"Whiff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... face presented, as she now crossed the room, something that resembled the ravage of a death-struggle between its artificial and its natural elegance. "Well," Mitchy said with decision as he caught it—"I back Nanda." And while a whiff of derision reached him from the Duchess, "Nothing HAS happened!" ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... 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 ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... 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 think I'll ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... wrapped in the atmosphere which had surrounded him all day. He felt still the lift of the boat over the short swell, he smelled the pleasant combination of salt, and gasolene, and the whiff of the hayfields, and his eyes still kept the glare and the blue, and the swinging dark shape of the Dutchman's bows as he headed her down the bay. Just before he reached Winterbottom Road, he saw, rather vaguely through the twilight, the figures of ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... another whiff, and turned his great eyes here and there, looking about the room. Hermione began to wonder what he had to say to her. She was certain that he had come to her for some reason other than just to ask if she had ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... for Dick's old battered briar rarely left his mouth; and whilst the odoriferous Boer equivalent for the "divine weed" held out, food and drink were but minor considerations. But something must be done now, so, knocking out the ashes from his last whiff, and with one more futile grope in his capacious pocket, he stuck his empty pipe in his mouth, rose, stretched himself, and, glancing once more at the pageant of the western sky, turned back towards the contemptible collection of tin shanties, ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... frightened. He walked in a big circle round and round the place where the plump chicken and the duck had been, and the more he walked, the more suspicious he became. He wrinkled and wrinkled his little black nose in an effort to smell the intruder, but not a whiff could he get. All was as still and peaceful as could be. Little Joe Otter's trout lay shining in the moonlight. The big head of cabbage lay just where Peter Rabbit and Jumper the Hare had left it. Reddy Fox rubbed his eyes to ...
— Mother West Wind's Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... the decorations, the wreaths, the gauze, the tinsel, and paper angels, suspended by invisible wires over the counters, and all glittering and shining and twinkling with light, a strong whiff of evergreen fragrance came to her, and the aroma of fir-balsam, and it was to her the very breath of all the mysterious joy and hitherto untasted festivity of this earth into which she had come. She felt deep in her childish soul ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... madness as an accomplice in the horrible game of his life. One is tempted to add that the romantic imagination is always slightly mad. It runs to seed in darkness and despair. The fugitive verse of Meryon is bitter, ironical, defiant; a whiff from an underground prison, where seems to sit in tortured solitude some wretch abandoned by humanity, a stranger even at the gates ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... of the average English people, as it impressed my sense, is what one gets in Sterne,—very human and stomachic, and entirely free from the contempt and superciliousness of most current writers. I did not get one whiff of Dickens anywhere. No doubt it is there in some form or other, but it is not patent, or even appreciable, to the sense of such an ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... brilliancy perceptible in the comet's head, which is termed its nucleus, and it is necessarily a matter of pressing interest to determine what this bright nucleus is; whether it is really a kernel of hard, solid substance, or merely a whiff of somewhat more condensed vapor. Newton, from the first, maintained that the comet is made partly of solid substance, and partly of an investment of thin, elastic vapors. If this is the case, it is manifest that the central nodule of dense substance should be capable of intercepting ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... regard to the guiding spirit of an often-killed but still living and breathing "monster." As the writer entered his apartment, he took a long pipe from his mouth with the most easy deliberation, while the last whiff from the aromatic Virginia weed curled upward in an azure cloud, and mingled with the ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... nestled snugly into the groove of the rack, and the regular automatic action took place. A tiny door slid open directly above in the dirigible's hull: a thin ladder craned down—and Chris's nostrils caught a faint whiff of something that cleared his mind ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall
... way, and hence was not thought much of. However, Laura felt drawn to her at once—even though Cupid treated her as quite a little girl—and they sometimes got as far as talking of books they had read. From this whiff of her, Laura was sure that Cupid would have had more understanding than M. P. for her want of veracity; for Cupid had a kind of a dare-devil mind in a hidebound character, and was often ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... and droring a comparison betwixt Refreshmenting as followed among the frog-eaters and Refreshmenting as triumphant in the Isle of the Brave and Land of the Free (by which of course I mean to say agin, Britannia). Our young ladies, Miss Whiff, Miss Piff, and Mrs. Sniff, was unanimous opposed to her going: for, as they says to Our Missis one and all, it is well beknown to the hends of the herth as no other nation except Britain has a idea of anythink, but ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... quietly, too, he helped others less 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 ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... kneaded her bread and stirred up her griddle cakes for morning. It was early in the season to start with them, but with the first cold whiff Mr. Leverett began to beg for them. Then she fixed her fire, turned down her sleeves, took off the big apron that covered all her skirt, and rejoined the three by ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... disappointed, no matter how hard the times might be. She 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 playing Santa Claus till her ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... threaded them on a glancing silken string, and hummed to himself the while. Kim was conscious that beyond the circle of light the room was full of things that smelt like all the temples of all the East. A whiff of musk, a puff of sandal-wood, and a breath of sickly jessamine-oil caught ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... had grown, during these last weeks, to loathe his kiss! He would stand behind her chair, bending his great body over her, his red face would come down, then the whiff of tobacco, then the rough pressure on her cheek, the hard, unmeaning contact of his lips and hers. His beautiful eyes would stare beyond her, absently into the room. Beautiful! Why, yes, they were ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... I fared the seas with Jonadab Kilroot, master of the stolid barque, "Merchant of London," I say nothing, or as good as nothing. Master Kilroot was a noisy, bulky man, with a whiff of the tar-barrel ever about him and a heart as stout as a ship's biscuit. He feared God always, and drubbed his men whenever it was necessary; in his estimation the office of sea-captain was the most important under heaven, and Master ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... 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 ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... and painfully 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 very beautiful creature was the common deer. I began to ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... moonlight of beneficence, by the attentions of Ben-Ali's house-steward, who rains upon our appetites a shower of most delicious kouskoussu, soothes us with Moorish coffee, and finishes by the politeness of lighting and taking the first whiff of our cigarette—a bit of courtesy that might be spared, but common here as in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... this bet on the part of his uncle, but still less did he like the want of good manners in not waiting for him. He had just time to see the covers removed, to scent a whiff of ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... a lamp filled with clarified butter and containing a wick of twisted tow. Incense is thrown into the flame and offerings of cakes and sweetmeats are made. A lighted huqqa is placed before the altar and as soon as the smoke rises it is understood that a whiff has been drawn by the hero." A cock is offered to Lalbeg at the Dasahra festival. When a man is believed to have been affected by the evil eye they wave a broom in front of the sufferer muttering the name of the saint. In the Damoh District the guru or priest who is the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... are hot and damp, and my legs are stiff with cramp, And the office punkahs creak! And I'd give my tired soul, for the life that makes man whole, And a whiff of the jungle reek! Ha' done with the tents of Shem, dear boys, With office stool and pew, For it's time to turn to the lone Trail, our own Trail, the far Trail, Dig out, dig out on the old trail— The trail that ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... of it 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 left in it." ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... on fire were the stalks of the creosote plant—the ideodondo of the Mexican table lands, well known for its power to cause asphyxia. Walt Wilder recognised it at the first whiff. ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... see braziers glowing softly red at the mouth of each burrow. There was a cheerful, mouth-watering smell of cookery on the air, a garlicky smell, with now and then a whiff of ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... a whiff of his cigarette. 'So you think the men will laugh the last? Do you think they'll burn the mills down?' ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... the inglenook and cried herself to sleep. The gude wife knitted, and the gude mon smoked by the pleasant fire. The only sound in the room was the ticking of the wag at the wa' clock, for burning peat makes no noise at all, only a pungent whiff in the nostrils, the memory of which gives a Scotch laddie abroad a fit of hamesickness. Bobby lay very still and watchful by the door. The farmer served his astonishing news in ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... struck rock again, not jagged or slippery fragments, but solid paving, and a whiff of faint mist drifted across his face in the gray of the first dawn, and the burro craned his neck forward at the very edge of a black rock basin where warm vapor struck the nostrils like ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... had moved carelessly and had fallen in behind the two Indians. I stuck to the trail until the diminished sunlight warned me it would soon be too dark to continue. Then I caught a whiff of burning wood and in ten minutes I was ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... give a copper farthing for its merit. It must not be supposed that the person to whom this answer was addressed received it as a profession of faith; he knew, on the other hand, that it was only a whiff of irritation; just as we know, when a respectable writer talks of literature as a way of life, like shoemaking, but not so useful, that he is only debating one aspect of a question, and is still clearly conscious of a dozen others more important in themselves ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... holdings without breaking the price. In two days wheat that they had held at a dollar and ten cents collapsed to sixty. The two Milwaukee men were ruined, and two-thirds of Cressler's immense fortune vanished like a whiff of smoke. ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... with regard to the most trivial questions. Absolutely unconventional, save on his own quarter-deck, he carries about with him an atmosphere of brightness and breeziness which is almost as infectious and as bracing as a whiff of sea air. ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... skill, and its long stem was curiously inlaid with shell-work, besides being ornamented with quills and feathers. After each member of the council, white as well as red, beginning with Gladwyn, had slowly drawn a whiff from this mighty calumet, and it came again to Pontiac, ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... bodies. Just as, when undertaking to prepare A liquid balm of myrrh and marjoram, And flower of nard, which to our nostrils breathes Odour of nectar, first of all behooves Thou seek, as far as find thou may and can, The inodorous olive-oil (which never sends One whiff of scent to nostrils), that it may The least debauch and ruin with sharp tang The odorous essence with its body mixed And in it seethed. And on the same account The primal germs of things must not be thought To furnish colour ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... 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 a ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... little 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, ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... words, and they "disturbed" him, to put it mildly. Evidently he had forgotten the peril to which all persons are exposed in tropical waters, and, as the truth was impressed upon him with such suddenness, he uttered a "whiff" like a porpoise and began swimming with fierce energy toward the shore. In fact, he never put forth so much effort in all his life. The expectation of feeling a huge man-eating monster gliding beneath you when in the water is enough to shake the nerves of the strongest swimmer. ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... a drop, Em," Mrs. Torney said, after investigating a small back porch, from which Julia got a strong whiff of wet ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... of the high stone-wall near which I walked rapidly, I met Dinah, so nearly face to face that the whiff of the pipe she was smoking was warm upon my cheek. Wrapped in her old cloth shawl and quilted hood, she muttered as she went, and staggered too, I thought, though here the northeast wind, that swept her along before it, might have been ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... the office of Minister of Public Worship with that of Treasurer of the Royal Household, leaping into the breach, harangued the mob; and Prince Vrede, a strong adherent to the "whiff of grapeshot" remedy for a disturbance, suggested firing on the ringleaders. Although the suggestion was not accepted, hundreds of arrests were made before some semblance of order was restored. But the rioting was only checked temporarily. A couple of days later it started afresh. ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... little hand of the elder Tryst and ran. They ran at the child's pace, the one so very massive, the other such a whiff of flesh ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the 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, but now that the big ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... with a passenger, 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 ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... back in his arm-chair as he spoke, apparently about to deliver himself to the calm delights of a retrospective reverie. But he was not destined to enjoy it. At that moment a whiff of stifling smoke, quite choking in its intensity, forced itself under the door. In another moment the matter was soon explained. With a wild rush the butler burst ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 27, 1890 • Various
... garden-patch. The 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 joining the ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... as the drops of dirty moisture which stand on the panes testify, they are hermetically closed. The kitchen leads out of the room by what is apparently the only open door in the house, every other being jealously closed lest peradventure a whiff of fresh air should get in. It is impossible to eat, and one is glad to pay for the untasted food and get out into the open air before the power ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... himself or not was a question, for he seemed to be a practical joker. "Old Hendrix is always hatching up something fresh, for the other side. You fellows needn't expect to do much running today, for most of you will only whiff out at the rubber. He's got your ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... matter-of-fact manner, he gave me another whiff of that incomparable perfume, and I felt my taut nerves steady. Not untruthfully had the Coptic physician claimed ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... up their pipes, which had been forgotten in the excitement, and refilled them with the intention of having a last quiet whiff before lying down. ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... Billy coming toward him, the boy ran for dear life, trying to make the school door before Billy could overtake him. He did, but that was all. Billy had gotten a good whiff of the apples, and that settled it. He would have one of those apples, even if he had to chase the boy all over the school. He was hoping the boy would be so afraid of him that he would throw one of the apples at him. But no such good luck. Up the stairs ran the boy, trying to reach ...
— Billy Whiskers' Adventures • Frances Trego Montgomery
... 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 ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... hillside before them sloped up to meet the blue sky, the golden gorse spread its splendid tapestry against the green pasture. There was the tiny house, the one house in Ireland for Nora; its very windows watched her coming. A whiff of turf-smoke flickered above the chimney, the white walls were as white as the clouds above; there was a figure moving about inside the house, and a bent little woman in her white frilled cap and a small red shawl pinned about her shoulders came ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... size of it. I have been longing for a cigarette all day, and, when I came by accident upon this one, finding myself all alone, I could not resist the desire to have a whiff." ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... the knob gently and entered. A faint rosy glow from the lowered drop-light shone on the piles of papers and scattered books on the library table. The curtains rippled in the sudden draught caused by the opening of the door, and a whiff of fragrance from a jar of apple-blossoms on the bookcase floated past the visitor. Berta glanced around with a little shrug that was half a shiver. A room frequently partakes of the nature of its occupant; and the atmosphere of this one always made her heart sink with ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... of our outward voyage, by the largest computation; some time that night, or, at latest, before noon of the morrow, we should sight the Treasure Island. We were heading S.S.W., and had a steady breeze abeam and a quiet sea. The Hispaniola rolled steadily, dipping her bowsprit now and then with a whiff of spray. All was drawing alow and aloft; every one was in the bravest spirits, because we were now so near an end of the first part of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... seed beds and gardens, it is different. We wish present visible growth, and so we must be willing to lend aid, and first aid to such seeds is to give them a whiff of moist heat to soften what has become more hard than desirable through man's intervention. For in wild nature the seed is sown as soon as it ripens, and falls to the care of the ground before the vitality of the parent plant has quite passed ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... 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 ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... where'er we may, through city or through town, Village or hamlet of this merry land, Though lean and beggar'd, every twentieth face, Conducts th' unguarded nose to such a whiff Of state debauch, forth issuing from the sties That law has licensed, as makes ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... steersman's aim grew more embarrassing. As we came abreast of the sea-front, where the surf broke highest, Kauanui embraced the occasion to light his pipe, which then made the circuit of the boat—each man taking a whiff or two, and, ere he passed it on, filling his lungs and cheeks with smoke. Their faces were all puffed out like apples as we came abreast of the cliff foot, and the bursting surge fell back into the boat in showers. At the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... see America. Every one knew that he was not seeing it at all. He would go back with memories of bands and flags and people all dressed up standing before him making polite speeches. But would he carry back one small whiff of the spirit of the country? Again Senator Bruner looked about him. The Speaker of the House was just beginning laying the stair carpet; a judge of the Supreme Court was contending hotly for a better hammer. "It's an insult to expect any ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... Barrel—a rare beauty, who was on the most intimate talking terms with half a hundred young bloods and beaux, who looked in during lounging hours, being students of law, physic, and divinity, half-pay ensigns, and theatrical understrappers, to replenish their boxes with Lundyfoot, whiff a Havannah cigar, or masticate pigtail. No wonder that she was spoiled by flattery, Miss Diana, for she was a bit of a beauty; and though she had but one eye—by heavens, what an eye ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... railroad, along the banks of the Hudson. Close to the station we found a small ferry-boat, ready to take us across to the southern bank. On landing at West Point, "my pipe was immediately put out" by a summary order from a sentry on the wharf. Dropping a tear of sorrow through a parting whiff, and hurling the precious stump into the still waters of the little bay, I followed my cicerone up the hill, and soon found myself in the presence of one of the professors, through whose assistance ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... was enough for 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 ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... "they ought to have caught it, but they did not. There's Josh already in the boat. I wonder whether he thought of a line to whiff." ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... proficiency which their flock reaps by them, than that after all this light of the Gospel which is, and is to be, and all this continual preaching, they should still be frequented with such an unprincipled, unedified and laic rabble, as that the whiff of every new pamphlet should stagger them out of their catechism and Christian walking. This may have much reason to discourage the ministers when such a low conceit is had of all their exhortations, ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... 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 ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... rapidly acquired gains with a lavish magnificence which they imagined to be "princely"—were now uncertificated bankrupts, or had blown their brains out, or had come within the meshes of the law and the walls of a convict prison; while others, who at that time lived upon hope and the "whiff of an oiled rag," now fared sumptuously every day, and would do so unto their lives' end. But for those who had held on to the place through good and evil report, since the time we last pioneered our reader through its dust-swept ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... it, he got a good whiff of the foaming ale in his nostrils, and he surrendered, sighed, and stretched out his hand for the jug, and then took such a hearty draught, that it seemed as though he never ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... making the most of his time in an endeavor to fascinate the Eastern belle? The ladies were hardly dressed when he reappeared, and was urging Miss Sanford to come out with him for a brief stroll to see the mountain prairie and take a whiff of Wyoming breezes, when the appearance of Mrs. Turner and others (who had just happened by, but hearing their voices could not resist rushing in to welcome Mrs. Truscott, etc., etc.) put an end to the possibility. It was ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... indeed, he aimlessly circled the tent. Suddenly the snow gave way beneath his fore legs and he sank down. Something wriggled under his feet. He sprang back, bristling and snarling, fearful of the unseen and unknown. But a friendly little yelp reassured him, and he went back to investigate. A whiff of warm air ascended to his nostrils, and there, curled up under the snow in a snug ball, lay Billee. He whined placatingly, squirmed and wriggled to show his good will and intentions, and even ventured, as ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... 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 her loaded sledge, and ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... were an invalid, Patty. I'm sensitive to the heat, I admit, and this weather is excessive. But I'm not ill, and once I get a whiff of mountain air ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... 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 can take away red stone from the place without their ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... 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
... dark 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 ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... bed was empty. He raised himself in his cot and glared savagely down the ward, sniffing the air suspiciously. Two orderlies were wheeling No. 17 back from the operating-room, and Quin already caught the faint odor of ether. The first whiff of ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... whiff! Ah, that's the thing. How it makes me gay! Now I want to sing, Leap, laugh, play. Ha! I've had my fling! Mistress of a king In my day. Just another snuff . . . Oh, the blessed stuff! How the wretched room Rushes from my sight; Misery and gloom Melt into delight; Fear and death and ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... thinking how Billy had improved. How immaculate he was and how well his blue suit fitted him. There was no barnyard odor about him now! Only a whiff of the good cigars ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... 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 ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... march. Then at night it might be used as a sort of tent, or in a heavy rain it would form a temporary shelter. What do you think of the idea?" His friend had listened with half-closed eyes. He blew a whiff of cigarette smoke from ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... moment for Christian and her brethren when, possibly for the last time in their several careers, they asked nothing more of life. This was the beginning of the summer holidays; the sky was unclouded by a governess, the sunny air untainted by the whiff of a thought of a return to school. Anything might happen in seven weeks. The end of the world, for instance, might mercifully intervene, and, as this was Ireland, there was always a hope of a "rising," in which case it would ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... cawing from some far crows' congress, but served to accentuate its influence. On that windless day the vital breath of the sea might not moderate the bitter-sweet aroma of decay that swam beneath the unmoving branches; and this mournful fragrance of dying Autumn wrought upon Amber's mood as might a whiff of some exquisite rare perfume revive a poignant memory in the bosom of a bereaved lover. His glance grew aimless, his temper as purposeless, lively anticipation giving way to a ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... MacRae went to France. Dolores' father was dead. Uncle Peter was a bachelor. He had two brothers, and each brother had bred three sons. Four of these sons had left their boats and gear to go overseas. Two of them would never come back. The other two were home,—one after a whiff of gas at Ypres, the other with a leg shorter by two inches than when he went away. These two made nothing of their disabilities, however; they were home and they were nearly as good as ever. That was enough for them. And with the younger boys and ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... shrugged his shoulders, restored his pipe to his mouth, and took a long whiff. It was a whiff eloquent, though cynical,—a whiff peculiar to your philosophical smoker, a whiff that implied the most absolute but the most placid incredulity as to the effect of the ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... stool close into the ashes, he spread his horny palms to the blaze, and basked in its genial warmth as it crackled up the wide chimney. Reaching his pipe from its nook, he filled it, dipped it skillfully in the coals so as to ignite without wasting the precious weed, and drew a long whiff by way of a start; then, bending still closer to the blaze, he pulled away, now and then rubbing his shins in slow content, as though ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... wrapped in his mantle, plunged into the hurricane and darkness; and was sensible, with a throb of angry regret, of a whiff of punch rising from the footpath, as he turned the corner ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... point which we feel bound to notice in closing our article. While going about the premises, we were asked to look to the top of the tall engine-chimney, where, to our surprise, none but the faintest whiff of vapour was visible. 'There is no need,' said our conductor, 'that any chimney in Birmingham should smoke more than that. I have told the people so over and over again, but to little use, for they will persist in wasting fuel, and blackening the atmosphere. This is ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... ruffians—I can call them, nothing else—paced the deck, smoking, and passed me every forty seconds. If there is a thing which tumbles a human being of a highly-strung nervous temperament over when he feels squeamish, it is the occasional whiff of a cigar. Then, added to the occasional whiff, were occasional catches of derogatory remarks, which came home to me as unpleasantly as did the tobacco: "A chap with a sword like that should live up to it, and not grovel over a ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... 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 say which ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... open 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 ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... 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 ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... relations" came under discussion. Ought Margaret to know what Helen knew the Basts to know? Similar questions had vexed him from infancy, and at Oxford he had learned to say that the importance of human beings has been vastly overrated by specialists. The epigram, with its faint whiff of the eighties, meant nothing. But he might have let it off now if his sister ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... sonnet is not so clearly worked out as I could wish. The thought is that as the seabird opening his wings with a whiff of wind in your face means the whirr of the motion, but also unaware gives you a whiff of knowledge about his plumage, the marking of which stamps his species, that he does not mean, so Purcell, seemingly intent only on the thought or feeling he is to express or call out, incidentally lets ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... was many, many times more, and he asked for names. Jerry know the names of Bashti, of Agno, and of Lamai, and Lumai. He did not pronounce them with the slightest of resemblance to their customary soundings, but pronounced them in the whiff-whuff of shorthand speech ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... simplest process of causation, be traced back to the first shot fired by Washington's command against a petty officer on the frontier. That shot echoes on the Plains of Abraham, at Lexington and Bunker's Hill, at the taking of the Bastille, and with the "whiff of grape-shot"; we may hear it at Waterloo and in the autumn horrors of the ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... 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 be one ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... may have been shaken up a heap in the game," hinted Anstey. "Prescott isn't the sort of chap to tell us every time he feels a trifle dizzy or experiences a nervous twitch. He may have felt badly, may have gone out on the platform for a whiff of fresh air, and then may have felt so much ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... a whiff, then." She leaned forward, holding the tip of her cigarette to his. As she did so, he noted, with a purely impersonal enjoyment, how evenly the black lashes were set in her smooth white lids, and how the purplish shade ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... was afraid of the old woman who smelled of snuff, and who, when she dressed him in the morning, looked at him with a pitying air; he was afraid of the doctor, who climbed the five flights of stairs twice a day now, and left a whiff of perfume behind him; afraid of his father, who did not go to his office any more, whose beard was often three days old, and who feverishly paced the little parlor, tossing back with a distracted gesture ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... the three women and myself sat conversing as usual over the brasero, a shabby looking fellow in an old rusty cloak walked into the room: he came straight up to the place where we were sitting, produced a paper cigar, which he lighted at a coal, and taking a whiff or two, looked at me: "Carracho," said ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... a whiff of father's pipe for fun, Would I be big and strong like him, or just his ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... boiling water but well wrung out. With the last he mops his face all over, and the effect is much the same as half a noggin of Exshare diluted with a bottle of Schweppe. Pipes and tea are now handed round, though this is not the first appearance of tobacco on the scene. Many Chinamen take a whiff or two at their hubble-bubbles between almost every course, as they watch the performance of some broad farce which on grand occasions is always provided for their entertainment. Opium is served when dinner is over for such as ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... muscles of iron. He caught the wrists amid a shower of blows descending upon him, bent the lad backward and stretched him upon the levee path. In a little while the gust of passion was spent, and he was allowed to rise. Calm now, but a powder mine where he had been but a whiff of the tantrums, Victor extended his hand toward the dwelling ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... 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 in with ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... in particular, take care that you do not tire your horses or yourselves. For yourselves, very likely ten miles will be enough for the first day. It is not distance you are after, it is the enjoyment of every blade of grass, of every flying bird, of every whiff of air, of every cloud that hangs ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... of course, Dr. Grimstone?" he began. "We don't stop anywhere, I think, on the way, and I must confess myself, after dinner, a whiff or two—I think I can give ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... becoming red in vapor of sulpho-cyanide. Here is a long-necked flask of the gas, made by sulphuric acid acting on potassium sulpho-cyanide. Keep back, Dr. Waterworth, for it would be very dangerous for you to get even a whiff of this in your condition. Ah! See—the scratches I made ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... flashed a white-toothed smile at the sizzling steak, took one whiff of the coffee and slid from the saddle. Eating was one of the things ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... we so cluster that, like shot in a barrel, we are rounded and polished by mere attrition. Formerly, characteristics had more chance to emphasize themselves and throw out angles, as I believe they still do in long polar seclusions. Withal, there came from him from time to time a whiff of the naval atmosphere of the past, like that from a drawer where lavender has been. Going ashore once with him for a constitutional, he caught sight of a necktie which my fond mother had given ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... E, the cow hospital. She thought of Bill Crowdy and the sick calves as she drew near, but was passing on to the men at the milk corrals, when the breeze, blowing lightly from the west, brought to her nostrils a whiff of sulphur. ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... been travelling since morning. Hurry, formalities, baggage, the train, the whiff of ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... no trouble in fanning Piper, and again Oakdale's hope ebbed, as Nelson, who had not made a safety for the day, was sent by the whiff route to join ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... 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 glad he's out of the hands of the English! Ay, here they all ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... 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 ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... almost in touch of its threshold, year after year there blooms a large clump of milkweed (Asclepias cornuta), and, what with the fragrance of its purple pompons and the murmurous music of its bees, its fortnight of bloom is not permitted to be forgotten for a moment. Only a moment ago a whiff of more than usual redolence from the open window at which I am sitting reminded me that the flowers were even now in the heyday of their prime, and the loud droning music betokened that the bees were making the most of ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... them of the expedition up the west coast, and of the towns they sacked; and the opulent names rolled oddly off his tongue, and seemed to bring a whiff of southern scent into this panelled English room,—Valparaiso, Tarapaca, and Arica—; and of the capture of the Cacafuego off Quibdo; and of the enormous treasure they took, the great golden crucifix with emeralds of the ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... and began to cough until the tears came into her eyes, while smoke came through her nostrils. Under pretense of kissing her, the count had blown a whiff of tobacco into her mouth. She did not fly into a rage, and did not say a word, but she looked at her possessor with latent ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... before her bore now largely on rooms at hotels, prices of furnished houses, hours of trains, dates of sailings and arrangements for being "met"; she found them for the most part prosaic and coarse. The only thing was that they brought into her stuffy corner as straight a whiff of Alpine meadows and Scotch moors as she might hope ever to inhale; there were moreover in especial fat hot dull ladies who had out with her, to exasperation, the terms for seaside lodgings, which struck her as huge, and the matter of the number of beds required, ...
— In the Cage • Henry James
... moon had a golden ring, And to-night no moon we see!" The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe, And a scornful ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... with ZUG. Strictly speaking, ZUG means Pull, Tug, Draught, Procession, March, Progress, Flight, Direction, Expedition, Train, Caravan, Passage, Stroke, Touch, Line, Flourish, Trait of Character, Feature, Lineament, Chess-move, Organ-stop, Team, Whiff, Bias, Drawer, Propensity, Inhalation, Disposition: but that thing which it does NOT mean—when all its legitimate pennants have been hung on, has not been ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a battle now 'twixt pride and conscience, 'twixt fierce desire and a loathed duty—doubly detested since I had spied a way to freedom and had half tasted a whiff of good free air, ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... 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 city to ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... and in and out of the stalls, eating sweetmeats and visiting their friends. And there was scarcely a grown person in the entire audience of Japanese who was not smoking, for women as well as men smoke in Japan: one pinch of tobacco in a short pipe, one puff, a little whiff of smoke inhaled and the operation is over. Before the curtain rose, the Nesan flew busily from one box to the other with cushions and sweetmeats, baskets of oranges and boxes of sweet pickled black beans. Presently came the sound of two blocks of wood striking together. Then the curtain rose ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... jaw-ache to pronounce it. Among the English, however, as he was the head of a league or union of several tribes, he usually went by the name of the Half King. After the pipe had passed with all due gravity from mouth to mouth, and every warrior, chief, and white man present had taken a whiff or two, in sign that all was good-will and peace between them, Washington arose, and addressed the Half King in a short speech, somewhat ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... he has a monopoly of the puffing, himself," Pindar whispered into the captain's ear; "whiff away, my dear sir, and you'll soon throw ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper |
