"Sniffing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... supply that last. If I let you smoke, some old cat would come sniffing round to-morrow morning, and say, 'Phew! a man has been here.' Good food and drink you shall have, but ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... horrors of the sub-human, sub-animal order of phantasms—things with bloated, nude bodies and pigs' faces, shaggy bears with fulsome, watery eyes; mangy dogs, etc. I have watched these things that still possess—and possess in a far greater degree—all the passions of their life incarnate, sniffing the foul and vitiated atmosphere of the public-houses and brothels, and chafing in the most hideous manner at their inability to gratify their lustful cravings in a more substantial way. A man advances along the road at a swinging pace, with no thought, as ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... did not legends of the country-side inform us how Cavaliers had once galloped up and down these very lanes from their quarters in the village? Here, now, were soldiers unmistakable; and if their business was not fighting, what was it? Sniffing the joy of battle, we followed ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... submerged in a vegetative stupor; they can discern what they love or fear. Yet all this is still a disordered apparition that reels itself off amid sporadic movements, efforts, and agonies. Now gorgeous, now exciting, now indifferent, the landscape brightens and fades with the day. If a dog, while sniffing about contentedly, sees afar off his master arriving after long absence, the change in the animal's feeling is not merely in the quantity of pure pleasure; a new circle of sensations appears, with a new principle governing interest and desire; instead of waywardness ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... and terriers had been let out after being allowed to smell at the shoes, and a couple of them had soon found their way to the side-door where Hiram had waited for Paula. There they paused, sniffing about on all sides, and had then jumped up a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... "the pitcher may go to the well once too often. You mark my words, if he keeps on sniffing around our camp much ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... he, "what that wull pe!" A sniffing action of the nose told what "that" meant. "Don't you smell a ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... made his escape from the wreck and found his way back again to Shoreby. He was now at Arblaster's heels, and, suddenly sniffing and pricking his ears, he darted forward and began to bark furiously at the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... proportions, hedged in by high palisades, through the interstices of which many a black muzzle now protruded, sniffing like ill-tempered women, or uttering shrill whines of despair. As Yorke, with his hands buried in his pockets, for they were cold, though his head was too well provided with clustering hair to be conscious of the absence of a hat, was contemplating this spectacle with cynical amusement, ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... till she was tired. Again scampering devious, bounding here, rushing there, snuffing and sniffing everywhere; she at last discovered me in classe. Instantly she flew barking at the panes, as if to urge me forth to share her pleasure or her master's toil; she had seen me occasionally walking in that alley with M. Paul; and ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... to storm, shore's you live," Applehead predicted, sniffing into the wind like a dog confronted by a strange scent. A little later he looked up from his full plate with a worried air. "How's a storm goin' to hit ye, Luck?" he asked. "Kinda put a stop to the pitcher business, ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... his errand, he got up from the ground, slapped his knees to knock the clay off them, and, still sniffing and sobbing, walked back the way he had ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Aunt Cynthia, sniffing, "don't I smell smoke? You girls must manage your range very badly. Mine never smokes. But it is no more than one might expect when two girls try to keep house without ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... that Insarov was unwilling to launch into particulars (it was against the grain that he had come to him at all) he confined himself to the advice to provide himself above all things with 'the needful,' and asked him to come to him again, 'when you have,' he added, sniffing at the snuff in the open snuff-box, 'augmented your confidence and decreased your diffidence' (he talked with a broad accent). 'A passport,' he added, as though to himself, 'is a thing that can be arranged; you ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... against its walls, turned into a scene thus swept clean for it, a wave of olive drab, impeccable row after impeccable row of scissors-like legs advancing. Recruits, raw if you will, but already caparisoned, sniffing and scenting, as it were, for the great primordial mire ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... Sniffing danger, Bedney warily resolved to decline all overtures, by taking refuge in his decrepitude; but the attorney's steady ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... head and was turning to leave the room when his attention was attracted by the peculiar behaviour of the dog, which had followed him throughout on his search. The little animal, after sniffing about the floor, ran to the open window and started whining and jumping up at it. Rolfe quickly returned to ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... that had been pounded into him at the base began to make some sense to Ross as he followed his guide, sniffing strange wet smells from the brush, the trees, and the damp earth; piecing together in his mind what he had been taught and what he now saw for himself, until ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... train was on a siding, with news of a freight wreck ahead. Gideon stretched himself, and looked out of the window, and emotion seized him. For all his journey the South had seemed to welcome him, but here at last was the country he knew. He went out upon the platform and threw back his head, sniffing the soft breeze, heavy with the mysterious thrill of unplowed acres, the wondrous existence of primordial jungle, where life has rioted unceasingly above unceasing decay. It was dry with the fine dust of waste places, and wet with the warm mists of slumbering swamps; it seemed to Gideon ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... a breath of air moving, nor a sound but that of the surf booming half a mile away along the beaches and against the rocks outside. A peculiar stagnant smell hung over the anchorage—a smell of sodden leaves and rotting tree trunks. I observed the doctor sniffing and sniffing, like someone tasting a ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dream what plans filled the head of her son Grunty. When she saw him sniffing around the walls of the pen she never once guessed that he could be looking for anything except something to eat. How could she know that Grunty—the littlest of the family—was searching for ...
— The Tale of Grunty Pig - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... still sniffing at my buttonhole when I reached the second niche. There was a black varnished wicker tray heaped with fruit and a Brittany platter filled ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... of those sharp-muzzled little animals!—Two tiny eyes, rather close together, a long nose that wrinkles when he talks, as though he were sniffing at you; a ragged, black moustache, like the furry muzzle-bristles of some wild thing—that is a sketch ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... lamp low, that they might see the better what was going on out of doors. The wolves, baffled by the sudden disappearance of their quarry, were ranged a little distance from the porch door, save two or three of the bolder ones, which were sniffing at the door itself. The dogs were nowhere ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... mischief, yet with a somewhat unfriendly and suspicious temperament that made him, perhaps, a better guardian for Norah than the benevolently disposed Tait. Puck had a nasty, inquiring mind—an unpleasant way of sniffing round the legs of tramps that generally induced those gentry to find the top rail of a fence a more calm and more desirable spot than the level of the ground. Indian hawkers feared him and hated him in equal measure. He could bite, and occasionally did bite, his victims being ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... points of the figure are intensely overdrawn. His caricature pure and simple seems to us always inferior to his satirical power; as fine examples of the latter we may mention: The British Lion Smells a Rat (an angry lion sniffing at a door, in allusion to the conference which followed the fall of Sebastopol); The British Lion's Vengeance on the Bengal Tiger, which chronicles the ghastly massacre of Cawnpore; Bright the Peace Maker (1860), in ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... Something cold touched my hand through the dark, and there crouched M. Picot's hound, whining for its master. Automatically I followed across the commons to the court-house square. It stopped at the prison gate, sniffing and whining and begging in. Poor dog! What could I do? I tried to coax it away, but it lay at the wall like ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... to put them into gloves. Tylo had too natural a character to change his little ways all in a day; and, in spite of his new-blown honours, he allowed himself to do undignified things. He was at the present moment lying on the steps of the hall, scratching the ground and sniffing at the wall, when suddenly he gave a start and began to whine and whimper! His lower lip shook nervously as though he were ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc
... Olympia—as everybody says at the door—it was a Horse Show. But this time it is much the same. There they stand in their stalls, the dear, magnificent, patient creatures, with their glossy coats and their beautiful curves, their sensitive radiators sniffing for something over the velvet ropes. Panting, I know they are, to be out in the open again; and yet I fancy they enjoy it all in a way. It would be ungrateful if they did not; for, after all, the whole thing has been arranged ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... silent again with a still, far-away look of fierce yearning after that missed distinction, with his nostrils for an instant dilated, sniffing the intoxicating breath of that wasted opportunity. If you think I was either surprised or shocked you do me an injustice in more ways than one! Ah, he was an imaginative beggar! He would give himself away; he would give himself up. I could see ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... quarter-of-an-hour I fancied that I smelt something burning, and I have always been terribly afraid of fire. If ever we have an accident it will not be my fault, I assure you. I am terribly nervous since our chimney was on fire, as I told you; so I got up, and hunted about everywhere, sniffing like a dog after game, and at last I noticed that my umbrella was burning. Most likely a match had fallen between the folds and burnt it. You can see how it has ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... fierce," he muttered. "He seems to be furiously mad, too. Perhaps, after all, it may be a bear sniffing around; though I'd never expect to find such a thing out here, so far away from ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... It's just as hard to get into a village, if you weren't born in it, as it is to get into upper-ten-dom. Mrs. Knoxwell called, and looked round all the time with her nose up in a sort of a way,—well, it was just like a dog sniffing round for something. And she went off and told about mother's poor, dear, old, black silk dress, that I made into a cool skirt and jacket for her. 'Some folks must be always set up in silk, she sposed.' Everybody isn't ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... the sabots came nearer, the footsteps were now in front of the window. Even as Ranulph was about to knock and call the poor vagrant's name, the clac-clac stopped, and then there came a sniffing at the shutters as a dog sniffs at the door of a larder. Following the sniffing came a guttural noise of emptiness and desire. Now there was no mistake; it was the half-witted fellow beyond all doubt, and he ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... made her throw away the Fetish and run to the window. The sun was really breaking out; the sound of the mill seemed cheerful again; the granary doors were open; and there was Yap, the queer white-and-brown terrier, with one ear turned back, trotting about and sniffing vaguely, as if he were in search of a companion. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... being made in a hole inside. There was enough water in their flasks for a "billy" of tea, and by the time they had finished their meal the darkness was on them. No sooner had they settled down to watch than their foe was down, sniffing out the position, and they were thankful they had acted in time. They beard it at the back first, then overhead, and next at the side, its presence indicated by low growls. Then it was in the front, and Compton fired ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... sniffing, as an appetizing odor filled the air. A can of bacon was opened and set to sizzling ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... you seek, senor?" he said to Rodriguez, who had halted before him with his horse's nose inside the doorway sniffing. ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... the straight, even stretch of road for Montmirail. Not so long ago he might have gone from Chalons in a bee-line from Montdidier, but the big, ugly salient stuck out like a huge snout now, as if it were sniffing in longing anticipation at that tempting morsel, Paris; so he must circle around it and then turn almost ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... fate was not yet ready for him. He looked terribly frightened, and had brought with him a large candle and a small terrier—which latter indeed threatened to be troublesome, for he went roving and sniffing about until he came to the recess where they were. But as soon as he showed himself, Lina opened her jaws so wide, and glared at him so horribly, that, without even uttering a whimper, he tucked his tail between ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... dress, as if he wanted something very badly. Her thoughts flew at once to Alan. Perhaps those horrid men had injured him. In haste she tied a handkerchief to the dog's collar, and let him lead her into the blackness till he halted, sniffing and barking, having attained the object ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... the arrow in my hand I saw what made the hare pay no heed to me. There was a more terrible enemy than even man on its track. Sniffing at my footprints where they had just crossed those of the hare was a stoat, long and lithe and cruel. I knew it would not leave its quarry until it had it fast by the throat, and the hare knew it also by some instinct that is not to ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... Birkdale among them, were sitting about when Billy, sniffing and rubbing his knuckles in his eyes to such an extent that of necessity notice must be taken, drew ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... was sitting alone in her boudoir in an easy-chair, sniffing eau de cologne; a glass of orange-flower-water was standing on a little table near her. She was agitated ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... Sister Angela led me, sniffing a little still, to the Refectory, which was a large, echoing room, with rows of plain deal tables and forms, ranged in front of a reading desk that had another and much larger picture of the Sacred Heart on the wall above it. Only one gasjet was burning, and I sat under it to eat my supper, and after ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... there, ma'am, when Bob, which had followed me unknown, trotted in. When the cat ketched sight of 'im sniffing about, there was such a spitting and swearing as you never 'eard, and blowed," said Mr. Beale amusedly, as if the recollection tickled him, "blowed if the old cat didn't give one jump and move in quick time up the chimley, where 'e now ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... he unhooked the pole from the buckboard, rigged a pair of shafts, and drove to Concho, where he heard of the trader and finally located that worthy drinking at Tony's Place. Young Pete, as usual, was in camp looking after the stock. The trader accompanied Annersley to the camp. Young Pete, sniffing a customer, was immediately up and doing. Annersley inspected the horses and finally chose a horse which Young Pete roped with much swagger and unnecessary language, for the horse was gentle, and quite familiar with ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... was a strong smell of rats; and John Joiner spent the rest of the morning sniffing and whining, and wagging his tail, and going round and round with his head in the ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... temples, As a God's own door-guard: Nay! hostile to all such truthfulness-statues, In every desert homelier than at temples, With cattish wantonness, Through every window leaping Quickly into chances, Every wild forest a-sniffing, Greedily-longingly, sniffing, That thou, in wild forests, 'Mong the motley-speckled fierce creatures, Shouldest rove, sinful-sound and fine-coloured, With longing lips smacking, Blessedly mocking, blessedly hellish, blessedly ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... bed—Lorna keeps calling and calling—and Florence is crying still—I can hear her sniffing beneath the clothes. We shall be perfect wrecks in the morning, and mother won't like it if I go home a fright. Heigho! the very last night in this dear old room! I hate the last of anything—even nasty things—and except when we've quarrelled ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... eight o'clock as I drove up to the door. Mr. Blake was standing at the open window of the breakfast-room, sniffing the fresh air of the morning. The Blake mother was busily engaged with the economy of the tea-table; a very simple style of morning costume, and a nightcap with a flounce like a petticoat, marking her unaffected ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... of cut glass on the shelf with a pleased expression and hung over the counter where the rings, watches and bracelets glittered. Then he examined a string of sponges carefully—sponges always interested him—they suggested picturesque scenery and adventures. He lingered over the toilet articles, sniffing the soaps and smelling at the bottles of perfume, trying those whose names he especially fancied on the end of his nose by rubbing it with the glass stopper. Then he sat down on the other side of the stove from the stranger and spelled out the queer names on the jars of drugs, speculating ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... she said, propping her chin on her plump white hands, and sniffing at the delectable odour of the bruised mint upon which Louisa was trampling. "I'm glad; I was afraid to come back for fear you would have improved the old garden out of existence, or else into some prim, ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Jack went sniffing obediently in wide circles, crossing unconcernedly Lone's footprints while he trotted back and forth. He hesitated once on the trail of the horse he had followed, stopped and looked at Swan inquiringly, and whined. Swan ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... a seal splashed into the water and dived out of her sight. She put her hands on her heart, and bowed her head down, utterly desolate. She sat thus for a long time indeed, until she was interrupted by a most unexpected visitor. Something came sniffing up to her and put a cold nose to her hand. She started violently, and both her hands were in the air ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... broom, and vast forests of walnut and chestnut, through which roamed hordes of pigs, greedy after the fallen chestnuts that made them so fat, or burrowing about the roots of the trees for the truffles growing just out of sight. When the peasants who owned the pigs saw them sniffing and scratching in certain places, they went out at once and dug for themselves, for, truffles as well as pigs, were thought delicious eating, and fetched high prices from the rich people in Perigueux ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... the daylight. The horses, having no such desires, stood with loosened check-reins, slightly twitching their upper lips, wistful of the tall grass which bordered the wooden sidewalk, though now and then one would lift his head high, sniffing the morning air and bending an earnest gaze not upon the dancers ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... was not the first occasion on which he had examined that place in an attempt to solve the mystery of the nocturnal whisperings. He walked across to the wall, tapping it with his hand, while the faithful spaniel began sniffing in expectancy of something to bolt. "There's naething here, miss—absolutely naething," he declared, as they both examined the wall minutely. Its depth did not admit of any chamber, for it was an inner wall; and, according to the gamekeeper's statement, he had ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... about many things, amongst others how the place was to be ransacked, and how they should be clear of the case if Thorolf was not found there. "So I let Asgaut, my thrall, take the man away." Vigdis said she had no fondness for lies, and said she should be very loath to have Ingjald sniffing about her house, but bade him, however, do as he liked. After that Ingjald ransacked the place, and did not hit upon the man there. [Sidenote: The flight of Thorolf and Asgaut] At that moment Asgaut came back, and Vigdis asked ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... commend him. But oppression by your Mock-Superiors well shaken off, the grand problem yet remains to solve: That of finding government by your Real-Superiors! Alas, how shall we ever learn the solution of that, benighted, bewildered, sniffing, sneering, godforgetting unfortunates as we are? It is a work for centuries; to be taught us by tribulations, confusions, insurrections, obstructions; who knows if not by conflagration and despair! It is a lesson inclusive of all other lessons; the hardest of all ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... clutched his stick and stood watching in silence. The dog came slowly and with infinite caution stretched his nose forward, sniffing. The hair upon his neck and back moved and ruffled as if a sharp wind was blowing, the last muscular quivers of the snake were causing the rattles to still sound their treble cry, the shrill, ringing war chant and hymn ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... religion—but he disapproved with that same part of him that appreciated Lord Talgarth. It seemed to him that Catholicism, in his daughter's future husband, was a defect of the same kind as would be a wooden leg or an unpleasant habit of sniffing—a drawback, yet not insuperable. He would be considerably relieved if ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... that they first perceived that they were not without a circle of appreciative spectators. Sitting like statues on their sniffing, pawing ponies, a dozen Piute Indians encircled them. Engrossed with the dance and with each other, they had not noticed them as they rode up, attracted from their route by this marvellous spectacle of a pale-face squaw and brave engaged ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... suspicions came to a point like a setter. He began sniffing about for Cissie's motives in choosing so queer an ornament. He wondered if it had anything ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... a little better that day, and was lifted into the pony-cart, where he lay on the indiarubber mat, sniffing the air as if it was ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... Sarah came in, sniffing piteously. "Oh, Cephas! don't you be hard on the poor child; she felt as if she had got to go," she ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... wheel and flung my body forward on to the waggon, and there I stopped as if I were frozen, and no wonder, for as I was about to spring up I heard the lion behind me, and next second I felt the brute, ay, as plainly as I can feel this table. I felt him, I say, sniffing at my left leg ...
— Long Odds • H. Rider Haggard
... whispered to Aunt Mary when Honora was out of the room. At last the eventful day of departure arrived. Honora's new trunk—her first—was packed by Aunt Mary's own hands, the dainty clothes and the dresses folded in tissue paper, while old Catherine stood sniffing by. After dinner—sign of a great occasion—a carriage came from Braintree's Livery Stable, and Uncle Tom held the horses while the driver carried out the trunk and strapped it on. Catherine, Mary Ann, and Bridget, all ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... to make it worth my while," Luke Tulliver answered coolly. "My duty is to my dead master, and those that are to come after him. I don't want strangers coming sniffing and prying into the stock. Mr. Nowell's books were kept so that I couldn't cheat him out of a sixpence, or the value of a sixpence; and I mean to hand 'em over to the lawyer in a manner that will do me credit. My master has not been a generous master to me, considering how I've served ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... said the merchant, sniffing the air suspiciously as though he expected to smell blood. We turned towards the Morskaia. One of the women detached herself from the ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... from the wall—no, I ought to say singing with the voice of angels—is the spirit of life in its loveliest, strongest, divinest incarnation, saying 'love me, understand me, be like me!' And the new generation passes by with its nose in the air sniffing, 'No! You're played out! You didn't know science. And you didn't produce four children a-piece, as we mean to. And your education was rhetorical, and your philosophy absurd, and your vices—oh, unmentionable! No, no, young men! Not for us, thank you!' And so they stalk on, don't ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... arrows; then, keeping a sharp lookout upon all sides, she went on to a small stream of water. She made the dumbfounded man go out into the middle of the creek and lie down and roll over in the water, approaching him sniffing cautiously between immersions. She made him continue the bathing until she could detect not even the slightest trace of the sweet, but noxious fragrance of that peculiarly terrible form of Ganymedean life. Only then did she allow ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... old bull; then he stopped short, threw up his head, sniffing the wind, and ended with a sharp snort which changed the words to ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... double-jointed yard measures, and went forward without another word, while Gyp selected a nice warm place on the deck, and lay down to bask on his side, but not until he had followed Jimmy up the port-side and back along the starboard, sniffing his black legs, while that worthy backed from him, holding his waddy ready to strike, coming to me afterwards with a look of contempt upon his noble savage brow, and with an extra twist to his ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... Were help which the world could be saved without, 'Tis odds but I might have borne in quiet A qualm or two at my spiritual diet, Or (who can tell?) perchance even mustered Somewhat to urge in behalf of the sermon: But the flock sat on, divinely flustered, Sniffing, methought, its dew of Hermon With such content in every snuffle, As the devil inside us loves to ruffle. My old fat woman purred with pleasure, And thumb round thumb went twirling faster, While she, to his periods keeping measure, Maternally devoured the pastor. The man with ...
— Christmas Eve • Robert Browning
... certainly become aware of their proximity. It was gazing at them in an uneasy fashion, sniffing the air, and pawing the ground restlessly. It gave a roar like the growling of thunder, and began to walk slowly in their direction. With white faces, the girls backed nearer the fence. Perhaps the heat, or the flies, or the unusual appearance of two strangers ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... coloured to the roots of his hair. He thought that Esperance had not heard, but he met her contrite glance, full of gratitude. With Genevieve's help she washed the little fellow, who was very docile, sniffing with pleasure the "good smell" of these ladies. Bathed, combed, in his new ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... the entrance of a cosy little funk-hole, his boots and tunic undone, sniffing the morning nitro-glycerine. He had swollen considerably since our literary days, but was wearing his hair as red as ever, and I should have known it anywhere—on the darkest night. I dived for him and his hole, pushed him into it, and re-introduced ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various
... manifested itself. The marvel of Nature shaking off sleep and going to work unfolded itself to the musing boy. A little green worm came crawling over a dewy leaf, lifting two-thirds of his body into the air from time to time and "sniffing around," then proceeding again—for he was measuring, Tom said; and when the worm approached him, of its own accord, he sat as still as a stone, with his hopes rising and falling, by turns, as the creature still came toward him or seemed inclined to go elsewhere; and when at last ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Their five eyes smouldering green and bright: Squeaks from the flour sacks, squeaks from where The cold wind stirs on the empty stair, Squeaking and scampering, everywhere. Then down they pounce, now in, now out, At whisking tail, and sniffing snout; While lean old Hans he snores away Till peep of light at break of day; Then up he climbs to his creaking mill, Out come his cats all grey with meal — Jekkel, and ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... matter from my mind. But it was only half a success. I remembered that Gershom himself had been going about as abstracted as an ant-eater and as gloomy as a crow, during the last week; and I kept sniffing something unpropitious up-wind. I even hoped that Dinkie would return to the subject, as children with a secret have the habit of doing. But he has been as tight-lipped on the matter as his reticent old dad ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... stable, thin, wasted, lashing with his restless tail his lean flanks, blowing uneasily and fastidiously on the provender offered to him, his eyes forever turned towards the stable door, scratching with his foot the empty place left at his side, sniffing the yokes and bands which his companion has worn, and incessantly calling for him with piteous lowings. The ox-herd will tell you: There is a pair of oxen done for! his brother is dead, and this ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... into the living room. Miss Peckham was still "sniffing" in the doorway. The two ambulance men were ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... woke Martin. For a moment he could not think where he was; then he remembered. The rafters of the loft of the farmhouse over his head were hung with bunches of herbs drying. He lay a long while on his back looking at them, sniffing the sweetened air, while farmyard sounds occupied his ears, hens cackling, the grunting of pigs, the rou-cou-cou-cou, rou-cou-cou-cou of pigeons under the eaves. He stretched himself and looked about him. He was alone except for Tom Randolph, who slept in a pile of blankets next to the wall, ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... callers," said Muriel, indicating a china bowl on a narrow mahogany table that was full to the brim with visiting cards. "I can assure you I'm the person to know here. No sniffing at a doctor's ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... he found that the boys were drinking, he would—well, he'd "hand 'em something that would surprise 'em." While he was trying to be agreeable to large-shouldered young bullies he was earnestly sniffing at them Twice he caught the reek of prohibition-time whisky, but then, ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... pitch and toss and waiting for employment; - on along the railway, which came in at the same gates and which branches down between each vast block - past a pilot-engine butting refractory trucks into their places - on to the last block, [and] down the branch, sniffing the guano-scented air and detecting the old bones. The hartshorn flavour of the guano becomes very strong, as I near the docks where, across the ELBA'S decks, a huge vessel is discharging her cargo of the brown dust, and where huge vessels have been ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the end, she took pleasure in hearing him talk, nor now looked upon that clean-washed face of his as at all so ugly. It even did her good to see some one sitting there who came to enliven the monotony of that long Sunday evening. By her leave, he had lighted a fresh pipe; and she now sat sniffing up that unaccustomed smell, which rose in little puffs from behind the stove and floated round the room, filling it with long rows of blue curls. 'Twas as if she were overcome by that quite new smell of tobacco and she felt inclined to ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... afterwards the lion appeared. She met him at the door. "You must have some visitors here," said the lion, sniffing the air with ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... for Rag, as the great hound came sniff-sniffing along the log. But his nerve did not forsake him; the wind was right; he had his mind made up to bolt as soon as Ranger came half way up. But he didn't come. A yellow cur would have seen the rabbit sitting there, but the hound did not, and ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... window at the passers-by, a thousand times. I seemed always to be seeing them. Old Dimple with his benevolent smile, and Mrs. Wolker at the end cottage, and how she used to fetch her beer and wink when she caught us looking at her, and little Charlie Slobberface sniffing on his way to the pigs and all the rest of them. And you, Letty. Particularly you. And how we used to lean on the window-sill with our shoulders touching, and your cheek just in front of my eyes.... And nothing aching ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... of the head, and sniffing of the air, the pony obeyed, though it is hardly to be supposed that he understood all ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... though she was a head shorter. He thought so little of himself, he seemed to see himself as through the wrong end of a telescope. Fanny went into the sitting-room and shut the door with a bang. Amabel did not look up from her book. She was reading a library book much beyond her years, and sniffing pathetically with her cold. Amabel had begun to discover an omnivorous taste for books, which stuck at nothing. She understood not more than half of what she read, but seemed to ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... peasant blithely goes To labour in his sledge forgot, His pony sniffing the fresh snows Just manages a feeble trot Though deep he sinks into the drift; Forth the kibitka gallops swift,(48) Its driver seated on the rim In scarlet sash and sheepskin trim; Yonder the household lad doth run, Placed ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... since the leaves had fallen, and his heart ached at the sight. The trail led up the valley, and crossed the brook on a log, and Yan became convinced that he was on the track of a large Lynx. Though a splendid barker, Grip, the dog, was known to be a coward, and now he slunk behind the boy, sniffing at the great track and absolutely ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... sleep on a sweeter bed,' he said, sniffing the resinous fragrance of the grass-tree tops. He would not let her help him with the upper blankets when she ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... sallied forth with their guns, and found a herd of about a hundred, feeding on a plain of long grass. Speke, by stealing along under cover of the high grass, got close to a herd, and fired at the largest. The animals began sniffing the air with uplifted trunks, when, ascertaining by the smell of powder that their enemy was in front of them, they rolled up their trunks, and came close to the spot where he was lying under a mound. Suddenly they stopped, catching scent of the white man, and lifting their heads high, looked ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... he was kind o' criticising my music," said the guide, laughing. "Mebbe I got in a grunt or two that wasn't natural, and the old boy wasn't satisfied with his sweetheart's voice. He was sniffing the air, and waiting to hear more. But 'twasn't more 'n twenty minutes before I gave the second call, though no doubt it seemed longer to you. A man must be in good training to get the better of ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... He stopped short, sniffing and whining, at sight of the gray coats bunched in the doorway; and then, running back a few yards, with his head all the time turned to watch the strangers, he sat on his haunches, stuck his pointed muzzle upward toward the sky and fetched ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... herbage or forest undergrowth, a slight rustling makes us start, and, lo! looking at us from the clustering leaves, a strange face; the leaf-like ears erect, the dark eyes round with astonishment, and the sharp black nose twitching and sniffing audibly, to take in the unfamiliar flavour of a human presence from the air, like the pursed-up and smacking lips of a wine-drinker tasting a new vintage. No sooner seen than gone, like a dream, a phantom, the quaint furry face to be thereafter ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson |
