Alarm

“ Each man wanted to point out to his fellow the cause of his alarm, but each found on other faces the same horror–only that his neighbour's hands and eyes were turned in a different direction from that where the phantom, half laughing and half threatening, rose before him. ”

“ O'er the gulf of a dead generation
Comes the newly-born voice of Alarm.
'Tis the voice of the dead in the living,
An appeal to the brain and the arm,
'Tis the voices of murdered men giving
New life to the cry of Alarm. ”

“ Apprehension springs from a sense of danger when somewhat remote, but approaching; alarm arises from danger when announced as near at hand. Apprehension is calmer and more permanent; alarm is more agitating and transient. ”

“ At last finding that it was a false alarm, we return once more to our beds; but what good can the kind sleep of nature do to us when interrupted by such scenes! Securely placed as you are, you can have no idea of our agitations, but by hear-say; no relation can be equal to what we suffer and to what we feel. ”

“ You must first moderate your present alarm, and then change your attitude, and be alarmed, all of you, for the Thebans. They are far more within the reach of disaster than we: it is they whom the danger threatens first. ”

“ If an alarm comes—no matter of what kind—don't be frightened, but stand in front of and protect her from being seen, until she says to you: 'Sauve qui peut?' That will be her signal for you to run and scream, and do whatever the rest are doing. ”

“ Alarm is always the fear of some uncertain evil beyond what is immediately felt, and from some unknown and external cause. But all animals, and men among the rest, feel some degree of this alarm, start, are roused and rendered circumspect and attentive by unusual and unexpected Sound. ”

“ It is no false alarm. There are judgments, heavy judgments, at the door. “Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence; a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. ”

“ In the odd silence that followed we looked at each other in something like alarm, for the populace was silent, too, and a silent populace may so easily be a dangerous one. In a moment, though, they all began shouting, in cumulative waves of noise, louder and more frantically. ”

“ She was not asleep, however, but made a motion of silence, and said in a terrified whisper, "Hush; do you hear nothing?" There was something so vague and yet so mysterious in the question and in her evident perturbation that I was infected too by her alarm. ”

“ One thing or the other I thought, with the rapidity of a flash of lightning: either my alarm has some foundation or it is madness; if it has any foundation, this woman will have started after me, will be overtaking me, and there is no hope for me on earth. But if it is madness, a mere supposition, a panic fright like any other, I will convince myself of it in the present instance, and for every case that may occur hereafter, by seeing that that poor old woman has stayed in that doorway to protect herself from the cold, or to wait till the door is opened ”

“ Every man who could handle a spade or a pickaxe was required at this season of alarm. For three days and nights the reign of terror lasted, causing an injuriously nervous inquietude to the helpless and sick. ”

“ They were startled, struggled to their feet and galloped off in four different directions. After a while curiosity conquered their terror. They returned cautiously and slowly, sniffing and pawing, starting now and then in fresh alarm. ”

“ Those near whom she walked were seized with terror and retreated either backward or to one side, and thus the alarm spread itself to others to whom the white stranger was now nearest, and it went hard with them to avoid a panic. ”

“ The alarm went off. And they waited, without result, until the clock struck nine. The artificial strength within them had cooled by that time, their ardour had cooled, and they were feeling chill and tired. ”

“ The timid recoil into themselves, yielding most of their faculties to a tormenting imagination, that augments the causes of alarm and diminishes the means of security, while the firm of mind rally and condense their powers to the point necessary to exertion. ”

“ Rage died down in the others' faces, and involuntarily they clustered together. But the panic was of short duration; hardly had the alarm been given and taken, or the lamp which hung against the wall been snatched down and shaded, before the sound of a key in the door reassured the conspirators. For me, who throughout the scene, last described, had leaned half-swooning against the wall, listening, with what feelings the reader may easily judge, to the contest for my life--for me, who now stood reprieved, and for the moment safe, any change might be expected to be fraught with terror. ”

“ Swayed by no panic fear, but influenced by terrors of dreadful reality, the people exerted all their force to escape from that spot; and thus the struggling, crushing, pushing, crowding, fighting, and all the oscillations of a multitude set in motion by the direst alarms, were succeeded by the most fatal results. ”

“ Alarm (Vol. ii., pp. 151. 183.) .—The origin of this word appears to be the Italian cry, all'arme; gridare all'arme is to give the alarm. Hence the French alarme, and from the French is borrowed the English word. Alarum for alarm, is merely a corruption produced by mispronunciation. ”

“ Even some persons who possess means of information that are not open to me, profess to discern in the signs of public feeling, in the views of some hope and some fear, the expectation of something about to happen, something reaching far beyond partial, or local, or even agrarian, disturbance, and calculated to create a greater degree of alarm than anything we have witnessed, or anything that has happened. ”

“ For it is in the nature of all defensive measures to be sharp and vigorous under the impressions of the first alarm, and to relax by degrees, until at length the danger, by not operating instantly, comes to appear as a false alarm,—so much so, that the next menacing appearance will look less formidable, and will be less provided against. But to those who are on the offensive it is not necessary to be always alert. ”

“ I said to my sister only to-day, 'What would we do if there was a sudden alarm in the night?' If we needed a doctor or a policeman? You know, my dear, the servants are all as old as we are. I don't really believe there is anyone in our road that can run. ”

“ Hence it happens, that if any sound strikes us, which we cannot immediately account for, our fears are instantly alarmed. Thus in great debility of body, the loud clapping of a door, or the fall of a fire-shovel, produces alarm, and sometimes even convulsions ”

“ "You're my alarm clock," the boy said.
"Age is my alarm clock," the old man said. "Why do old men wake so early? Is it to have one longer day?"
"I don't know," the boy said. "All I know is that young boys sleep late and hard." ”

“ Alarm.—It is in favour of the derivation à l'arme that the Italian is allarme; some dictionaries even have dare all'arme, with the apostrophe, for to give alarm. It is against it that the German word Lärm is used precisely as the English alarm. Your correspondent CH. thinks the French derivation suspiciously ingenious: here I must differ ”

“ We are all here in the greatest alarm! a general rising of the inhabitants took place this morning, and they have continued in a disturbed state ever since. Everybody is in a bustle and indicating some popular movement. Seditious cries are heard! the bell-man is going his rounds, and on repeating “God save the King!” is saluted with “Hang the crier!” Organised bands of boys are going about collecting sticks, &c., whether for barricades or bonfires is not known; many of them singing the famous Gunpowder Hymn, “Pray remember,” &c. These are features that remind us of the most inflammable times. ”

“ It is perhaps after all excusable then for people to indulge, in moderation, in a little nocturnal alarm; and it may also, for aught we know, be good for us, and act as a safety-valve escape for a certain amount of bad nerve-force. ”

“ If a panic seized the citizens when the first alarm of the conflagration spread among them, they redeemed their character by the self-possession and activity which they evinced in repairing the desolation. ”

“ When it rains he calls the hour, and adds ‘fluvioso;’ when there is a fire he informs the people on his beat of the fact, and gives the locality of the conflagration, which he gets from the fire-alarm. ”

“ The foolish fears, the needless alarms, the whole buzzing troop of fidgets that come out in the darkness, go back to their swamps and hiding places when the day has fairly come. They cannot make head against the wholesome freshness of the morning wind. ”

“ Giving alarms in case of fire: How alarms are sent in; false alarms.
5. Precautions to insure personal safety: Care in the use of inflammable or explosive materials; keeping hallways, fire escapes and other exits clear of obstructions; noting location of exits; keeping cool in case of fire—how easy it is for every one to get out if all keep cool—danger from panic—aiding the weak.
Note.—Relate this topic to Safety, Self-Control, Courage.
III. THE POSTMAN
1. ”

“ Therefore they have inherent within them a power of automatic alarm, a warning signal, which unerringly operates to apprise them of approaching conflicts and unfailingly keeps them sufficiently separated as not to interfere with their proper and effective functioning. ”

“ A silence, for which it was not easy to account, stimulated her curiosity; for nothing is so alarming to those who are conscious of the presence of imminent danger, as to be unable to trace its approach. ”

“ But, all this while, I was giving myself very unnecessary alarm. Providence had meditated better things for me than I could possibly imagine for myself. ”

“ My men don’t spend their time hanging round street corners, and they don’t take naps in the afternoon like a lot of old maids. They play checkers sometimes, but I can tell you that if that gong rings they stop just where they are and don’t wait to finish the game. As I told you before our motto is to be always ready and I’ve forgotten the Latin words for it, I am sorry to say. The alarm may come in in the middle of the night when 130they’re all in bed and asleep, and it may come in and find them all down stairs as you see them now, but the result is the same. ”

“ Sleep, my almost never-failing friend, came to calm me, and I dreamed of the strange days of the blockade-runner, when doubtless other women's hearts were pounding against their ribs with more alarming terrors than those that agitated me. ”

“ B. to build her alarms upon. Sometimes, although we lodge upon the second story, she imagines that the window is being attempted; sometimes, although the register may be down, she is confident that the chimney is being used as the means of ingress.
Once, when we happened to be in London—where she feels, however, a good deal safer than in the country—we had a real alarm, and Mrs. B., since I was suffering from a quinsy, contracted mainly by my being sent about the house o' nights in the usual scanty drapery, had to be sworn in as her own special constable. ”

“ And the vagueness of his alarm added to its terrors; when once you have taken the Impossible into your calculations its possibilities become practically limitless. ”

“ A little alarm now and then keeps life from stagnation. ”

“ to watch with peculiar alarm lest what I called my philosophic estimate of the human lot in general, should be a mere prose lyric expressing my own pain and consequent bad temper. ”

“ We live in the midst of alarms; anxiety beclouds the future; we expect some new disaster with each newspaper we read. ”

“ though alarmed, it is not confounded: but as a lively flame and burning torch, it forces its way upwards, and securely passes through all. ”

“ That night the empty corridors Were full of forms of Fear, And up and down the iron town Stole feet we could not hear, And through the bars that hide the stars White faces seemed to peer. He lay as one who lies and dreams In a pleasant meadow-land, The watcher watched him as he slept, And could not understand How one could sleep so sweet a sleep With a hangman close at hand? But there is no sleep when men must weep Who never yet have wept: So we—the fool, the fraud, the knave— That endless vigil kept, And through each brain on hands of pain Another's terror crept. ”

“ You cannot go anywhere, look in any direction, do anything, say anything, but it may be a signal for danger. My dear, it lurks everywhere--in the light as well as in the darkness; in the open as well as in the secret places; from friends as well as foes; when you are least prepared; when you may least expect it. ”

“ The time of safety, when there had been no flaming terror, was already so far off, that people, fearing this night to surrender themselves to sleep, wondered that in any nights they had ever dared,—wondered that there had ever been anything but fear and burning, in this great, crowded city. ”

“ You know an emergency coming into a man's life makes radical changes. You go to bed tonight and ordinarily will sleep out your eight hours in comfort and quiet. If a fire break out in the house, you are up in the middle of the night, hurrying around, only partly clad, carrying out valuables, or helping turn on water, or something of this sort. Your natural arrangements for the night are all broken up by the fire. An emergency may make radical changes in one's life for a little time, sometimes for the whole life. Financial reverses may change the whole habit of one's life. ”

“ In the first impulse of my terror, I uttered a slight scream, and shrunk to the opposite side of the bed. In a moment, however, I recovered from my trepidation. I was habitually indifferent to all the causes of fear, by which the majority are afflicted. I entertained no apprehension of either ghosts or robbers. Our security had never been molested by either, and I made use of no means to prevent or counterwork their machinations. My tranquillity, on this occasion, was quickly retrieved. ”