"Alertness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all 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 ...
— 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
... was conscious that there was something tense and nervous in his alertness, something wary and defensive in his readiness, and his own nerves ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... develops; the call of sex and the love emotion grows in strength; sentiment is inclined to become strong; boundless enthusiasm manifests itself; and organization and cooperation begin to appeal and be appreciated more and more. There is a growth in logic, independent thought, alertness in thinking, and quickness of receptive powers. The boy at this age is in the period of highest resolves and greatest endeavor, is apt to show religious skepticism, and reason often takes the place of ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander
... his immemorial hunting grounds was only a secondary evil; the greater evil was the white man's family, bespeaking the increase of the dreaded palefaces. The Indian peril trained the pioneers to alertness, shaped them as warriors and hunters, suggested the fashion of their dress, knit their families into clans and the clans into a tribe wherein all were of one spirit in the protection of each and all and a unit of hate against ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... Helena, but in vain. At length he caught a glimpse of the memorable shawl, which had drawn forth so learned a discussion from his companion; and, starting from Touchwood's side with a degree of anxious alertness totally foreign to his usual habits, he endeavoured to join the person by whom ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... know what it is; you've told it to me lots of times," Cub replied with eager alertness. "You know, dad, I always remembered what you told me, and I didn't forget that advice of yours about fire-arms. It is, 'always handle an unloaded gun as if you know it's loaded.' I promise you, dad, I'll not forget it ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield
... our goose, as the saying is. And as he grew absorbed in the tale the author observed out of the corner of his eye that the Head Examiner's pen paused and then was gently laid down, a new expression of alertness, as though about to deliver judgment, came over the finely cut features. And presently, as it was explained how an iron collar was made and clamped about the broken pipe, and long bolts made to pass into the solid flanges of the ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... darken her blue eyes and decided to probe no further. Instead, he wandered about, inspecting the instruments. A few minutes later, with a spaceman's indefinable alertness, he felt a ...
— This World Must Die! • Horace Brown Fyfe
... when I had looked at him still I never left without sending him under the arch in order to increase his alertness. It was a relief to know that so many persons who went by wore tall hats, a safeguard against their seeing anything, for if they approached the shadow of the tall hat reached out beyond the shadow of the parapet, and was enough to alarm him before they could look over. So the summer ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... he had seen her for a doubtful second or so as she and Prothero drove past him, and his impression was of a rather little creature, white-faced with dusky hair under a red cap, paler and smaller but with something in her, a quiet alertness, that gave her a touch of kinship with Amanda. And if she liked old Prothero— And, indeed, she must like old Prothero or could she possibly have made him so deeply in love ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... parts, and sometimes in battle it acted in divisions. It was 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 ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... is an absolute essential, for again and again the security of a Platoon, a Company, a Battalion, a Brigade, or even of Division, may depend upon the alertness ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester
... the deadly circular saws, and the calm, erect men dominating the cars that darted back and forth; and finally the sparkling white steam spraying suddenly against the intense blue of the sky. Here was activity, business, industry, the clash of forces. He admired the quick, compact alertness of Johnny Mason; he joyed in the absorbed, interested activity of the brown young men with the scaler's rules; he envied a trifle the muscle-stretching, physical labour of the men with the leather aprons and hand-guards, piling the ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... grave," said Ashe. Then, just as she became conscious that she had jarred upon him, and must find a new opening, he himself found it. "Tell me!" he said, bending forward with a sudden alertness—"who is that lady?" ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... The widow tried to keep her tone natural, but a certain shrill alertness crept into it and Barbara, who was watching her closely, was quick to detect the change. Helen's color altered at the question, and she observed the widow's entrance ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... smell it, too. That is why he walked the deck with Fitzgibbon by his side. I could feel the alertness of the man. Yankee Swope had his finger upon the pulse of his ship. A mutiny, however sudden, would not catch the master of the Golden Bough napping. That is what I thought as I watched him, and Boston's vague scheme became harebrained in ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... The extra alertness of her look suffered a slight cloud as she continued: "One thing that made me feel reckless was that affairs are taking a turn that may make me be more careful and more economical than I ever was before, and I just thought ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... to the zealous young warriors. Such rivalry to best master the manual, to hold the most soldierly stature in the ranks, to detect the drill-sergeant when, to test their attention, he gave a false command! And then the coronal joy of a reward of merit for efficiency and alertness on guard! The rapture the bit of paper brought, and the exultation with which the hero thus signalized went off to town for the day, wandered through the waste of streets, stood before Willard's and admired in awe and wonder ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... as if on air. He was no longer the awkward lout, stolidly working at uncongenial toil. He had a hope, a purpose, a plan, and his sometimes sullen face was transformed into manly alertness ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... the darkness with straining eyes and bated breaths. Therefore, the interruption that followed the long, tense silence came as a shock, an interruption that startled each member of the party into a new and throbbing alertness. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... sort are related of Lincoln, and we should not have space to tell of the alertness with which he sprang to protect defenseless women from insult, or feeble children from tyranny; for in the rude community in which he lived, the rights of the defenseless were not always respected as they should have been. There ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... 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
... without any attempt at going to sleep, when suddenly I felt extremely alert in mind, very much as Miss Porter described herself in the Captain Carbury episode. Almost immediately upon this feeling of mental alertness came the conviction that Mabel M'Leod (as I will call her) was in the room, close to me, and that she was in some dire and urgent need of help—instantaneous help, I mean. I could neither see nor hear on this occasion—I only knew ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... reverse of pleasant for a war correspondent in such plight to learn that outside of Belgrade nobody, or at least hardly anybody, knew a word of any other language than the native Servian. As I ate, I was being attended by a very assiduous waiter, whose alertness and anxiety to please were very conspicuous. He was smart with quite un-Oriental smartness; he whisked about the tables with deftness; he spoke to me in German, to the Russian officers over against me in what I assumed was ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... other 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. Annie fed it irregularly. Sometimes ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... work admirably done by this outfit commanded by Captain Ralph Ramsay. Any slackening of alertness might have resulted disastrously to their regimental comrades away south, and while this outfit was the last of the 339th to go into active field service it may be said in passing that in the spring it was the last ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... with a 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 his healthy color, and was glad ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... of rather less 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. ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... defending Miggs. The evidence was clear, the witnesses sure and wary, and the prisoner universally detested save by his evil-minded companions, but these obstacles brought out in full force all David's indomitable will and alertness. He tipped up and entrapped the prosecution's witnesses with lightning dexterity. One of them chanced to be a man whom David had befriended, and he aided him by replying shrewdly ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... going on around me I can by no means keep my attention exclusively fixed upon the one in which I am myself engaged. Odds and ends from all the others find their way into my ears and my consciousness, and I am sometimes accused of absence of mind, when my fault is in reality a too great alertness of the sense of hearing. In this instance the conversation of three or four groups was more or less audible to me; but it was not long before my attention was absorbed by the voice of a lady, seated at the other side of the circular ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... crowd, the need, is everywhere; at home, in the social circle, and among the men driven by the passion for business and for pleasure, in this dangerously prosperous land of ours. Need of body even here, and deeper need of spirit. Much more tact is required, Spirit-born tact and patience and alertness, to ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... that was once the most potent among them all. I had been strangely moved at a theatre, a week or so before, as I looked at Lord Randolph Churchill. I remembered him twelve years ago—a mere boy in appearance, with clean-shaven face, dapper and slight figure, the alertness and grace of youth, and a face smooth as the cheek of a maiden. And now—bearded, slightly bowed, with lines deep as the wrinkles of an octogenarian, he sometimes looks like the grandfather of his youthful self. It is in the deep-set, brilliant eyes ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... seen first a squad—a veritable awkward squad—arranged in a ragged circle and passing a football with much mishandling and many fumbles. Further along you would have seen a long line of youths standing. Their general expression was one of alertness bordering on alarm. The casual observer would have thought each and every one insane, as, suddenly darting from the line, one after another, they flung themselves upon the ground, rolled frantically about as though in spasms, and then arose and went back into the rank. But had ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... mantelpiece with his hands in his pockets. He was a very ordinary, plain-countenanced, sandy-haired, quite commercial-looking man, this, who might have been anything from a Stock Exchange clerk to a suburban house-agent. But there was a sudden alertness in his eye as he turned it on the visitors, which showed them that he was well equipped in mental acuteness, and probably as alert ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... on the floor, panting and eyeing one another, after Mr Boffin had slammed the gate and gone away. In the weak eyes of Venus, and in every reddish dust-coloured hair in his shock of hair, there was a marked distrust of Wegg and an alertness to fly at him on perceiving the smallest occasion. In the hard-grained face of Wegg, and in his stiff knotty figure (he looked like a German wooden toy), there was expressed a politic conciliation, which had no spontaneity in it. Both were flushed, flustered, and rumpled, by the late scuffle; ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... contribution of soil and climate to our prosperity, the vast increase which modern inventions and improved carrying facilities have, the world over, brought to the productivity of labor, and here in the United States have brought more than anywhere else. They ignore the superior skill and alertness of the American workman and the wonderful extent to which he has been stimulated by the conditions and ideals of our democracy. They ignore the freedom of trade, which, since 1789, the Federal Constitution has made operative over our entire country,— ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... speaking the truth; for, although I had pretty well satisfied myself before I lay down, that the weather was improving and that therefore I had little or no cause for immediate apprehension, a sailor quickly acquires the trick of maintaining a certain alertness, even in the midst of his slumbers, since he knows that the weather is his most formidable and treacherous enemy, against which he has always to be on his guard; and this faculty of alertness is of course especially active when, as in my own ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... the retreating figures until they disappeared into Miss Arabella's gateway. Instantly Tim's languid air changed to keen alertness. ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... glass windows toward the sweep of green hills and darkening sky and the shadows of the lower forests that gave Fair Oaks its name. Beside him unfinished lay the summaries of the day's experiments, and the unorganized, hurriedly jotted notes for tomorrow's work. The old intellectual alertness was gone. Delight in changing theory, in careful experimentation no longer sprang from his work and were a part of it. There was a dull, indefinable aching in his head and a dry, dissatisfied sensation ...
— Security • Ernest M. Kenyon
... answered it. For a moment a look of suspicious alertness showed on the face of the Blue Scout. He whirled around to face the sound behind him, and in the moment that his back was turned ...
— The Boy Scout Automobilists - or, Jack Danby in the Woods • Robert Maitland
... at all seasons. In the teachings that follow, the venerable Shogun, Yoritomo-Tashi, points out that Common Sense is a composite product consisting of (1) Perception; (2) Memory; (3) Thought; (4) Alertness; (5) Deduction; (6) Foresight; (7) Reason, and (8) Judgment. Discussing each of these separately, he indicates their relations and how they may be successfully employed. Further, he warns one against the dangers that ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi
... and loss, but, impelled by both temperament and ambition, I was trying to maintain a racer's speed. From casual employment as a reporter I had worked my way up to my present position, and the tireless activity and alertness required to win and hold such a place was seemingly degenerating into a nervous restlessness which permitted no repose of mind or rest of body. I worked when other men slept, but, instead of availing myself of the right to sleep when the world was awake, I yielded to an ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... thick brush. This is why it so successfully resists the extermination that has almost swept the mule deer, antelope, white goat, moose and elk from all the hunting-grounds of the United States. Thanks to its alertness in seeing its enemies first, its skill and quickness in hiding, and its mental keenness in recognizing and using deer sanctuaries, the white- tailed or "Virginia" deer will outlive all the other hoofed animals of North America. In Pennsylvania they know enough ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... easily seized through the alcoholic imbecility of her semblance of a man brought no gratitude to her. The money simply insured her against poverty and her first concern was to put that money where it would be safe from raiders and sure to bring her an income. This, watchfulness and alertness of mind had informed her, ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... travelling by coach is by no means the least of our sublunary pleasures. Man is a wheelable animal as well as walking one. Winter is the time for a nice inside jaunt. What divine evaporations from the coachman's muzzle! What a joyous creak in the down-flying steps!—and, oh! that comfortable alertness with which we deposit ourselves in the padded corner, and fold our coatflaps over our knees, glance at the frosty steam of the window; and then, quite a la Tityre, repose our recumbent bodies at our ease! Such moments as these are snatches of indefinable ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... reviving and ever irrepressible vigour and interest in the fight, we may wish that the shabbiness and the pettiness of the daily lives of some of them had faded away from memory, and left us nothing to think of in connection with their names but the alertness, courage, tenacity, self-sacrifice, and faith with which they defended the cause of human emancipation and progress. Happily the mutual hate of the Christian factions, to which liberty owes at least as ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... voice itself. Conscience felt herself perilously swept by a torrent of thoughts that were all of the senses; the stifled senses of which he had just spoken, straining hard for release from their curbing. His splendid physical fitness; the almost gladiatorial alertness of his body; the glowing eagerness of his face were all arguing for him with an urgency greater than his words. This was the man who should have been ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... 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, ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... on again through the inky darkness. Noll relieved Hal, presently, though there seemed little need of alertness. The two prisoners capable of fighting looked pretty well cowed. Down at the rear end of the car, covered with a rubber blanket, lay the rigid remains of the ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... bring with them. He was eager to come, but the work required alertness and lightness of hand and foot rather than strength, and for this he would have been of no use. Besides, the two lads, keen as they were on their self-imposed tasks, were not unmindful of the fact that he ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... needed nerve and alertness. The protruded head was quickly withdrawn, and the earth which had been removed rapidly replaced, it being packed as tightly as possible from below to prevent its falling in. Word of the perilous error was sent back, and as the whisper passed ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... trained army is centred in the officers; in the Boer army there was much practical military sense and alertness of mind distributed ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... forms of what we call Western 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 themselves. As masterful a ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... of an humourous Gentleman upon one of his Friends, who was in other Respects every way an accomplished Person, That he wanted nothing but a Dash of the Coxcomb in him; by which he understood a little of that Alertness and Unconcern in the common Actions of Life, which is usually so visible among Gentlemen of the Army, and which a Campaign or two would infallibly ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... should have a well-stored mind. He should have mental culture in a broad way; sound judgment, a sense of proportion, mental alertness, a retentive memory, tact, and common sense,—these are ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... with the alertness peculiar to those who work on the night-shifts of restaurants, dumped a tray down on the table with a clatter. The Duchess woke up. Babe took her eyes off the ceiling. The Southern girl ceased to look at the sunshine. Already, at the mere sight of food, the extraordinary recuperative powers of ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... breeze was stirring, and on it there was borne to him a faint rumble as of thunder. Instantly the man came to a rigid alertness. Thunder might mean rain, and rain would be salvation. But the sound did not die away. Instead, it deepened to a steady roar, growing every instant louder. His startled glance swept the canyon that drove like a sword cleft into the hills. Pouring down it, with the rush of a tidal wave, came ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... closely, striving to sense if the sleep were real or feigned. Batard's sides were heaving regularly, but Leclere felt that the breath came and went a shade too quickly; also he felt that there was a vigilance or alertness to every hair that belied unshackling sleep. He would have given his Sunrise claim to be assured that the dog was not awake, and once, when one of his joints cracked, he looked quickly and guiltily at Batard to see if he roused. He did not rouse then but a ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... which we prepare for eating are "medicinal messengers" bearing light to the eye, vigor to the limb, beauty to the cheek and alertness to the brain, as vitamines, or distorted in the misdirected process are the harsh heralds of pain and debility to the human system. How great then is the influence of the one ...
— Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book - Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions • Mary A. Wilson
... much sameness about winter scenes in Alaska, as the reader has doubtless already remarked; yet the sameness is more due to a lack of alertness in the photographer than to an absence of variety. If the traveller had nothing to think about but his camera, if all other considerations could be subordinated to the securing of negatives, then, here as elsewhere, the average ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... and everything that linked her with him from Lone Moose to the last time he saw her had grown dim, like a book read long ago and put by on the shelf. In the fierce usages of aerial warfare distracted thought, any relaxing from an eagle-like alertness upon the business in hand, meant death swift and certain. And no man, even a man whose heart is sore, wishes to die. The will-to-live is too strong in him. Pride spurs him. To come off victorious over a concrete ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... 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 was to bank with so marbled an establishment. His high moment came in the clash of traffic ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... The tigerish alertness passed from Kate Pollard. She was filled all at once with a winning gentleness and, crossing to her father, took his heavy hands ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... followed this seeker of new trails into the car, and the passengers glanced up to find that she was a bright, happy-looking girl in her teens. She carried a sheaf of roses on one arm, and some new magazines under the other. One noticed first the alertness of the face under the stylish hat with its bronze quills, and then the girlish simplicity of dress and manner which showed at a glance that she was a thorough little gentlewoman. Her mother, who followed, gave the same impression; gray-gowned, gray-gloved, bearing a parting ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... 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 ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... took such pains to look stolid and unconcerned under those inflictions, and tried to smile as if he had no feelings whatever. It would be more generous to go down to him, and be kind. She jumped up with that alertness which comes so spontaneously at those sweet bright times when desire and duty ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... brave Army checkd the Progress of the Troops under his Command on the 16th of August; and the Militia have since, in several Instances, given him ample Proofs of a firm Attachment to the pub-lick Cause, as well as Bravery and Alertness which he did not expect, and which I believe have disconcerted their general Plan.—The Hands of those People, if not already, will very soon be taught to war ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... boys may be physically as sound as the girls, but they certainly have less charm. It is not often delightful to see them. They do not stand up well; they walk in a slouching and narrow-chested way; and, though they are mischievous enough, there is strangely wanting in them an air of alertness, of vivacity, of delight in life. There is no doubt that their heavily-ironed and ill-fitting boots cause them to walk badly; yet it is only reasonable to suppose that this is but one amongst many difficulties, and that, in general, the conditions in which the boys live are unfavourable ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... struck him as singular. Wetzel had his face half turned toward the boys romping near him and he leaned carelessly against a white oak tree. But a close observer would have seen, as Alfred did, that there was a certain alertness in that rigid and motionless figure. Wetzel's eyes were fixed on the western end of the island. Almost involuntarily Alfred's eyes sought the same direction. The western end of the island ran out into a long low point ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... entered the long, softly-lighted hall. Perhaps the sunshine had dazzled his eyes a little, but at that instant he thought it was a young girl who was advancing to meet him. The figure was so rounded and graceful, and there was such alertness and youthfulness in the bearing; but as she came closer to him he saw that ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... ducks is perhaps the most remarkable thing about them. When feeding at night in some lonely marsh, or hidden away by day deep in the heart of the swamps, they never for a moment seem to lay aside their alertness, nor trust to their hiding places alone for protection. Even when lying fast asleep among the grasses with heads tucked under their wings, there is a nervous vigilance in their very attitudes which suggests a sense of danger. Generally one has to content himself with studying ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... representative of his country would have spurred him to acquit himself well, but also at private parties and in purely personal relations. Like many silent men he was a good listener, and his sensitiveness and mental alertness gave the impression of more sympathy than perhaps he felt. He made himself agreeable, at all events, and he submitted to an amount of human fellowship that was astonishing to himself. The novelty of the society he entered, doubtless, attracted him, and fed his ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... the Aubusson tapestries that screened the door of the room in which the music was being given with his impetuous, vigilant, desperate gaze, appeared, with a soldierly impassibility or a supernatural faith—an allegory of alarums, incarnation of alertness, commemoration of a riot—to be looking out, angel or sentinel, from the tower of dungeon or cathedral, for the approach of the enemy or for the hour of Judgment. Swann had now only to enter the concert-room, the doors of which were thrown open to him by an usher ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... terror, on all occasions of internal disturbance, than the pretending Republic of Venice. There was a never-ceasing and a natural tendency to dissolution, in her factious system, which was only resisted by the alertness of her aristocracy, and the political buttresses which their ingenuity had reared. Much was said of the venerable character of her polity, and of its consequent security, but it is in vain that selfishness contends with truth. Of all the fallacies with which man has attempted to gloss his expedients, ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... will be like the man, who first in a frail bark committed himself to the treachery of the waves. He will keep near to the shore; he will tremble for the audaciousness of his enterprise; he will feel that it calls for all his alertness and vigilance. The man of reflection will not begin, till he feels his mind swelling with his purposed theme, till his blood flows fitfully and with full pulses through his veins, till his eyes sparkle ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... than I have ever felt when with her. I thought there was the faintest shade of alertness in ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... 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
... 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 ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... before when Lord Fisher had been Commander-in-Chief on the Mediterranean station, enjoyed a confidential discussion with him in Malta concerning certain strategical questions in that part of the world, and had been amazed at the alertness of his brain, his originality of thought, his intoxicating enthusiasm, and his relentless driving power. Now, in 1915, he seemed to be even younger than he had seemed then. He covered the ground at such a pace that I was speedily toiling breathless and dishevelled far in rear. It is all ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... the more one admires that extraordinary quality of "go"—a mental alertness and lucidity they have immeasurably beyond European nations; very few people are intellectual, but all are intelligent and advancing. No one browses like such hundreds do at home, and all are much more ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... Gnat was buzzing around a Lion, the Lion said to him: "How dare you approach so near? Be off, or I will kill you with the least stroke of my paw." The Gnat, knowing the advantage of his small size, and his alertness, immediately challenged the boaster to combat, and alighting first upon his nose and then upon his tail, made the Lion so furious that he injured himself grievously with his paws. As the Gnat flew away he boasted of his own prowess in thus defeating the King of Beasts without the ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop
... 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
... spirit thwarted by physical defect. The man who manifests it is angered with himself because through a physical hindrance he has failed to take the place which would otherwise be his. He is proud, it may be, but not fatuous; for shyness as a rule implies a comparative quickness and alertness of intellect: its exceeding sensibility is exclusive of dulness; and it is frequently due to the presence in a reluctant body of a mind ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... occurred in the units of the material: in fact, in some ways our material is perhaps the best of all. Neither has inferiority been evidenced in the personnel, as individuals; for the excellent physique and the mental alertness of the American have shown themselves in the navy as well as in ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... exists in any other industry, and if there are any reasons for limiting by law the hours of labor in any employment, they certainly apply with peculiar force to the employment of those upon whose vigilance and alertness in the performance of their duties the safety of all who travel ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... which he owed this alertness? What had he seen? Nothing. Among the persons he had met, perhaps one might have resembled some one he had known, and, although he had not recognized it, it might have rung in his heart all the chords ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... presence, though he might not exchange three words, or offer the smallest service, there was a repose and content on his countenance that gave his whole expression a new reading. He was looking particularly well, fined down into alertness by his disciplined life and hill climbing, his complexion cleared and tanned by mountain air, and the habits and society of the last year leaving an unconscious impress unlike that which he used to bring from his former haunts. ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of playing in a band and was not paying much attention to his mother's scolding, when she said something that shocked him into alertness. ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... black men below in the fire room, expecting every moment to receive the fatal blast which would entrap them in a hideous death; the watch, ceaseless in its vigil by day and by night, peering through the darkness and the mist, conscious that upon their alertness depended the lives of all. Yet under these conditions of unprecedented hardships every black man performed his duty with the highest ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... seen families of daughters, handsome, strong females, rising each day to their in-door work with cheerful alertness,—one to sweep the room, another to make the fire, while a third prepared the breakfast for the father and brothers who were going out to manly labor; and they chatted meanwhile of books, studies, embroidery, discussed the last new poem, or some ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... gloves, and 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
... and insisted upon Gregory's exercising himself upon it for an hour every morning, soon after sunrise. As she had heard her husband once say that fencing was a splendid exercise, not only for developing the figure, but for giving a good carriage as well as activity and alertness, she arranged with a Frenchman who had served in the army, and had gained a prize as a swordsman in the regiment, to give the boy lessons ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... should think it more formidable by its manoeuvres than its charges. Indeed, the tactics of Napoleon, who used the legs of his troops more than their muskets, aiming at concentrating masses on important points, goes to show that he depended on alertness instead of bottom. This is just the quality that would be most likely to prevail against your methodical, slow-thinking, and slow-moving German; and I make no question the short, sturdy, nimble legs of the little warriors of this country ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... by the 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... 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 favorable Turn to ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... trail would become distinct. Dropping from the ledge, he stepped to his saddle. Dex evidently heard him, for he twitched back one ear, but maintained his attitude of keen interest in an invisible something—a something that had drawn him from drowsy inanition to a quietly tense statue of alertness. The ash gray of the farther wall, now visible, slowly changed to a faint rose tint that deepened ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... but—" Blacky didn't finish. He didn't need to. From the other side of a little swamp in front of them a rooster crowed. That was answer enough! Reddy's yellow eyes gleamed. In an instant he was on his feet, the picture of alertness. ...
— Bowser The Hound • Thornton W. Burgess
... habit of the rustic region that men who had known old Clenk all their lives did not recognize him as he lay in his coffin, clean, bathed, shaven, clad in a suit of respectable black and with all the dignity of immaculate linen, and they swore that they had never before seen him. The alertness of Copenny's guilty conscience sharpened his faculties. His keen eyes penetrated the disguise of this reputable aspect at once, though he sedulously kept his own counsel. He heard the details of the death in the ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... 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, has not yet seen! But their junction ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... stream of light, it flung through our window-oval, forward under the dome and through the bow dome bullseye, into space. I saw the men on the deck spring into sudden alertness with the realization we were using it. The bow lookout on the forward observation bridge crouched at his 'scope-finder to ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... occurrences of the hour. She heard her voices, though not distinctly, in the uproar of the brawling court which tried her at Rouen; she saw her visions in the imminent deadly breach, when she rallied her men to victory. In this alertness she is a contrast to a modern seeress, subject, like her, to monitions of an hallucinatory kind, but subject during intervals of somnambulisme. To her case, which has been carefully, humorously, and ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... Pine's shoulder made him leap to his feet with the alertness of a wild animal on the lookout for danger. By his side stood Chaldea, and her eyes glittered, as she came to the point of explanation without any preamble. The girl was painfully direct. "I have heard every word," she said triumphantly. "And I know ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... 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
... and watched the young girl as she moved about the room. She lifted one of the large sticks and stood it on one end at the side of the hearth, and the doctor noticed that she did it less easily than usual and without the old strength and alertness. He had sprung up to help her just too late, but she had indignantly refused any assistance with a half pettishness that was not a common mood ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... glance at Chess. She saw that he had moved. He was lying with his right hand covered by his body. There seemed an alertness about him—in posture and in gleaming, half-closed eyes—that startled Ruth. What had the young fellow in his mind to do. ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... window, and seeing Frost was engaged in conversation with Jesse, he sprang back with quick steps to the cabinet. He hastily ran the tips of his fingers along the beveled edges of the wide shelf from end to end several times, each time the expression of alertness deepening into one of disappointment. He stopped for a moment and listened. All was quiet. Again with quick motions he felt beneath the edges. Suddenly his eyes brightened and he breathed quickly; his sensitive fingers had detected a slight unevenness in the smooth woodwork. ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... Daniel comes to judgment!" he teased her. She put him in an extraordinary good humor with her alertness. Her persistence and her indomitable courage were such futile weapons against the armor of the law that they seemed pathetic, but her droll faith in herself and her absurd comments about the persons with whom she had been talking made him want ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... Yuen-ping, and in order to avoid the suspicion that I am suffering from a serious injury to the head, or have become a prey to a conflicting demon, it will be necessary to continue an even more highly-sustained tolerant alertness. This person himself has frequently suffered the ill effects of rashly assuming that because he is conducting the adventure in a prepossessing spirit his efforts will be honourably received, as when he courteously inquired the ages of a company of maidens into whose presence ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... in-bred people. The nose was straight, and the mouth firm yet mobile. It was the face of the instinctive philosopher, tanned to a hickory brown. In a stature of medium size, there was still a hint of power and catamount alertness. If his attitude was at the moment indolent, it was such indolence as drowses between bursts of white-hot activity; a fighting man's aversion to manual labor which, like the hounds, harked back to other generations. Near-by, propped against the rails, rested ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... 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 ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... 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 to all my sights, and partake of all the wonders ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... goes. TREBELL'S demeanour suddenly changes, becomes alert, with the alertness of a man doing something in secret. He leans out of the ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... sympathizer who would not ordinarily think of objecting to the display of an English portrait, and in fact would probably not think of examining it closely enough to know whether it was English or Austrian, has now become alert. His alertness makes him open to educative influences, but it may also show itself in such ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... Durward, to all intents and purposes a stranger to the ways of Barrow, had been obliged to hold with her, the reading of the will—all these had combined to keep her in a state of mental and physical alertness which ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... and not relationship. So he got himself transferred to another boat that was about to sail for the West Indies, and took the rough service that falls to the lot of a jack-tar. His quickness in obeying orders, his alertness and ability to climb, his scorn of danger, going to the yardarm to adjust a tangled rope in a storm, or fastening the pennant to the mainmast in less time than anybody else on board ship could perform the task, made him a marked man. He did the difficult thing, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... nearly four weeks from Mansfield, a point which she never failed to think over and calculate every day, as she and Susan were preparing to remove, as usual, upstairs, they were stopped by the knock of a visitor, whom they felt they could not avoid, from Rebecca's alertness in going to the door, a duty which always interested her beyond ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... been no more than ten yards apart, but the difficulty of evacuating the British position was completed in safety on the night of May 3, 1915. The work included the taking with them 780 wounded. Sharpshooters were left in the trenches, however, and they maintained such an appearance of activity and alertness that the Germans kept on shelling the trenches all of the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... an observer of men, a student of human nature, and he had not failed to notice the increased alertness which had characterized Anstice this evening as he discussed the situation. The rather bitter, indifferent look which generally clouded his face had lifted, giving way to a brighter, more open expression; and the half melancholy cynicism which Carey had deplored had vanished ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... prudence were the governing principles of his mind and actions. The intellect of Burleigh was more versatile and acute, that of Bacon more profound; and their parts in the great drama of public life were cast accordingly: Burleigh had most of the alertness of observation, the fertility of expedient, the rapid calculation of contingencies, required in the minister of state; Bacon, of the gravity and steadfastness which clothe with reverence and authority the counsellor and judge. "He ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... fresh, breezy reciprocity; organic shape, elastic fibre, living connection with every thing around; the greatest originality and simplicity in perception and utterance; the combined imposingness of innocence and wisdom; in word and deed, alertness, dexterity, precision; and all imbosomed in an atmosphere of the purest goodness and benevolence; all guided by an energetic sense of duty, and heightened by a noble self-forgetfullness in the presence of the joys and ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... bucks, as they pursued or circled around the does, was a new sound to my ears. The rabbits and pheasants also were objects of the liveliest interest to me, and I found that after all a good shot at them with the eye, especially when I could credit myself with alertness or stealthiness, was ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... 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 ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... looked out at him with all the sorrowful wisdom that is comprised in a life sharpened on the grindstone of a remorseless civilization. It was a girl such as one might find anywhere in that neighborhood, she had the hardy prettiness, the alertness, the predatory quality which belong to wild creatures civilized by force. It was set on the canvas with a skill that made Rufin smile with frank pleasure; but the skill, the artifice of the thing, were the least part of it. What ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... the lawn when a sudden alertness came into the scene; the silk-hatted line of callers stepped aside; those who were seated arose; newspaper correspondents turned with vigilant ears. A nervous voice inquired, "Where is ...
— The Angel of Lonesome Hill • Frederick Landis
... front only when he reaches his starting place. Each person running when tagged. Equal numbers should be chosen for each row. The object of the game is to see which row is the winner, depending entirely upon alertness, quickness of mind and honesty in ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... I have added for the use of classes where a moderate amount of training in this most useful of exercises is practicable. Debating may be looked at in two ways, either as training in alertness and effectiveness in discussion, or as a form of intercollegiate or interscholastic sport. On the latter aspect a recognized authority has said: "Formal debate is a kind of game. In the time limit, the order of speakers, the alternation of sides, the give and take of rebuttal, the fixed ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... breath before another mighty task. Well over six feet tall, still straight as any of the pines before him, his head and broad shoulders in the easy poise of power, there was about him from a little distance no sign of age. His lines were gracefully full, his bearing had still the alertness of youth. One must have come as near as Billy Brue now came to detect the marks of time in his face. Not of age—merely of time; for here was no senility, no quavering or fretful lines. The grey eyes shone bright and clear from far under the heavy, unbroken line of brow, and the ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... Longer, more out-of-the-way roads between Hillcrest and the Falls I venture to say were never known than I drove over that afternoon, and my happy companion, who in other days I had imagined might one day, by her decision, alertness and force exceed the exploits of Lady Baker or Miss Tinne, never once asked if I was sure we were on the right road. Only a single cloud came over her brow, and of this I soon learned ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... 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
... if temporarily, was now full. Early in February came in ten regiments of militia, summoned on service until the first of April. They manifested, he wrote with satisfaction, the greatest alertness, and the determination of men engaged in the cause of freedom. And on the first of March he called into camp the militia of the neighboring towns, who were to report at Roxbury fully equipped for three ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... regions, is a continuous progressive journey of the soul which began away back at the dawn of mind in man and will continue until he is the perfected mental and moral being. At each incarnation here he gathers experience in proportion to his alertness and to the opportunities his previous lives have made for him. He learns to help others, to be sympathetic, to be tolerant. Such activities will give him pleasure in the astral life and joy and wisdom in the mental region, ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... provided him with a species of discipline that he could never have spontaneously practised. His great need had been the application of some hardening and hammering process, such as should give him that sort of concentrated alertness which his education had failed to bestow; and none the less tenderly provided, it seemed to Hugh, was the irresistible impulse to arise and go, which had come upon him when the process was completed. ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... 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
... logic and 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 ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... dispatch, and now hands it to the secretary. The latter, having vainly struggled with his sleepiness, has at length begun to nod. Hearing his name pronounced, he starts to his feet, takes the document, which is not yet dry, to sand it, and, desirous to show by his alertness that he has been all the time wide awake, empties over it—the contents of the inkstand! Awkward individual!—there he stands, dumfounded and aghast. His master quietly resumes his seat, procures fresh ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... The Foreign Minister, Dr. Machado, is of more immediately impressive personality. Younger than the President by at least ten years, yet little short, I should guess, of sixty, he is extremely neat and dapper in person, while his very handsome face has a birdlike keenness and alertness of expression betokening not only great intelligence but high-strung vitality. He is a copious, eloquent, and witty talker, and his remarkable charm of manner accounts, in part at any rate, for his immense popularity. Assuredly no monarchy could have more distinguished ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... butter and sausages excellently well is a work which requires brains, and is, to my thinking, a very admirable form of activity, and entirely worthy of the attention of the intelligent. That my neighbour is intelligent is at once made evident by the bright alertness of her eyes—eyes that nothing escapes, and that only gain in prettiness by being used to some good purpose. She is a recognised authority for miles around on the mysteries of sausage-making, the care of calves, and the slaughtering of ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... any particular part and say, "This is a conspicuous deformity," the spectator perceived that this little person was a deformity as a whole—a vague, general, evenly blended, nicely adjusted deformity. There was a fox-like cunning in the face and the sharp little eyes, and also alertness and malice. And yet, this vile bit of human rubbish seemed to bear a sort of remote and ill-defined resemblance to me! It was dully perceptible in the mean form, the countenance, and even the clothes, gestures, manner, and attitudes ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... latent awkwardness in a man, the saddle mirrors it; and if there lie in him anywhere dormant an unsuspected alertness, it wakes in the saddle to action. Her companion had hardly found his stirrups before Kate perceived a change. His body sprung molded from the cantle, his careless shoulders came to attention, and as the pony curvetted riotously, the rider's head, rising like a ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... fasting and sleeplessness had made of this a face whose horror was but increased by the alertness of the eyes, which shone with so shocking a blueness that the woman, finding them unlike any eyes which she had seen before, called them to herself, "evil eyes—the eyes of a ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... higher and less organised centres. Moreover, it is only in so far as we can secure this end that we can stably build up and organise the higher centres of the nervous system. Hence also such qualities as alertness in receiving orders and promptness and accuracy in carrying them out are, at first, best learned through the organising and training of the centres of the middle level. What we really endeavour to do here is to organise and establish ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch |
