"Whiff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... more sensitive to the sufferings of his fellow-creatures, if nothing else, and the forces of the Revolution probably would have swamped him from the very first moment of his emergence at Toulon, when the whiff of grape-shot, symptom of an inexorable, merciless intellect and will, started him upon the road that led to the Napoleonic Era. Destiny is always ironic. For the deficiency of the internal secretions which made ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... with the last batch of the returning crowd, wearing on his face the virtuous look of one who has been snatching a whiff of fresh air after a ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... the ashes from his cigar, took another whiff or two, then laid it down, and turned to his host, who ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... brilliant silvery sheen of the moonlight on the water. The remainder of the crew were dimly visible seated on the deck in the black shadow of the bulwarks, a tiny red spark or two indicating that some of them were solacing the idle hours with a whiff or two of the fragrant weed. Officers who were strict disciplinarians would have forbidden smoking in the watch on deck, and would have insisted on the whole watch keeping constantly on the move, as a safeguard against dozing; but Ritson was ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... said, but it seems it was monstrously to the point, and so rudely conceived that the old duke never recovered the indignity. He got home as far as Amboise, sickened, and died two days after (Jan. 4, 1465), in the seventy-fourth year of his age. And so a whiff of pungent prose stopped the issue of melodious rondels to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the curious old church. One has now to elbow his way to enter, and all around the door, even out into the middle court, contadini are kneeling. Besides this, the whole place reeks intolerably with garlic, which, mixed with whiff of incense from the church within and other unmentionable smells, makes such a compound that only a brave nose can stand it. But stand it we must, if we would see Domenichino's frescoes in the chapel within; and as they are among the best products of his cold ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... (through which issues a whiff of hot air charged with a combination of greasy smells that might knock down a rhinoceros), our hero enters the long, low, dingy room, and is instantly relieved of his coat and cap by half a dozen ready ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... roof after the others had gone, and for some time I thought I was alone. After a while, I got a whiff of smoke, and then I saw Mr. Harbison far over in the corner, one foot on the parapet, moodily smoking a pipe. He was gazing out over the river, and paying no attention to me. This was natural, considering that I had hardly spoken ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... a monopoly of the puffing, himself," Pindar whispered into the captain's ear; "whiff away, my dear sir, and you'll soon throw him into ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... that Kathleen appeared to apply herself to that becoming and feminine employment with double industry after the appearance of the M'Mahons. Kate Hogan was sitting in the chimney corner, smoking a pipe, and as she took it out of her mouth to whiff away the smoke from time to time, she turned her black piercing eyes alternately from Bryan M'Mahon to Kathleen with a ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... of artillery looks on meditatively. His silent thought is sensed by a bystander who remarks: "I suppose, Napoleon, you think you could manage things better!" The man grins. But Napoleon Bonaparte—he who snuffed out Revolution later by whiff of ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... Mr. Tertius drew a whiff or two of fragrant Havana before he replied. Then he too dropped into a chair and pulled it close to his ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... as the worthy neighbour was about to retire and leave them to the enjoyment of their letters. "You have not had a whiff with me for a long time, and here is a new church-warden waiting ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... but we'll settle that on shipboard," said Mr. Iff promptly. "As for knowing me—business of introducing myself. Mr. Staff, I want you to shake hands with my friend, Mr. Iff. W. H. Iff, Whiff: sometimes so-called: merry wheeze based on my typographical make-up; once a joke, now so grey with age I generally pull it myself, thus saving new acquaintances the mental strain. ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... running strong against us, the fineness of the 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... began to fall in streams, while the little bosom heaved with sobs. She pulled out a handkerchief from her pocket to wipe her eyes, and a strong whiff of perfume greeted Violet's nostrils, telling a tale that sent a ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... is ready; you sniff, Asking for that expected walk, (Your nostrils full of the happy rabbit-whiff) And ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... lingered so long that Lemuel thought he should have to find the way beyond for himself. But the tramp suddenly commanded himself from the music, the light, and the smell of strong drink, which Lemuel caught a whiff of as he followed, and turning a corner led the way to the side of a lofty building in a dark street, where they met other like shapes tending toward ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... imagined deadly mines ready to be fired everywhere, and 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 ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... last cigar is smoked and the box is splintered and gone, And only the faintest whiff of the dear old smell hangs on, In the times when he's idle or thoughtful, When he's lonesome, jolly or blue, And he fingers his useless matches, What is ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... moreover, was a rather sophisticated young lady. One would never have seen her, in the mornings, munching a hunk of bread-and-butter "as long as from here to Easter." No; Jeannette has fulfilled her part, providing a whiff of marjoram and cottage flowers for the castle chambers. She has read, written and said her prayers. She has the firm outline, the rosy cheeks, the simplicity of a Watteau peasant-girl—nothing of the Greuze languish, with its hint of ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... real risk of poisoning myself, and of making I wot not how actual a mooncalf, of my present sound mind and body, I herein would reasonably demur: and, if I wanted dreams, would tax my fancy, and not my apothecary's bill. Dreams? I need not whiff opium, nor toss off laudanum negus, to imagine myself—a young Titan, sucking fiery milk from the paps of a volcano; a despot so limitless and magnificent, as to spurn such a petty realm as the Solar System, with Cassiopeia, Booetes, and ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... fired with the rest, and then rammed down another charge as fast as I could, staring out through the smoke in front of me, where I could see some long, thin thing which napped slowly backwards and forwards. A bugle sounded for us to cease firing, and a whiff of wind came to clear the curtain from in front of us, and then we ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sounded agreeably in his own ears; the gentle glow of a lignum-vitae wood fire smote his attenuated shins; he balanced his cards in one hand, a long cigar in the other, exhaled a satisfactory whiff of aromatic smoke, and ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... blaze was made to scare away the wolves. Frank, Jeffson, and Douglas, then rolled themselves in their blankets, and lay down with their feet towards the fire and their rifles beside them. The others lighted their pipes for a finishing whiff—a nightcap as Joe ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne
... You must not hurry, you must not look nervous, though you know that you are a mark for every rifle within extreme range, and above all if you are smitten you must make as little noise as possible and roll inwards through the files. It is at this hour, when the breeze brings the first salt whiff of the powder to noses rather cold at the tip, and the eye can quietly take in the appearance of each red casualty, that the strain on the nerves is strongest. Scotch regiments can endure for half a day and abate no whit of their zeal at the end; English ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... she 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 ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... the moon had a golden ring, And to-night no moon we see!" The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe, And a ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... 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 ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... 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 ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... 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
... and on some occasions during the summer, a deputation visits the sacred spot, where there is a thick porous stone, twenty feet in circumference, with a smooth surface. Having reached the place, the ceremony of smoking to it is performed by the deputies, who alternately take a, whiff themselves, and then present the pipe to the stone; after this, they retire to the adjoining wood for the night, during which it may be safely presumed, that all the embassy do not sleep. In the morning, they read the destinies ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... 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 house ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... certain countries made fire by rubbing two pieces of wood together, and we tried the same plan over and over again. Indeed we spent the better part of several days trying to get fire in that way, but without success; we could not even raise a whiff of smoke. That was about the worst misfortune that happened to us, for without fire to protect us at night, or to cook food during the day, we were continually in difficulties. But it was not long ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... with the suddenness and the start of lightning. Merely the colour of a hill at sunset was enough to flash back her thoughts to an hour when she was looking for Evan; or a certain sort of starlight night would recall a particular walk along the meadow fence; or a gust and whiff of the wind would bring with it the thrill that belonged to one certain stormy September night that never faded in her remembrance. Or the smell of coffee sometimes, when it was just at a certain stage of preparation, would turn her heart-sick. These associations and remembrances were countless and ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... that no extremity need necessarily keep one awake in such heat. He stifled a yawn that was no part of his performance. His pipe was out; he struck a match noisily on his boot; and Stingaree just stirred, as naturally as any infant. But Stingaree's senses were incredibly acute. He smelt every whiff of the rekindled pipe, knew to ten seconds when it went out once more, and listened in an agony for another match. None was struck. Was the Superintendent himself really asleep this time? He breathed as though he were; but so did Stingaree; and yet was there hope in the fact ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... crash. The gunboat shivered, and for a moment stood still; then, gathering headway, moved on again, though with much ominous grating beneath her keel. Soon after she passed out of the smoke and heat, and all hands rushed on deck for a whiff of the fresh, cool air. Their first thought was of the cause of the collision; and, looking eagerly astern, they saw a heavy bridge, about fifty feet of which had been demolished by the tremendous power of the ram. This gave Porter a hint as to the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... smokin' cut plug and dried mesquite leaves mixed when I left," sighed Mustang Taylor, horse wrangler of the Three Elm camp. "They'll be lookin' for me back by nine. They'll be settin' up, with their papers ready to roll a whiff of the real thing before bedtime. And I've got to tell 'em that this pink-eyed, sheep-headed, sulphur- footed, shirt-waisted son of a calico broncho, Sam Revell, hasn't ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... lesson the fire began to smoke, and Mr Gordon told Owen to open the window for a moment. No sooner was this done than the mischievous whiff of sea-air which entered the room began to trifle and coquet with the pendulous half-sheet pinned in front of the desk, causing thereby an unwonted little pattering crepitation. In alarm, Duncan ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... would have gone off capitally. As things turned out, there was a fatal unreality in situation, which House quick to realise. Pretty to see Members, as BIRRELL struggled with his notes, involuntarily sniffing, as if they recognised familiar whiff ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... of 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 on the ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... the foam scudding out from under the swift-moving keel, and feeling the soft, balmy Notos, the kind wind of the south, now and then puff against her face, when the west wind veered away, and so brought up a whiff of the spices and tropic bloom of the great southern continent, over the parching deserts and the treacherous quicksands of the Syrtes ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... would have given to either Phorenice or myself little enough of concern, as they are the trivial and common incidents of every siege; but the mammoth on which we rode had not been so properly schooled. When the first blue whiff of smoke came to us down the windings of the street, the huge red beast hoisted its trunk, and began to sway its head uneasily. When the smoke drifts grew more dense, and here and there a tongue of flame showed pale beneath the sunshine, ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... that may come the day after at Bath. And the next day too I want to show you something of our old River Severn. We will come right up to the present if we go through Bristol. There we shall have a whiff of America, our new find, from which the tobacco comes, and we shall be reminded of how we set sail thither—was it yesterday or the day before? You will understand at Bristol how it is that the energy has ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... in front of me, there swung a flaunting sign—"A l'Irlandois"— at which I cheered up. Here, at any rate, in the midst of this noisome babel, seemed to come a whiff from the old country, and I felt like a ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... of no sich since dat same storm as de debbil come in to fetch ole marse's soul—dis berry night seven year past, an' he carried of him off all in a suddint whiff! jist like a puff of win'. An' no wonder, seein' how he done traded his ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... A slight amount of ether or chloroform may mean to a vivisected animal no protection whatever from extreme pain. The fact has long been known. Many years ago Dr. George Hoggan declared that "complete and conscientious anaesthesia is seldom even attempted, the animal getting at most a slight whiff of chloroform by way of satisfying the conscience of the operator, OR OF ENABLING HIM TO MAKE STATEMENTS OF A HUMANE CHARACTER." In other words, it enables him to say, "Anaesthetics are always used." Shall we always be blind to the insignificance ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... it caught a whiff from earth to its liking, the beetle might descend from the highest heaven ...
— Peace • Aristophanes
... awaiting dinner in a drawing-room after a long walk in wintry weather. It is one thing to get there an occasional whiff of viands cooking in the basement of the house, and quite another to feel the same accentuate your ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... is the truth. But I really thought you above the fear of village gossip, Gabriella. Why, it is more idle than the passing wind, lighter than the down of the gossamer. I thought you had a noble independence of character, incapable of being moved by a whiff of breath, a puff of ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... by the Great Britain, many interruptions force me to close, unflavored by one whiff from the smoke of Auld Reekie. More and better matter shall my next contain, for here and in the Highlands I have passed three not unproductive weeks, of ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... resident, who for the more love of the common country, douce, serious, religious man, drove me all about the valley, and took as much interest in me as if I had been his son: more, perhaps; for the son has faults too keenly felt, while the abstract countryman is perfect—like a whiff of peats. ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mountains, and still not be afraid of the present comparison. There may be, in the eyes of some, a risk in dwelling in this dark hour on our failures in the past: I believe profoundly that the risk is all the other way. I believe that the most deadly danger to our arms to-day lies in any whiff of that self-praise, any flavour of that moral cowardice, any glimpse of that impudent and ultimate impenitence, that may make one Boer or Scot or Welshman or Irishman or Indian feel that he is only smoothing the path for a second Prussia. I have passed the great part of my life ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... singing and story-telling went on and in the middle of it Tom O'Donnell came driving in. He was like a whiff of a no'the-easter out to sea. "Whoo!" he said. "Hulloh, Wesley-boy—and Patsie Oddie—and Tommie Ohlsen—and, by my soul, Tommie Clancy again. Lord, what a night to come beating down from Boston! What's that, Wesley?—did the Colleen outfoot the cutter down the ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... California town, filling a summer's engagement with a street railway company. The company owned a large park outside the city, and of course it was to its interest to provide attractions which would send the townspeople over its line when they went out to get a whiff of country air. My contract called for two ascensions weekly, and my act was an especially taking feature, for it was on my days that ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... the owner of Big Shanty enthusiastically. Think of the poor people in the city who have none of it. I must send for Randall as soon as we get settled, and some of those fellows we met at The Players that day, and let them have a whiff of it—do them a lot of good. Randall loves it. Poor boy—he needs a change now worse than I did. And have you seen ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... heard upon the stairs, and an instant later there entered a tall, ruddy, clean-shaven gentleman, whose clear eyes and florid cheeks told of a life led far from the fogs of Baker Street. He seemed to bring a whiff of his strong, fresh, bracing, east-coast air with him as he entered. Having shaken hands with each of us, he was about to sit down when his eye rested upon the paper with the curious markings, which I had just examined ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... business discouraged; where the respectable residents have to fasten their doors and windows summer nights and sit in their rooms with asphyxiating air and one hundred degrees temperature, rather than try to catch the faint whiff of breeze in their natural breathing places—the stoops of their homes; where naked women dance by night in the streets, and unsexed men prowl like vultures through the darkness on "business" not only permitted, but encouraged, by the police; where the education of infants begins ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... afternoon of the third day, as 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 he, "who is ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... a whiff of us, a quarter of a mile away. See how she holds her head, her great ears chucked forward to hear, her nose half to the sky! She knows there's danger on ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... downhill. The lady was voluble. Into your triangular group broke a newcomer whose speech had in it a flippant, or at least a superficially clever, fluency. He was glib. Leaving these three to fight (or talk) it out as best they might, you grabbed your hat and hurried outside for a fresh whiff ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... caught 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 the person ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... that near the edge of the pine grove, not far away, there dwelt a lone fisherman, who, coming down to the shore, caught a whiff of sweet perfume such as had never before delighted his nostrils. What could it be? The spring zephyrs, blowing from the west, seemed laden with ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... finds him, Striking too short at Greeks: his antique sword, Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls, Repugnant to command: unequal match'd, Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes wide; But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword The unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium, Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top Stoops to his base; and with a hideous crash Takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear: for lo! his sword, Which was declining on the milky head Of reverend Priam, seem'd i' the air to stick: ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... lunatic, an idiot, any thing else. I don't quite need a strait-jacket as yet, but I tell you I do need the seclusion of a comfortable lunatic asylum. I only stipulate for an occasional drop of beer, and a whiff or two at odd times. Don't you think ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... A whiff of pipe smoke drifted over his shoulder, and he looked around. The dog's master stood just behind him; regarding him with that quizzing, half pathetic, half humorous, and altogether ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... floated away; the atmosphere became, clear again; a whiff of fresh air filled the tent, and the pink curtains of the couch trembled slightly, as if stirred ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... as black as pitch, and Smith was slowly making his way down its irregular steps, when he was suddenly conscious that something had passed him in the darkness. There was a faint sound, a whiff of air, a light brushing past his elbow, but so slight that he could scarcely be certain of it. He stopped and listened, but the wind was rustling among the ivy outside, and he ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... livings in his own gift, no doubt. I've got a new thing running in my head this very minute that you shall hear though, all the same, as soon as I've hammered it into shape—a sort of villanette in music, a little whiff of country freshness, suggested by the new ethereal acquisition, little Miss Butterfly. Have you ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... dry, hacking cough. Any unusually severe exertion precipitated spells of coughing, during which he was almost like a man in a fit. The blood congested in his eyes till they bulged, while the tears ran down his cheeks. A whiff of the smoke from frying bacon would start him off for a half-hour's paroxysm, and he kept carefully to ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... pathway for foot-passengers. The roadway in the centre, thirty feet wide, is well paved with stone, and perfectly level. Every thirty yards or so are stalls for the sale of kababs, fruit, sweetmeats, and the kalyan, for a whiff from which passers-by pay a small sum. Ispahan is noted for its fruit; apricots, peaches, nectarines, cherries, mulberries, and particularly fine melons, are abundant ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... saying a great deal more than he had. Felgate had a wonderful gift of self-delusion. He knew he had acted wrongly and meanly. "And yet," he argued, "smoking is no crime, and if the school rules make it one, it doesn't follow that I'm a sinner if I have a whiff now and then. He admits he smokes himself. He doesn't call himself a sinner. Easy enough for him to be high and mighty. One law for him ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... 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 ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... 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 sickness of my stomach; for, ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... cleverest I ever run up against. For all you know, he may have been back of a lot o' tricks Central never got hold of. I'll bet that each time that you went over with him, he took loot an' disposed of it. I may be pig-headed sometimes, but I'm dead sure o' this. Wait some day an' see. Say, take a whiff o' this an' tell me what y' think it ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... tossed his hat in the closet, opened the incubator on his culture tubes, trying to look busy. He slammed the door after one whiff and gripped the edge of the work ...
— The Coffin Cure • Alan Edward Nourse
... I was coming after you, and if I can get away I'll be there. A good whiff of this stuff will lay out a thousand of them just as easily as it will one. Here's the idea. I've made a gas mask for myself, since I'll be in it where it's thick, but you two won't need any. The gas is soluble enough in water so that three or four thicknesses of wet cloth over your ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... 'em now, would ye, Telly?" he continued after drawing a long whiff of smoke and slowly emitting it in rings. "It's been so many years, an' since I got thinkin' 'bout it I'd like to take a look at 'em, jest to remind me o' that fortunate day ye ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... in that country. But unhappily our one 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 the next post-house for ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... understand," said the elder, with another calm whiff. "I have always had a kind of respect for your father, for there is something remarkable in his appearance, something heroic, and I would fain have cultivated his acquaintance; the feeling, however, has not been reciprocated. I met him, the other day, up the road, with his cane and dog, and ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... temporary centres of malaria, within the memory of man, on one or more of our Massachusetts rivers, but these are harmless enough, for the most part, unless the millers dam them, when they are apt to retaliate with a whiff from their meadows, that sets the whole neighborhood shaking with ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... 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 ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... 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 ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... in joy, but not in sorrow. My second is in lend, but not in borrow. My third is in fast, but not in slow. My fourth is in whiff, but not in blow. My fifth is in whole, but not in half. My sixth is in heifer, but not in calf. My seventh is in song, but not in hymn. My eighth is in hoop, but not in rim. My ninth is in fancy, but not in whim. My hidden whole, when it is ...
— Harper's Young People, May 4, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Semyon he looked graceful and vigorous, but yet in his walk there was something just perceptible which betrayed in him a being already touched by decay, weak, and on the road to ruin. And all at once there was a whiff of spirits in the wood. Marya Vassilyevna was filled with dread and pity for this man going to his ruin for no visible cause or reason, and it came into her mind that if she had been his wife or sister ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... 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 south-southwest, 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; everyone was in the bravest spirits, because we were now so near an end of the first part ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... warmth in Don Ippolito's deep eyes kindled to a flame; a dark red glowed in his thin cheeks; he drew a box from the folds of his drapery and took snuff in a great whiff, as if inhaling the sulphurous fumes of battle, or titillating his nostrils with grains of gunpowder. He was at least in full enjoyment of the poetic power of his invention, and no doubt had before his eyes a vivid picture of a score of secessionists surprised and blown to atoms in the ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... only gold. The water, reaching round in two arms, came close: there was a note of husky summons in the whistles of passing craft. Almost everywhere, sharp above many smells of oils and spices, the whiff of coffee tingled his busy nose. Above one huge precipice stood a gilded statue—a boy with wings, burning in the noon. Brilliance flamed between the vanes of his pinions: the intangible thrust of that pouring light seemed about to hover him off ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... 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 me. It was black, yes; but with variations. "Humph!" he ejaculated; ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... awoke to find themselves at anchor in Colombo harbour, and the soft warm air brought them a delicious whiff of the celebrated cinnamon gardens. Many were landing for Southern India and a quantity of cargo had to be discharged. As this was bound to be a lengthy process, the remnant who were bound for Rangoon had nearly a whole day ashore. Mrs. ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... far as to be able 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 him ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... 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
... continually with a sweet savour. I doubt if there is any sensation arising from sight more delightful than the odours which filter through sun-warmed, wind-tossed branches, or the tide of scents which swells, subsides, rises again wave on wave, filling the wide world with invisible sweetness. A whiff of the universe makes us dream of worlds we have never seen, recalls in a flash entire epochs of our dearest experience. I never smell daisies without living over again the ecstatic mornings that my teacher and I spent wandering in the fields, while I learned new words ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... Pippa herself. The whole central and splendid idea of the drama is the fact that Pippa is utterly remote from the grand folk whose lives she troubles and transforms. To make her in the end turn out to be the niece of one of them, is like a whiff from an Adelphi melodrama, an excellent thing in its place, but destructive of the entire conception of Pippa. Having done that, Browning might just as well have made Sebald turn out to be her long lost brother, and Luigi a husband to whom she was secretly married. Browning ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... at her elbow as though someone wished to pass between the seats. The faintest whiff of stephanotis came to her on the lazy summer air. Involuntarily she turned her head and looked for the harsh-voiced woman who had been verily steeped in the aggressive odor the day of Lauzanne's triumph. Two burly men sat ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... was, my boy. The Spaniards bought her from a New York millionaire, but she was an old model then, and they have top-hampered her with armor and guns until they have knocked what little speed she had out of her. We'll not even see a whiff of their smoke in ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... to resemble the lounge of a fashionable hotel. Moffatt himself, as he came forward, gave Ralph the impression of having been done over by the same hand: he was smoother, broader, more supremely tailored, and his whole person exhaled the faintest whiff of an expensive scent. He installed his visitor in one of the blue arm-chairs, and sitting opposite, an elbow on his impressive "Washington" desk, listened attentively while Ralph ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... little basement office, and spent long mornings with him, helping him label some books, or copying notes which he had intended "getting into shape" these twenty years. She liked the stillness and dimness of the small room, with its smell of leather-covered volumes, or whiff of wood ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... starboard bow; and, as they neared her, it was evident that her foremast was gone, and that she was otherwise in a disabled state.—When the Indiaman was within a mile, the stranger threw out neutral colours, and hoisted a whiff, half-mast down, as a signal that she was in distress. Newton ordered the ship to be kept away, and when alongside of the vessel, lowered down a boat, and sent the third mate to ascertain what assistance could be afforded. With sailors, thank God! distress, is sufficient to obtain ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... winter, and, 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 of ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... a mystery that greatly intrigued us. One morning the mystery was solved. A whiff of tobacco from an upper window came along with a puff of wind. It was a heated whiff, in spite of the cooling breeze. It was from a pipe, a short, black pipe, owned by some one in the Mansard window next ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... lady, ain't she?" said Stalky. "How long d'you suppose it'll take her to get a bit whiff in a confined space?" ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... street, upon some one's fence-rail, climbed a honeysuckle vine; and every now and then Larry caught a whiff of a faint perfume as the breeze flitted by. He wished the breeze would carry heavier loads of it and come oftener. It was tantalizing to get just one breath and ...
— Dreamland • Julie M. Lippmann
... whiff of perfume of which he said nothing either- -of some perfume he did not know. Her voice was low and distinct. Her shoulders and her bare arms gleamed with an extraordinary splendour, and when she advanced her head into ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... Hawk, to his quarters, as it would afford a good opportunity to ascertain explicitly, the feeling which existed among them towards their fallen foe. About seven o'clock they arrived. They took their seats in silence, passed the pipe for all to take a whiff, and in return, quaffed a glass of champagne, which seemed to have a peculiar relish. Pashepahow, shook hands with all ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... two hours: the principal person then rang a little bell, and the tables and chairs all vanished in a whiff, leaving the company standing on their feet. The birds now struck up a most lively air, and the little people began to dance, jumping and leaping and whirling round and round, as if the world were grown dizzy. And the pretty little girls that sat next John caught hold of him ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... apt to feel the depression of such circumstances; and when you add to the other discomforts, that of a steady, pouring rain, with a sound of fall in every whiff of wind, you will understand that Marion was to have comparatively little help from outside influences. She felt the gloom in her heart deepen as the day went on. She was astonished and mortified at herself to find that the old feelings of irritability and sharpness still held her ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... when I shall come to you. I have heaps of work pour manger. Till the spring I must work—that is, at senseless grind. A ray of liberty has beamed upon my horizon. There has come a whiff of freedom. Yesterday I got a letter from the province of Poltava. They write they have found me a suitable place. A brick house of seven rooms with an iron roof, lately built and needing no repairs, a stable, ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... 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 brandy ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... who scents battle. The smell of tobacco was strong, and so was that of the open boxes of dried herring on the counter, but plainly, above all the commingled odours of a country grocery, Miss Calista caught a whiff of peppermint, so strong as to leave no doubt of its origin. There had been no hint of ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... 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 not been strictly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... to the reader what the peace smoke is. We all took seats in a circle around the head Chief. He lighted the peace pipe, which is a special pipe kept to use on these occasions alone. He took the first whiff himself, blowing it up into the air, and the second whiff he blew into my face. I being his guest of honor, I sat at the right of him. The third whiff he blew into the face of the Chief who sat on his left, and then he passed the pipe to me. I went through ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... by-word, the man who loves Nature, if not a poet, at least has poetry in his soul. In a decadent age symbolized by the tango and the problem play, it is at least an encouraging sign for the future that such a character as Senhouse came to the jaded reader of the erotic fiction of the day, as a whiff of sea breeze on a parched plain, and was hailed ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... put the crooked straight and to raise a lamp to banish the dark. Very good this white satin is," said Mother Cockleshell irrelevantly, and alluding to the gin. "And terbaccer goes well with it, as there's no denying. You wouldn't mind my taking a whiff, sir, would you?" and she produced a blackened clay pipe which had seen much service. "Smoking is good ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... would be no worse than you are now, selling drinks to people—beastly beer and spirits, rotten stuff fit to make an old he-goat yell if you poured it down its throat. Pooh! I can't stand the confounded liquor. Never could. A whiff of neat brandy in a glass makes me feel sick. Always did. If everybody was like me, liquor would be going a-begging. You think it's funny in a man, ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... sick to death of your well-groomed gods, your make believe and your show; I long for a whiff of bacon and beans, a snug shakedown in the snow; A trail to break, and a life at stake, and another ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... place, he learned to smoke. He began by taking a whiff, now and then, out of the pipe of a comrade, just to be in fashion, and to keep himself warm those chill evenings and mornings. Then a tobacco planter gave him, in return for some polite act on his part, a bunch ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... trouble odour on board a ship is the same as the slave smell. An experienced investigator can detect it immediately, and when I climbed over the low bulwarks of The Waif I got a whiff. I couldn't tell exactly where it was, but I knew that Dame Trouble was aboard the craft. It's a sort of sixth sense with a sailorman to be able to detect a stormy atmosphere, and I felt that the ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... to his ear and died away again. The front door opened to admit some one, but Orde could not see who it was. Twice a scurrying of feet overhead seemed to indicate the bustle of excitement. The afternoon waned. A faint whiff of cooking, escaping through some carelessly open door, was borne to his nostrils. It grew dark, but the lamps remained unlighted. Finally he heard the rustle of the portieres, and turned to see the dim form ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... with renewed force. Young, beautiful, dainty, brilliant and graceful in her pretty evening gown, she figured strangely against the gloomy background of the river, in those dull and mean surroundings of dank stone and rusted iron. She was like (he thought extravagantly) a whiff of flower-fragrance lost in the ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... the beasts would have been busy enough to-night. Then some of 'em were left lurking about, and they spied Me Dain coming, didn't see us behind, and thought he was coming to the village alone. Of course they slipped out of the bushes and nabbed him, thinking to whiff off his head and turn the ponies' packs out at their own leisure. But Jack upset their little plan, and Me Dain's head stops in ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... lot to me, my bucko—to me and to the rest of the boys. Cleigh will not prosecute us for piracy if we play a decent game until we raise the Catwick. On old Van Dorn's tub we can drink and sing if we want to. If Cunningham gets a whiff of your breath, when you've had it, you'll get yours. Most of the boys have never done anything worse than apple stealing. It was the adventure. All keyed up for war and no place to go, and this was a kind of safety valve. Already half of them are beginning to knock in the knees. ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... 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 at fault, while, blowing in my face, ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... 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 merely ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... his meerschaum to the last whiff, he put it carefully away, and disposed himself to follow Ducie's example in the matter of sleep. He rearranged his wraps, folded the arms, shut his eyes, and pressed his head resolutely against his cushion; but at the end of five minutes he opened ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... A whiff of this sesame opened like magic the three immense iron doors through anterooms in charge of trusties, in prison garb of the material of blue overalls and caps shaped like a low fez. Inside, a "preso de confianza" serving as ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... a draggled prostitute—no crimson flower for her hair, poor girl!—regards us with a momentary speculation, and we get a whiff of foul language from two newsboys on ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... An unmistakable whiff of tobacco-smoke awoke her from her dream of delight. She turned swiftly, the lily in one hand, her skirt clutched ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... of the pack-strings and dropped it noiselessly on the ground. At that precise instant I heard a stealthy movement on my left hand. It was so dark that I could not see an inch in front of my face, but a little eddy of the breeze brought me the merest whiff of stale tobacco—the sort of smell that comes from a pipe that has been put out before it has completely burnt away. It was that dead scent that always seems to hang about the vicinity of a newly quenched ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... the next day. When I reached there, I went right up to my man's store. You ought to have seen his place! The town was about seven hundred, and the store just about evened up with it— groceries and hardware. I got a whiff from a barrel of sauer kraut as I went in the door; on the counter was a cheese case; frying pans and lanterns hung down on hooks from the ceiling; two farmers sat near the stove eating sardines and crackers. No ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... in little globes, rings, or the 'Euripus.' 'The slights' these tricks were called. Ben Jonson facetiously makes these professors boast of being able to take three whiffs, then to take horse, and evolve the smoke—one whiff on Hounslow, a second at Staines, and a ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... 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
... pretty houses and gardens of the village, forming a great contrast to the densely populated district of Stirchley on the other side of the line. Stepping on to the station, we are greeted by a whiff of the most delicious fragrance, which is quite enough of itself to betray the whereabouts of the great factory lying beneath us, of which from this point we have a fairly good bird's-eye view. Down the station steps, and ...
— The Food of the Gods - A Popular Account of Cocoa • Brandon Head
... been cleared away already through the hatch into the kitchen passage, and the servants' quarters were on the other side of the house. No sound of any kind came from the smoking-room; not even the faint whiff of tobacco-smoke that had a way of stealing out when Laurie was smoking ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... daroga, I 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
... beefsteak, instead of good nourishing hot biscuits and cake," she thought. After the supper dishes were cleared away she went into the sitting-room where Daniel Wise sat beside a window, waiting in a sort of stern patience for a whiff of air. It was a very close evening. The sun was red in the low west, but a heaving sea of mist was ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... passed the promontory of Cyzicus, and the Island of Marmora, the marble quarries of which give name to the sea. As we were approaching the entrance to the Dardanelles, we noticed an Austrian brig drifting in the current, the whiff of her flag indicating distress. Her rudder was entirely gone, and she was floating helplessly towards the Thracian coast. A boat was immediately lowered and a hawser carried to her bows, by which we towed her a short distance; but our steam engine did not like ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... the life of 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 for the sea was 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
... 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 burning flesh. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... lighting his pipe for a hurried whiff, "ten brace of white grouse, four rabbits, six red foxes and a black one, and two wolves. ...
— Silver Lake • R.M. Ballantyne
... smoke, but such as it is it is there," he said; and Le Marchant tried a whiff or two, but laid the pipe aside with ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... could show no epoch when pleasures so many and various were there for the man who carries the golden key. Today he was a looker-on, and the ice of his years of bitterness had not melted. Tomorrow, at any moment, he might catch a whiff of the fragrance of life, and the blood in his veins would move to a different tune. This was how it seemed to Aynesworth, as he studied his companion through the faint blue mist ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... they drove on the Canada shore up past the Clifton House, towards the Burning Spring, which is not the least wonder of Niagara. As each bubble breaks upon the troubled surface, and yields its flash of infernal flame and its whiff of sulphurous stench, it seems hardly strange that the Neutral Nation should have revered the cataract as a demon; and another subtle spell (not to be broken even by the business- like composure of the man who ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... 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 ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... be no smoker himself and dislike the odour of tobacco, I tell him that if he objects, I will postpone my harmless whiff until after captivity. ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... tobacco, but he did not know how to manage the cutting, filling, and lighting operations. I did these for him. In the first attempt he put the wrong end into his mouth, which he found rather hot, and quickly took it out. I then showed him the right end. He managed a whiff or two, but he did not fancy it. He seemed very much pleased with the pipe, which he kept. I then made him understand that I wanted water. He pointed the same course that I was steering. In a short time another made his appearance in the distance. By a little persuasion ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... communications that passed 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 ...
— In the Cage • Henry James
... satisfactory results the glass must be placed in dry air before it has appreciably cooled. This is easily done in the case of electrometer jars, and so long as the air remains perfectly dry through the action of sulphuric acid or phosphorus pentoxide, the jar will insulate. The slightest whiff of ordinarily damp air will, however, enormously reduce the insulating power of the glass, so that unvarnished glass surfaces must be kept for apparatus which ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... "A whiff of fresh air, Robin, is absolutely essential. You must walk down with me. I hate ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... man you don't find laying round loose nowadays to any great extent. It's a pity his brains wasn't preserved in a glass case, where the imbecile lunatics at Washington could take a whiff occasionally. It would do ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... time and the primordial elements became strong within him. In effect he was transported far back into those dim ages, when man fought with the stone axe, and his five senses were so preternaturally acute to protect his life that he had a sixth and perhaps a seventh. A whiff came on the wind. It was faint, because it had traveled far, but he knew it to be the odor of the panther. The big cowardly beast was crouched in a little valley to his right, and he was trembling, trembling at the approaching warriors, trembling at the great youth who lay in the depression, ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and the ship leaves so much commotion in the water behind her. There do not seem to be any regular sailors, and in their stead a collection of individuals remarkably greasy in their appearance, who may be cooks or stokers, or possibly both. Then you cannot go on the poop without being saluted by a whiff of hot air from the grim furnaces below; men are always shovelling in coal, or throwing cinders overboard; and the rig does not seem to belong to any ship in particular. The masts are low and small, and the canvas, which is always spread ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... 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 into ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 27, 1890 • Various
... are bestowed with an affluent or a niggardly hand, go so far to determine the station and degree which each shall occupy in the subsequent competitions of the world. It is especially mysterious how into a soul here and there, as it passes forth, she breathes an extra whiff of the breath of life, and so confers on it the power of being and doing what others attempt to ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... with us to Cossitollah, and we'll have a tiffin of talk; some cloves of adventure, with a capsicum or two of tragic story, shall stand for the curry; the customs of the country may represent the familiar rice; a whiff of freshness and fragrance from the Mofussil will be as the mangoes and the dorians; in the piquancy and grotesqueness of the first pure Orientalism that may come to hand we shall recognize the curious ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... 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 ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... become tinged with blue; I see some big ones that are crumbling into rot and swarming with worms. Others, shaped like pears, are dry and open at the top with a round hole, a sort of chimney whence a whiff of smoke escapes when I prod their under side with my finger. These are the most curious. I fill my pockets with them to make them smoke at my leisure, until I exhaust the contents, which are at last reduced to a ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... off an odor like yours! Why didn't you go down to Fred Greer's harness shop, that's where you got it. We're such an awfully temperance town, you know! But the parsonage! Why, if the trustees had happened into the barn and caught a whiff of that smell, father'd have lost his job. Now you just take warning from me, and keep away from this parsonage until you can develop a good Methodist odor. Oh, don't cry about it! Your very tears smell rummy. ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... starlit, blue sky, on the trellis. I went to the balcony. The garden lay dark beneath; against the twinkling horizon stood out the tall poplars. There was the sharp cry of an owl; the barking of a dog; a sudden whiff of warm, enervating perfume, a perfume that made me think of the taste of certain peaches, and suggested white, thick, wax-like petals. I seemed to have smelt that flower once before: it made me feel languid, ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... I have discovered all this. It was last night, shortly before midnight, when I came up on the poop to enjoy a whiff of the south- east trades in which we are now bowling along, close-hauled in order to weather Cape San Roque. Mr. Pike had the watch, and I paced up and down with him while he told me old pages of his life. He has often done this, when not "sea-grouched," and often he has mentioned ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... his behaviour. One of them purposely stalked past him to intimate to him the fact, as well as to jostle the Governor's daughter, and let the flying end of a scarf flick her face; while from a lady seated behind the pair came both a whiff of violets and a very venomous and sarcastic remark. Nevertheless, either he did not hear the remark or he PRETENDED not to hear it. This was unwise of him, since it never does to disregard ladies' opinions. Later-but too late—he was ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... sip champagne and whiff Mild cigarettes; these too, in secret sniff At 'the whole queer caboodle.' Why do they meet? How shall I say, good friend? Modern symposiasts seem a curious blend ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various
... about us is the poison of death. Oh, what was that fourth point that I was to remember? Why has the guide turned back? I thought we were to go out at the further end, where last week the poor fellow fell who lifted his helmet a moment too soon after he got out and caught one whiff which sent him to the hospital, but instead we seem to be turning around and going back. But there is no time for explanations or questions now; we just plod on through the darkness and soon we are out in the sunlight again—safe!—in God's pure air. Oh, why did man ever want ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... acacias that bordered the street. The scent of that living green blended with the scent of laid dust and the fragrance of the last late-clinging chestnut blossoms; it caught up a fuller, richer burden from the overflowing front of a florist's shop; it stole from open windows a savory whiff of cooking, a salt tang of wood smoke; and the soft little breeze—the breeze of coming summer—mixed all together and tossed them and bore them down the long, quiet street; and it was the breath of Paris, and it shall be in your nostrils and mine, a keen agony of sweetness, so ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... 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
... the scenes.) Here, waiter! hostler! driver! what's your name? drive the chaise up here to the door, smart, close. Lean on my arm, madam, and we'll have you in and home in a whiff. (Exeunt Mrs. Talbot, Louisa, Farmer, ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... very enjoyable, we thought, as we took a last glance at the serene, old-time faces and caught a last whiff of ambergris ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins |
