"Whiff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Parsi men in frock-coats and shiny black hats, their women in most delicate veils over European dresses. The figures move quietly and speak softly, and the air is full of the rattle of crickets or cicadas and a pleasant scent of night flowers, and cheroot smoke, with a whiff of old ocean. ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... couldn't carry HIM up like that, at once. ... He was a hostage ... But I could not keep him in the house on the lake, either, because of Christine; so I locked him up comfortably, I chained him up nicely—a whiff of the Mazenderan scent had left him as limp as a rag—in the Communists' dungeon, which is in the most deserted and remote part of the Opera, below the fifth cellar, where no one ever comes, and where no one ever hears ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... on their way back and searched every nook and corner. Not so much as a pipe or a cigarette or a cigar could they find—nor a whiff of smoke neither. Besides, the port windows were locked shut and the steward had the keys! They're takin' no chances in ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... others of the crew not so fastidious as myself. After every meal, they hied to the galley and solaced their souls with a whiff. ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... comes out from its lair every evening, with the knowledge that in a few minutes it will be hieing along to some distant hunting ground where all the joy and fury of the chase awaits it; think of the crowded sensations of the brain when every rustle, every cry, every bent twig, and every whiff across the nostrils means something, something to do with life and death and dinner. Imagine the satisfaction of stealing down to your own particular drinking spot, choosing your own particular tree to scrape your claws on, finding your own particular bed of dried grass to roll ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... in motion] Wind — N. wind, draught, flatus, afflatus, efflation^, eluvium^; air; breath, breath of air; puff, whiff, zephyr; blow, breeze, drift; aura; stream, current, jet stream; undercurrent. gust, blast, squall, gale, half a gale, storm, tempest, hurricane, whirlwind, tornado, samiel, cyclone, anticyclone, typhoon; simoon^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... tyrannical ways. Instead of asking your husband what he does with every cent you give him, learn to trust him. Teach him that you have confidence in him. Make him think you have anyway, whether you have or not. Do not seek to get a whiff of his breath every ten minutes to see whether he has been drinking or not. If you keep doing that you will sock him into a drunkard's grave, sure pop. He will at first lie about it, then he will use disinfectants for the breath, and then he will stay away till he gets over it. The ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... precisely how it happened, whiff-whaff, Lemoine's weapon flew from his hand and struck the wall with a whirr and a jangle. The fencing-master wrung his wrist. "Sacre!" he cried, between his teeth, unable in the moment of surprise ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... incorrigible cabmen, from the continuous babel of unmusical voices, and from the reiterated strains of "Santa Lucia" or "Margari" howled from raucous throats or strummed from rickety street-organs. Oh for peace, and rest, and a whiff of pure country air! For there are no walks in or around the City of the Siren, where there is nowhere to stroll save the narrow strip of the much-vaunted Villa (which is either damp or dusty according to weather) or the fatiguing ascent amidst walled gardens and newly built houses ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... sensibility was so great that I wished the sergeant to fall dead at my feet, and the stupid soldiers who stared at me to turn into corpses; and even those wretches for whom my entreaties had procured a reprieve I wished dead also, because I could not face them without shame. A mephitic heat like a whiff of air from hell came out of that dark place in which they were confined. Those at the window who had heard what was going on jeered at me in very desperation: one of these fellows, gone mad no doubt, kept on urging me volubly to order the soldiers to fire ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... from Venice; but since then he had never looked at it. Too many memories and illusions were pressed between its pages; and he knew just at what page he had felt Ellie Vanderlyn bending over him from behind, caught a whiff of her scent, and heard her breathless ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... With silver buckled shoon? No lovely witch to drown Or burn beneath the moon? Not even a whiff of tea, On ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... off the main road. It was while the road was still building that an enterprising packer brought twenty-one camels on the trail. They were not a success and caused countless stampedes. Horses and mules took fright at the slightest whiff of them. The camels themselves could stand neither the climate nor the hard rock road. They were turned adrift on the Thompson river, where the last of ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... said brightly, shaking hands with me when Andy and I were going to turn in. 'And don't forget your pipe. Here it is! I know that Bushmen like to have a whiff or two when they turn in. Walter smokes in bed. I don't mind. You can smoke all night if ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... that when my father looked at the signature at the end of the long, closely written letter he gave a whiff of surprise and sat motionless for a moment or so staring at it. Then he turned to the commencement and read it very carefully through, after which he turned it over and read it again. Clearly it brought no unwelcome news, for his eyes sparkled with joy when he looked ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... out Griscom quickly, as he caught a whiff from Fogg's lips, "you be sure you mind yours—and the rules," he added, quite sternly, "I advise you not to get too ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... in the papers that the Thames in London is most horrible. I have to cross Waterloo or London Bridge to get to the railroad when I come down here, and I can certify that the offensive smells, even in that short whiff, have been of a most head-and-stomach-distending nature. Nobody knows what is to be done; at least everybody knows a plan, and everybody else knows it won't do; in the meantime cartloads of chloride of lime are shot into the filthy stream, and ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... shell and Charley emptied its contents of powder into the open cut. Quickly, he applied a match to the black grains and they caught with a hiss, there was a tiny cloud of black smoke and a whiff of burning flesh. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... take a whiff Of 'bacco; he acceded; He grew communicative too, (A pipe was all he needed,) Till of the tinker's life, I think, I knew as much as ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... fingerboard of the fiddles accompanied by the harp in a billowing glissando and—then on ragged rims of wide thunder a gust of air seemed to melt lights, men, instruments into a darkness that froze the eyeballs. With a scorching whiff of sulphur and violets, a thin, spiral scream, the music tapered into the sepulchral clang of a tam-tam. And Pobloff, his broad face awash with fear saw by a solitary wavering gas-jet that he was alone and upon his knees. ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... reproachfully. He had sprung to his feet, and stood looking down at the old chief, who would not look at him, but kept his eyes on the landscape without, now and then drawing a long, lingering whiff ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... git yer nose cleared out o' them city nosegays," he continued, with a kindly interest in his voice. "But ye will when ye've been here a spell. Folks that live in cities think there ain't nothin' smells sweet but flowers and cologne. They ain't never slep' on balsam-boughs nor got a whiff o' a birchbark fire, nor tramped a bed o' ferns at night. There's a cool, fresh smell for ye! I tell ye there's a heap o' perfumes 'raound that ye can't buy at a flower-store and cork up in a bottle. Well, I guess—Git up, Bess!" and he flopped the reins ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... fire away," said the Devil. "Of course I'll fire, but do you first tell me what kind of a bird it is; else our agreement is cancelled, Old Boy." There was no help for it; the Devil had to own himself nonplussed, and off he fled, with a whiff of brimstone which nearly suffocated the Freischutz and his ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... arms, smelt about for a soft plank, and fell in a heap on the porch, his chin on his paws, his mean little eyes watching lazily,—speaking to nobody, noticing nobody, sulking all to himself. There he stayed until he caught a whiff of the fragrant, pungent odor of fried trout. Then he cocked one eye and lifted an ear. He must not carry things too far. Next, I heard a single thump of his six-inch tail. George was beginning to get pleased; he always did when there ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... what in modern days is called the Bowling Green—on the very spot, in fact, where he appeared in vision to Oloffe the Dreamer. And the legend further treats of divers miracles wrought by the mighty pipe which the saint held in his mouth; a whiff of which was a sovereign cure for an indigestion—an invaluable relic in this colony of brave trenchermen. As however, in spite of the most diligent search, I cannot lay my hands upon this little ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... manner. Mr. Laving ton, to whom Faxon's case had been rapidly explained by young Rainer, had welcomed him with a sort of dry and stilted cordiality that exactly matched his narrow face, his stiff hand, and the whiff of scent on his evening handkerchief. "Make yourself at home—at home!" he had repeated, in a tone that suggested, on his own part, a complete inability to perform the feat he urged on his visitor. "Any friend of Frank's... delighted... make yourself ...
— The Triumph Of Night - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... person), 'it is a disquisition, not a conversation.' And he adds, with one of his wilful back-handed blows at Plato, that most writers of dialogue plunge into abstruse questions, and 'collect a heap of arguments to be blown away by the bloated whiff of some rhetorical charlatan tricked out in a multiplicity of ribbons for the occasion.' Possibly! but for all that, the perfect dialogue ought not, we should say, to be really incoherent. It should include digressions, but the digressions ought to return upon the main subject. The art consists ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... a woman with a man's name. And now leave me, my three queens, and I'll have a drop to warm me old bones and a whiff of the pipe to put the life in me. But don't forget the old woman when the great lords is kneeling before you and pouring the diamonds out of baskets before ye—and send ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... little Red Hen came quickly in, and shut the door and locked it. "I'm glad I'm safely in," she said. Just as she said it, she turned round, and there stood the ugly old Fox, with his big bag over his shoulder. Whiff! how scared the little Red Hen was! She dropped her apronful of sticks, and flew up to the big beam across the ceiling. There she perched, and she said to the old Fox, down below, "You may as well go home, for ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... the fool's coat shall have a cast of martins and a whiff. To the health of Captain Rinocerotry! Look to it; let him have weight ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... a whiff of fresh and healthy air blowing through "Salome" except that which exhales from the cistern, the prison house of Jochanaan. Even the love of Narraboth, the young Syrian captain, for the princess is tainted by the jealous ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... door, and, in a mechanical way, I watch my hand go forward, to undo the topmost bolt. It does so, entirely without my volition. Even as I reach up toward the bolt, the door is violently shaken, and I get a sickly whiff of mouldy air, which seems to drive in through the interstices of the doorway. I draw the bolt back, slowly, fighting, dumbly, the while. It comes out of its socket, with a click, and I begin to shake, aguishly. There are two more; one at the bottom of the door; the other, ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... a whiff of strong air, blue and cleansing, from hilltops and primrose valleys, try "The Story of ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... fortunate, financially, than himself. The nurses and physicians in the hospital where he lay learned to like and admire him, and other patients, convalescents or newcomers who were able to move about, sought his cheerful rooms and brought into them a whiff of the outside world. Through it all, winding in and out of the neutral-colored weeks like a scarlet thread of life and hope, came the childish letters from Russia, and each week a thick letter went back, artfully designed to keep alive the love and interest of an imaginative ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... that her crew had not abandoned her; yet what had become of them? The answer was supplied a little later, for as the Flying Fish, with stopped engines, slowly drifted to within about a quarter of a mile of her, the party of curious gazers suddenly caught a whiff of horrible odour that told the whole story. She was a ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... with a verve that brings a whiff of burning powder to one's nostrils.... In some way he blazons the scene before our eyes, and makes us feel the very impetus of bloody ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... the occurrence, and vowed unending friendship; so when the King of the Kobolds told him of the danger impending at Vesuvius I was at once sent for to convey the information, and do what I could to save the lives of Tessa and Tasso. It took but a whiff of my pipe to bring me to the desired place, but so calm and bright and peaceful was the scene that I found it hard to believe in the threatening evil. Never had I seen a bluer sky reflected in a more silvery ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... homeward from an evening walk, a long ramble among the peaceful hills which inclosed their rustic home. Into these peaceful hills the young man had brought, not the rumor, (which was an old inhabitant,) but some of the reality of war,—a little whiff of gunpowder, the clanking of a sword; for, although Mr. John Ford had his campaign still before him, he wore a certain comely air of camp-life which stamped him a very Hector to the steady-going villagers, and a very pretty fellow to Miss Elizabeth Crowe, his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... a long and thoughtful whiff from his meerschaum, "although I have been guilty of ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... martial law, the guarding against a conflagration, or a tidal wave or cyclone. At the Cercle Militaire many of the bureaucrats, and especially the doctor who had treated the cow-boy, were for martial law, anyway. Napoleon knew, said the fierce medecin. "A whiff of grapeshot, and the reef would be again gleaming with lights, and the diligences would pour ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... few of us followed the tracks of a party and traced the marauders across Mad River and toward a small prairie known to our leader, Ousley the saddler. As we passed along a small road he caught the sign. A whiff of a shred of cotton cloth caught on a bush denoted a smoky native. A crushed fern, still moist, told him they had lately passed. At his direction we took to the woods and crawled quietly toward ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... toiled over the fires, smoke-curing the meat, on their backs infants that stared round-eyed and sucked at lumps of tallow. Dogs, full-kin to wolves, bristled up to Smoke to endure the menace of the short club he carried and to whiff the odor of this newcomer whom they must accept by ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... Emperor still continued his performances, which were like some peculiar kind of yawning. Tired out by his fruitless efforts at last, he told me to light it for him, which I did, and instantly handed it back to him. But he had hardly taken a whiff when the smoke, which he did not know how to breathe out again, filled his throat, got into his windpipe, and came out through his nose and eyes in great puffs. As soon as he could get his breath, he panted forth, "Take it away! what a pest! Oh, the wretches! it has made me sick." In fact, he ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... smell of roast apples steeping in hot toddy came wafting out the portals of Malachi's pantry—a smell of such convincing pungency that even the most infrequent of frequenters having once inhaled it, would have known at the first whiff that some musical function was in order. The night was to ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... A whiff of alcoholic breath suddenly told her the truth. For a second she sat there, as though petrified, with fear now for the first ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... Caudebec in France was delicious. I wonder why food at country hotels in England is so bad? At Retby Lady Theodosia won't touch anything unless it is absolutely perfect. She sent a dish away yesterday just because a whiff of some flavouring she does not like came to her, but at the "Red Lion" she did not grumble at all; it must be for the same reason that wetting their feet doesn't give French people cold if it is at a national sport, that made her put up with the lunch because ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... Dad. The situation was hopeless. 'We'll go to the Solomons,' he said, 'and get a whiff of English rule. And if there are no openings there we'll go on to the Bismarck Archipelago. I'll wager the Admiraltys are not yet civilized.' All preparations were made, things packed on board, and a new crew of Marquesans and Tahitians shipped. We were just ready to start to Tahiti, where a lot ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... a golden ring, And to-night no moon we see!" The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe, And a scornful laugh ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... were already flying along the side street, already a whiff of cool air was meeting us—and the river lay before us, and the steep muddy descent to it, and the wooden bridge with a train of waggons stretching across it, and a garrison soldier with a pike ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Muncey Town, and were staying a few nights only at Kettle Point. The old woman lighted up her pipe, and whiffed away with her eyes half shut; after enjoying it for about twenty minutes or so, her old husband thought she had had enough, and taking it from her put it in his own mouth and had his whiff. When he had done, he restored it again to his wife. Underneath another old bedstead were a couple of large dogs, which occasionally let their voices be heard in a dispute; some of the stones on one side of the fire-place had broken away, making a little window ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... decks, and in the immortal whiff, indefinable, of a fine ship just off the high seas, trod the beatified club. A ship, the last abiding place in a mannerless world of good old-fashioned caste, and respect paid upward with due etiquette and discipline through the grades of rank. The club, for a moment, were guests of the ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... before, going through English, French, Russian, Mongol, and Chinese, and after dinner smoked our pipes and cigars. The sargoochay had a pipe with a slender bowl that could be taken out for reloading, like the shell of a Remington rifle. A single whiff served to exhaust it, and the smoke passing through water became purified. An attendant stood near to manage the pipe of His Excellency whenever his services were needed. We endeavored to smoke each others' pipes and were quite satisfied after a minute's experience. His tobacco was ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... victory was felt everywhere. Not only were Max and Pete and Hilda jubilant over it, but the under-foremen, the timekeepers, even the laborers attacked their work with a fresher energy. It was like the first whiff of salt air to an army marching to the sea. Since the day when the cribbing came down from Ledyard, the work had gone forward with almost incredible rapidity; there had been no faltering during the weeks when Grady's threatened catastrophe was imminent, ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... a whiff of burnt syrup, she hurried to the kitchen, where she found that her berries had boiled over, and were hissing and sputtering on the hot stove, raising a cloud of smoke so dense that she did not see ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... awoke the next morning in the corolla of a blue canterbury bell, she heard a fine, faint rustling in the air and felt her blossom-bed quiver as from a tiny, furtive tap-tapping. Through the open corolla came a damp whiff of grass and earth, and the air was quite chill. In some apprehension, she took a little pollen from the yellow stamens, scrupulously performed her toilet, then, warily, picking her steps, ventured ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... throbbing monster, while between them, on the coal-blackened floor, Toomey, with his big shovel flinging open the iron gate to the blazing furnace for every new mouthful he fed it, and snapping it shut when he turned away for another, for not a whiff of the draught could be wasted. Once past the deserted station at the Fort there would come eight miles of twisting and turning and struggling up-grade, and every pound of steam would be needed to pull even this baker's ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... until that night. Had the day's adventure unsettled his nerves, or had he hitherto always underrated it? How ghastly it would be if—His thoughts broke off short. A figure had detached itself from the vagueness in front of him, and a whiff of rank tobacco smoke came suddenly ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... ambushed; and, last, the pensive Jacques (so very like Mr. Joseph Pennell in bearing and humour) distilling his meridian melancholy into pentameter paragraphs, like any colyumist. A bonfire is quickly kindled, and the hiss and fume of venison collops whiff to us across the blue air. Against that stump—is it a real stump, or only a painted canvas affair from the property man's warehouse?—surely that is a demijohn of cider? And we can hear, presently, that most ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... them from the Moreno grandees. Gone were the Morenos from all but the archives of California, but the willows and Dr. Hiram Webster were full of years and honors. The ranchos were ranchos no longer. A somnolent city covered their fertile acres, catching but a whiff at angels' intervals of the metropolis of nerves and pulse and feverish corpuscles across ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... Englishmen. Each sword had its name like a living thing. And next to their love of war came their love of the sea. Everywhere throughout Beowulf's song, as everywhere throughout the life that it pictures, we catch the salt whiff of the sea. The Englishman was as proud of his sea-craft as of his war-craft; sword in hand he plunged into the sea to meet walrus and sea-lion; he told of his whale-chase amidst the icy waters of the north. Hardly less than his love ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... building and checked the name against the mailboxes there, trying to ignore the combined smells of sour milk, red pepper and here and there a whiff of ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... won't do that. But I do want to see it. The smell of morocco is so delicious. Just one whiff of it.' ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... another whiff or two, "it isn't a brave bouncing girl like you who asks that? Why, I always go down at full gallop. There's nothing like it ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... that—and not the art even, but the mere spectacle—might have been one of the substitutes in question; if not for the languages at least for one or another of the romantic connections we seemed a little to have missed: it was such a whiff of the old world of Robin Hood as we could never have looked up from the mere thumbed "story," in Fourteenth Street at any rate, to any soft confidence of. More than I can begin to say, that is by a greater number of queer small ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... morning, the sun rose bright and charming as on the seventh day of March it did three years ago in the sunny land of Florida. For the first time in many weary months did I a whiff of the outside air inhale. Oh! how delicious! 'Twas like a prisoner's whiff of the air of freedom. But this was not the best. To sit again with the brethren around the table of the Lord and hear again the sweet old story that is forever new, what a feast to the hungry soul! Then the ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... brushing against him and stumbling over his things all day on their way up and down. I felt indignant, thinking that—the house being full—the boss had taken advantage of the bushman's helplessness and good nature to put him there. But he said that he was quite comfortable. "I can get a whiff ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... was glad to see so many turkeys on their way to garnish hospitable tables, and hoped that all the dear home circles might be found unbroken, though she had place in none. No Christmas-tree went by leaving a whiff of piny sweetness behind, that she did not wish it all success, and picture to herself the merry little people dancing in its light. And whenever she saw a ragged child eying a window full of goodies, smiling even, while it shivered, she could not resist ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... himself and his regime. A successful resistance to royal authority in America was all the French Republicans needed to inspire them. Of course, we have Louis's own weakness to blame, too. If he'd given those rascals a whiff of grapeshot, when the mob tried to storm Versailles in 1790, there'd ...
— He Walked Around the Horses • Henry Beam Piper
... there arose from the grass a big She-wolf, like his mother, yet different, a stranger, and instinctively the stray Cub sank to the earth, as the old Wolf bounded on him. No doubt the Cub had been taken for some lawful prey, but a whiff set that right. She stood over him for an instant. He grovelled at her feet. The impulse to kill him or at least give him a shake died away. He had the smell of a young Cub. Her own were about his age, her heart was touched, and when he found courage enough ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... seeing the limp form grow shapely and firm. This done, she consented to take luncheon and a nap, after which Miss Drayton brought Anne to make her acquaintance. When Mrs. Patterson sent them out "for a whiff of fresh air," she thrust into her sister's hand a workbag with frilly white things to tuck and ruffle. Then she drew out her box of colors. Under her deft touches, now fast, now slow, the baby face grew ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... can be had. I rather think they got afraid of it. Wait, I'll get the vial it was in. Perhaps there is a whiff ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... often wondered what country children do for a holiday. Do good people go round collecting to give them a day in London or Liverpool or Manchester, so that their stunted lives that stretch on from year to year with never a whiff of town fog, never a glimpse of green 'buses, or dangerous crossings, or furnace-smoke, may be expanded and elevated? If not, I beg to move the starting of a Town Fund at once. Nothing can be more narrowing than rustic existence—there are old yokels whose lives have always moved within ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... over the loose and resounding boards. Heavy wheels rumble. And the life of gambling, drinking, pleasure, crawls about the French quarter, along Canal Street, on Royal Street. The bell in the Cathedral rings. I catch the whiff of flowers. Gulls fly over ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... my commission of captain of this craft, in a whiff," returned the sailing-master. "That is as much as to say, here comes one who will command when he gets on board. Well, well, it is Mr. Griffith, and I can't say, notwithstanding his love of knee-buckles and small wares, but I'm ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the smoke coming through the roof of a house and the flames breaking out of the windows to know that the building is on fire. Hark! There is a quiet, steady, unobtrusive, crisp, not loud, but very knowing little creeping crackle that is tolerably intelligible. There is a whiff of something floating about, suggestive of toasting shingles. Also a sharp pyroligneous-acid pungency in the air that stings one's eyes. Let us get up and see what is going on.—Oh,—oh,—oh! do you know what has got hold of you? It is the ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... catch a whiff of violets from the darkness of the shadow of man it will be spring in the world, it will be spring in the world of the living; wonderment organising itself, heralding itself with the violets, stirring of ...
— Look! We Have Come Through! • D. H. Lawrence
... appeared so wonderfully taken up with your correspondent. En revanche, he says you once frightened him by rushing in for a dress or a shawl, or some other chiffon, at the moment when he had struck a light, and was going to take a quiet whiff of his cigar, while ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... waiting for the signal; an' the wink of an eye'll send 'em off. God only knows what'll happen between now and daylight! If the wind should change an' blow down from the north, they'll be off as shore as shooting. One whiff of Bennett's Creek is all that's needed, ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... appearance, of great bodily strength, and possessed of a winning manner. On the voyage to Aneityum he was constantly smoking and making things disagreeable to all around him. Being advised not to smoke while on board, he pleaded with the Missionary just to let him take a whiff now and again till he finished the tobacco he had in his pipe, and then he would lay it aside. But, like the widow's meal, it lasted all the way to Aneityum, and never appeared to get less—at which the innocent Taia expressed ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... around to the north after days of languid weather. When Darrow joined the group about the tea-table she had already given a tingle to the air. Madame de Chantelle still remained invisible above stairs; but Darrow had the impression that even through her drawn curtains and bolted doors a stimulating whiff must ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... seething in the streets, shrinking from the idea of stripping the rags off the beggar in order to see his tanned and gnarled limbs; shuddering at the thought of seeking for muscles in the dead, cut-open body; fearful of every whiff of life that might mingle with the incense atmosphere of his chapel, of every cry of human passion which might break through the well-ordered sweetness of his chants. No; the Renaissance did not exist for him who lived in a world of diaphanous form, colour, and ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... that if it caught a whiff from earth to its liking, the beetle might descend from the ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... but a moment since, assails The nostrils, then and there it puts to sleep A man afflicted with the falling sickness And foamings at the mouth. A woman, too, At the heavy castor drowses back in chair, And from her delicate fingers slips away Her gaudy handiwork, if haply she Hath got the whiff at menstruation-time. Once more, if thou delayest in hot baths, When thou art over-full, how readily From stool in middle of the steaming water Thou tumblest in a fit! How readily The heavy fumes of charcoal wind their way Into the brain, unless beforehand ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... resting. A maid brought a tray of cigarettes, those dainty little thin ones with gilt tips. There seemed to be several kinds. I managed to try some of them. One at least I know was doped, although I only had a whiff of it. I think after they got to know you they'd serve anything from a cocktail in a teacup to the latest fads. I am sure that I saw one woman taking some veronal ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... getting rested by this time, and she gathered up her tools again, with the thought that breakfast would taste good. I suppose a whiff of the fumes of coffee preparing in the house was borne out to her upon the air, and suggested the idea. And as she went in she cheerfully reflected that their plain house was full of comfort, if not of beauty; and that she and her sisters were doing what was given them to do, and ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... stew, ferment; whirl; buck fever; hurry-skurry[obs3], thrill &c. (feeling) 821; state of excitement, fever of excitement; transport. passion, excitement, flush, heat; fever, heat; fire, flame, fume, blood boiling; tumult; effervescence, ebullition; boiling over; whiff, gust, story, tempest; scene, breaking out, burst, fit, paroxysm, explosion; outbreak, outburst; agony. violence &c. 173; fierceness &c. adj.; rage, fury, furor, furore[obs3], desperation, madness, distraction, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... Rumania, at any rate during the first few weeks of the occupation, had the substantial sympathy of the largest and most influential section of the world's press. People declared that they were glad to see the haze of self-righteousness and cant at last dispelled by a whiff of wholesome egotism. From the outspoken comments of the most widely circulating journals in France and Britain the dictators in Paris, who were indignant that the counsels of the strong should carry so little weight in eastern Europe, could acquaint themselves with the impression which their ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... such as they are?" and he held out his case, both sides of which were now filled with the flat cigarettes. We each took one and lighted it, but he began giving me an account of a meeting he had had with Lord Beaconsfield, which he detailed so fully and with so much enthusiasm, that, after a whiff or two he allowed his cigarette to go out. I could not understand his taste in tobacco. These cigarettes which he despised seemed to me at once more delicate and more peculiar than the others. They had a flavour which was quite unknown to ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... outskirts of the site of the contemplated city, and tossed up a series of engirdling hills, whose slopes and crests covered with verdure might afford in the days to come a beautiful sight to the inhabitants when riding forth to get a whiff of country air. These same forces of nature, evidently in love with their work, arranged, it seems, for all the beautiful clouds with their varying hues to pass in daily review over the head of ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... lit, I took the key and fitted it to the lock. It turned noisily, and a cold whiff of air struck my face. Gazing round this new chamber, I saw two lines of squat pillars, supporting a low arch'd roof. 'Twas the crypt beneath the chapel, and smelt vilely. A green moisture trickled down the pillars, and dripp'd on ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... it from any one else, but the whiff of burning tobacco, as Carlsen lit up, gave him an irresistible craving for a smoke. Besides, it wouldn't do for the doctor to know he mistrusted him. If he was to be a part of the ship's life, there was small sense in acting pettishly. He took the cigarette, ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... the jockey, taking a whiff, "make your conversation as short as possible, whether in Latin or Dutch, for, to tell you the truth, I am rather tired of ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... wondrous extracts whose Oriental, tangible richness of fragrance holds me in a spell almost mystical in its enthralment; but I dare aver that no blossom's breath, no pungent perfume distilled by the erudite inspiration of Science, ever possessed a tithe of the delicious agony of that whiff of unromantic ammonia, which, powerful as the touch of magic, and thrilling as the kiss of love, snatched me back to life, arrested my tottering senses, as they blindly staggered on the very brink of ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... there was a whiff of fragrance where she had passed through; and his heart stirred in answer. Then he opened the door, stepped through ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... me he was not alarmed about you; that you had other fish to fry, eh! Well, it's too late for explanations to-night. What's that? Very odd, I thought I saw some one going out at the door—just a whiff of the coat-tails. I think my digestion must be out of order. I'll go into the study and get my pills, and then I ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... Sunday doze, under pale salmon-coloured tints, and the bells of its church sounded clearer and clearer at each peal. Warm airs passed over the red roofs of Southwark, and below in the vast hollow of the valley all was still, all seemed abandoned as a desert; no whiff of white steam was blown from the collieries; no black cloud of smoke rolled from the factory chimneys, and they raised their tall stems like a suddenly dismantled forest to a wan, an almost colourless sky. The hills alone ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... one as much as another, and that they must all make their pipes of the stone. Having thus spoken, a thick cloud of smoke from his great red pipe rolled over them, and in it he vanished away. Just at the moment that he took the last whiff of his great, long, red pipe, the rocks were wrapped in a blaze of fire, so that the surface of them was melted. Two squaws, then, in a flash of fire, sunk under the two medicine rocks, and no one ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... to go out, one day his mother got her sister's husband, who had a little pony-cart, to carry them down to the sea-shore, and leave them there for a few hours. He had some business to do further on at Ramsgate, and would pick them up as he returned. A whiff of the sea-air would do them both good, she said, and she thought besides she could best tell Diamond what had happened if she had ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... gotten halfway across the top of the valley, and the gloom was deepening steadily, when there stole to me upon the calmness of the evening air, a faint smell; something quite different from that of the surrounding fungi. A moment later I got a great whiff of it, and was near sickened with the abomination of it; but the memory of that foul thing which had come to the side of the boat in the dawn-gloom, before we discovered the island, roused me to a terror beyond that of ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... what you smoke, but such as it is it is there," he said; and Le Marchant tried a whiff or two, but laid the pipe aside ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... moon had a golden ring, And to-night no moon we see!" The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe, And a ...
— The Wreck of the Hesperus • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... sounds and scents from afar. You know you are abreast Grape Island now far you scent the wild roses on the point. Another breeze brings faint odors of the charnel house from Bradley's. A stronger chases it away and you have a whiff of an early breakfast, brown toast, fried fish and coffee, at Rose Cliff. The chuckle of oars in rowlocks tells you that the old fisherman is astir at Fort Point and the man with the new motor boat over at Hough's Neck ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... and thick, we don't want to breathe it again. It is astonishing that people get used to it, and like it too! But it leaves its taint upon them, for it permeates their clothing; they carry it about with them, and any one who gets a whiff of it gets some idea of the breath of a common lodging-house. And its moral breath has its effect, too! Woe to all that is fresh and fair, young and hopeful, that comes within its withering influence. Farewell! a long farewell to honour, truth and self-respect, for the ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... to it as to his other little mannerisms. She did not think of the old couple as fat and awkward. She did not analyze their attributes or think of their features in detail. She thought of them simply as them. But Easton was new; he brought in a subtle whiff of the hated Germany that had done the ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... must have gone off on a tangent through stores into the cooler. Clipped the coolant line, and let warm air in. All the fresh frozen stuff is contaminated and rotten." He gagged. "I got a whiff of it, sir. Excuse me." ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... shrewd, sensible, and respectful; now exchanging a little elegant badinage with the coachman; now bowing to a pretty girl; now quizzing a passer-by; he was off and on his seat in an instant, and, in the whiff of his cigar, would lock a wheel, ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... at the flagstaff, driven faster yet by the cheers and shouts along the line. We begin to see what is coming. There are three boys in advance, this time, and all abreast,—Hans, Peter, and Lambert. Carl soon breaks the ranks, rushing through with a whiff. Fly, Hans; fly, Peter: don't let Carl beat again!—Carl the bitter, Carl the insolent. Van Mounen is flagging; but you are as strong as ever. Hans and Peter, Peter and Hans: which is foremost? We love them both. We scarcely care which ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... the soldiers; the snow creaked under foot; the night was very dark, and the sharp fresh air almost took away his breath, yet it was infinitely welcome to him after the heavy atmosphere of his cell, and he inhaled it with keen pleasure, thinking that each whiff was almost the last. He was led into a large, faintly-lighted room, where officers of various grades were smoking around a large table. It was only the committee of investigation, for hitherto his examinations had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... think, seeing me such a bundle of nerves as I am now, that I couldn't have done it," he said. "But when I'm doing the doctor job I'm a different being; I lose myself. I just gave him another whiff of A.C.E., called to the nurses to fetch candles and got on with it. He's walking about London to-day—as right ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... made, as if with a foreknowledge of going early home to Him. Their father came back very tired one morning, and went up the hill to his breakfast, and the children got into the boat and pushed off, in imitation of their daddy. It came on to blow, as it does down there, without a single whiff of warning; and when Robin awoke for his middle-day meal, the bodies of his little ones were lying on the table. And from that very day Captain Cockscroft and his wife began to grow old very quickly. The boat was recovered without much damage; and in it he sits by the hour ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... cover, and a whiff of the freshest fragrance regaled the seven eager noses bent to inhale it, as a general murmur of pleasure greeted the nest of great, rosy ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... you come up from around Bailey's strawberry patch and Tumley's hedge you get a whiff of such deliciousness as makes your mouth water. And more than likely Bessie sees you and comes running out with a few samples of her heavenly work. As you dispose of those cinnamon buns you forget that Bessie's voice is a trifle ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... the whole army clamoured to break up the camp. Thus Ali and his fifty followers cast terror into the hearts of nearly thirty thousand men, crowded together on the slopes of Janina. Every sound, every whiff of smoke, ascending from near the castle, became a subject of alarm for the besiegers. And as the besieged had provisions for a long time, Kursheed saw little chance of successfully ending his enterprise; when Ali's demand for pardon ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... sport, or the softest, daintiest refinements of man's invention given me the half of luxury I drank in from that little breeze. So the commonest things—a dash of cool water on the wrists, a gulp of hot tea, a warm, dry blanket, a whiff of tobacco, a ray of sunshine—are more really the luxuries than all the comforts and sybaritisms we buy. Undoubtedly the latter would also rise to the higher category if we were to work for their essence instead of merely signing club cheques or ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... coughing to tears and rejecting smoke through her nose. The Markgraf, feigning to kiss her, had blown a whiff of tobacco into her mouth. She did not get angry, did not utter a single word, but glared at her possessor with anger aroused way down at the bottom of ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... than the pair of helpless creatures presented was never seen on a rainy day, as they stood on the great, gaunt, puddled platform, a whiff of drizzle blowing under the roof upon them now and then; the pretty attire in which they had started from Stickleford in the early morning bemuddled and sodden, weariness on their faces, and fear of him in their eyes; for the child began to look as if she thought ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... recognise as 'common form' in novels, seemed to me then distinctive—for to me a new book was not one of a number of similar objects, but was like an individual man, unmatched, and with no cause of existence beyond himself—an intoxicating whiff of the peculiar essence of Francois le Champi. Beneath the everyday incidents, the commonplace thoughts and hackneyed words, I could hear, or overhear, an intonation, a rhythmic utterance fine and strange. ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... Mountain Rangers troop the colors and I stand solemn, like the children, and I salute when the flag goes by. Of course when she goes to her fort her sentries sing out 'Turn out the guard!' and then . . . do you catch that refreshing early-morning whiff from the mountain-pines and the wild flowers? The night is far spent; we'll hear the bugles before long. Dorcas, the black woman, is very good and nice; she takes care of the Lieutenant-General, and is Brigadier-General Alison's mother, which makes her mother-in-law to the Lieutenant-General. That ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the two aviators that they had their goggles on, else they too might have suffered from the fumes that so quickly spread in every direction as though fanned by the night breeze. Perk afterwards admitted that he had caught a whiff of the penetrating gas despite the covering helmet and close-fitting goggles but thanks to the haste with which Jack carried their ship past, the gas had little ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... insolently, inhaled a whiff of his cigarette, and then deliberately blew the smoke ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... are quite aware that the absolute monarchy does not and cannot hesitate one moment to greet them with a whiff of grapeshot in the service of the bourgeoisie. Why then should they prefer the direct rule of the bourgeoisie to the brutal oppression of absolute government, with its semi-feudal retinue? The workers know that the ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... gimme dat bottle. I handles mah licker!" The Wildcat uncorked the bottle and held it to the Mud Turtle's chattering lips. The Mud Turtle took a whiff of the liquid. Its perfume seemed to inspire a new set of internal calisthenics in the Mud Turtle. After he had quit writhing the Wildcat again pressed the remedy upon him. "Drink it, fo' I drips it on you. Go ahead an' drink. I'll hol' yo' ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... down to the brookside and hunted all about; There wasn't a sign of a fisherman; there wasn't a sign of a trout. But I heard somebody chuckle behind the hollow oak And I got a whiff of tobacco like Lilly used ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... and her movement sent a faint whiff of perfume about her, dainty as herself. And then there was just a moment's painful silence. The awkwardness of the moment dwelt with them both; it would be hard to ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... nostrils a naphthaline odour outflows, In his trail a petroleum-whiff lingers. With crude nitro-glycerine glitter his hose, Suggestions of dynamite hang round his nose, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various
... that coming upon the fresh tracks of a mountain lion did not surprise me. But I was not prepared for what occurred soon afterward. Noticing a steamy vapor rising from a hole in the snow by the protruding roots of an overturned tree, I walked to the hole to learn the cause of it. One whiff of the vapor stiffened my hair and limbered my legs. I shot down a steep slope, dodging trees and rocks. The vapor was rank with the odor from ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... pile of wood has been laid upon smouldering embers, a thin curl of smoke crawls lazily up the chimney, another follows with like indolence, and it looks after a while as if the wood would not burn at all. Suddenly a little whiff of air enters the pile, when, presto! up blazes the fire, and soon there is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... chimney-pots and glowing lights of the great city gladdened Hawker's heart, and a whiff from the murky Thames bade him welcome home. He gave up his ticket at Grosvenor road, and when the train pulled into Victoria he walked boldly through the immense station. He loved London with a thoroughbred cockney's passion, and he exulted in the ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... hang together when the whiff of a smell, a band playing in the street, a face seen in the fire, or on the gnarled stem of a tree, will lead them into such vagaries at ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... cabinet partly full of the shiny tools of his trade. The cabinet seemed quite out of place in the tall state chamber: but then so did the man. He did not look in the least like a doctor (just as Miss Heth had said). The faint scent of iodoform that he now gave off was a heterogeneity, like a whiff of ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... sorry when his cool, calculating mind refused to believe his eyes, which saw shapes; his flesh, which felt creeps; his ears, which heard voices; and his nostrils, which caught a whiff of a faint, sweet perfume more exquisite than any which he remembered. He knew that when he had kissed the river goddess whose eyes were blue, whose flesh was fair, whose grace was lovely, he had tasted that nectar and sniffed that ambrosia. He wondered if she ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... sip of liquid and say, "This milk is sour." But why should we be able by taking the liquid into the mouth and bringing it into contact with the mucous membrane to tell that it is milk, and that it possesses the quality which we call sour? Or, once more, we get a whiff of air through the open window in the springtime and say, "There is a lilac bush in bloom on the lawn." Yet why, from inhaling air containing particles of lilac, should we be able to know that there is anything outside, much less that ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... "Bit whiff! What a coarse brute you are!" said McTurk. "Can't a poor pussy-cat get under King's dormitory floor to die without your pursuin' ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... willingly surrender it for a pocketed half-crown. This side the Channel, in brief, romance and the picturesque are dead; and in France, the last refuge of crime, there are already signs of decay. The Abbe Bruneau caught a whiff of style and invention from the past. That other Abbe—Rosslot was his name—shone forth a pure creator: he owed his prowess to the example of none. But in Paris crime is too often passionel, and a crime passionel is a crime with a purpose, which, like the novel ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... followed, pulling their traineau with difficulty over the roughnesses of the landing place; while husband and sons looked on tranquilly, and smoked 'kinne-kanik' in short stone pipes. The elderly squaw deposited her baby on the snow, and also comforted herself with a whiff; certain vernacular conversation ensued between her and her daughters, apparently about the place of their camp, and the younger ones set to work clearing a patch of ground under some birch trees. Mrs. Squaw now drew forth a hatchet from ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... the city, extends some twenty-five miles along the sands of the Adriatic. I drove out to it for Byron's sake, and Dante's, and Boccaccio's, all of whom have interwoven it with their fictions, and for that of a possible whiff of coolness from the sea. Between the city and the forest, in the midst of malarious rice- swamps, stands the finest of the Ravennese churches, the stately temple of San Apollinare in Classe. The Emperor Augustus constructed hereabouts ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... know enough to respect the bitter leaves' desire to be let alone; but many a pail of milk has been spoiled by a mouthful of Helenium among the herbage. Whoever cares to learn from experience why this was called sneezeweed, must take a whiff of snuff made of the dried ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... friendly tone. I have read every word with the utmost pleasure. We might agree to differ about Cazotte. [618] I think you are applying to 1750 the moralities of 1890. Arbuthnot's visit has quite set me up, like a whiff of London in the Pontine marshes of Trieste. He goes to-day, d—— the luck! but leaves us hopes of meeting during the summer in Switzerland or thereabouts. He is looking the picture of health and we shall return him to town undamaged. Best of ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... passage; then you come plump upon another from the hall door; then comes another, fit to knock you down, as You turn to the upper passage ; then, just as You turn towards the queen's room, comes another; and last, a whiff from the king's stairs, enough to blow you half ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... about two hours. The principal person then rang a bell, and the tables and chairs all vanished in a whiff, leaving all the company on their feet. The birds now struck up a most lively air, and the little people danced their rounds most merrily. When they were done, the joyous sets jumped and leaped, and whirled themselves round and round, as if ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... cow stopped abruptly, threw up her head and stared at the hunter. The sight of the crouching figure must have suggested to the stupid animal that every thing was not right, for with a frightened whiff, she bounded short around with the intention of ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... of that summer is the ocean. I had always lived far inland and had never had so much as a whiff of salt air; but I had read in a big book called "Our World" a description of the ocean which filled me with wonder and an intense longing to touch the mighty sea and feel it roar. So my little heart leaped high with eager ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... deliberately reckons up things a Shakespeare would admire at their lowest possible sale value. A slow whiff of smoke from a corner of the sneering mouth, an air of intense knowingness, as much as to say, "You may depend upon me—I've been behind the scenes. All this is got up, you know; stage effect in front, pasteboard at the rear; nothing ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... be ill this morning, and I was alarmed. I dosed her with the medicine which Dr. S—— had given me when the epidemic first appeared, and sent for the Doctor himself. But I discovered, before he came, that she had gotten too close a whiff of the chloride-of-lime bag, and it nauseated her. She is more afraid of the disinfectants ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... Mr. Walpole, making a face, for he hates a laugh at his cost; nothing less than a young American giant, with the attire of Dr. Benjamin Franklin and the manner of the Fauxbourg Saint Germain. But he had a whiff of deer leather about him, and shoulders and back and legs to make his fortune at Hockley in the Hole, had he lived two generations since. And he had with him a strange, Scotch sea-captain, who had rescued him from pirates, bless you, no less. That is, he said he was ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... first dusk, hummed with loiterers, girls released from the shops walking with their young men, middle-aged couples sauntering out to take a last whiff of the sea before going in to the evening meal, one or two visitors from the Hotel strolling across to the beach to watch the first evening stars and the rising moon. Pianos were playing, children shouting over the last game of ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... gleamed eyes which, even in good-nature and merriment, had a kind of animal ferocity. They transgressed without fear or scruple, the rules of behaviour that were binding on all others: smoking tobacco under the beadle's very nose, although each whiff would have cost a townsman a shilling; and quaffing at their pleasure, draughts of wine or aqua-vitae from pocket flasks, which they freely tendered to the gaping crowd around them. It remarkably characterised the incomplete morality of the age, rigid as ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... one day from a solitary ramble on Hampstead Heath to find that Salthaven, or a whiff of it, had come to her. A deep voice, too well known to be mistaken, fell on her ears as she entered the front door, and hastening to the drawing-room she found her aunt entertaining Captain Trimblett to afternoon tea. One large hand balanced ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... some instinct or idea which I did not stop to analyse at the moment, and drawing my cutlass from its sheath, crept cautiously and noiselessly down the companion-ladder. The moment that I entered the companion-way I was saluted by a whiff of moist, hot air loaded with a powerful, foetid, musky odour, of which I had already become vaguely conscious, accompanied by a deep, murmuring sound that seemed to proceed from the vessel's hold; and although this was my first experience ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... sea; and when the billowing fields and neat hedges changed to chalky downs, a sudden whiff of salt on the air blowing through a half-open window made her heart leap. She nearly cried, "The sea!" but controlled herself because ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... I repeated. My voice sounded far away, like that of another. I saw the colour come into her cheeks again, slowly. The southwest wind, with a whiff of the channel salt in it, blew the curtains at ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... been good; the days are hot and summer-like. Yesterday in the press of bad smells I got a whiff of a hedgerow in bloom. The birds perch on the trees over our heads and twitter away as if there was nothing to worry about. Bonfire is still well. I do hope he gets ...
— In Flanders Fields and Other Poems - With an Essay in Character, by Sir Andrew Macphail • John McCrae
... was very fortunate that on that day of all days the contrivance should have turned out so well. It was tender, and the flesh was seasoned to just the right flavor by the stuff I stewed with it—certain herbs, Katje, and a hint of a whiff of garlic. Garlic is a thing you must not play with: like sin, you can never undo it, whatever forgiveness you win. But a leaf or two bruised between two clean pebbles, and the pebbles boiled with the stew, spices the whole ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... was the skunk. They were fearless little beasts and in the evening would come quite boldly about the house, and if seen and attacked by a dog, they would defend themselves with the awful-smelling liquid they discharge at an adversary. When the wind brought a whiff of it into the house, when all the doors and windows stood open, it would create a panic, and people would get up from table feeling a little sea-sick, and go in search of some room where the smell was not. Another powerful-smelling but ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... need was to be secret; and all this rapid and animated picture of the road swept quite apart from us, as we lumbered up hill and down dale, under hedge and over stone, among circuitous byways. Only twice did I receive, as it were, a whiff of the highway. The first reached my ears alone. I might have been anywhere. I only knew I was walking in the dark night and among ruts, when I heard very far off, over the silent country that surrounded us, the guard's horn wailing its signal to ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... filled the pipe. He drew a whiff, and when the fire glowed, he turned the pipestem toward the seam of the skins above the doorway. He looked up towards the sky, saying, "Ho, friend, here is the pipe. We must smoke with you this last time. And then we must separate. Here is ...
— Myths and Legends of the Great Plains • Unknown
... Potatoes are ranged in a pyramid; watermelons in long rows; white and yellow onions are heaped in sacks. The sweet musk of cantaloupes is the scent that overbreathes all others. Then, down nearer to the waterfront, comes the strong, damp fishy whiff of oysters. To stroll among these gleaming piles of victuals, to watch the various colours where the lamps pour a pale silver and yellow on cairns and pyramids of vegetables, is to gather a lusty appetite and attack the first oyster stew of the ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... Tabacum by a European on this continent. The probable results of this discovery are so vast as to baffle conjecture. If it be objected, that the smoking of a pipe would hardly justify the setting up of a memorial stone, I answer, that even now the Moquis Indian, ere he takes his first whiff, bows reverently toward the four quarters of the sky in succession, and that the loftiest monuments have been reared to perpetuate fame, which is the dream of the shadow of smoke. The Saga, it will be remembered, leaves this Bjarna ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... A whiff of air tinged with the salt tang of the sea blew in at the window, and she came suddenly out of her musings to find that the car was winding its way up the hill upon which the Hermitage ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... many links of illness, danger, and disaster are always interposed? Unsuspectedly from the bottom of every fountain of pleasure, as the old poet said, something bitter rises up: a touch of nausea, a falling dead of the delight, a whiff of melancholy, things that sound a knell, for fugitive as they may be, they bring a feeling of coming from a deeper region and often have an appalling convincingness. The buzz of life ceases at their touch as a piano-string stops sounding ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... views Of a moonlight night." "Well, well, we'll see" And smoked as if each whiff were gain. The other mused; then sudden asked, "What would you do in grand decree" I'd beat, if I could, Lee's armies—then Send constables after ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... to the Pure Right or to the Advanced Left, but necessary to give the Prime Minister sufficient strength to command the respect, both at home and abroad, which can only be won by a statesman who is not afraid of being overturned by every whiff of the parliamentary wind. The 'Legge Rattazziana' certainly aimed at asserting the supremacy of the state, but in substance it was an arrangement for raising the stipend of the poorer clergy at the expense of the richer benefices and ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... right," and Blaney laughed, indulgently. "You can't expect to achieve all at once. Come, we'll step out on the veranda for a whiff of outdoors, and then come ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... thirty thousand pounds of steaks at a time, all hissing and frying at a time—just about noon, of course, you know—not a spark of fire! Some of the soldiers who had been brought up as glass-blowers at Leith swore they never saw such heat. I used to go to leeward of them for a whiff, and think of old England! Ay! that's the country, after all, where a man may think and say what he pleases! But that sort of work did not last long, as you may suppose; their eyes were all fried out, —— me, in three or four weeks! I had been ill in my bed, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... not inconvenience the Spaniard in the least. It is usual to smoke during the intervals of the dances—cigarettes as a rule; but I have often known a man to lay his cigar on the edge of a table, and give it a whiff between the rounds of a valse ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... A whiff of smoke swept upward past her face, and for one moment terror seized her and she cried out, "Water! Give me holy water!" but the next moment her fears were gone, and they came no more to ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain |
