"Sniff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and his followers, to whom said he, "Hath the Caliph asked after me?"; and he replied, "No, nor hast thou come to his thought." So he resumed his service about the Caliph's person and set himself to sniff about for news of Ala al-Din's case, till one day he heard the Caliph say to the Watir, "See, O Ja'afar, how Ala al-Din dealt with me!" Replied the Minister, "O Commander of the Faithful, thou hast requited him with hanging and hath he not met with his ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... your neighbourhood to imagine that the inquiry is still going on in Liverpool, or wherever else that red herring led your pack. In the meantime I will do a little quiet work at your own doors, and perhaps the scent is not so cold but that two old hounds like Watson and myself may get a sniff ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... "they'll want me more than I want my liberty. Look out! There's their bat-eared bull! See him sniff! The wretched mutt has winded the bacon! We've got to make a break for it now! Come on! ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... a sniff of contempt. "What the chests contained was, of course, superfluous family plate. As for these documents, that fellow Baxter, in spite of his loose manner of living, was, I remember, a bit inclined to scholarship, and went in for old books and things—a strange mixture altogether. ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... man he wanted to poison but a wild beast. 'What sort of a beast do you want to kill?' she asked him. 'That is no business of yours,' said he. 'But it is my business,' she replied, 'for the poison that a wolf or a savage dog will eat, a bear will not even sniff at, and what makes one beast ill, on that will another beast thrive.' 'Then you must know that it is a bear.'—'Swear that you do not want the venom for a human being.' Fatia Negra swore with all sorts of subterranean oaths that ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... begin on a job tonight. There are fifty thousand pounds for us in that house yonder, and I waive my share. Estada will explain to you the work I want done; see that you do it quietly and well. By daylight we shall be on blue water, with our course set for Porto Grande. How is it, bullies, do you sniff the ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... heard of the prophet Agabus before (chap, xi. 28). Why he is introduced here, as if a stranger, we cannot tell, and it is useless to guess, and absurd to sniff suspicion of genuineness in the peculiarity. His prophecy is more definite than any that preceded it. That is God's way. He makes things clearer as we go on, and warnings more emphatic as danger approaches. The source of the 'afflictions' was now for the first time declared, and the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... not answer. He turned his back to the jailer and walked to the cot, again sitting on its edge. He heard the jailer sniff contemptuously, but he paid no ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... had never said me nay when I had entreated him with certain wiles. And whereas I had in no wise forgotten my tricks, I took Gotz by the hem of his hood and drew his dear head down to my face. Then I rubbed my nose against his as hares do when they sniff at each other, put up my lips for a kiss, stood on tip-toe, offered him my lips from afar, and whispered to him ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... interesting than to watch one of these children of the bush stalking a kangaroo. The man made not the slightest noise in walking, and he would stealthily follow the kangaroo's track for miles (the tracks were absolutely invisible to the uninitiated). Should at length the kangaroo sniff a tainted wind, or be startled by an incautious movement, his pursuer would suddenly become as rigid as a bronze figure, and he could remain in this position for hours. Finally, when within thirty or forty yards of the animal, he launched his spear, ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... little woman with a trace of West Indian blood in her, denied entering his stateroom. Shown the handkerchief and invited to sniff it, she professed utter ignorance concerning it, assured him that no lady in her section used that perfume, and offered to show it to the stewardesses of other sections on the chance of their identifying the perfume or ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... up yer nose at th' cat fer? There's nawthin' th' matther with th' cat. 'Tis as sound as a shillin', an' there 's no call fer ye t' be sniffin' 'round, Timmy, me lad! Go about yer worrk, an' lave th' cat alone. 'Twill kape—'twill kape a long time yet. Don't be so previous, me lad. If ye want t' sniff, there 'll be plinty av time by ...
— Mike Flannery On Duty and Off • Ellis Parker Butler
... a faint, attenuated sniff. Again it came, this time accompanied by the ghost of something ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... sliding down between banks of bright green grass, and fuss over the mossy rocks that lie in their beds. Deer lift heads often to listen and look and sniff the breeze between mouthfuls of the tender twigs they love. Shambling, slack-jointed bears move shuffling through the thickets, like the deer, lifting suspicious noses to test frequently the wind, lest some enemy ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad. How much lies in Laughter: the cipher-key, wherewith we decipher the whole man! Some men wear an everlasting barren simper; in the smile of others lies a cold glitter as of ice: the fewest are able to laugh, what can be called laughing, but only sniff and titter and snigger from the throat outwards; or at best, produce some whiffling husky cachinnation, as if they were laughing through wool: of none such comes good. The man who cannot laugh is not only fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... sniffing, and, at the third sniff, they caught it right on the chest, and rose up without another word and went out. And then a stout lady got up, and said it was disgraceful that a respectable married woman should be harried about in this way, and gathered up a bag and eight parcels and went. The remaining four passengers ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... me," said Bud, when he had treated himself to a long, trembling sniff, after a painful ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... house in the dreary suburban street, Mrs. Benn accepted a week's notice from Jimmy with a sniff of anger. ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... glass-papering here apparently, unlike some others made at the same period, time seems to have been no object. Possibly the maker was well paid for his work, if not he ought to have been." To these observations the workman only gives a sniff in reply. He thinks that all this can be quite equalled at the present day, if a fellow is really well paid; but this is reckoning with only a part of the subject. A further exclamation of admiration comes from his chief—"Think, James, what a wonderful draughtsman this ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... a sniff. "Hum, yessum, it's sunny, but I've seen your home up town, and it's beyond the likes of me to see why you're down here at ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... living creatures grazing there, great deer with branching horns; they moved slowly forwards, cropping the grass, and the child was lost in wonder at the sight. Presently one of them stopped feeding, began to sniff the air, and then looking round, espied the child, and began slowly to approach him. The child had no terror of the great dappled stag, and held out his hand to him, when the great beast suddenly bent his head down, and was upon him with ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... noise that he built himself a library in his garden. I have been told that the books stood there in perfect order, with the rose-spray flapping at the window, and great Japanese vases exhaling such odours as most annoy an insect-nostril. The very bees would come to the window, and sniff, and boom indignantly away again. The silence there was perfect. It must have been in such a secluded library that Christian Mentzelius was at work when he heard the male book-worm flap his wings, and crow like a cock in calling to his mate. I feel ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... long stick in his hand, was now applying the point of it scientifically to his nose. An ordinary observer with a magnifying-glass might have seen a hair at the end of the stick. "He's there," said the enthusiastic man, covered with mud, after a long-drawn, eager sniff at the stick. The huntsman deigned to give one glance. "That's rabbit," said the huntsman. A conclave was immediately formed over the one visible hair that stuck to the stick, and three experienced farmers decided that it was rabbit. The muddy enthusiastic ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... entering he examined carefully both of his long-barreled forty-fives. He made sure that the six-shooters were in perfect order and that they rested free in the holsters. That sixth sense acquired by "bad men," by means of which they sniff danger when it is close, was telling him that smoke would rise before ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... Colorado, Utah and California, for he had been one of the gold-seekers of the early fifties. He loved to spin yarns of "When I was in gold camps," and he spun them well. He was short and bent and spoke in a low voice with a curious nervous sniff, but his diction was notably precise and clear. He was a man of judgment, and a citizen of weight and influence. From O. Button I got my first definite notion of Bret Harte's country, and of the long journey which they ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... haill adventur', an' owned, fat was true aneuch, that the fush had fairly bestit her. Weel, amo' the veesitors at the Castle was the Dowager Leddy Breadanham; an' it seemed that whan Leddy Carline was through wi' her narrateeve, the dowager be tae gie a kin' o' a scornfu' sniff an' cock her neb i' the air; an' she said, wha but she, that she didna hae muckle opingin o' Leddy Carline as a saumon fisher, an' that she hersel' didna believe there was a fush in the run o' Spey that she cudna get the maistery ower. That was a gey ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... Helen's old familiar sniff was his answer. The matter, he was to know, was of no moment to her. But she knew otherwise, and looked at him swiftly hoping he had ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... short sniff of country air, here am I again at the receipt of custom. The sale with Longman & Co., for stock and copyrights of my [Poetical] Works, is completed, for L7000, at dates from twelve to thirty-six months. There are many sets out of which we may be ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... took a long, deep sniff of the herb. He then sneezed with delight, and lo! he began to grow, and his nose began to shrink, and he was transformed to the handsomest young man ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... which will be furiously bayed at by every faithful hound since the days of Ulysses. Bones not only FORGOT, but absolutely CUT US! Those who called upon the judge in "store clothes" he would perhaps casually notice, but he would sniff at them as if detecting and resenting them under their superficial exterior. The rest he simply paid no attention to. The more familiar term of "Bonesy"—formerly applied to him, as in our rare moments of endearment—produced ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... scraped up the soil—which was soft and easily worked—into sticky lumps, which they could hug under their chins and carry up the slope to be dumped upon the grass at the side. Every minute one or the other would stop, lift his brown head over the edge, peer about, and sniff, and listen, then fall to work again furiously, as if the whole future and fortune of the pond were hanging upon his toil. After a half-hour's labour the canal was lengthened very perceptibly—fully six or eight inches—and ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... A loud sniff expressive of grave misgiving succeeded the remark. The speaker—one of a knot of village women—edged herself a little further forward to look up the long strip of red baize that stretched from the church porch to the lych gate near which she stood. The two cracked bells were doing their ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... habits of their wild denizens as a farmer is with those of his stock, and they responded to his strange calls, to his gentleness and fearlessness, with an alert understanding and confidence beautiful to see. His favourites were certain creatures of the deer species, which crowded to their fences to sniff his clothes, and to lick his hands, which he abandoned to their caresses with manifest satisfaction. His example encouraged the queenly Nora and her sprightly mother to feed the beautiful creatures with bread and buns, and to feel the suffusion of pleasure derived from the contact of their soft ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... 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 above all of business. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... faculty of the St. Bernard dogs is shown by the curious fact, that if a whelp of this breed is placed upon snow for the first time, it will begin to scratch it, and sniff about as if in search of something. When they have been regularly trained, they are generally sent out in pairs during heavy snow-storms in search of travellers, who may have been overwhelmed by the snow. In this way they pass over a great extent ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... time, too, for the dogs had come barking and yelping and bellowing, and now all they could do was to sniff, sniff, ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... advance, and in larger quantities. But they won't look for it! Then I tried to float a little notion of mine, sort of an insurance scheme for colds; you pay so much a week, and when you've got a cold you get a bottle of Cough Linctus so long as you can produce a substantial sniff. See? But Lord! they've no capacity for ideas, they don't catch on; no Jump about the place, no Life. Live!—they trickle, and what one has to do here is ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... here, ladies," he observed sagely, "something funny—and I'm dogged if I savvy what it is." He stooped and scooped up Tommy in one giant paw. "Well, Tom, Old Socks," he said, holding him up where he could sniff delicately at the rafters, "you've got a pretty good nose, how about it, now—can you smell a rat?" But even Tommy could not explain why a man should ride forty miles in order to ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... wistaria, do not console him, and the voices of the politest people on earth jar sorely. He knows every soul in the club, has thoroughly talked out every subject of interest, and would give half a year's—oh, five years'—pay for one lung-filling breath of air that has life in it, one sniff of the haying grass, or half a mile of muddy London street where the muffin bell tinkles in the four o'clock fog. Then the big liner moves out across the staring blue of the bay. So-and-so and such-an-one, both friends, are going home in her, and some one else goes next week by the French mail. ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... o' yours that got us started on this tomfoolin' treasure-hunt. I s'pose you'll just have a fit over it!" And as I uttered an eager cry of delight, and bent over this casket that contained such inestimable riches, he gave a sniff of contempt, and added: "There, I thought so. You think more o' that rotten old stuff than you would o' gold dollars. Well, there's no accountin' for tastes, and it takes all sorts o' people t' make th' world." But I paid no attention to him as I rapidly glanced over these ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... her underneath her umbrella in this whisking wind to her far adventures, just as Davy sailed off to the land of Goblins inside his grandfather's clock. She would be carried over seas, until she could sniff the spice winds of the south. Then she would be set down in the orchard of the Golden Prince, who presently would spy her from his window—a mite of a pretty girl, all mussed and blown about. And then I would spin out the tale to its true and happy end, and they would ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... Feuerstein. "He couldn't forget his money even when he was drunk. What good is money to a brute like him?" And he gave a sniff of contempt for the vulgarity and meanness of Dippel ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... a sniff of the bone of contention, was not so easy in his mind. First quarter of the moon it might be, but the bone was not in its first quarter. "I could walk home with the boy," he suggested, "and get something at a ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... culprit, and he smiled as he waited, expecting to see the terrier jump on the chair which stood beside the table and seize Moggy's skirt between his teeth. But before Samuel reached the chair he suddenly stopped and began to sniff. Then putting his nose close to the floor he slowly drew near to the window. After sniffing at this for some moments he seemed quickly to change his mind, and turning round he ran out of ...
— The Bountiful Lady - or, How Mary was changed from a very Miserable Little Girl - to a very Happy One • Thomas Cobb
... "Yes." So I lit up, and presently I began to notice that the one next to me, towards whose face the smoke sometimes drifted, seemed to like it very much, and, I would almost have said that she was trying to sniff some of it herself. A little later on, when we came to an unusually big rut in the road, we all went up as usual against the roof, and all came down again, missing the narrow seat. Extracting ourselves from our awkward positions, I came across a foot ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... the woods, only a short distance away, were three bears, apparently a mother and her two well-grown children. They were sniffing the air eagerly and appeared somewhat excited. The old bear would rise on her hind paws, sniff the air, then drop back to the ground. She kept her nose pointed toward Sullivan, but did not appear to look at him. The smaller bears moved restlessly about; they would walk a few steps in advance, stand erect, draw their fore paws close to their breasts, and sniff, sniff, ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... do was to obey her mother's injunction to accept help from her aunts, but she had refused the offer of an escort to Radstowe and Nelson Lodge; she would have no highly respectable servant sniffing at the boarding-house—and she would have been bound to sniff in that permanently scented atmosphere—which was, after all, her home. She left ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... you,' said the Chief, in the quiet and gentlemanly style which he could always command, 'I have sent for you, Colonel, that you might smell, for the first time in your life, the delicious odors brought off by the land wind from the shores of Andalusia. Take a good sniff, and then you may go and ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... disappear altogether. Lena's curly black water-spaniel, Prince, breakfasted with us. He sat beside her on the couch and behaved very well until the Polish violin-teacher across the hall began to practice, when Prince would growl and sniff the air with disgust. Lena's landlord, old Colonel Raleigh, had given her the dog, and at first she was not at all pleased. She had spent too much of her life taking care of animals to have much sentiment about them. But Prince was a knowing little beast, and ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... straining utmost strength, as if for prize, As if, with barriers opened now... And hounds of huntsmen oft in soft repose Yet toss asudden all their legs about, And growl and bark, and with their nostrils sniff The winds again, again, as though indeed They'd caught the scented foot-prints of wild beasts, And, even when wakened, often they pursue The phantom images of stags, as though They did perceive them fleeing on before, Until the illusion's shaken off and dogs Come to themselves ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... so they variously called him—was a timid copy of his brother, a wry-necked reedy Richard with a sniff. Not so tall, yet more spare, with blue eyes more pallid than his brother's, and protruding where Richard's were inset, the difference lay more in degree than kind. Richard was of heroic build, but a well-knit, well-shaped hero; in John the arms were too long, the head too ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... all but the signature page into the fire. The last sheet he kept, studied it for a little—as if her name were the answer to a problem—then laid it aside. For a few moments there remained still the haunting sweetness of the hyacinth. When it was gone, he gave a last searching sniff, rose to his feet with a laugh in which there was some return of his old spirit, hid that final page of her letter in his traveling kit and proceeded to ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... morbid, handsome, abnormal creature with magnificent eyes and very white teeth and no particular appetite at mealtime. The man whom I could care for at thirty would be the normal, safe and substantial sort who would come in at six o'clock, kiss me once, sniff the air twice and say: "Mm! What's that smells so good, old girl? I'm as hungry as a bear. Trot it ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... and particularly valued friend, Professor Sniff, curator of Mahon's Museum of Marvels—but I'll let that affair pass; for Professor Sniff certainly did not intend to wound my feelings by his apparent indifference; moreover, he has promised to send me for my private collection all the duplicates that occur in section E of his museum, which section ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... trail very soon, for nothing that man has made is friendly. She skirted along a low ridge, then across a little hollow where grew a few buffalo-bushes, and, after a careful sniff at a very stale human trail-scent, she crossed another near ridge on whose sunny side was the home of her brood. Again she cautiously circled, peered about, and sniffed, but, finding no sign of danger, went down to the doorway and uttered a low woof-woof. ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... from yonder sniffy height; What pleasure lives in "sniff" (the Councillor sang), In sniff and scorn, the weakness of the "swells"? But cease to move so near the clouds, and cease To sit a votary of the "Great Pooh-Pooh"; And come, for Labour's in the valley, come, For Toil dwells in the valley, come thou down And watch him; by the dim slum ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various
... undisturbed worship of the weed. He had a journey of fifty miles before him. Just as the train was moving off, a lady, who was panting and flustered, was pushed up into the compartment by a porter. It was soon evident that pipes and tobacco were not congenial to this dame. She began to sniff in a very haughty fashion, but the smoker, utterly indifferent to her presence, continued to roll out with deliberate relish his dense tobacco fumes. Soon she lost all patience, and said with extreme bitterness: "You there, behind that paper, you have no manners. You ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... those who have suffered from frauds are hostile to the entire class. In their strong prejudice, they will neither discriminate nor investigate. There are others who associate everything having a chemical sound with "book farming," and therefore dismiss the whole subject with a sniff of contempt. This clique of horticulturists is rapidly diminishing, however, for the fruit grower who does not read is like the lawyer who tries to practice with barely a knowledge of the few laws revealed by a limited experience. In contrast, there are others who read and theorize ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... the professor came to me, politely apologized for his late rudeness, and proposed that I should go with you to hear Mr. Willcoxen's lecture, while he, the professor, goes to Leonardtown to fulfill an engagement. I say, aunty, I sniff a plot, ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... Fitz gave a contemptuous sniff, held his tongue as if his companion in the cabin were not worthy of notice, and lay perfectly still gazing out to sea, but with his face twitching every now and then as he lay thinking with all his might about some of the last words ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... know, for she says she can't—she just can't keep it from bothering him some, she's afraid. As if any opera or symphony that ever lived was of more consequence than a man's own child!" finished Aunt Hannah, with an indignant sniff, as ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... Erkel.... Aie, you've touched my bad finger." (Erkel had pressed his hand awkwardly; the bad finger was discreetly bound up in black silk.) "But I tell you positively again that I am going to Petersburg only to sniff round, and perhaps shall only be there for twenty-four hours and then back here again at once. When I come back I shall stay at Gaganov's country place for the sake of appearances. If there is any notion of danger, I should be the first ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... to the coins, and the denomination's rubbed off long ago. But do as you please here! You'd better not show your goods to the tradesman of this place; any one of 'em'll go into any warehouse and sniff and peck, and peck, and then clear out. It'd be all right if there were no goods, but what do you expect a man to trade in? I've got one apothecary shop, one dry goods, the third a grocery. No use, none of them ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... suspect him all the more,' said Trent. 'And now as to the house itself. What I propose to do, to begin with, is to sniff about a little in this room, where I am told Manderson spent a great deal of his time, and in his bedroom; especially the bedroom. But since we're in this room, let's start here. You seem to ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... are, fastidious sprites. Look, as in some boor's yard a sweet-breath'd cow, Whose manger is stuff'd full of good fresh hay, Snuffs at it daintily, and stoops her head To chew the straw, her litter, at her feet— So ye grow squeamish, Gods, and sniff at Heaven!" She spake; but Hermod answer'd her and said:— "Thok, not for gibes we come, we come for tears. Balder is dead, and Hela holds her prey, But will restore, if all things give him tears. Begrudge not thine! to all was Balder dear." ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... 'Twouldn't be a bad thing—specially if you're much in the way of temptation—just to get a jar like this of your own, and hang it up in the wash-house, and put some good fresh tar in it, and, just before you go to your work of a morning, take a good long sniff at the tar—it's a fine healthy smell is tar—and maybe it'll be a help to you the whole ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... domesticity— That Love I sing of and have sung And mean to sing till Death yawn sheer, He rules the music of my tongue, Stills it or quickens, there or here. I say but this: as we went up I heard the Monthly give a sniff And "if the big dog makes the pup—" She murmured—then repeated "if!" The caudle on a slab was placed; She snuffed it, snorting loud and long; I fled—I would not stop to taste— And dreamed all ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the other, with an aggressive sniff, as she moved slowly to the side. "But I'm not satisfied that the captain is dead. They'd tell us anything. You've not seen the last of me, young man, I can ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... constraint was painful. Meryl had grown as white as the tablecloth, and Mr. Pym looked thoroughly worried. Diana, however, had quickly recovered herself, and was now the most composed of any. She gave a little sniff and glanced defiantly at van Hert. His eyes roved round the table and finally fixed themselves upon hers. She did not waver, but looked steadily back at him. He gave a self-conscious, constrained laugh. "I presume you had your reasons?" ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... to frame a reply in keeping with Sophronia's mental condition, when an unpleasant odor saluted my nose. That Sophronia was conscious of the same disgusting atmospheric feature, I learned by the sound of a decided sniff. Looking about us, I saw a large paper mill beside a stream, ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... at her for five minutes at a time. This made the cat very uneasy, and she would go about from place to place, trying to get away from those small, bright, inquiring eyes. At last the cub again got up courage to sniff at the old cat, and this time ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... with a contemptuous sniff. "Oh, begorra, we'll take our chance of that! But we don't want any more executions, Misther Conyers, so will ye help us to make a fair division of our prize, that aich man may have his own and not be tempted ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... Gradually they draw closer to the ranks, and are once more in the line, having brought back the deserters. The big paddock, where the yards are, now comes in sight. It is recognised by some of the older cattle who have been in before, and they pull up and sniff the air, which means danger ahead, and puts the whole mob on the qui vive. This is about the most anxious time of all—to get a leader who will go easily: but should he turn obstinate they would rush the line, and the whole week's work would ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... town, and then you may talk of inhaling perfumes, though they're not of the sweetest," observed Jos Green. "If the wind comes off-shore we may get a sniff of spicy odours, but I never found them quite strong enough to swear to, whatever the poets may say on ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... after tending her cubs in the den all day. And as she was passing the heather bush she heard a faint, funny little cry. She pricked up her pointed ears and said, "What's that!" And lo and behold, when she came to sniff out the mystery with her keen nose, it led her straight to the spot where the little pink baby lay, crying with ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... good care, before I said 'sniff,' to be sure she would say 'snaff,' and pretty quick, too. I warn't a-goin' to open my mouth like a dog at a fly, and snap it to ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... his nose with the end of her long shining braid. This always delighted the baby, for in spite of his stoicism Kazan had to sniff and sometimes to sneeze, and twig his ears. And it pleased him, too. He loved the sweet ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... look at them dark, gloomy, old mountains, and a sniff at a breeze that would have frozen the whiskers of hope, and I made a dive for the nearest lit winder. They was a sign over it ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... she had to fight for wind on climbing a hill, but lately a pain like a knife in her heart had accompanied the suffocation, robbing her of all power of locomotion. The doctor had said that her heart was weak, but, judging by the rest of her body, that was nonsense, and a sniff at the medicine before she threw it away had convinced her that he was ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... and sniff and handkerchief, And dim and decorous mirth, With ham and sherry, they'll meet to bury The ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke
... amok with a kris and sent men howling; With a kukri I've killed my prey; I'm an amateur still—I admit it—at disembow'ling, But I've settled a few that way; And I mind me well (for I still can sniff the aroma Of that particular fray) How I quartered and cut into ribbons some beggars at Boma On ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914 • Various
... days, when slave-carrying was a game followed by gentlemen with nerve, the officer with the best nose on board the man-o'-war that overhauled a suspected slave carrier was always sent aboard to make an examination. It was his business to sniff at the air in the hold in an endeavour to distinguish the "slave smell." No matter how the wily slaver disinfected the place, the odour of caged niggers remained, and a long-nosed investigator could always ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... was the first man to greet Mr. Cavendish when that gentleman entered his chambers. Mr. Cavendish sat listlessly, and heard his story. The lawyer's hands were as pale, his scalp as uneasy, and his lips as redolent of scorn as they were two days before, while his nose bent to sniff the scorn with more evident approval than then. He apprehended more thoroughly the character of the man before him, saw more clearly the nature of his business, and wondered with contemptuous incredulity that Balfour had not been ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... noise that sounded like a smothered sniff. "You and I shall never agree on the point that mental advancement may wipe out physical limitations in the human race, perhaps in a few hundred years. It seems as though your profound admiration for Dr. Mundson would win you ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... Ingilby, they were adjudged to be handsome women, one and all, but quite unattractive, since they evinced not any excessive interest in Monsieur de Soyecourt. Here was no sniff of future conquest, not one side-long glance, but merely three wives unblushingly addicted to their own husbands. Eh bien! ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... uneventful. A broken stern wheel, enforced rests upon sand bars, frequent stops at wood yards with a few moments run upon shore in which to gather autumn leaves, and get a sniff of the woods, this was our life upon the Yukon steamer for many days. After a while the nights grew too dark for safe progress, and the boat ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... this way and that, gave a suspicious sniff and turned carefully around the corner of a square-faced boulder. In front was blackness. Bud urged him a little with rein and soft pressure of the spurs, and Sunfish stepped forward. He seemed reassured to find firm, smooth sand under his ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... Hewlett, I shall show you your sleeping-quarters for to-night," Leroux continued to me, and conducted me out into the fenced yard. A number of Eskimo-dogs were lying there, and one of them came bounding up to me and began to sniff at my clothes, betraying ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... It was not until after dinner, when they were playing sniff, that he realized that she omitted the young man's name. He intended to ask it, but, his mind and hand hovering over an ivory domino, he forgot. "Twenty," he announced, reaching for the scoring pad. "Oh, ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... two details, but I am quite clear about its main outlines, and it is extremely vivid on the whole. I see him going in, quietly and unostentatiously—quite at his ease, yet a very unusual figure in such surroundings. I hear an old gentleman sniff and move his chair a little as this person in an exceedingly shabby blue suit with the collar turned up, with a muffler round his neck and large, bulging boots on his feet, comes and sits beside him. I perceive an earnest young lady, probably a typist in search of extra ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... you," she returned. "The wind is from the south, and they cannot scent us. I have found out all about that. Ever since the dear dark came, I have been amusing myself with them, getting every now and then just into the edge of the wind, and letting one have a sniff of me." ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... Company Officers who insist upon kit-inspections, far from keen-nosed Sergeants who sniff the pipe stuffed into the bedding-roll, two miles from the tumult of the barracks, lies the Trap. It is an old dry well, shadowed by a twisted pipal tree and fenced with high grass. Here, in the years gone by, did Private Ortheris establish his depot and menagerie for such possessions, ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... in the front room a-pantin' an' a-gaspin', an' a wond'rin' whether it wuz true. As he wuz thinkin', up comes the girl to git a clean tablecloth out of the clothespress, an' she left the door ajar as she come in. Bill he gave a sniff, an' his eyes grew more natural like; he gathered together all the strength he had, an' he raised himself up on one elbow ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... had very leisurely approached the bilious-looking terrier; and after walking three times round him, with a stare and a small sniff of superb impertinence, halted with great composure, and lifting his hind leg—O Beau, Beau, Beau! your historian blushes for your breeding, and, like Sterne's recording angel, drops a tear upon the stain ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Crocks! Oh, exuberant younkers! You "guy" "the old gang" as "played out," As fogies, and fussers, and funkers, You've over-much reason, no doubt. But, great Scott! as your rowing-rhymes rattle And lilt lyric praise of the Crews, We too sniff the air of the battle! We too have a Fit of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 18, 1893 • Various
... the star wreath was paling about the head of Night, and ever more wonderful on Morning's brow appeared the mark of power. And at the moment when the camp fires pale and the smoke goes grey to the sky, and camels sniff the dawn, suddenly Morning forgot Night. And out of that arbour of the gods, and away to the haunts of the dark, Night with his swart cloak slunk away; and Morning placed her hand upon the mists and drew them upward and revealed the earth, and drove the shadows before her, and they followed ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... near; to observe that the meadows, the farm-yards and sometimes the roads are haunted by giant creatures with threatening horns, creatures good-natured, perhaps, and, at any rate, silent, creatures who allow you to sniff at them a little curiously without taking offence, but who keep their real thoughts to themselves. It was necessary to learn, as the result of painful and humiliating experiment, that you are not at liberty to obey all nature's ...
— Our Friend the Dog • Maurice Maeterlinck
... fill with ghostly life. His shadow beckoned and grimaced ahead of him, and the stunted bush seemed to move. His eyes were alert and questing. Within himself he reasoned that he would see nothing, and yet some unusual instinct moved him to caution. At regular intervals he stopped to listen and to sniff the air for an odor of smoke. More and more he became like a beast of prey. He left the last bush behind him. Ahead of him the starlit space was now unbroken by a single shadow. Weird whispers came with a low wind that ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... the compromises that result satisfy me as little as anybody. In fine, my dear Constantine, I'm going back to my pictures, my books, my hills, and my friends." Constantine read with a genuine sorrow and criticised with a contemptuous sniff. Pictures, books—and hills! Hills! It was insulting his intelligence. And though friends were all very well, yet where was the use of them if a man deprived himself of all the sources of entertaining ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... her 'twas not to be thought of, and then what does the dame but sniff the air and protest that I had better take heed, for there may not be so many who would choose a spoilt, misruled maid like mine. There's the work of yonder Sarum woman. I tell thee, Tib, never was bull in the ring more baited ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the right, looming very large through the dense fog, stood the fat reed buck. Richard wriggled towards it, for he wanted to make sure of his shot, while Rachel crouched behind a stone. The buck becoming alarmed, turned its head, and began to sniff at the air, whereon he lifted the gun and just as it was about to spring away, aimed and fired. Down it went dead, whereon, rejoicing in his triumph like any other young hunter who thinks not of the wonderful and happy life that he has destroyed, Richard sprang upon it exultantly, ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... powder-puff and hare's foot if she choose, and turns away from the mirror armed for conquest; but an American similarly situated, forgets half her hair-pins, does not dare to wash her face carefully lest some one should sniff condemnation of her fussiness, and looks worse after her efforts at beautifying. A French girl, told that her English accent is bad, corrects it carefully; an American, gently reminded that a French "u" is not pronounced ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... the dusty eddies of the breeze which is never actually still on the plains. It is the suggestion of freedom in a great boundless space. It grips the heart, and one thanks God for life. This effect is not only with the prairie novice. It lasts for all time with those who once sniff the scent of its ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... in odors of delight. Her head tingled again while she thought about it; she felt a thousand needles running through her nose, and saw herself sitting on the floor shedding tears. How anybody could sniff at a hartshorn bottle and find it a consolation or restorative under any circumstances, she ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... tossing his head with every sign of satisfaction at the discomfiture of his rider. Presently it seemed to occur to him that something was wrong with Dan, and, being of a magnanimous nature, he went to see what the matter was. Dan let him sniff about and perplex himself for a few minutes; then he looked up at him, saying, as decidedly as if the horse ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... forgot the fly, and a trout sailed him by unheeded. But Sir Isaac, having probably satisfied his speculative mind as to the natural attributes of minnows, now slowly reascended the bank, and after a brief halt and a sniff, walked majestically towards the hidden observer, looked at him with great solemnity, and uttered an inquisitive bark,—a bark not hostile, not menacing; purely and dryly interrogative. Thus detected, the angler rose; and Waife, whose attention was directed that way by the ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... The Frenchman, with a sniff and with head in air, walked out of the library; and my friend summoned in the seventh servant so far, the ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... right and left. Finally he started to run up a lace window curtain back of the sewing machine. On top of the machine was a plate of warm cookies that Charlie had just brought to me, and getting a sniff of those the squirrel stopped instantly, hesitated just a second, and then over he jumped, took a cookie with his paws and afterwards held it with his teeth until he had settled himself comfortably, when he again took ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... Swift through the drifts, circled a cedar grove, and saw the mule stop to sniff at a horse which stood beside a dark heap in the snow. Judith appeared around the opposite side of the grove and the mule dashed away. They both hurried toward the quiet heap on the ground. A man lay in the drifts, his rifle beside him. It was Oscar Jefferson, ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... Mrs. MacCall," Aunt Sarah rejoined from her end of the table, and with a scornful sniff. "But I want to know whose dirt I'm eating. That Sammy Pinkney is nothing but a ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... mind, had so carefully planted, the royal family spent every hour that could be snatched from Windsor and London—delightful hours of deep retirement and peaceful work. The public looked on with approval. A few aristocrats might sniff or titter; but with the nation at large the Queen was now once more extremely popular. The middle-classes, in particular, were pleased. They liked a love-match; they liked a household which combined the advantages of royalty and ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... interested, and spent an hour watching and talking to the superintendent of the work, a cultured archaeologist. When he began his descent of the mountain, a train on the funicular railroad was feeling its way cautiously down the steep mountainside, like a child on tiptoe. A little weak, irritable sniff came up from its engine as the toy train paused at one of the three stopping places below La Turbie. It was like a very young girl ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... they have the scent. They wore strange clothing, did these men, and they carried, instead of riding-crops, big shiny knives that swung at their sides. The sight of them set Pasha's nerves tingling. He would sniff curiously after them and then prick forward his ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... says the end of /94: so much the better, then; but I would like to submit to you my alternative plan. I could meet you at Hawaii, and reconduct you to Hawaii, so that we could have a full six weeks together and I believe a little over, and you would see this place of mine, and have a sniff of native life, native foods, native houses - and perhaps be in time to see the German flag raised, who knows? - and we could generally yarn for all we were worth. I should like you to see Vailima; and I should be ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sniff the fumes of the wine,'" continued Mr. George, "'and there the peculiar fungous smell of dry rot. Then the jumble of sounds, as you pass along the dock, blends in any thing but sweet concord. The sailors are singing boisterous Ethiopian songs from the Yankee ship just entering; the ...
— Rollo in London • Jacob Abbott
... me, sir. The old man'd had a fox-terrier like yours. And after the old man passed out the puppy got real, chummy with me. Just as I was making the hoist of the last sling-load, what does the puppy do but jump on my leg and sniff my hand. I turned to pat him, and the next I knew my other hand had slipped into the gears and that ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... eternal youth, had already reached when I first knew him. It was a role to which, at the time, I attributed his concern about his health—his anxiety to know if we, any of us, had influenza before he would come home with me, his rush from the room or the house at a sniff or a sneeze. The truth is Bob shared Henley's love of the visible sign, or it may be nearer the truth to say that he shared his own love of it with Henley and his cousin who rarely, either of them, wrote anything in which it is ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... iron-grey hair and moustache, and tufts of curly grey beard grew around his chin and ears. His nose was large and sun-burned; and every now and again he would stop in his caged-animal walk and sniff the air as ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... these facts and think of Baudelaire's prose poem, that poem in which he tells how a dog will run away howling if you hold to him a bottle of choice scent, but if you offer him some putrid morsel picked out of some gutter hole, he will sniff round it joyfully, and will seek to lick your hand for gratitude. Baudelaire compared that dog to the public. Baudelaire was wrong: that dog was ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... hear in imagination the sniff of the unimaginative reader; I can figure to myself his instant dismissal of all these considerations as "sentiment." Let the word stand, coloured though it is with associations that degrade it. But is "sentiment" to be ignored in the fixing ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... Mr. Carlyle. Upon which a strange sort of resentful sniff was heard from Miss Corny. She had probably thought to hear him mention her own; but he had named it after his wife and ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... bushes, searching intently for anything alive which might make fair game. They scattered in all directions, one after a humming-bird, another chasing a butterfly; the third wandered off lazily to a big patch of catnip for a sniff of its delightful aroma; while the fourth began to career to and fro after a dragon-fly, in the wildest fashion. The priest and Benito had moved off to an asparagus bed, to consult about the best treatment to give it, for the plants were slowly dying, and ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... Woozy had approached the Sawhorse and begun to sniff at it. The Sawhorse resented this familiarity and with a sudden kick pounded the Woozy squarely on its head with ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... silly, Abby," Miss Daggett bade her sharply. "There ain't any such nonsense in Famous People! I wouldn't be canvassing for it, if there was." And she shifted her pointed nose to one side with a slight, genteel sniff. ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... She uttered a disdainful sniff. "To be sure he takes his army with him, otherwise the Constitutionalistas would kill him. Wait until Pancho Gomez meets this army of Longorio's. Ha! You will ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... Toby, after another sniff. 'It's—it's mellower than Polonies. It's very nice. It improves every moment. It's too decided for Trotters. ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... from the steaming dainty and laid it snugly on a leaf. "That's for Paddy"—an Irish terrier, always of the party. It was an affecting act of renunciation. Presently "Paddy" came along; but "Paddy," who, too, had lunched, bestowed merely a sniff and a "No, thank you" wag of the tail. "What, you no want 'em? All right." No second offer was risked, and in a moment, in one mouthful, the chick was being crunched by Mickie, feathers and all. The menu of the Chinese—with its ducks' eggs salted, sharks' fins and tails, stewed ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... the bull's-eye overhead, through the cracks round which she could sniff the cool air. Close beneath it she accordingly took up her abode; and thence she used to crawl down when dinner was on the table, getting into her master's lap, and looking up longingly and lovingly into his face, sometimes putting out ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... most sorely, he would pass round among the old men with a grand manner. They would take a pinch and say, "May thy strength increase," and blow their delighted noses with great colored handkerchiefs, and Solomon would feel about fifty and sniff a few grains himself with the air of ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... cross, and, putting a rope round the dog's neck, led him out into the garden. But it was all in vain; let them lead him where they might, not a sound would the dog utter: he had no "bow-wow" for them. At last, however, the dog stopped at a certain spot, and began to sniff; so, thinking that this must surely be the lucky place, they dug, and found nothing but a quantity of dirt and nasty offal, over which they had to hold their noses. Furious at being disappointed, the wicked old couple seized the dog, and ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... lads and lasses merry be, With possets and with junkets fine; Unseen of all the company, I eat their cakes and sip their wine; And, to make sport, I sniff and snort; And out the candles I do blow: The maids I kiss; They shriek—Who's this? I answer nought but ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... mumbling to herself, and Mr. Marston confined his attentions to his dinner; he chuckled just once, but Mrs. Marston met his levity with something like a sniff. ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... fetch the snuff," Pao-yue said to She Yueeh, "and give it to her to sniff. She'll feel more at ease after she has had several ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... his nose through the bars of the window, trying to sniff the cooking-smells that came from the palace-kitchen. She told the pig to bring the Doctor to the window because she wanted to speak to him. So Gub-Gub went and woke the Doctor who was ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... at a swinging walk, or trot, or lope, as the ground said, and ate up the distance at twice the speed we had used the day before. In a couple of hours I was close to where she had taken the belt, and so at last I saw the dog drop his nose and sniff. There were the missing riches, priceless beyond gold—the little leaden balls, the powder, dry in its horn, the little rolls of tow, the knife swung at the girdle! I knelt down there on the sand, I, John Cowles, once civilized and now heathen, and I raised ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... now, to Philippa's surprise and vexation, Blanche sat perfectly unmoved before it, and did not lift a paw. Perhaps during her short visit to the stable she had become acquainted with real mice, for after giving one slight sniff at the imitation one, she rose and walked away with a ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton
... "life will do that hard enough. Turn your back on it all, look at the beautiful things, leave a thief to catch a thief, and the dead to bury the dead. Don't sniff at the evil thing; go and get ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson |
