers he had served with, and in his alertness, his well-trained movements, his upright carriage, and his personal cleanliness, he came so near to looking like a gentleman that he escaped it only by a certain swagger, which proved an ill-chosen substitute for ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... signifying "Son of Lightning," or some such thing. [Buchholz, Neueste Preussisch-Brandenburgische Geschichte (1775), vol ii. (page irrecoverable).] No doubt they are proud to have a stroke of service under such a one, since Father Peter Feodorowitsh graciously orders it: the very Cossacks show an alertness, a vivacity; and see cheery possibilities ahead, in Countries not yet plundered out. They stayed with Friedrich only Three Weeks,—Russia being an uncertain Country. As we have seen above; though Friedrich, who is vitally concerned, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... as the young of domestic birds. The only difference between the young of wild and tame is that the former are, as a rule, much more sprightly and active. But there are many exceptions; and if this greater alertness and activity is what is meant by "wildness," then the young of some wild birds—rhea, crested screamer, &c.—are actually much tamer than our ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... referred only to his pure devotion to the Turf, from 1815 onwards, was first used in 1851, just after the whimsical "Judicious Bottle-Holder" declaration, and, as a matter of fact, added not a little to Palmerston's popularity, as not only representing the Turf, but a Sam Weller-like calmness, alertness, and good-humour. ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... bench. The flyer studied him bitterly. He had decent shoes, a warm coat, and that air of satisfaction with the world which is the result of economic security. Although he was well into middle age, the man had a compact grace of movement and an air of alertness. ...
— The People of the Crater • Andrew North
... treated for defective hearing; twenty had attended the Skin Clinic; all had their eyes examined; eighty-six were fitted with glasses. In twenty-five cases where the adenoids and tonsils were removed the result was increase in weight, better breathing and heart action, alertness of mind, and a noticeable improvement in trade work. Where the obstructions of nose and throat still remain there is loss in weight and diminished chest expansion and a generally weakened condition. The extraction of decayed teeth and the providing of well-fitting glasses have diminished nervous ...
— The Making of a Trade School • Mary Schenck Woolman
... however, before the arrival of the journeying wolf, a new interest had entered into the life of the long-jawed bitch. Her eyes resumed their old bright alertness, and she grew perceptibly less ungracious to the loafers gathered around the stove in the back store. She had entered upon a career which would have ended right speedily with a bullet in her reckless brain, but for an utterly ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... yes," cried Fritz, rubbing his eyes and yawning; but, Eric, pulling away his blankets, soon made him bestir himself, when his brother jumped up with his usual alertness—first running down to the beach and imitating the penguins in having a dip in the sea, to wash the cobwebs out of his head, as he laughingly said on his return to their little domicile, when ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... a clever movement, got in a savage thrust, from which Lecour only saved himself by extreme alertness with a little graze of the neck. De Lery was the better trained swordsman of the two, and it was evident that his loss in the previous duel was due to his furious recklessness on that occasion. Now that the blood of both was up de Lery ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... and her other guests were forced to do the talking, for Bertha had not only warned Mart against reminiscence, but had determined to keep a tight hold on her own tongue; and though she listened with the alertness of a bird, she answered only in curt phrase, making "yes" and "no" do their full duty. She perceived that the people round her were of intellectual companionship to the Crego and Congdon circles, and these young men, so easy and graceful of manner, reminded her ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... is told of a Brownie, who haunted a border family, now extinct, that the lady having fallen unexpectedly in labour, and the servant, who was ordered to ride to Jedburgh for the sage femme, shewing no great alertness in setting out, the familiar spirit slipt on the great-coat of the lingering domestic, rode to the town on the laird's best horse, and returned with the mid-wife en croupe. Daring the short space of his absence, the Tweed, which they must necessarily ford, rose to a dangerous height. ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... Lord," is a general attitude of mind, and this, combined with their long centuries of servitude, has had so much effect upon the national character of the Egyptian that they almost entirely lack those qualities of alertness, confidence, and sense of personal responsibility without which no race can become great or ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... sprang to his feet; lithe, active, eager. Swiftness, alertness, poise, certainty were in every line of his splendid body. His was the assured, resourceful bearing of the man of action, whose hands have kept his head, contrasting sharply with the Miner's heavy and tentative slowness, ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... a life of adventure is his, to be sure! A life of constant alertness, constant danger, constant escape! An ocean Ishmaelite, he wanders forever aimlessly, homelessly; now unheard of for months, now careening his boat on some lonely uninhabited shore, now appearing suddenly to swoop down ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... Celt' from Merionethshire, with coal-black hair, and eyes deeply sunken and lined, with fatigue or ill health. Beside him, his comrade, Philip Cuningham, had the air of a shrewd clerk or man of business—with his light alertness of frame, his reddish hair, and sharp, small features. A pleasant, serviceable ability was stamped on Cuningham's whole aspect; while Watson's large, lounging way, and dishevelled or romantic good looks suggested yet another perennial type—the dreamer entangled in ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... whose tracks though rarely seen by others, he often found in his wanderings. When he was forced to take to the woods by day, he either proceeded cautiously or slept. Both his hearing and his eyesight having become acute, he saw and heard with the alertness of a fox, and lived as free—a cruel freedom that became a mockery. He had no clothes save the makeshifts he stood in. When it rained he remained soaking wet, like the ground and the trees about him; he became one of them, drying when they did; drenched, ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... Smith desired to speak with him, and, expressing his hope that he had been pleased with the operation of his medicine in behalf of Sir Hugh Robsart, added his desire to accompany him to court. This was indeed what Tressilian himself had several times thought of; for the shrewdness, alertness of understanding, and variety of resource which this fellow had exhibited during the time they had travelled together, had made him sensible that his assistance might be of importance. But then Wayland was in danger from the grasp of law; and of this Tressilian ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... seaman certain words, gestures, that should in given conditions come as naturally, as instinctively as the winking of a menaced eye. A certain order should spring on to his lips without thinking; a certain sign should get itself made, so to speak, without reflection. But all unconscious alertness had abandoned me. I had to make an effort of will to recall myself back (from the cabin) to the conditions of the moment. I felt that I was appearing an irresolute commander to those people who were watching ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... characters when a comparison is made between them and Shubin. And yet Turgenev's is but a sketch of an artist, compared with, let us say, the admirable figure of Roderick Hudson. The irresponsibility, alertness, the whimsicality and mobility of Shubin combine to charm and irritate the reader in the exact proportion that such a character affects him in actual life; there is not the least touch of exaggeration, and all the values are kept to a marvel. Looking at the minor characters, ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... other hand, looked upon the student end of her husband's parish with disapproving eyes. The girls annoyed her by their cocksure alertness, their little air of being primed, ready for any emergency that chanced to offer. They vexed her by their manifest absorption in her husband; they vexed her yet more by their inexplicable lack of ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... turmoil of sudden fear, wondered whether she was showing it, lost it in unnatural alertness—all in the second before she answered: "Oh! ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Station to nail down a seat in the flier. It was while engaged in this elevating pursuit that Lambert glimpsed for an instant in the passing stream of people a figure that made him start with the prickling alertness of recognition. ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... man's glance, Darrell began to scan the faces of the crowd. Suddenly his pulses gave a bound. Seated at a little distance and partially facing them was a man of the same size and height as the prisoner, but whose every move and poise suggested alertness. He was leaning his arms on the back of the seat before him; his head was lowered so that his chin rested lightly on one hand, while the other hand played nervously with the seat on which he leaned. His whole attitude was that of a wild beast crouched, ready to spring upon ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... in one hand, so that it will ring with every step. If desired, this bell may be hung around the neck on a string or ribbon. The blindfolded players try to catch the one with the bell, who will have to use considerable alertness to keep out of the way. Whoever catches the ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... nothing. He turned and got his hat, and walked with Farnsworth up the street the half-mile to the jail. His face was impassive, but his movements had a new alertness, and Farnsworth noted that he had to walk painfully fast to keep up with this much ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... his opponents have invaded him. So, for instance, it was on March 28th. It was noticed that he was not in the House for some hours during the discussion of the Vote on Account. But, as evening approached, there he was in his place—fresh, smiling, happy, every limb moving with all the alertness of auroral youth. In the interval between his first appearance in the House and then later, he had delivered two lengthy speeches to two deputations of deadly foes; but he came down after this exertion just as if he had been playing a game of cricket, and had taken ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... Physically, as intellectually, the material in him was of the fine-grained fibre in which quality counts for more than quantity. Lacking something in mass, the lack was more than compensated by the alertness and endurance which had made him at once the best man with the foils and the safest oar in the boat in his college days. None the less, the first night out of New Orleans, with its uncounted plantation landings, had tried him keenly, and he was thankful when the second day brought fewer stopping ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... the open door, paused and stood looking out for an instant, then with his air of furtive alertness, yet apparently sure that he was unobserved and wholly unsuspicious of the presence of the girl above him, swung back toward the staircase. For an instant, terrified by the fear that he meant to ascend, she stood poised on the verge ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... and an occasional bout with the masks and foils was a means of exercise and diversion which both thoroughly enjoyed. Although Juliet was no match for the superior skill and endurance of her husband, she was nevertheless no mean antagonist, and her alertness of eye and hand usually gave him sufficient to do to make the ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... Penguin Person is not a wit, there is no barb to his shafts of fun, no uneasiness from his preternatural cleverness, for he is not preternaturally clever. You never feel unable to cope with him, you never feel your mind keyed to an unusual alertness to follow him; you feel, indeed, a sense of comforting superiority, for, after all, you do take the world so much more seriously than he! And yet he is not stupid; he is bright, alert, "kindly," to be sure, but delightfully humorous, deliciously droll. Life with him appears ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... the mast, darted down the companion-way into the cabin, and quickly returned to the deck bearing in his arms the swooning form of his adored Haydee. Ali followed him. The Nubian seemed to have entirely recovered from his fear, and manifested both alertness ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... seems to lose part of its shyness, and so after a time I often had the Harris sparrows in plain view. One of their characteristic habits was to stand at full height on the top of a brush heap, with tail lifted, crest feathers erect, and eyes wide open, the picture of wild alertness. In such poses they are ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... things a soldier. He was not only the consummate knight, the mirror of chivalry, but a capable tactician with a general's eye that took in the essential points of the situation at a glance. His restless energy ensured the rapidity of movement and alertness of action which won him many a triumph over less mobile and less highly trained antagonists; while they inspired his followers with faith in their cause and with the courage which succeeds against desperate odds. Yet ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... crops which must be attended to, and Jim watched those with the alertness of a despairing man; and so harvest came again, and again the house was filled with men who talked their careless talk, and who were not ashamed to gorge while this one woman cooked for them. The baby lay on a quilt on the floor in the coolest part of the kitchen. ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... they were all seated, and now, at last, it seemed to the barkeeper as if the air of the room had been freed of its tension. No longer did he experience a sense of alertness, a feeling that something out of the ordinary was going to happen, and it was with immense relief that he heard the Girl take up ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... reflect on the incessant activity displayed by these birds the livelong day. So rarely indeed do they alight that country folk gravely deny them the possession of feet, and it is in the last degree improbable that a bird of such feverish alertness could dispense with its night's rest. No one who has watched swifts, swallows and martins on the wing can fail to be struck by the extraordinary judgment with which these untiring birds seem to shave the arches of bridges, gateposts, and other obstacles in ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo
... a break in the mission in 1627. Noue lacked the physical strength and the mental alertness essential to a missionary in these wilds. Finding himself totally unable to learn even the rudiments of the Huron language, he returned to Quebec, since he did not wish to be a burden to Brebeuf. For a year longer Brebeuf and the Recollet Daillon remained together at ...
— The Jesuit Missions: - A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... dawn, and when the sea was yet full of darkness, I was greatly startled to hear a prodigious splash amid the weed, mayhaps at a distance of some hundred yards from the boat. Then, as I stood full of alertness, and knowing not what the next moment might bring forth, there came to me across the immense waste of weed, a long, mournful cry, and then again the silence. Yet, though I kept very quiet, there came no further sound, and I was about to re-seat myself, when, afar off in ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... his chair, looked at them all again, one by one. Re-evaluating. For a moment the facial tic stopped and his eyes held the old alertness. ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... stationed in the center of the army on the field, and on the two sides of it were bodies of cavalry and foot soldiers, more lightly armed than the soldiers of the phalanx, who could accordingly move with more alertness and speed, and carry their action readily wherever it might be called for. Those troops on the sides were called the wings. Alexander himself was accustomed to command one wing and Parmenio the other, while the phalanx crept along slowly but ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... by the keen, professional alertness that transfigured his face at that moment, had eyes and thoughts but for that same blind boy over ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... must say, the vulpine intellect, with its knowingness, its alertness and expertness in 'detecting hypocrites,' seems to me a rather sorry business. We have had one such Statesman in England; one man, that I can get sight of, who ever had in the heart of him any such purpose at all. One man, in the course of fifteen hundred years; and this was his welcome. He ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... acquaintanceships and her friendships must be scrutinized by her natural protectors and that, altogether, there is a definite but undefined danger in the very atmosphere of the city for the girl or the young woman which demands a constant and protective alertness. ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... Nobby Men's Wear Shop he took his left hand off the steering-wheel to touch his scarf, and thought well of himself as one who bought expensive ties "and could pay cash for 'em, too, by golly;" and at the United Cigar Store, with its crimson and gold alertness, he reflected, "Wonder if I need some cigars—idiot—plumb forgot—going t' cut down my fool smoking." He looked at his bank, the Miners' and Drovers' National, and considered how clever and solid he ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... wing. Formerly he had travelled much, but without any pleasure in movement: he might as well have stayed at home. Now, when he travels, it is for an end; it is delightful to witness the cheerful alertness with which he sets about it. He is going down the Rhine;—for its scenery? Pshaw! he never cared a button about scenery; but he has great hopes of the waters at Kreuznach. He is going into Egypt;—to ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... jerky in his manner, with a bushy, tramp-like "get-up" of hair and beard, most swiftly and astonishingly disposed of at times only to be regrown at others, and always, and intentionally, I am sure, most amusing to contemplate. In addition to all this he had an air of well-being, force and alertness which belied the other surface characteristics as anything more than a genial pose or bit of ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... parabolic path the cast-out stump traced in the air was seen from another veranda at a distant of some twenty yards. It was noted as a symptom of importance by an observer with his faculties greedy for signs, and in a state of alertness tense enough almost ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... more made one of those wordless sounds that she detested. But her anger died when she saw that he was staring over her shoulder out of the window at some sight which had made his face white and pointed with that grave alertness which is the brave man's form of fear. She swung round to see ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... being soodras,[12] and of the same sect) his social relations were intimate and free. The sircar, having thriven under the patronage of more than one rich and liberal baboo,[13] to whose favor he had recommended himself by his business alertness and his ever-politic compliance, had attained unto the honor of a brick house of two stories, plastered and whitewashed without and within, with a flat roof, having a low parapet, and laid with a rain-proof composition of clay and lime. Though his stairs are narrow, his veranda is commodious; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... pampooties, mend nets, build and thatch a house, and make a cradle or a coffin. His work changes with the seasons in a way that keeps him free from the dullness that comes to people who have always the same occupation. The danger of his life on the sea gives him the alertness of the primitive hunter, and the long nights he spends fishing in his curagh bring him some of the emotions that are thought peculiar to men who have lived with ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... dreamers, but now I saw men awake. Their very step along the street showed alacrity. Every man seemed to know what he was about. The faces of other men seemed tinctured with an idle gloom; but here with a pleasing alertness. Their appearance was strongly marked with the modes of civil life.' Life ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... in those dilated eyes of mine that confronted his, for, as I sprang toward him, he bounded backward and escaped through the door of Mrs. Clayton's chamber, which he shot after him with undignified alertness. I stood smiling, and strangely cold, leaning against the mantel-shelf, while my heart beat as though, it would have leaped from my throat, and I could feel the pallor of my ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... hand on his arm. "What's wrong with you?" she asked intently. There was alertness in the question, rather than responsive softness. Willoughby drew a hand across his mouth. "Nothing's wrong Stella. I've had a hard day. ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... up his head with renewed alertness. He squinted a little while into the southwest. "Bust my hub if it ain't a cloud! Comin' up, too—comin' right along. Say, do you reckon that rain-crow feller brought that ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... the old man. "The grizzly comes on you bold and strong; you know your danger right away, and have it out. So. But the puma comes—God, how the puma comes!" He broke off, his eyes burning bright under his bushy brows and his body arranging itself into an attitude of expectation and alertness. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... he takes fate's forbearance as his due and adds it to his own credit. Fair-haired, blue-eyed, his clean-shaven face deeply and clearly coloured; a combination of the Saxon bulldog type with the seafaring man's alertness; his heavy yet lissome frame admirably half-revealed by the simplicity of navy-blue guernsey and trousers,—it is one of the sights of Seacombe to see him walk the length of the Front with his two small boys. He lacks, however, the gift of expressing himself, except when he is angry—and ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... to the stand and touched a button. Instantly the scene changed; fields, forests, streams and hills ran by in a murky blur, and then a larger town flashed on the mirror. Here the same stir and alertness characterized the scene. The gaze of every inhabitant was fixed on the threatening horizon. Rapidly the scenes shifted at the king's will, till a hundred cities, towns and villages had ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... high, and the tail in line with the back, or slightly upwards, but not curled over the hind-quarters. Elegance of outline and grace of form are most essential to a Dane; size is absolutely necessary; but there must be that alertness of expression and briskness of movement without which the Dane character is lost. He should have a look of dash and daring, of being ready to go anywhere and do anything. TEMPERAMENT—The Great Dane is good-tempered, affectionate, and faithful to his master, not demonstrative with ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... at the two men, bewildered by this new light in which Hunt was presented, and fascinated by the tense alertness of ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... according to our sledge meter. We started again at midnight, and, steering by stars, kept our course correct. The hot tea seemed to run through my veins; its effect was magical, and the ice-bitten feeling of tired men gave way once more to vigour and alertness. ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... not long have escaped the observation of two such earnest students of humanity as we believed ourselves to be. But the characteristic in her which at once caught my eye was her expression— a look of such keen alertness, such intense vitality, that even in the mental stagnation that accompanies night travel I wondered what, in ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... depend. We must, all of us be aware of the fact that there have been times in our lives when all was prosperous, and when we were yet overshadowed with dreary thoughts; or again times when in discomfort, or under the shadow of failure, or at critical or tragic moments, we have had an unreasonable alertness and cheerfulness. All that is due to the subconscious mind, and we ought at least to try experiments in ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... with every nerve stimulated to alertness, he watched, and again he saw the light. Straining his eyes Colin could just distinguish the figure of a man with a gun on his shoulder and a lantern in his hand, making his way to the coast end ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... would that brighten my faculties of enjoyment! I should run about to see all I have hitherto omitted to seek, with the ardent curiosity of a traveller newly arrived ; and I should hasten to review and consider all I have already beheld, with an alertness of vivacity that would draw information from every object I have as yet looked at with undiscerning tameness. Oh, such a gleam of light would new-model or re-model me, and I should make you present ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... There are few more stirring sights than a French regiment upon the march. Advancing in loose order, and with a long, swinging gait, their guns at an angle of forty-five degrees, lightly carried upon the shoulder, they impart an idea of alertness and efficiency which no other soldiers present ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... meridian before a weapon was thrown by either side. Then, rather than leave the place without something being done, the shout was given by the Etrurians, the trumpets sounded, and the battalions advanced. With no less alertness do the Romans commence the fight: both rushed to the fight with violent animosity; the enemy were superior in numbers, the Romans in valour. The battle being doubtful, carries off great numbers on both sides, particularly the men of greatest courage; ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... prisoner, but all his alertness and powers were returning. He was not one ever to give up hope, and a single glance was enough to tell him the whole situation. A half dozen warriors stood about him, eight or ten more were returning, evidently from a chase, and ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... alertness which becomes second nature to a pugilist, Calvert saw before the first demonstration that his foe had no knowledge whatever of defending himself. He allowed him to make a single rush, his big fists and arms sawing space like a windmill. He struck twice, ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... know, mother. Perhaps she's eating plaster again," suggested Eliza, with the alertness that even charming children sometimes show when face to face with the crime of ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... by force have a very slender claim upon them. The pastor of the local Lutheran Church took pity on this boy who had such disgust for his father's trade, and hired him to work in his garden and run errands. The intelligence and alertness of the lad made him look like good timber for ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... a white hat, placed somewhat too knowingly on one side, complete the description, and "give the world assurance of the man." And, with his light, firm, well-shaped figure, his clear complexion, his keen, bright eye, and features that bespoke the courage, precision, and alertness of his character—that is to say, features bold, not large, well-defined, and regular—you might walk long through town or country before you would see a handsomer specimen of humanity than our friend ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... by, who was so alert on this occasion, it appears by a note, was Stephen Longfellow, the great-grandfather of the poet. Those who enjoy the poet's acquaintance will probably testify that the property of social alertness has not evaporated from the family in the lapse of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... Chinese young men impress you by their alertness, neatness of appearance, and evident eagerness to learn. An Italian boy who had been set at a trade when very young is now having a belated chance to learn to read. A number of girls of various ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... that there is a telephone girl instead of a telephone boy is due to the alertness and good business sense of the company. To put a boy before a switchboard and expect him not to pull it apart to see how it was made; or to place him in a position to entertain himself by connecting the wrong parties and listening to the impolite names they ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... however, he had the gracious example of his beautiful mother, who never did more than keep the lead nicely tight while she marched round, with her head well up, her tail hanging in a graceful sweeping curve, and her whole body radiantly expressive of alertness. Gradually it was borne in upon Finn that these were matters which touched his reputation, his pride, his belief in himself; that he, Finn, was being observed and judged with regard to his appearance and deportment. Once possessed of this idea, who ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... Still, his alertness all came to naught, for Madelon, like some fleeing fox, took a sudden turn which no canny hunter could have anticipated. She sat somewhat away from the hearth and well at Eugene's back. He would have asked her why she did not draw nearer ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the accurate knowledge of Chase, nor the lofty invective of Sumner, nor the smooth eloquence of Everett, nor Seward's rare combination of political adroitness with an alertness to moral forces, matched, in hand to hand debate, the keen-mindedness, the marvelous readiness, and the headlong force of Douglas. Their set speeches were impressive, but in the quick fire, the question-and-answer, the give-and-take of a free discussion, he was the master of them all. When, half ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... That feeling of alertness and of readiness for anything was still further strengthened in him by the high opinion his fellow prisoners formed of him soon after his arrival at the shed. With his knowledge of languages, the respect shown him by the French, his simplicity, his readiness to give anything ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... "Hum!" And roused to instant alertness by the crackle of a twig in the forest, he glanced sharply ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... As the quarter-back's signals rang out there was perceptible activity and alertness at School's right end. As the ball was snapped, School's right wing went through the needful movements, but Dick Prescott, over at left end, had the ball. Ripley ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... thing that brought her upright and from thence to the floor and from the floor to the closet that connected her apartment with that of her mistress. The door was locked; this was an innovation that startled Janet to a keen alertness. She rattled the knob and knocked upon the panelling. Stooping, she saw the key was turned in the door. She hurried from the place to her own room and into the hall, and from the hall to a small corridor, and from thence to the grand corridor, where opened the door of her mistress' ante-chamber. ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... Herr Haase, watching through his mask of respectful aloofness, it was as though the Baron's mind and countenance together snapped almost audibly into a narrowed and intensified alertness. The deep, white-fringed brows gathered over the shrewd pale eyes. "Not a Swiss?" he queried. ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... to both Sherburne and Harry that the Federal pickets and outriders had acquired much skill and alertness, and they urged the troop to its greatest speed. Even if they should be able to defeat their immediate pursuers, it was no place for them to engage in battle, as the enemy could ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... than medium height, thin and agile. In all his actions he showed quickness and alertness. He had large, black, piercing eyes, his eyebrows were curved and thick; his nose straight and long; his cheeks somewhat sunken; his mouth, not particularly well formed but expressive and graceful. From early youth his forehead was deeply lined. His neck was erect; his chest, narrow. ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... wonderfully fond of him, since he has taken the resolution of that journey. He said the other day, "I wish my Lord Stair was in Flanders! General Wade is a very able officer, but he is not alert." I, in my private litany, am beseeching the Lord, that he may contract none of my Lord Stair's alertness. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... as you have heard, with his Troops at New York. The People in this Colony & the Jerseys are in Motion and if the New England Militia joyn our Army with their usual Alertness & Spirit, I have no doubt but the Enemy will meet with a warm Reception. A few days may probably bring on Event which will give a ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... obligation, and that includes the recognition of God, of duty, of right and wrong, in short, of a moral ideal. I do not mean to insist that every one appreciates all that is implied in consciousness of responsibility. There are degrees of alertness, and some men are wide awake and others ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... the meals, however, was not only that we were all kept at a very high strain of alertness and attention, singularly inconducive to the enjoyment of food or to the sober business of digestion, but that they were of such interminable length. The plain fact was that by utilizing almost every moment ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... predicament of their king. Curiosity prompted him to tarry a moment, and in that moment his quick eyes caught the unfamiliar coloration of the clothing of the two Swedes behind a bush not far from him. Now he was all alertness. Who were these interlopers? What was their business in the jungle of the Mangani? Korak slunk noiselessly around them to a point where he might get their scent as well as a better view of them, and scarce had he done so when he ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... erect, well-poised, plainly a soldier in spite of his ill-fitting clothes; the American, lank and stomachless, yet taller than the other in spite of his bent shoulders. His tawny beard was guiltless of care. Of all his slack body only his eyes showed alertness as they looked sidewise from under ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... latter, to Shatov's surprise, opened his casement at once, jumping out of bed, barefoot and in his night-clothes at the risk of catching cold; and he was hypochondriacal and always anxious about his health. But there was a special cause for such alertness and haste: Lyamshin had been in a tremor all the evening, and had not been able to sleep for excitement after the meeting of the quintet; he was haunted by the dread of uninvited and undesired visitors. The news of Shatov's giving information tormented him more than anything.... And ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... and sensitive genius did not go wrong when it selected Joubert as an eminent example of those gifts of the French mind which most commended themselves to itself—an exquisite justesse, an alertness of spirit not shaking off rule and measure, above all, a consummate propriety in the true and best, not the limited sense of the word. Nor is it difficult to observe in the shy philosopher a temperament which must have ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... at the door before he finished the last word. There was a crash as the guard's chair went over. He had jumped from a half-doze to full alertness in an instant, his gun also ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... of music should by no means be overlooked. The mental alertness developed by sight-reading is of much importance. Some children are slow thinkers, and react lethargically: as a class, country children are mentally much slower than town-bred youngsters. A city child quickly has to learn to look after himself, and to make his own decisions ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... Logan to acquaint Merton with the new and favourable aspect of his affairs, and, after fixing Logan's visit to Rookchester for the same date as Miss Willoughby's, he went off with a juvenile alertness. ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... effective thrust of the sharp, upturned point of its murderous horn, was upon his antagonist, and I caught my breath sharply, fully expecting to see the man impaled, or at least tossed high in the air. But instead I beheld as splendid an exhibition of courage and alertness as I think I have ever witnessed, for the man, firmly standing his ground to the very last fraction of a second, sprang nimbly to one side at the precise moment when, as it seemed, the point of the horn was about to be dashed into his naked ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... a man more humane, more tolerant, more dainty; incites to every natural piety, strengthens reverence; while it clears his brain of whatever dull fumes may have lodged there, stirs up all his senses to wary alertness, and actually quickens his vitality, like high pure air. It is, in the familiar phrase, 'a liberal education'; but it is that finer education which sets free the spirit. His natural piety, in the full sense of the word, seems to me deeper and more sensitive than that of any other English ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... aside her role of neutral and entered the war with a declaration of hostilities on Austria-Hungary. Great expectations were founded upon the supposedly well-trained Roumanian army and upon the nation which, because of its alertness and discipline, was known as "the policeman of Europe." The belief was general in Paris and London that the weight of men and material thrown into the scale by Roumania would bring the ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... bushes confirmed his suspicions. Without a word he made a dash toward the thicket. His companions understood, however, and were not slow to follow his example. There was a crackling of the brambles, succeeded by a stampede. Jack, with all his alertness, had not been quite quick enough. With a jeering whoop, two shabby figures escaped into ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... from force, and experience from ability. Experience detached from active power is no longer faculty of doing, but mere memory of what has been done; and principles accordingly subside into precedents, intuitions into arguments, and alertness of will into calculation of risks. The highest quality of mind, the quality which stamps it as an immortal essence, namely, that power, the fused compound of all other powers, which sends its eagle glance over a whole field of particulars, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... grace. There is a gradual yielding of every muscle to the soft persuasiveness of slumber: the flexible frame is curved into tender lines, the head nestles lower, the paws are tucked out of sight: no convulsive throb or start betrays a rebellious alertness: only a faint quiver of unconscious satisfaction, a faint heaving of the tawny sides, a faint gleam of the half-shut yellow eyes, and Agrippina is asleep. I look at her for one wistful moment and then turn ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... traveled between Flora's face and his. Under their steady light there was a strange alertness, as if she sat there ready enough to avert whatever threatened, but anxious to draw her skirts aside from it, distrusting the quality, hating to have come in upon anything so dubious. When the hall door opened and closed she listened ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... abusive language did the shame of a clandestine affair, and the consciousness of acting ill, induce me to brook! At length, however, his fury exceeded my patience, he called me a beggarly, cowardly Scotchman. Fired at the words, I drew my sword; he, with equal alertness, drew his; for he was not an old man, but, on the contrary, strong and able as myself. In vain his daughter pleaded;-in vain did I, repentant of my anger retreat-his reproaches continued; myself, my country, were loaded with infamy, till no longer constraining ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... boy like a rat, but the alertness faded instantly from his eye, and his lip slackened into a slipshod smile. "Why, yes, sonny, me and my grub-stake. You've been to school, I'll bet, but they didn't learn yu' Chinook, now, did they? Chinook's the lingo us white folks trade ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... eager face it was! Eagerness, indeed, seemed to be the note of the whole man, of the quick eyes and mouth, the flexible hands and energetic movements. Even the straight, stubbly hair, its owner's passing torment, standing up round the high open brow, seemed to help the general impression of alertness and vigour. ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... scarf and a fur cap. Only when the equipage had entered the courtyard did it stand revealed as a light spring britchka. And as it came to a halt, there leapt on to the verandah of the mansion an individual of respectable exterior, and possessed of the art of moving with the neatness and alertness of a ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... to notice and greeted her cordially. He was looking a bit thin, with a high colour and a restless snap in his eyes. There was an alertness about him that was new to her and a something in his manner that was quite different. She stole a look at him while he and Claybrook were discussing lubrication and wondered in what way he had changed. A sureness? A steadiness? A bit of reserve that sat well upon him? All ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... rather than phlegmatic. All that is on the father's side. My maternal ancestors have been concerned with farming and the sea and have also had a similar lack of business capacity, but with less mental adaptiveness and alertness, with more steadiness of purpose, however, always doers rather than dreamers. Among them I remember one cousin who was probably abnormal, although he died when I was too young to notice much. Again, they were all rather reserved people, but ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... listened to all these futilities with inward impatience, waiting for his own opportunity, and when the host rose he sprang to his feet with an alertness he rarely showed. He managed to catch Lord Merivale before Sir Isaac bore him off for the final interview. He had only a few words to say, but he wanted to get ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... in these islands, and by the reputation which they have everywhere gained for maintaining themselves among so many enemies, always attacking these with great personal bravery, without having had forts or defenses for their protection. Their alertness, good will, and discipline has all been due to the fact that the governors and captains-general who have come here on your Majesty's service, provide everything that, in the opinion of your master-of-camp and the captains, may appear to be requisite for your Majesty's service, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... water as a fish. But the raccoon it did not suit at all. With a splutter he relinquished his hold on the mink's loins; and the latter, perceiving the advantage, let go and snapped again for the throat. But again he miscalculated the alertness of the raccoon's sturdy muscles. The latter had turned his head the instant that the mink's jaws relaxed, and the two gnashed teeth in each other's faces, neither securing a hold. The next moment the raccoon had leaped ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the stillness, and in a moment he had sprung to alertness. It was a cry—a sharp, wrung cry from the garden close to him, the garden of the hotel, and instantly following it a flood of angry speech in a man's voice and the sound ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... here, on a beautiful peninsula jutting out into the lake, he built another post, Fort St. Charles. It must have seemed imposing to the natives. On walls one hundred feet square were four bastions and a watchtower; evidence of the perennial need of alertness and strength in the Indian country. There were a chapel, houses for the commandant and the priest, a powder-magazine, a storehouse, and other buildings. La Verendrye cleared some land and planted wheat, and was thus the ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... a description of his assailant, or even survive. Much the same objections—from the criminal's standpoint—obtain in nearly all the accepted modes of killing a man. Even the use of venom a second time possesses the disadvantage of a certain alertness against the very thing on the part of the victim. Werner was a dope fiend, fully aware of the potency of a tiny skin puncture. I'll wager he was on constant guard ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... inspection of the State House. He considered that the parlous situation in state affairs demanded full dress. During the evening he had been going on his rounds at half-hour intervals. On each trip he had been much pleased by the strict, martial discipline and alertness displayed by his guardsmen. The alertness was especially noticeable; every soldier was tautly at 'tention when the boss warrior hove in sight. General Totten was portly and came down hard on his heels with an elderly man's slumping gait, and his sword clattered loudly and his movements were as ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... the schemes of expansion in the fifty years between the Mexican and the Spanish wars, for the Gadsden Purchase of 1853 was really only a rectification of boundary, this alone came to fruition. Seward could well congratulate himself on his alertness in seizing an opportunity and on his management of the delicate political aspects of the purchase. Without his promptness the golden opportunity might have passed and never recurred. Yet he could never have saved this fragment of his policy had not the American people cherished for Russia a ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... plot. On such a mission the utmost vigilance was demanded at all times, and with an ambuscade ahead of him, he was alertness itself. His knowledge of Indian warfare stood him in good stead now. Not a tree, rock, or hillock escaped his keen glance. When he neared the creek at which the attack was expected, he left the road, and attempted to ford the stream four or five hundred yards above the common crossing, but found ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... William L. Stidger is one of the most thoroughly alive men in the ministry today. He sees quickly, reacts instantaneously, and knows how to bring others to a like alertness of mental and spiritual seizure. If it be said of him that he is impressionistic it must be remembered that the impressions are made on a mind of sound purpose and communicated to others for the sake of the truth behind the ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... Western States. I am continually meeting and talking with them. They often speak to me first, and always show great sociability, and glad to have a good interchange of chat. These Western soldiers are more slow in their movements, and in their intellectual quality also; have no extreme alertness. They are larger in size, have a more serious physiognomy, are continually looking at you as they pass in the street. They are largely animal, and handsomely so. During the war I have been at times with the Fourteenth, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... conscious that it was all too good to be true; that her surroundings might any moment fade; that her gay clothes would disappear, and that she would again find herself, heartsick and weary, in her comfortless little combined room at Mrs Bilkins's. At the same time, her natural alertness took in everything going ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... and with half-a-dozen of the most villainous ruffians on earth in his pay, it seemed impossible for Fielding and Robinson to escape. But here the ex-thief's alertness came to George Fielding's aid, and the two men managed to get the better of all the robbers and assassins who attacked their tent. Robinson, in fact, not only saved his own and his partner's lives, by common consent he was elected captain at the gold-diggings, and by his authority some sort of law ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... anything in the whole campaign, now that it is over, to criticise at all, and nothing to criticise severely. It was creditable alike to the general who commanded and the army which had executed it. Sherman had on this campaign some bright, wide-awake division and brigade commanders whose alertness added a host to the efficiency of ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... am sure you can't blame me for any want of alertness in seeking fine fishes. I sailed to the coast of Africa, from Minturnae in Campania, only to taste of one species, which I heard was larger there than it was on our coast; and finding that I had received a false information, I returned immediately, without even deigning ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... stream of her perfect manner gathered itself again and flowed on as smoothly as might be to the end. But it was only because she had the end in view that she was able to proceed. She had been touched with a point that made her quiver, and she needed all the alertness of her will to repress her agitation. Her only safety was in her not betraying herself. She resisted this, but the startled quality of her voice refused to improve—she couldn't help it—while she heard herself say she hardly knew what. The tide ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... piece of rope, she studied him curiously. He was tall—taller even than Sir Redmond, and more slender. Sir Redmond had the straight, sturdy look of the soldier who had borne the brunt of hard marches and desperate fighting; Mr. Cameron, the lithe, unconscious grace and alertness of the man whose work demands quick movement and quicker eye and brain. His face was tanned to a clear bronze which showed the blood darkly beneath; Sir Redmond's year of peace had gone far toward lightening his complexion. Beatrice glanced briefly at him and admired ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... with a note of deep reproach, and suddenly ceased to look over her glasses and looked through them. She looked no kindlier through them, and her eye seemed much larger. She was now regarding the lady in the car, though with a sustained alertness towards the pink paper. "I suppose," she said, "you've come ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... Majesty's permission," he said, tearing open the envelope. As he read the contents, his shoulders sank to their habitual stoop and benignity once more shone in the place of alertness. "Decidedly, fate is not with your Excellency to-day. M. Jacobi writes me that four millions have already been disposed of to M. Everard & Co., English bankers in the Konigstrasse, who are representing a French firm in this particular instance. ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... offensive operations than that in front of Washington, much more level, the woods less dense, the soil more sandy" (p. 47). After arriving, we find "the roads impassable," "very dense and extensive forests, the clearings being small and few;" and "the comparative flatness of the country and the alertness of the enemy, everywhere in force, rendered thorough reconnoissances slow, dangerous, and difficult" (p. 79). General McClellan's mental constitution would seem to be one of those, easily elated and easily depressed, that exaggerate distant advantages ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... bearing an Enfield upon his back. Silently he moved downward toward the bottom of the gorge and there where the ancient trail unfolded more levelly before him he swung along with easy strides, though always with the utmost alertness against possible dangers. A gentle breeze came down from the mountains behind him so that only his ears and his eyes were of value in detecting the presence of danger ahead. Generally the trail followed along the banks of the winding brooklet at the ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... attention throughout the Jewish diaspora. What he said or wrote could not be ignored whether people liked it or not. They could afford to ignore a Gabirol even, or an Ibn Daud. But Maimonides must be reckoned with. The greater the man, the greater the alertness of lesser, though not less independent, spirits, to guard against the enslavement of all Judaism to one authority, no matter how great. And in particular where this authority erred in boldly adopting views in disagreement with Jewish tradition, as it seemed to ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... not size and strength that are most necessary in war; but quickness, alertness, and watchfulness. You know that, already, the leaders have found that nothing can persuade the men to keep guard, or to carry out outpost duty. If we do this, even if we do nothing else, we shall be serving the cause much better than if we were to join ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... the two parties agree, so to speak, to differ. They take sides, and in default of any more rational method, resort to the arbitrament of force. The stakes are high, and if on the one hand the game calls forth an immense amount of resource, skill, alertness, self-control, endurance, courage, and even tenderness, helpfulness, and fidelity; on the other hand, it is liable to let loose pretty bad passions of vindictiveness and cruelty, as well as to lead to an awful accumulation of mental and physical suffering and of actual material ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... spent with Rachel, when they talked of the business, and often branched off to more abstract subjects. To the past they never alluded. Katherine was glad to see that the dead, hopeless expression of Rachel Trant's eyes had changed, yet not altogether for good. A certain degree of alertness had brightened them, but with it had come a hard, steady look, as though the spirit within had a special work to do, and was steeled and ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... combinations of sounds without slighting any of them, but such flexibility cannot be attained except by habitually uttering words with distinctness and accuracy. A daily exercise in enunciating a series of sounds will in a short time give flexibility to the lips and alertness to the mind, so that no word will be uttered without receiving ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... knoll and ridge, are the black-mouthed guns, and around them are grouped the squads of ghostly, grisly, fog-dripping cannoneers. One may walk along that line of heights for mile after mile, and find there only grim ranges of batteries and waiting groups of men. All is silence; all is alertness; all is fog. Back of the lines of unlimbered cannon, sheltered as far as possible from returning fire, the drivers and horses and the heavy-laden caissons are shrouded in the mist-veil, and the staff officers, groping to and fro, have to ask their way from battery to battery, or go yards ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... Frontier work means work: and when cholera hovers over the station like a bird of prey, it is carried on with redoubled vigour. Only by constant occupation can fear and fatalism be held at arm's-length. Only the infectious mettle of the British officer can infuse into all ranks that cheerful alertness which, at a time of epidemic, is the finest safeguard in the world. There is much virtue, also, in mere routine, one of the wingless good angels of earth; and only those who have proved its power to drag broken heart ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... raised to the nth power. He was a colossus of commerce with the military alertness of a Bismarck. His mental processes were profound, and his vision was far-reaching. He was a resourceful trader, an austere friend, a shrewd and uncompromising foe. Physically, he was a big man with a bull neck and black, piercing ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... of new responsibility was on the young pastor of Saint Marks. The newcomers had no such alertness and resourcefulness as his own people. They were helpless in the face of new experiences. Soon they became a worry and an enigma to the town authorities; but especially and inevitably they turned ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... progress, though his will is probably in all essentials as absolute as that of Scindia, another Mahratta chief, whose interest in every form of Western activity is displayed almost as much in his physical energy as in his intellectual alertness. Some no doubt abandon the conduct of public affairs almost entirely to their Ministers and prefer a life of easy self-indulgence. Others, on the contrary, are keen administrators, and insist upon doing everything ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... By the alertness with which we were served and the eager zeal of the bearded Cossack whom Pugatchef had appointed Commandant, I saw that, thanks to the talk of the postillion who had driven us, I was taken for a favourite of ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... in Garman's eyes warned Roger to extraordinary alertness, and when the other, pretending to seek a moment's rest, suddenly lashed out a kick for the groin, the young man threw himself away, escaping with a blow on the hip. Anger flamed in him anew, the anger of the fair fighter at a treacherous trick, and at the sight ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... absolutely in harmony with my father, and that was in her sympathy with the poor and in quiet, unparaded determination to hold out a helping hand to all that sought it. She had imagination, and she sent it on errands of good-will. I think my brother inherited from her his alertness of mind and not a little of his quickness ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... with an absent air that was unlike his usual alertness. The girls, watching the ponies come in, noticed nothing, and presently he drew Mr. ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... further away from the house. He would have gone down then and there, in spite of the fact that it was a blustering night of wind and rain and he not fitted to go out in such weather, but he was afraid of Julia. She was certain to hear and follow; she had almost an animal's alertness when once she was on the trail of anything. So he lay and planned and waited, hoping that a chance would come during ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... the cheek. The bully roared and the crowd stepped back. Mormon, with the surprising alertness he showed in action, for all his bulk and weight, sprang back, poised for strike or clutch. Miranda Bailey came with a rush and stepped between the two men. Russell foresaw a laugh at his expense and curbed himself, the sooner for his new-found ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... blinking bemusedly at Dane, then pushed back his wiry black hair and assumed a measure of alertness. Dane dropped the now purring cat in the Medic's lap and in a few sentences outlined his suspicion. Tau's ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... he rose I could not help admiring, as I had often done before, the singular beauty of his countenance. His books, I think, do him injustice; they are cold and academic. But there was nothing of that in the man himself; never was spirit so alert; and that alertness was reflected in his person and bearing, his erect figure, his brilliant eyes, and the tumultuous sweep of his now whitening beard. He stood for a moment silent, with his eyes still fixed on the red star; then began to speak ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... than in science. Indeed, it seemed during the later decades of his life as if one encountered Virchow in whatever direction one turned in Berlin, and one feels that it was not without reason that his compatriots spoke of him as "the man who knows everything." To the end he retained all the alertness of intellect and the energy of body that had made him what he was. One found him at an early hour in the morning attending to the routine of his hospital duties, his lectures, and clinical demonstrations. These finished, he rushed off, perhaps to his parliamentary ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... sprawling group of two men and three women on the stage. Without make-up they were white and featureless in the glare of the foot-lights; they were jaded and a little impatient, too, but Manders, who seemed to make his personality unyielding and metallic on entering a theatre, galvanized them into alertness. A wooden platform had been built over the middle of the orchestra; and, as soon as he had disposed of Barbara in the stalls, Eric mounted it and seated himself in an arm-chair. Manders cautiously squeezed past him, script in hand, to the stage; there was a ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... the White Linen Nurse very softly. With sudden alertness she turned her curly blonde head towards the road. "There's somebody coming!" she said. ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... sudden upward glance was all a-quiver with alertness. "I don't ever seem tired now. Keeping one's own house—is great! and it seems like everything is waking up every minute. Sometimes I hate to go to sleep for fear I'll ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... been killed except that his enormous strength and unusual alertness made him too valuable. So in spite of their fears they kept him, but he was watched incessantly; and after his tusks were broken he became even more rebellious, and grew to distrust every one about him. Poor old fellow." She turned the handsome head toward the boy. "Look at him, Ben. Would you believe ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... carry on this business," she said, and her quiet assurance impressed Madame's turbulent temper. With a brief return of her mental alertness, the ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... misinterpretations of it. Reports multiply upon themselves and take new meanings till the harmless poet is generally accounted the King's spy and the real agent of all royal edicts, the town's master, in fact. The interest which, as a poet, he takes in all manifestations of life is popularly supposed to be the alertness of a secret agent of the government. The reams of poetry he writes are transformed into letters of information to the King. Rumor translates the poet's perfectly decent, regular, meager ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... of the last post relieved. It was all in the day's work—as Frontier men understand work. The exposure and long hours in the saddle had little effect upon his whipcord and iron frame: but a sharp attack of fever—unrecorded in his letter to his wife—had slackened his alertness of body and spirit; and it was with an unusual sense of relief that he faced the last twenty-mile stretch of road, leaving behind him six fresh men to take up the task of watching the blank, unchanging face ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... The Indian's alertness and keenness of hearing, as well as of seeing, was something remarkable to me. The following is a good illustration of it. One summer, when thus travelling, I was on the lookout for some friendly Indians whose camping place was determined each summer ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... of feet in the sand, and low sniffings, stiffened him to alertness. It was as he had hoped. The dog had liked him from the ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... heavy, hobnailed boots that reached to his knees. He was tall and stooped slightly, but there was none of the slouching figure and gait that characterized those around him. His movements were quick, and, when standing motionless, there was something in his very pose that conveyed an impression of alertness and of latent strength. His back was turned toward Rutherford, who was watching him under a sort of subtle fascination, when suddenly he wheeled, facing him. His eyes were keen and piercing, and as he looked for an instant at Rutherford with an expression of suspicion ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour |
