"Alert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sperit in me—plenty of sperit," chirped grandfather, alert as an aged sparrow that still contrives to hop ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... wine at dinner had been, like Mr. Poe's conversation with his soul, "serious and sober." In the cellar no drop had passed our mouths. I was alert as a lark when I entered: I came out in a species of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... But he can find a fireside in the sun, Play with his child, make love, and shriek his mind, By throngs of strangers undisprivacied. He makes his life a public gallery, Nor feels himself till what he feels comes back In manifold reflection from without; While we, each pore alert with consciousness, Hide our best selves as we had stolen them, 210 And each bystander a detective were, Keen-eyed ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... If business men were guided in their mutual relations by any principle of faith or honour, he failed in the first bitterness of his disgust to see it. Business-life seemed but a scramble, in which the most alert seized the greatest portion. The feverish activity and energy which were fast changing the prairie into a populous place seemed directed to one end— the getting of wealth. Wealth must be gotten by fair means or foul, ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... to sleep! We neither of us closed an eyelid, so alert were we for the expected footstep on the ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... and the stillness had become almost painful. There was no cry of a bird; not even the howl of a hyena: the camels were sleeping; but every man was wide awake, and the sentries well on the alert. We were almost listening at the supernatural stillness, if I may so describe the perfect calm, when, suddenly, every one startled at the deep and solemn boom of the great war-drum, or nogara! Three distinct beats, at slow intervals, ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... cause. She was not my Queen, Marquis, and France is not my country. I endeavour to look at the matter with the eye of common-sense and wisdom. And I cannot forget that Marie Antoinette was at bay: all her senses, all her wit alert. She can only have thought of her children. Human nature would dictate such thoughts. One cannot forget that she had devoted friends, and that these friends possessed unlimited money. Do you think, Marquis, that any one man of that rabble was above ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... scarcely revealed the nature of that dark interior. I could dimly perceive what I believed to be a table directly in front of me, while certain other indistinct and ill defined shadows might be chairs pushed back against the wall. At least this room was without occupants; yet it was with every sense alert that I entered, pressing slowly past the table toward where I felt the fireplace would naturally be, knowing that my companion was yet with me, ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... assassination. These thoughts, connected with his military duties, awakened another train of reflections. He bethought himself, that all he could now do, was to visit the sentries, and ascertain that they were awake, alert, on the watch, and so situated, that in time of need they might be ready to support each other.—"This better befits me," he thought, "than to be here like a child, frightening myself with the old woman's legend, which I have laughed at ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... half-breeds. They were all of them talking and laughing eagerly, certainly not showing very much of the so-called Indian reserve, at the time the hunters peered over at them. Yet occupied as they were, their senses were always alert. One of them heard a twig snap, and turned ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough
... thing about Aaron Burr was the magnetic quality that was felt by every one who approached him. The roots of this penetrated down into a deep vitality. He was always young, always alert, polished in manner, courageous with that sort of courage which does not even recognize the presence of danger, charming in conversation, and able to adapt it to men or women of any age whatever. His hair was still dark in his eightieth year. ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... him and grinned. On Greg's face there was a smile, but about his eyes were lines of alert watchfulness and thought. Greg Manning was in his proper role at the controls of a ship such as the Invincible, a man who never stepped backward from danger, whose spirit hungered for the vast stretches of void that lay between ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... had been bad before, it was worse now, and it was a perfect marvel how the horses kept their feet. I was somewhat unfortunate in my horse Alat, who was blind in one eye, so that I always had to guide him over difficult places. This kept me for ever on the alert, and became trying. At every hut we pulled up and asked for milk, but invariably got "Nema" (I have none) for an answer. The Montenegrins ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... whistles came to his alert ears, coming, it seemed, from the very heart of some grim old gravestone. A man strode boldly across the yard from the gate, his walk indicating that he was perfectly familiar with the ...
— The Flyers • George Barr McCutcheon
... "Dolores," her surname was a revelation when I heard it properly pronounced. St. Nivel's idea of foreign names was exceedingly hazy and misleading. As soon as she told me she was going home to Aquazilia, I became very alert and began to ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... the way at the beginning He loathed a skulker I'm for a rational Deity Loathing of artifice to raise emotion Nevertheless, inclinations are an infidelity Published Memoirs indicate the end of a man's activity The despot is alert at every issue, to every chance Things were lumpish and gloomy that day of the week We shall want a war to teach the country the value of courage You'll have to guess at half of everything he tells you You're going to be men, meaning something ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... evening. King Edward was awake all night with anxiety, expecting every moment that Philip would come suddenly upon him. He rose at midnight, and ordered the trumpets to sound in order to arouse the men. The officers were all on the alert, the young prince among them. All was movement and bustle in the camp. As soon as the day dawned they commenced their march, Gobin leading the way. He was well guarded. They were all ready to cut him to pieces if he should fail to lead them ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... an Arapahoe party which had been sent from the village to look for Utahs in the Bayou Salade, (South Park;) and it being probable that they would visit our camp with the desire to return on horseback, we were more than usually on the alert. ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... captain's desk, the watch officer resumed his tour of duty. The six great lookout plates into which the alert observers peered were blank, their far-flung ultra-sensitive detector screens encountering no obstacle—the ether was empty for thousands upon thousands of kilometers. The signal lamps upon the pilot's ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... plans either to lessen your ardour or give it a rash and dangerous direction. Be cool in decision, warm in pursuit, and unwearied in perseverance. Time is a never failing friend, to those who have the discernment to profit by the opportunities he offers. Let your eye be on the alert, and your hand active and firm, as circumstances shall occur, and I shall then say I scarcely know what it is that you may not hope ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... was presented to him. Vernou was a caustic critic on the side of the oppositon. The uncongeniality of his domestic life embittered his character and his genius. He was a finished specimen of the envious man, and pursued Lucien de Rubempre with an alert and malicious jealousy. [A Bachelor's Establishment. Lost Illusions. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.] In 1834, Blondet recommended him to Nathan as a "Handy Andy" for a newspaper. [A Daughter of Eve.] Celestin Crevel invited him to his marriage ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... conversation, for each took his position behind the tree barricade with all senses alert for ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... lounging pose and yet, indefinably, his attitude became more tense, as if, in a quick riveting of attention, every sense had become alert. "He's doing a good mining business, ain't he?" he spoke carelessly. "I should think there would be a good many things that would take him ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... and by instructing the people what to do to make it rain and secure other benefits, he maintains good terms for them with their deities, who are jealous of man and bear him ill-will. He is also on the alert to keep those under his care from sorcery, illness, and other evil that may befall them. Even when asleep he watches and works just as if his body were awake. Though real illness is the exception with him, the Tarahumare believes that an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure, and ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... he scoured the valleys and hills; in the shadow of the trees at twilight, in fancy he saw her lurking; even amidst the black, barren tree-trunks down by the river banks. His eyes and ears were ever alert with the half-dread expectation of seeing her or hearing her voice. The scene Victor had described of the white huntress leaning upon her rifle was the most vivid in his imagination, and he told himself that some day, in the chances of the chase, ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... in white, apparently of more than human stature, flourishing about the road, now throwing up its arms, now leaping to an astonishing height in the air, then turning round several times successively, then raising itself to its full height and gesticulating violently. Our troop, on the alert to discover and believe in the supernatural, made a halt at some distance from this shape; and, as it became darker, there was something appalling even to the incredulous, in the lonely spectre, whose gambols, if they hardly accorded ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... a little used up by his campaign work, and will not get out for a day or so; but when he does get out, you want to be on the alert." ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... remarkable is the transformation of the liberty-lovers (among whom also the present writer has always reckoned himself). Four years ago we were eagerly and rightly on the alert to detect the slightest attempt by Ministers or bureaucrats or public bodies to invade our glorious privilege of doing and saying exactly what we like. To-day the pressure of the war has turned us into the willing subjects of a despotism. ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... expected; profiting meanwhile by every moment to give the men and their captains instructions for the coming battle, to inspect them, and range their ranks in closer order. Thus he kept them and their attention on the alert ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... silent meditation, and while he mused there came a knock at the door. The little man started up on his seat, alert as a squirrel, and turned his eyes over his shoulder, listening intently. The knock was repeated—three quick sharp raps. Evidently ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... in order in the aims of sleep to collect forces for a new combat. The animal in such a case grunts with satisfaction, throws itself on its back, scratches itself with its fore-feet, looks after its toilet, or cools itself by slowly fanning with one of its hind-feet, but it is always on the alert and ready for a new fight until it is tired out and meets its match, and is driven by it farther up from the beach. One of the most peculiar traits of these animals is that during their stay on land they unceasingly use their hind-paws as fans, and sometimes also as parasols. Such fans may ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... the leaves and grass. The egret has resumed his fishing in the tank where the rain is stored for the poppy and sugarcane fields, the sand-pipers bustle along the margin, or wheel in little silvery clouds over the bright waters, the gloomy cormorant sits alert on the stump of a dead date-tree, the little black divers hurry in and out of the weeds, and ever and anon shoot under the water in hot quest of some tiny fish; the whole machinery of life and death is in full play, and our villager shouts to his patient oxen and lives his life. Then gradual ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... Quaker went into the parlour to my husband, and soon after supper came in, and I ate moderately, and we spent the remainder of the evening, for the clock had then tolled nine, very cheerfully; for my Quaker was so rejoiced at my good fortune, as she called it, that she was very alert, and exceeding good company; and her wit, and she had no small share of it, I thought was better played off than ever I ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... home was to him, with its confidence, its warmth, its shelter, its tender affection. One of the most pathetic incidents in the whole Gospel story is the hunger of Jesus for sympathy in the garden, when he came again and again to his human friends, hoping to find them alert in watchful love, and found them asleep. It was a cry of deep disappointment which came from his lips, "Could ye not watch with me one hour?" Jesus craved the blessing of friendship for himself, and in choosing the Twelve ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... talent which addresses itself successively to all classes of readers. He has been called the greatest humorist in the world, and that is probably the truth; but he is also a charming and attractive story-teller, an alert romancer, a clever and penetrating observer, a philosopher without pretensions, and therefore all the more profound, and finally, a ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... Tim deftly swung his rifle to his right shoulder. "I'll walk me post in a military manner, keepin' always on the alert and observin' everything that takes place within sight or hearin', accordin' to Gin'ral Order Number Two. There won't be no war unless somebody starts somethin'. Hey, there, buddy, would ye smoke a God's-country cigarette if ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... the evening, when he became excited by the expectation of his father's arrival. He sat, pillowed high up, each respiration an effort that spread a burning crimson over his face, while eye and ear were nervously alert. ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... morning within those doors. If you have nothing to say, if you are really not an envoy from some kingdom or colony of thought and cannot cast a gem upon the heaped pile, you had better pass by upon the other side. For it is the peculiarity of Emerson's mind to be always on the alert. He eats no lotus, but for-ever quaffs the waters ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... still lay along the pinon limb, every sense on the alert. He was not sure that it was not a trick to draw him out. He already was too good a woodsman to be ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... The men stood, alert and watchful, on the lookout for submerged trees and floating debris; for at the swift rate we were now floating, any collision would ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... quitted his respectable abode, and, furnished with dark lantern, pistol, crowbar, and crape, joined half-a-dozen neophyte burglars—his pupils and his victims. The hostelry chosen for attack was "The Spaniards." The host and his servants were, however, on the alert; and, after a smart struggle in the passage, the housebreakers were worsted; two or three of them being killed, and the others—save and except the cautious Jemmy, who had only directed the movement from without—being ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... like hours, MacLeod and the Greek waited on the main floor, where they could watch both the elevators and the stairway. Bertie Wooster had gone up to alert Kato Sugihara and Karen. Then the door of one of the elevators opened and Adam Lowiewski emerged, with Kato behind him, apparently lost in a bulky scientific journal he was reading. The Greek moved in from one side, and MacLeod stepped in front of ...
— The Mercenaries • Henry Beam Piper
... help while it hinders us. Pry up the creaking sluice-gates, sending a fresh head of water down the channel along with us, lifting us over the shallows, driving us on through the rocky places, buoyant, alert, and rejoicing, till we come again to a level meadow, and the long, calm, indolent ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... faculties will be developed, to the highest normal pitch. Not only the undeveloped faculties, but those already developed will know a new life. That new presence within will sharpen the brain, and fire the imagination. It will make the logic keener, the will steadier, the executive faculty more alert. ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... you are alone you may encounter and influence a possible buyer of your best capabilities. You are continually within sight and hearing of people whose impressions of you might affect your chances to succeed in life. Therefore always be alert to grasp every ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... sick girl had gone to sleep; but this thought had no sooner taken shape in his mind than he saw her stir. Then she arose slowly in the chair, and sat, apparently listening, her manner surprisingly alert. Only a few moments ago she had shown every sign of exhaustion; now her strength was unquestioned, for her body was firmly held and her grip upon the arms of ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... men were "in the pink," as Tommy says. They were clear-eyed, vigorous, alert, and as hard as nails. With their caps on, they looked the well-trained soldiers which they were; but with caps removed, they resembled so many uniformed convicts less the prison pallor. "Oversea haircuts" ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... of standing adopted by the horse is to rest on three legs—one hind and two fore. If he is alert, he stands on all four limbs; but if standing in the ordinary manner, he always rests on one hind leg. He does not remain long in this position without changing to the other. Hour by hour he stands, shifting his weight at intervals from one to the other hind ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... the individual member must hold himself constantly alert to find what his "people" at home want: always on the lookout for signs of approval or disapproval from his constituency. And the constituency on its side does not hesitate to let him know just what it thinks of him and precisely ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... about a child whose mother knew bad people—something which other children could "catch" like scarlet fever. From this seed other thoughts had grown. She did not remain a baby long. A fervid little brain worked for her, picked up hints and developed suggestions, set her to singularly alert reasoning which quickly became too mature for her age. The quite horrid little girl, who flouncingly announced that she could not be played with any more "because of Lord Coombe" set a spark to a ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... my sect? you ask me; I must be A member sure of some fraternity: Why no; I've taken no man's shilling; none Of all your fathers owns me for his son; Just where the weather drives me, I invite Myself to take up quarters for the night. Now, all alert, I cope with life's rough main, A loyal follower in true virtue's train: Anon, to Aristippus' camp I flit, And say, the world's for me, ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... board the wrecked vessels had worried for six months beforehand, would their worries have prevented the wrecks? Mind you, I say worry, not proper precaution. The shipping authorities, all railway officials and employees, etc., should be as alert as possible to guard against all accidents. But this can be done without one moment's worry on the part of a solitary human being, and care is as different from worry as gold is from dross, coal from ashes. By all means, take due precautions; study to avoid the possibility of ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... alert upon the track Of rich and strange emotion, To Pudsey and to Wibsey Slack I pay my fond devotion; My heart is in the Highlands oft, Though age its glow enfeebles, And soars triumphantly aloft At ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 31, 1917 • Various
... all parts of the city and chiefly those where Vice grew flagrant at night. The journalists, who knew of his tours of inspection and were always on the alert for the picturesque, likened him to the great Caliph who in similar fashion investigated Baghdad, and they nicknamed him Haroun al Roosevelt. He had for his companion Jacob Riis, a remarkable Dane who migrated ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... officious, sprightly, alert, expeditious, prompt, spry, brisk, industrious, quick, supple, bustling, lively, ready, vigorous, busy, mobile, restless, wide awake. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... is anything to do now for the Jews and for Jewish bodies in America except to work harmoniously together in the raising of relief funds. Of course, we must always be on the alert and ready to take a definite position whenever the proper time arrives. But not now. When peace negotiations begin to be talked about, I think it will be well for such bodies as the American Jewish Committee, possibly the B'nai B'rith and other organizations, to take united ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... pest of avarice with which so many are infected and diseased, even princes of the earth, this king Henry of whom we speak was most wary and alert. For neither by the splendid presents given to him nor by the ample wealth which he owned was he ever entrapped into the unlawful love of them, but was most liberal to the poor in lightening their wants; and enriched very many others with great gifts ...
— Henry the Sixth - A Reprint of John Blacman's Memoir with Translation and Notes • John Blacman
... back the way they had come, the Curator glanced earnestly at the detective, who seemed to have fallen into a kind of anxious dream. Would it do to interrupt him with questions? Would he obtain a straight answer if he did? The old man moved heavily but the now fully alert Curator could not fail to see that it was with the heaviness of absorbed thought. Dare he disturb that thought? They had both reached the broad corridor separating the two galleries at the western end ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... either dwelt in New York or been in some way associated with its enterprises and its people, and, vain as must be the hope of seeing any relic of the buried metropolis, every eye was on the alert. ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... the "mystery, trade, occupation and secrets of throwing and handling clay, and also burning it." But the fact was that as he was born in the pottery and had lived and worked in it, and was a most alert and impressionable child, he knew quite as much about the work as his brother Thomas, who was twenty years older. Years are ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... water from the stream, and on again. This day too he journeys, for there are many kindly spots in the woods to be explored. What is he seeking? A place, a patch of ground? An emigrant, maybe, from the homestead tracts; he keeps his eyes alert, looking out; now and again he climbs to the top of a hill, looking out. The sun ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... perhaps two weeks, in York, and our luck with railway hotels had been so smiling elsewhere that we had no other mind than to spend the time at the house into which we all but stepped from our train. But we had reckoned without our host, as he was represented by one of a half-dozen alert young ladies in the office, who asked how long we expected to stay, and when we expressed a general purpose of staying indefinitely, said that all her rooms were taken from the next Monday by people who had engaged them long before ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... His mind seemed to grow more alert as his body was overcome by the cold. His blood boiled, even as it froze in his veins. He felt abnormally acute of intellect, and plead with himself to think of something,—to invent something that would ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... the Valley City did not anchor, for it was rumored that the Confederate ram Albemarle might come down any night, and especially a very dark night under the cover of the darkness, so that the Valley City must be constantly on the alert. If the Albemarle did make her appearance at the mouth of the Roanoke river, the Valley City was to fire one gun as a signal to the fleet, which was anchored six miles farther down the Albemarle Sound, and then steam towards ...
— Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy • John M. Batten
... him that is without sin cast the first stone.' Who does not know that the simple and religious alone believe adulteries to be sins, and that the intelligent think otherwise, who like us view them by the light of nature? Are not adulteries as prolific as marriages? Are not illegitimate children as alert and qualified for the discharge of offices and employments as the legitimate? Moreover families, otherwise barren, are provided with offspring; and is not this an advantage and not a loss? What harm can come to ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... permitted to round out his fourth successful season at first base. But if Jimmy was momentarily stunned he gave no outward indication of the fact, and in the brief interval of silence following the president's ultimatum his alert mind functioned with the rapidity which it had often shown upon the gridiron, the diamond, and the ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... clergy, that the Christian people, should have settled down to an acceptance of a faulty established order, should not be alert to all that Our Lord's life signified, was one of the problems. It was, too, a matter of that cosmic loyalty which he analyses more fully in ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... back from the safe, breaking the contact. Instantly the room became black. David stared, still stupidly, at the dull red spot on the safe until it faded into blackness. Then he realized. He stood very still, muscles tense, senses sharply alert. He heard a faint rustling but he could not make out from what part of ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... feigning, for as long as these men did not seek to injure her, why should he incur their further notice? He lay on the rug, quite as though he was helpless; but she knew he was alert and was ready, if occasion arose, to show much more agility than the Chinamen or the old ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... rest lay down with their arms by their side, ready to fall in at a moment's notice. A dropping fire was kept up on both sides, but this was rather for the purpose of showing that they were on the alert than with any idea of harming the ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... place.—From the dandy of the Boulevard and the "Cafe Anglais," let us turn to the dandy of "Flicoteau's" and the Pays Latin—the Paris student, whose exploits among the grisettes are so celebrated, and whose fierce republicanism keeps gendarmes for ever on the alert. The following is M. de Bernard's ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... were quickly broken. One month later, a fresh attempt by the king and his counselors to trample the heaven-given right to worship God with a free conscience stirred the country. The Covenanters were alert, they were not caught napping. They concentrated their strength upon the Capital once more, and this time with a speed that surprised the government. Their number was greater than before; hundreds of ministers, and hundreds of noblemen, with strong delegations ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... literature of which we, that is, magazine readers in general, know nothing whatever. There is, for one, that fine, old, standard publication, Barrel and Box, devoted to the subjects and the interests of the coopering industry; there is, too, The Dried Fruit Packer and Western Canner, as alert a magazine as one could wish—in its kind; and from the home of classic American literature comes The New England Tradesman and Grocer. And so on. At the place alone where we went to press twenty-seven trade journals were printed every ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... emergency! She would not, for anything, have peeped out of the windows, in perfectly proper curiosity, to watch the Bottle River jacks flounder into town. Not she! Pattie Batch was busy. Pattie Batch was so desperately employed that her swift little fingers demanded all the attention that the most alert, the brightest, the very most bewitching gray eyes in the whole wide world could bestow upon anything whatsoever. Christmas Eve, you see: Day done. Something of soft fawn-skin engaged her, it seemed, with white patches matched ...
— Christmas Eve at Swamp's End • Norman Duncan
... if you receive this; for in these gunpowder times, to be sure, the clerks of the post-office are peculiarly alert. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... sleep without seeing Mamma, and had decided to kiss her at all costs, even with the certainty of being in disgrace with her for long afterwards, when she herself came up to bed. The tranquillity which followed my anguish made me extremely alert, no less than my sense of expectation, my thirst for and my fear ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... the alert, and fully aware of the public feeling. Day after day he watched his young mistress, following her when she left the house alone, and seeing her more than once when in the Deering woods she laid her face in the springing grass and prayed that she might die. But for her promise, sworn to Richard, ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... dreams of that portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire by Gainsborough, stolen from its frame, lost for a quarter of a century, and then rescued by one Colonel Patrick Sheedy (philanthropist and friend of art), for a consideration, and sold to J. Pierpont Morgan, alumnus of Harvard (and a very alert, alive ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... made a dash for him, but the stranger was agile and alert, and ran swiftly away and out of the grounds ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... means (it would almost appear some especial sense) the workman seems to scent the approach of a reformer even before his arrival in town. Their suspicions are thoroughly aroused, and they are on the alert for sweeping changes which are to be against their interests and which they are prepared to oppose from the start. Through generations of bitter experiences working men as a class have teamed to look upon all change as ...
— Shop Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... better in homes than in states. Homes are guarded by a wall of privacy, a delicate distaste for publicity, a shrinking from all notoriety such as rebellion must inevitably bring, and for this reason the weaker ones often practice a peace-at-any-price policy, thinking of the alert eyes that may be peering through the filet lace of the window across ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... to ill advantage on parade, on the march they are gay, alert, and willing like a troop of fox-hunters. I remember once seeing a company pass through the forest of Fontainebleau, on the Chailly road, between the Bas Breau and the Reine Blanche. One fellow walked a little before the rest, and sang a loud, audacious marching song. The ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... redoubtable stature, must be some kind of moose. In that case, of course, it became a question of antlers. Moreover, in his meetings with rival bulls it had never been his wont to depend upon a blind, irresistible charge,—thereby leaving it open to an alert opponent to slip aside and rip him along the flank,—but rather to fence warily for an advantage in the locking of antlers, and then bear down his foe by the fury and speed of his pushing. It so happened, therefore, that he, too, came ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... winding tunnel of foliage "Jip" was keenly alert. He seemed, with his good horse sense, to feel that he was carrying a very well-meaning but inexperienced Chaplain, more interested perhaps in things botanical and floral than military. When I, for example, showed ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... the peculiarities of his own wife and children; and he is consequently prepared to make allowances. But the clock on the street corner persists in thrusting false information upon you. The man who consults his watch does so with a purpose, and is naturally on the alert. But the cheating clock confronts him in moments of unsuspecting security, and throws him into a condition of the wildest alarm. It is peculiarly active on bright spring days, when people rise early and look forward to being at their desks half an hour before ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... conflict, he arrived at the palace, and entering by a private gate into the garden, he approached the window of Theodora's apartment. The anxious girl, who had been all the day on the alert, immediately descended, and stood by ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... foul of a French privateer. It was about nine o'clock in the evening, and we had very few hands on deck, and those on deck were most of them, if not all, asleep. We came bang against one another, and carried away both spars and yards; and the privateer, who was by far the most alert after the accident happened, cut away a good deal of our rigging, and got clear of us before our men could be got up from below. Had they been on the look out, they might have boarded us to a certainty, for all was confusion and amazement; but they cleared themselves and got off ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... instant, had remained alert over Chester, had not taken a hand in the battle. His eyes fastened at this moment on the German officer, his canine intelligence told him as clearly as words that his giant friend stood at death's door. With one fierce growl, he sprang ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... Then a traveller called with an armful of samples. He was travelling for his brother, he explained, who had a small factory. Jonah looked longingly, and confessed that he wanted to stock his shop, but had no money to buy. Then the traveller smiled, and explained to Jonah, alert and attentive, the credit system by which his firm would deliver fifty pounds' worth of boots at three months. Jonah was quick to learn, ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... emphasize it all, with the exception that proves the rule, he detailed one slight case where he thought my father was at fault,—-a detail so slight that I now forget what it is. In reading the Log kept by the discharged mate, Amerzeen, on the return trip in the Alert, I find that every incident there recorded, from running aground at the start at San Diego Harbor, through the perilous icebergs round the Horn, the St. Elmo's fire, the scurvy of the crew and the small matters like the painting of the vessel, to the final ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... the old woman answered, "that though her master was a deal on the wrong side of seventy, and though, to look at him, you'd think he was glued to his chair, and would fall to pieces if he should stir out of it, yet he was as alert, and thought no more of going about, than if he was as young as the gentleman who was now speaking to her. It was old Mr. Reynolds' delight to come down and surprise his people at his different places, and see that they ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... indications of impulsiveness: blonde coloring, especially if accompanied by a florid skin; small, round, retreating chin; small size; fineness of texture; elasticity of consistency; short head; short, smooth fingers, with tapering tips; a keen, alert, intense expression. The impulsive person's movements are also impulsive. He walks with a quick step, sometimes almost jerky. His gestures are quick, and if he is very impulsive, he always has the air of starting to do things before he has properly considered ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... and the goat-herd, who were on the alert, cut off his egress, and they and the soldiers, who had now also entered the room, seized and bound him securely, although the renegade displayed in the struggle the strength and agility of ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... or 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 ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... meditate again, yet alert for a sign or a word. It was in this little room, he understood, that the dispute with Anthony had taken place a few hours before, and he looked round it, almost wondering that all seemed so peaceful. It was this room, too, that was associated with so much that was happy in his life—drawn-out ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... were always alert. And they at once negatived any unauthorized wireless so that German spies could only snap out a signal or two at any time. They ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... bore the album and the potent invigorator that was to make a new man of Judge Penniman. His impoverished brother carried the blue jay, looking alert and lifelike in the open, the mammoth orange, gift for Mrs. Penniman—he had nearly forgotten her—and tenderly he led the dog, Frank. Not to have all his money again would he have parted with his treasures and the memory of supreme delights. Not for all his squandered fortune would he have bartered ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... sea has never been my element, and never will be; nevertheless, I hardened to the life, grew salt, tough, and tolerably alert. As a soldier learns more in a week of war than in years of parades and pipeclay, so, cut off from all distractions, moving from bivouac to precarious bivouac, and depending, to some extent, for my life on my muscles and wits, I ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... villain as ever walked, and the Chinese in the galley cut-throats of the best quality. And there, behind a mere partition, was a helpless girl—and I was unarmed. It was a highly serious and unpleasant situation, at the best of it, and the only thing I could do was to keep awake and remain on the alert until ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... the day had fairly dawned, it would have been difficult to find a more wide-awake, alert teacher than the Fraeulein, or one that could have given a truer and ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... turned their horses' heads as Rupert proposed. The cattle had only just reached the kraal, and the herdsmen were closing the gates. Rupert told them of the strange Zulus he had seen, and warned them to be on the alert. They scorned the idea, however, that a few Zulus would venture to attempt stealing any of the captain's cattle, but they promised, notwithstanding the approaching storm, to be on the watch, and to punish the marauders, ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... have late arrived, City 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 Unsatisfied, Telemachus began. ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... hero of stories of thrift and enterprise. Throughout his hard-working life he had been irresistibly impelled to action by an absolute genius of commerce, expressing itself at the outset by the exhibition of courage in mere exchange and barter. An alert power to perceive the potential value of things and the possible malleability of men and circumstances, had stood him in marvellous good stead. He had bought at low prices things which in the eyes of the less ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... gone shouting to bed, the men of St. Nicaise slept sound without a thought of possible reprisals. But the young bloods "across the way" were all alert. Waiting till the change of guard at St. Hilaire should make that customary noise of clinking arms and tramping feet which every citizen would recognise and forget, sixty of the bravest champions crossed the Rubicon and advanced in the depth of the ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... an Arctic winter. When the following summer we approached the coast, it was with real trepidation that I scanned the land for signs of my derelict friend. We felt that he would be gravely altered at least, possibly having grown hair all over his face. When an alert, tanned, athletic figure, neatly tonsured and barbered, at last leaped over our rail, all our sympathy vanished and gave ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... fresh as possible. No difficulty will be experienced in determining this, for they will soon wither or rot if they are not fresh, but the point is to find out their condition before they are bought. The housewife should be ever on the alert and should examine carefully the vegetables she buys before they are accepted from the grocer or taken from the market. In the case of certain vegetables, it is possible to conceal the fact that they are stale. For instance, the outside leaves of a head of ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 2 - Volume 2: Milk, Butter and Cheese; Eggs; Vegetables • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... all. However, after this practice had been in vogue for some time it was discovered by the Revenue officers and the matter made generally known among the officials at all the ports, so that they could be on the alert for such ingenuity. ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... mammals and birds. Thus, moles, shrews, and field mice, instead of burying themselves deeply in the ground, run about freely during an open winter and destroy enormous numbers of pupae; while such birds as the woodpeckers, titmice, and chickadees are constantly on the alert, and searching in every crevice and cranny of fence and bark of tree for ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... at his brown, alert face with its restless Irish eyes, and understood. "You never think of the horrid part, ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... cooked and cleaned, in spite of the Laird Fisher's protestations. When all was done, and the old charcoal-burner had gone out on the hills, Greta picked up the little fellow in her arms and went to Mercy's room. Mercy was alert to every sound, and in an instant was sitting up in bed. Her face beamed, her parted lips smiled, her delicate fingers ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... Alert—the latter a fine little schooner, owned by George and Harry—were to act the part of smugglers, and Ben. Lake and Thomas Benton, who had no boats, were chosen by the smugglers to assist them. The provisions, of which each boy was expected ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... tobacco. And in the course of time my father and I had them for guides in many a pleasant hunting expedition, and for allies against the Spaniards, when they resumed their pretensions to the country, and carried on a feeble, desultory warfare, which kept the settlement always on the alert, but never once disturbed us, for our home lay quite out of their track and beyond them, when they came up the river upon one of ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... cold of it, and the extremity of peril, or, maybe, this old gnawing at the heart, more virulent than either, soon drew the strength out of his body: close study and high living had made the joints less supple than Derrick Trull's: he lay there limp and unable,—his brain alert, but fickle. It put the watery death out of sight, and brought his familiar every-day life about him: the dissecting-room; curious cases that had puzzled him; drawing-rooms, beautiful women; he sang airs from the operas, sad, broken little snatches, in a deep, mellow ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... to see Livy a moment every afternoon until she has another bad night; and I stand in dread, for with all my practice I realize that in a sudden emergency I am but a poor, clumsy liar, whereas a fine alert and capable emergency liar is the only sort that is worth ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... establish a means of intelligent intercourse with them. They were curious to know the objects of the visit of the white strangers to their country. Always suspicious of strangers—supposing all, like themselves, treacherous and cruel—they kept on the alert and were chary of giving any information they might possess as to this, or any other matters about which the white men asked; but, watchful of their movements, and seeing from their explorations their intentions, they became convinced of ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... divisions numbered a total of about thirty-three thousand. The Union generals had made no provision against such an attack. No intrenchments had been thrown up, no plan or understanding arranged. A few preliminary picket skirmishes had, indeed, put the Union front on the alert, but the commanders of brigades and regiments were not prepared for the impetuous rush with which the three successive Confederate lines began the main battle. On their part, the enemy did not realize their hope of effecting a complete surprise, and ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... off beneath the grey, leaden winter sky, gliding through the grim, ghost-like forest, silent as death, past ice-bound waterfalls, and forests of fir and larch bent and bowed by the load of snow, ever onwards and northwards, always on the alert, ready for instant action, fearless and undismayed in a white wilderness and in those trackless solitudes which would strike dismay into many ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... carpet. The crowing of a cock in the distance seems almost musical, and there is some insect in the tree above me that appears to be trying to give an imitation of a telegraph instrument. I wonder what these rabbits are saying to each other. They seem very alert and interested. Now a third appears on the scene. Two of them are beginning to play, at least I thought so at first—and I feel in this peaceful wood I should have left it at that, but having to recollect the heading of these chapters I have ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... he well knew that the fall of her fortunes must be very rapidly followed by that of his own. By nature bold, unscrupulous, and resourceful, he was not a man to lose the game without playing it out to the very end with all the energy and cunning of which he was capable. Keenly alert to all that passed, he had, from the time that he first heard the rumour of the king's intention, haunted the antechamber and drawn his own conclusions from what he had seen. Nothing had escaped him—the disconsolate ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... excel us in size; they are of bronze color, some inclining more to whiteness, others to tawny color; the face sharply cut, the hair long and black, upon which they bestow the greatest study in adorning it; the eyes black and alert, the bearing kind and gentle, imitating much the ancient [manner]. Of the other parts of the body I will not speak to Your Majesty, having all the proportions which belong to every well-built man. Their women are of the same beauty ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... replied that sleeping or waking he was always on the alert, and went out to the little log stable, which did duty as a barn, to saddle his horse. A long lane led through the negro quarter to the field in which the hands were putting in the time in clearing out fence corners and burning brush, while waiting for the early crops to get high ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... the most humble tone and posture—"Please your honour; and please your honour's honour" they knew must be repeated as a charm at the beginning and end of every equivocating, exculpatory, or supplicatory sentence; and they were much more alert in doffing their caps to these new men, than to those of what they call good old families. A witty carpenter once termed these middle men ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... always late; by being a little earlier than usual she could have plenty of time to go to Crum Elbow and return before the family were assembled. Splendid! Daisy went down the back stairs, and gave her orders in such a way that they should not reach Ransom's ear. If not put on the alert he was sure to be down to breakfast last of anybody. So Daisy went to bed and to sleep with ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... so loud that it resembled the roar of thunder or of falling cliffs. Both of them were foremost of mighty men, and both took great delight in such encounter. Desirous of vanquishing the other, each was on the alert for taking advantage of the slightest lapse of the other. And, O monarch, the mighty Bhima and Jarasandha fought terribly on in those lists, driving the crowd at times by the motions of their hands like Vritra and Vasava of old. Thus two ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... under the name of Caliban as the alert and witty chroniqueur of the Figaro and as the facile rhymester of its lyre comique, has written a few serious poems of direct and vigorous expression, especially under the inspiration of the memory of ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... perfect a counterpart that no one, unless a keen observer, could detect a difference. The stranger was a keen observer and noticed that, while eyes, teeth, hair, and rich complexion were identical, also the height and build, the expression was quite different. Where the first-comer was alert, bird-like, and possibly inclining to sharpness, the second was more dreamy, peaceful, and slow. She had called the one "Hope," and saw, with quick pleasure, that she was right, for as the girl stopped suddenly, ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... a fight and from the morrow he seemed to have forgotten that he was engaged in anything beyond a scientific expedition into the wilds of the New World. His trunk was always full, not of money and valuables, but of natural history specimens; and while we were lying on the grass on the alert for the least noise which might reveal the approach of the enemy, he would be absorbed in the analysis of some plant or insect. He was an admirable young man, as pure as an angel, as unselfish as a stoic, ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... water front. Illumination for advertising purposes was forbidden; windows were covered, so that London became at night a mass of gloom. The Zeppelins, compelled to fly at a very great height, because of anti-aircraft guns, were blinded. As in Paris airplanes were constantly kept on the alert and searchlights and anti-airship guns placed at every ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... were now collected under command of Vaudreuil. On the next day, eighty men from Fort Remy attempted to join them; but the Iroquois had slept off the effect of their orgies, and were again on the alert. The unfortunate detachment was set upon by a host of savages, and cut to pieces in full sight of Fort Roland. All were killed or captured, except Le Moyne de Longueuil, and a few others, who escaped within the gate of Fort Remy. [Footnote: Recueil de ce qui s'est passe en Canada ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... only slightly interested except when he came to the odd conclusion of the note. But the Chief knew Delamater and knew how that slow indolence could give place to a feverish, alert concentration when work was to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... Denial may be given to this statement, nevertheless it is true, and I have had practical exemplification of it in my own experience. Observation is perhaps more powerful an organon than either experiment or empiricism. If the eye is always watching, and the mind on the alert, ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... accomplishes more than compulsion or violence. For even the spirit and nerves and bones, and other parts of the body, though devoid of reason, yet at any instigation of reason, when she shakes as it were the reins, are all on the alert and compliant and obedient, the feet to run, and the hands to throw or lift, at her bidding. Right excellently has the poet set forth in the following lines the sympathy and accordance between the ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch |
