"Wetness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was partially exposed to the rain. When it and the water from a broken gutter, striking a balustrade beside him, splashed him with fine spray, he made no effort to move. Why should he care? He was only a worthless old nigger. A little wetness more or less would make no difference. A carelessness for all things earthly and pertaining to his own worn-out old body grew upon him. Then he suddenly ceased to think of himself. The sound of the rain in his ears seemed to be boring into his brain. Steady, inexorable, unanswerable ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... young woman at his elbow; she was having difficulty in managing her tray and her belongings. There was an autumn drizzle outside and Ward had stalked along unprotected, with a woodman's stoicism in regard to wetness. The young woman had her umbrella, a small bag, and a parcel, and she was clinging to all of them, impressed by the "Not Responsible" signs which sprinkled the walls of the place. When her tray tipped at an alarming slant, as she elbowed ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... is a glory of whiteness, the tallest sprays on a level with my eyes, the shortest shoulder high, except when rain weighs down the heavy heads and they lean across the paths barring my passage with their fragrant wetness. ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... of the surrounding country—yes, and sometimes, thirstiest of all, the workmen from more distant oil-fields, a dangerous crew. Millings at that time had not yielded to the generally increasing "dryness" of the West. It was "wet," notwithstanding its choking alkali dust; and the deep pool of its wetness lay in Hudson's bar, The Aura. It was named for a woman who had ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... anything like the thrill of that moment, as we felt the salt wetness close over our heads. With one flick of our tails we came to life again. The old man was so surprised that he fell right into the water, almost on top of us. From this he was rescued by a sailor with a boat-hook; and the last ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... when high noon Shows her tanned face among the thirsting clover And parching meadows, thy tenebrious tune Wakes with the dew or when the rain is over. Thou troubadour of wetness and damp lover Of all cool things! admitted comrade boon Of twilight's hush, and little intimate Of eve's first fluttering star and delicate Round rim ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... they had built a sort of screen for the fire at the first sign of a storm, making it of green cocoanut tree leaves on slanting poles like a "lean-to," and this kept the blaze going in spite of the wetness, as plenty of dry wood had been gathered before the ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... wet. It would be necessary, it is true, that this fish should have risen to the distinction between the real and the possible, and that he should care to anticipate the error of his fellow-fishes, who doubtless consider as alone possible the condition of wetness in which they actually live. Keep strictly to the terms of the proposition, "The ground is not damp," and you will find that it means two things: (1) that one might believe that the ground is damp, (2) that ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... at sport in the meadow, such is the heart of Franci. But—behold me desolated on this infernal schooner. Torn by my parents from my home, from warm places of my delight, from various maidens, all enamoured of my person, I am sent to be a sailor. A life of horror, believe me who say it to you! Wetness, cold and work; work, cold and wetness! Behold the sea! may it be accursed, and dry up at the earliest moment! I come here, on this so disastrous voyage. Have I poetry, think you, on board this vessel? Is the pig-faced armadillo yonder a companion for me, for Franci? Is my beauty, ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... and these shavings served to start the green pine boughs which had formed their beds; and once a pretty good glow was obtained, with plenty of embers, the wetness of the branches brought under cover mattered very little, especially as the guide ranged them close to the fire to dry, ready against they were required; and had contrived that the blinding smoke should sweep right out at once, a few ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... also is a powerful stimulant and welcome addition to the manure. But the greatest vigilance should be observed to guard against overmoistening the manure; far better fail on the side of dryness than on that of wetness. ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer
... forth in the troop's patriotic garden; Doc Carson's lettuce was showing the proper spirit; a little regiment of humble radishes was mobilizing under the loving care of Connie Bennett, and Pee-wee's tomatoes were bold with flaunting blossoms. A bashful cucumber which basked unobtrusively in the wetness of the ice-box outlet under the shed at Artie Van Arlen's home was growing apace. But not a sign was there of Tom's beans or peas or beets—nothing in his little allotted patch but a lonely plantain ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... the prostrate corn fields. The peat turf lay in oozy and neglected heaps, for there had not been sun enough to dry it sufficiently for use, so that the poor had want of fuel, and cold to feel, as well as want of food itself. Indeed, the appearance of the country, in consequence of this wetness in the firing, was singularly dreary and depressing. Owing to the difficulty with which it burned, or rather wasted away, without light or heat, the eye, in addition to the sombre hue which the absence of the sun cast over all things, was forced to dwell upon the long black ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... high. Here we all crawled in, wet and cold, but with hearts grateful to God for our wonderful preservation. As we were packed very close to each other, the natural warmth of our bodies soon relieved us considerably from the sensation of wetness and cold, and we passed the night as comfortably as our ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... we mean not only the sensible perspiration which is felt as a distinct wetness on the skin during exertion or heat, or in some illnesses, but also, and chiefly, the constant insensible perspiration. This latter is far more important than the former. No one could live many hours without it, for by its means several pounds weight of waste is got rid ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... fell against a fence and tore her skirt. Then, when she was sure she had found the road again she ran plump into the barn again, from a different side this time. A window frame minus a window told that the barn was empty and with a grunt of utter disgust at the wetness of the world in general, Sahwah climbed in and stood on a dry floor. She made up her mind to stay there until the sound of the engine would tell her that the Glow-worm had come for her. As the time went by and no familiar throbbing rose on the air, she began to have ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... Twenty-seventh Street—or One Hundred and Thirty-seventh Street.... Two and three look alike—no, not much. Seat damp... are clothes absorbing wetness from seat, or seat absorbing dryness from clothes?... Sitting on wet substance gave appendicitis, so Froggy Parker's mother said. Well, he'd had it—I'll sue the steamboat company, Beatrice said, and my uncle has a quarter interest—did Beatrice go to heaven?... probably not—He represented ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... without an envelope of water, is smaller than one with a little wetness around it. When more water vapor gathers around the piece of dust, the drop becomes bigger. When the sunset is red, it is a sign that it is shining on very small bits of dust, or that the condensation ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... marble. One of the profound philosophical truths which are almost confined to infants is this love of things, not for their use or origin, but for their own inherent characteristics, the child's love of the toughness of wood, the wetness of water, the magnificent soapiness of soap. So it was with Scott, who had so much of the child in him. Human beings were perhaps the principal characters in his stories, but they were certainly not the only characters. A battle-axe was a person of importance, a castle had ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... sauntering through the doorway, my head bending broodingly over the sketch-book, I caught sight out of the corner of my eye of a little white match-stand fixed up on the wall. Mechanically I put out my left hand to take a light for my pipe. A queer, cold wetness in my fingers and a little splash woke me to the sense of some odd mistake, and in another instant I realized with horror that I had dipped my fingers into holy water and splashed it over that neat, demure, spotless, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... dearie, and see the baby lobsters," said Jewel, holding her child carefully away from her own glistening wetness, and seating her ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... ever be a streamer on Ben Kyaw. It brought water, too, and was mossy {5} to the top in consequence. I have seen us sitting in broad sunshine on the Ross, and the rain falling black like crape upon the mountain. But the wetness of it made it often appear more beautiful to my eyes; for when the sun struck upon the hill sides, there were many wet rocks and watercourses that shone like jewels even as far ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fiddler's squealing. And I bless God (with that singular worthy, Peter Walker the packman at Bristo-Port),* that ordered my lot in my dancing days, so that fear of my head and throat, dread of bloody rope and swift bullet, and trenchant swords and pain of boots and thumkins, cauld and hunger, wetness and weariness, stopped the lightness of my head, and the wantonness ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... ceases shrinking. Only last summer taught me the uselessness of an extra pair of trousers. It rains in the woods; streams are to be waded; the wetness of leaves is greater than the wetness of many rivers. Logically, naturally, inevitably, such conditions point to change of garments when camp is made. We always change our clothes when we get wet in the city. So for years I carried those extra nether garments—and continued ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... still raining and the early falling twilight was murky and brown. The dull yellow glare of the street-lamps was faintly reflected in the muddy wetness of pavements and streets. He was carrying a great armful of books and papers under his dripping mackintosh and umbrella. As he walked homeward as fast as his inconvenient load allowed, he became acutely conscious ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... was truly grand, and the continued roar and noise of the sea was very perceptible to the ear. To estimate the height of the sprays at forty or fifty feet would surely be within the mark. Those of the workmen who were not much afflicted with sea-sickness, came upon deck, and the wetness below being dried up, the cabins were again brought into a habitable state. Every one seemed to meet as if after a long absence, congratulating his neighbour upon the return of good weather. Little could be said as to the comfort ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... some of us have been beggars here, and some of us have been rich,—we shall not be judged by that poor accident, but by our faithful following of Christ.' Margaret got up, and found some water and soaking her pocket-handkerchief in it, she laid the cool wetness on Bessy's forehead, and began to chafe the stone-cold feet. Bessy shut her eyes, and allowed herself to be soothed. ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Procure a box of suitable size, which, for greater efficiency, may be lined with zinc. Into this put several quarts of clean silver sand well damped with water, but not up to the point of actual wetness. Wrap each skin separately in a clean rag or in a piece of unprinted paper ("cap paper" will do for the smaller birds), pull back the sand to one end of the box, leaving a thin layer, however, all over the remaining part of the bottom, ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... Wyoming," pursued Steve, "where you'll go hours and hours before you'll see a drop of wetness." ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... father out into the fresh morning. Everything was dripping and soggy, but the sun was going to shine, and dry the world off. Together they trudged through the wetness, into the village. Other gold seekers were trooping down to the river, and the villagers, yawning and weary-eyed after the dance, were watching them, and collecting money ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... proved damp and discouraging for both parties. Duke began to tremble even before he was lifted into the water, and after his first immersion he was revealed to be a dog weighing about one-fourth of what an observer of Duke, when Duke was dry, must have guessed his weight to be. His wetness and the disclosure of his extreme fleshly insignificance appeared to mortify him profoundly. He wept. But, presently, under Penrod's thorough ministrations—for the young master was inclined to make this bath last as long as possible—Duke plucked up a heart and began a series of ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... dewy morning in late August brings back the thought of Mary and those stolen meetings. I have the minutest recollection of the misty bloom upon the turf, and the ragged, filmy carpet of gossamer on either hand, of the warm wetness of every little blade and blossom and of the little scraps and seeds of grass upon my soaking and discolored boots. Our footsteps were dark green upon the dew-grey grass. And I feel the same hungry freshness again at the thought of those stolen ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... hand under her chin and lifted up her face to him. Her dark blue eyes, in their wetness of tears, dilated as if she was startled in her very soul. They looked at him through their tears in terror and a little horror. His light blue eyes were keen, small-pupilled and unnatural in their vision. Her lips parted, as ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... walking quickly and then running, afraid to look back, almost afraid to look forward ... and as he ran, suddenly he fell on something soft. His hands slipped on wetness ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... surprise was upon him even in his sleep, and he knew that if his precautions should prove insufficient, he would have to answer for sixty good lives. In addition there was the cold of the cloudless night, and the clinging wetness of the dew. These things would not have allowed him to sleep, even if ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... all our campaigning we haven't learned much, have we?" demanded Anne. "Had it not been for Tom we should have sat all night in misery and wetness. I think we are going to learn something on ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... at the window, looking out blankly into the leaden wetness. It was just after five, and the rain poured. A curious depression settled quickly upon her, which was hardly fully accounted for as "missing Hugo already."... Why? Who upon earth had less cause for depression than she? No girl lived with more all-embracing reasons for being ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... the shrub, from its dense and flattened foliage, fine colour, and persistent nature, together with its dwarfness and rooting faculty, all go to render it one of the finest rock shrubs for winter effect. The wetness of our climate only seems to make it all the brighter, and it is also without that undesirable habit of rooting ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... carried from the house a paddle and three harpoons of different sizes. The canoe had an outrigger and was very small, so that it moved fast through the usually still lagoon, propelled by the broad-bladed paddle. In the bottom of it might be an inch of water, for occasionally I shipped a tiny wave, but wetness was no bother in this delicious climate; a pareu was easily removed if vexatious and a cocoanut-shell was ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... the face [? "The paleness of the face," MS.] and the wetness of the lip with blood, are the never-failing signs of a Vampire. The stories told in Hungary and Greece of these foul feeders are singular, and some of ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... which is merely our name for that which we are accustomed to see. Whenever it rains we are accustomed to see the ground wet, and we conclude that there is a necessary connection of cause and effect between the rain and the wetness of the ground. Nothing of the kind, say the Mutakallimun, or the Mu'tazila, the oldest sect of the school. It rains because God willed that it should rain, and the ground is wet because God wills it ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... wet, with a drizzle of rain, and through the slits in the temple walls we could see the many fires in the camp well cared for, the men and women in skins and rags toasting before them, with steam rising as the heat fought with their wetness. Folk seated in discomfort like this are proverbially alert and cruel in the temper, and Nais frowned as she looked on the inclemency ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... sea can be better worth watching. The dullest thing perhaps in the London streets is that people take their rain there without knowing anything of the cloud that drops it. It is merely rain, and means wetness. The shower-cloud there has limits of time, but no limits of form, and no history whatever. It has not come from the clear edge of the plain to the south, and will not shoulder anon the hill to the north. The ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... this mean?" said Dorothy, as Evesham swung himself over the half-door, and his lantern showed them in their various phases of wetness. ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... the largest aggregations of fresh wetness in the world, if not the largest. When I stop to think that some day all this cold, cold water will have to be absorbed by mankind, it gives me a cramp ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... surprising of all it is to see the long threads that are flung horizontally through the air, from a low branch of a tree to the near-by hedge. They hang, elastic and perfect, sagged a little by a run of fog-drops almost invisible except where the wetness catches the light. Some were stretched at least six feet across space, with no supporting strands to hold them from above—and no branches from which the filament could be dropped. How is it done? ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... more frequently than temperatures, textures, smells and tastes which cannot themselves be grouped into shapes, and are therefore objects of contemplation only when associated with colours and sounds, as for instance, the smell of burning weeds in a description of autumnal sights, or the cool wetness of a grotto in the perception of its darkness ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... ear, we do not necessarily mean that it is directly and completely presented; it may only be indicated. We may have before the eyes simply a sign of some fact, but perceive the fact which is the meaning of the sign. We look out of the window and "see it is wet to-day", though wetness is something to be felt rather than seen; {422} having previously observed how wet ground looks, we now respond promptly to the visual appearance by knowing the indicated state of affairs. In the same way, we say that we "hear the street car", though a street car, we must admit, is not essentially ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... by members of the Royal Alcoholic Society is that the Moisture in the Atmosphere counterbalances or nullifies, so to speak, the interior Wetness. ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... again a large wet place, but now on her chemise. "What a lot of spending you have done," said I. "I can't help it," said she. My experience was small, but I knew that from no other woman whom I had stroked, had such an effusion taken place. Before I had spent I had felt her wetness on my fingers. I had her on another occasion, and the same thing occurred. I notice this because I only recollect meeting one other such case since; Mrs. Smith, like the other to whom I refer, used after a few pushes up her to squeeze her cunt, shiver, and ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... water in which ice floated. Before this terrific fellow there could be no hesitation. They followed his example in being soused from head to foot. In the wiping—"Let the rag hang loose. Don't wipe with knotted towel. Stupid fellows! The cool wetness clinging to the skin gives a shiver of delight." Thus shouted Shu[u]zen to his officiating satellites. Then all the guests took seats. The mucous was running from the noses of the old fellows who had fought campaigns at Odawara, Sekigahara, O[u]saka. ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... army was unable to take any decisive action against the left wing of the German army during the spring and summer of 1915, both on account of the wetness of the land and the activity of the German artillery. Yet it harassed the Germans by so much activity that the Teutons continued to add to their heavy howitzers and large caliber naval guns. Nevertheless the Belgian strategy gained ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... of North Somersetsbire Yeomanry Cavalry, which had been arriving from all parts for several hours. Some of my friends strongly urged the propriety of my returning to Bath, and postponing the meeting to some future time, in consequence of the extreme wetness of the day. I had never promised to attend any public meeting of the people and then disappointed them, and I felt extreme reluctance at the base thought of doing so upon this occasion; particularly as ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... tallying; six crews panoplied in leather guiding the monsters to their lairs. Here, too, the sun-warmed air arose sluggish with the aroma of pitch, of lumber, of tar from the ships' cordage, of the wetness of unpainted wood. Aloft in the rigging, clear against the sky, were sailors in contrast of peaceful, leisurely industry to those who toiled and hurried below. The masts swayed gently, describing an arc against the heavens. The sailors swung easily to the motion. From below came ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White |
