"Rapturous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for his wild homestead by saying that his Bible seemed truer to him there. If one stood in the doorway of his cave, and looked off at the rough land, the smiling sky, the curly grass white in the hot sunlight; if one listened to the rapturous song of the lark, the drumming of the quail, the burr of the locust against that vast silence, one understood ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... to rapturous study of the fashion-plates, Persis studied her. "She's in a fair way to make a beauty. Annabel at her best never held a candle to what this girl is likely to turn out. Annabel's looks are skin deep. Diantha's ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... on the man was more than he could bear. The cumulative force of the reproach of the woman he loved, the confidence of the Viceroy, the rapturous happiness of his best friend, was not to be endured longer. Pleading indisposition, he early begged leave to withdraw from the festivities which succeeded the completion of the betrothal ceremony and the retirement of the ladies. At the suggestion of the Viceroy, who ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... objected the little girl. "I'm some Royal an' Rapturous an' Ridic'lous myself, an' I won't allow any cheap Boolooroo to order ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum
... Traddles broke into a rapturous laugh, and informed me that it was Sophy's writing; that Sophy had vowed and declared he would need a copying-clerk soon, and she would be that clerk; that she had acquired this hand from a pattern; and that she could throw off—I forget how many folios an ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... events," replied the emperor. "Farewell, Count Andreossi. If you will accept my advice, you will set out this very day; for so soon as my dear Viennese learn that war is to break out in earnest, they will probably give vent to their enthusiasm in the most tumultuous and rapturous demonstrations, and I suppose it would be disagreeable to you to witness ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... certain age," that is to say, the woman between thirty-five and forty. Oh! any poet who should have listened to our talk, for heaven knows how many stages beyond Montargis, would have reaped a harvest of flaming epithet, rapturous description, and very tender confidences. Our bashful fears, our silent interjections, our blushes, as we met each other's eyes, were expressive with an eloquence, a boyish charm, which I have ceased to feel. One must remain young, no doubt, to ...
— The Message • Honore de Balzac
... oftener had she seen him at the other door! How in her grievous reveries had she gnashed her teeth and torn her hair when she saw his start of rapturous delight as he opened the door of the lady! How her soul had burned in agony when she had seen him rush to meet that woman, with her flushing cheek and sparkling eye of triumph; when she had seen him lead her forth, his whole frame kindled with the joy of recovered life; when she had ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... chancel scenes, that this side of Gozzoli's art is most fascinating. He has travelled a long way from his master Fra Angelico here: the heaven is of the visible rather than the invisible eye; sense is present as well as the rapturous spirit. The little Medici who endured the tedium of the services here are to be felicitated with upon such an adorable presentment of glory. With plenty of altar candles the sight of these gardens of the blest ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... better to stick to their Hebrew, but T.W. Higginson exclaimed that now he had some hope for the school. It did take time. It was a long walk from Divinity Hall to the river nor was the exercise brief, I have found rarely more rapturous pleasure than in the strenuous pulls I had on the Charles, and I witnessed the development of much sturdy manliness among those who, forsaking for a time their hermeneutics and homilies, gave themselves to the outdoor sport. Our club included a number ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... many occasions, and to offend by dissenting. It seems now very much the custom to admire a certain wordy, intricate, obscure style of poetry, such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning writes. Some pieces were referred to about which Currer Bell was expected to be very rapturous, and failing ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... clasp their hands and look in rapturous silence for a minute; then they went down on their knees and revelled in the unexpected ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... hand, unasking Want relieve, Or wake the lyre to every rapturous sound? How sad for other's woe this breast would heave! How light this ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... ever read. Now, Anne, YOUR heart wouldn't thump for anybody but the genuine Prince Charming, would it? There must be something radically wrong with mine. But I'm having a perfectly gorgeous time. How I wish you were here! It's snowing today, and I'm rapturous. I was so afraid we'd have a green Christmas and I loathe them. You know, when Christmas is a dirty grayey-browney affair, looking as if it had been left over a hundred years ago and had been in soak ever ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... themselves in courtly behavior. The open encouragement which was accorded to the few men of letters of the time made Naples a favorite resort for the wandering troubadours, and there they sang, to rapturous applause, their songs of love and chivalry. Here in this corner of Italy, where the dominant influences were those which came from France, and where, in reality, French knights were the lords in control, ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... magnificent major-domo appeared to announce that dinner was served, and to lead the guests to the dining-table, the very sight of which evoked rapturous expressions of admiration. ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... galleries, did she give him the slightest ground for encouragement. And, to further disturb his sense of contentment, she was delighted—positively delighted—over the coming of Prince Ugo. For a week she had talked of little save the day when he was to arrive. Quentin endured these rapturous assaults nobly, but he was slowly beginning to realize that they were battering down the only defense he had—the inward belief that she cared for him in spite ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... all sound,—ever beckoning, ever inspiring, patient, pleading, and unchanging,—this is the Ideal which Plato called the dearer self, because, when its craving sympathies find reflex and response in a living form, its rapturous welcome ignores the old imperfect being, and the union only is recognized as Self indeed, complete and undivided. And that fulness of human love becomes a faint type and interpreter of the Infinite, as through it we glide into grander harmonies and enlarged ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... madden me not with joy," cried Edith, starting up in rapturous emotion, her young face dyed with blushes, and all her renovated beauty so celestial that Hilda herself was almost awed, as if by the vision of Freya, the northern Venus, charmed by a spell from the ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... voice to the universal chorus of praise to Shakspeare, "si quid loquar audiendum." It is merely a testimony of gratitude; nor presumes to add to that fame which has been celebrated, not to mention a thousand others, by the nervous prose of Johnson and the rapturous poetry of Gray. O "Magnum et ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... in Dr. Pons's garden to the left, answered a rapturous thrush in the trees across the way, children's voices came from the Paris road and the sounds ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... heart-beats. The last ray of the moon carried away the last scruple. The hand which repelled me felt my heart beat. She struggled to get away, but fell back overcome with tenderness. We talked together through that silence in the language of thought. Nothing is more rapturous than these mute conversations. Madame de T——- took refuge in my arms, hid her head in my bosom, sighed and then grew calm under my caresses. She grew melancholy, she was consoled, and she asked of love all that love had robbed ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... in rapturous joy, Mrs. Soher and her daughter were having a fine time of it. "Ah! she is a well-bred girl; to interrupt me like that, to answer and lecture me in that way," said Adele's aunt, then she added: "Fancy that little brat, to try and give me a lesson about my duty towards ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... words: [50]"Messieurs, dans l'univers il n'ya qu'un soleil; dans le royaume de France il n'ya qu'un Roi; dans la medicine il n'ya que Charini." With this he placed his hand on his heart, bowed, and drew himself up with a look of the most glorious complacency. This exordium was received with the most rapturous applause by the crowd, who, from having often seen him in his progress through the kingdom, had known before that this was Charini himself, the celebrated itinerant worm doctor. "Gentlemen," he then proceeded, "it has been the ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... fellow-citizens: some intrigue of the counter-party drove him a second time into exile. Repairing to Athens, he read the continuation of his history at the festival of the Panathenaea (B. C. 446). It was received with the most rapturous applause; and we are told that the people solemnly conferred upon the man who had immortalized their achievements against the Mede the gift of ten talents. The disposition of this remarkable man, like that of all travellers, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was a preacher; the latter a "mother in Israel." Both were unlettered, but, nevertheless, very pious people. The mother began when Nat. was quite young to teach him that he was born, like Moses, to be the deliverer of his race. She would sing to him snatches of wild, rapturous songs, and repeat portions of prophecy she had learned from the preachers of those times. Nat. listened with reverence and awe, and believed every thing his mother said. He imbibed the deep religious character of his parents, and soon manifested a desire to preach. He was solemnly set apart ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... The interview was a brief and hurried one, and no record of it remains, except some letters and a few impassioned lyrics which about that time he addressed to her. The first letter is stiff and formal, as if to break the ice of long estrangement. The others are in the last strain of rapturous devotion—language (p. 141) which, if feigned, is the height of folly; if real, is worse. The lyrics are some of them strained and artificial. One, however, stands out from all the rest, as one of the most impassioned effusions that Burns ever poured forth. It contains that one consummate ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... Prayer, howsoever perfect in itself it may be, must always be directed in upon the performance of good works. We must not content ourselves with the gift of prayer, or with liberty and consolation and gust in prayer. We must come out from prayer the most rapturous and sweet only to do harder and ever harder works for God and our neighbour. Otherwise the prayer is not good, and the gusts are not from God. The growth and maturity and fruitfulness of the soul do not stand in liberty in prayer, but ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte
... turned to Rose. She must have another home. He had wondered more than once how it had come to pass that miladi had lost so many of her charms, yet grown so much more exacting. He had awakened to the fact that he had never been a rapturous lover. He paid Eustache Boulle all honor that he had proved so manly and brave, yet in his secret heart he felt glad that Rose had not loved him. Why, he could not tell, except that she was too young. And he wondered ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... barks from Bobby Burns broke in on her recital. The collie had caught sight of Simon Cameron mincing along the lawn, and he gave rapturous and rackety chase. Claire ran after them crying out to the dog to desist. And Gavin took advantage of the brief instant when her back was ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... a little rapturous murmur, and somehow it broke the spell which had rested upon the man outside. He started, shivered slightly and turned away. He went up to the bare coldness of his own room and sat down, forgetting that it was either cold or bare. Suddenly, as he had looked at the woman's ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... port-hole, rose-red Seriphos set in a living blue that paled the sapphire; the seas Ulysses had sailed, and the company of the Argonauts. My soul was steeped in unimagined colour, and in the memory of one rapturous instant is gathered what I was soon to see of Greece, is focussed the meaning of history, poetry and art. I was to stand one evening in spring on the mound where heroes sleep and gaze upon the plain of Marathon between darkening mountains and the blue thread of the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... before the church, in the centre of which rose the ilex-tree, pigeons and a few lean fowls were pecking and dusting their wings, with rapturous coos and chuckles. No one appeared at the doors of the hovels, all of which stood open, nor did any voice but that of hens proceed from thence. But through the door-way of the little church came a sound of high monotonous chanting, interrupted at regular intervals by loud ejaculations ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... our lost child, given back to us by a gracious God," said Mr. Phillips. But there was no need to tell her that; she knew all now. Kissing her darling, patting her head, and murmuring over her sweet pet names, as though Mary were still the baby girl she had lost, she sat for a few bewildered, rapturous moments, then sank back in a swoon. She lay with such a smile on her lips that those about her were little alarmed. She had only fainted under her burden of happiness. She afterwards said that this swoon was like a trance of heavenly joy. She revived with a sigh, thinking it ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... hear this spirit murmuring its undertone through the Aeneid, and catch its voice in the song of Keats's nightingale, and its light upon the figures on the Urn, and it pierces them no less in Shelley's hopeless lament, O world, O life, O time, than in the rapturous ecstasy of his Life of Life. This all-embracing perfection cannot be expressed in poetic words or words of any kind, nor yet in music or in colour, but the suggestion of it is in much poetry, if not all, and poetry has in this suggestion, this "meaning," ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... impossible. The boundless, universal respect—the rapturous love—if only one of these were really due to his true self! Honor, humanity, self-sacrifice were the original principles of his character, the atmosphere of his being. Unheard-of temptations had drawn him in the opposite direction; and now he was a man whom every ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... of electricity seemed to envelop her, that made her pulses bound, her lips quick to smile, and her eyes shine like twin dreamstars. She seemed to be moving to some rapturous music unheard save only by herself. At night, alone with her heart, she dared hardly name to herself the meaning of it all, a puritanic modesty withheld her. Yet all the sweet humility of which she was possessed could not banish from her memory the lingering clasp of a hand, ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... hearty good will. Cindy's austerity relaxed noticeably at the compliments handed her in return for her offer of the various viands she had prepared for their delectation, and Miss Wingate blushed and beamed upon them all with the most rapturous delight when her efforts met with like commendation. She had insisted on helping Cindy wait on them and was such a very lovely young Hebe that they could scarcely ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... or woodnymph had screamed somewhere in her green hiding-place. In London one frequently hears, especially in the spring, half-a-dozen sparrows just met together in a garden tree, or among the ivy or creeper on a wall, burst out suddenly into a confused rapturous chorus of chirruping sounds, mingled with others of a finer quality, liquid and ringing. At such times one is vexed to think that there are writers on birds who invariably speak of the sparrow as a tuneless creature, a harsh chirper, and nothing ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... had approached even his exacting criterion of what was fit for her. He envied the skin its rapturous reception, the sparkle of bright eyes its beauty would invoke. It was characteristic that his vision did not carry him to the daily contact of pink toes he had assigned as its function. And it was characteristic of him, too, that he did not ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... overweening self-confidence. She felt like a bird flying in the air, as her voice soared out, enjoying herself extremely in the balance and flight of the song, like the motion of a bird's wings that is up in the wind, sliding and playing on the air, she played with sentimentality, supported by rapturous attention. She was very happy, singing that song by herself, full of a conceit of emotion and power, working upon all those people, and upon herself, exerting herself with gratification, giving ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... Florestan's dungeon. The prisoner sings an intensely mournful aria ("In des Lebens Fruehlingstagen"), which has a rapturous finale ("Und spuer' Ich nicht linde"), as he sees his wife in a vision. Rocco and Fidelio enter and begin digging the grave, to the accompaniment of sepulchral music. She discovers that Florestan has sunk back exhausted, and as she restores him ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... returned to Mantes, where Henri was still struggling for the crown which was so soon to be his, he foolishly gave the King of Navarre such a rapturous account of the young beauty of Picardy and his conquest that Henri, already weary of the faded charms of Diane d'Audouins, his mistress, promptly left his soldiering and rode away to see the lady for himself, and ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... strain Attemper, could not man's discerning ear Through all its tones the sympathy pursue, Nor yet this breath divine of nameless joy Steal through his veins and fan the awaken'd heart, Mild as the breeze, yet rapturous as ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... only as one of themselves called Him. It is the token of His brotherhood and the guarantee of the sympathy which will ever bestow 'grace for grace.' He is the Christ, the Messiah, the name which points back to the Old Testament ideas and declares His office, realising all the rapturous anticipations of prophets, and the longings of psalmists, and more than fulfilling them all ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... rapturous rise to her smile. In vain! Their coy queen half receding the while, In slow fainting cadence they sink to the shore, And hoarse tones of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... observation and experience, that those marriages in which there was least of what was romantically and sillily called love, were always the happiest; and that she anticipated the greatest possible amount of bliss—not rapturous bliss; but the solid, steady-going article—from the approaching nuptials. She concluded by informing the company that to-morrow was the day she had lived for expressly; and that, when it was over, she would desire nothing better than ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... And so for a rapturous hour, it seemed as if they had passed the dark valley, and were immortal; and no more pain, sorrow, or separation for them. And, perhaps, these blessed illusions are permitted now and again to mortals, like momentary gleams of paradise, and distant ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... wafted up from the lake. It was "Stars of the Summer Night," sung exquisitely in three parts. Sahwah could hardly believe it was the Winnebagos, so perfect was the harmony. This was followed by "I Would That My Love," sung by Gladys and Nyoda. Sahwah drew a long, rapturous breath at the beautiful blending of alto and soprano. She was passionately fond of music. Then Gladys sang "Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming," her clear high voice ringing over the water like a flute. The notes died lingeringly away, and the silence was broken by the soft chugging of the launch ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... say good-morning? I forget, and it matters little. We were walking together. How light the air was!—cool and rapturous like snow-chilled wine that is drunk beneath the rose at thirsty Teheran. The ground on which we trod, too, how strangely elastic! The pine-trees give out how good a smell! Is my heart beating at all, or only so fine and quick that ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... you do such a thing?" she demanded. But the tone of her voice and the expression in her eyes caused Douglas to laugh with rapturous joy. ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... received it in a rapturous embrace, set it on a bench by the stable door, and passed the hem of my muslin apron about it. The ends ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... an undone eternity. No strong meat, but only pap, flour and water, mostly water. The church prayer-meeting is attended only by a few gray heads who have been in the habit of going there for twenty years, not because they expect any arousing time or rapturous experiences, but because they feel only a few will be there, ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... This was the well known "Habermaennchen," the epic poem and the private chapel of the warrior as well as of the serving man. And not alone with the exalted spectacle of divine omnipotence on the furious or rapturous sea—but even in the camps and quarters the masses of soldiers did not neglect public worship any more than they neglected a simple military duty. So with the ancient fear of God of the patriarchs in their hearts the Hessian people landed ...
— The Voyage of The First Hessian Army from Portsmouth to New York, 1776 • Albert Pfister
... mayst know," she answer'd straight, "the school, That thou hast follow'd; and how far behind, When following my discourse, its learning halts: And mayst behold your art, from the divine As distant, as the disagreement is 'Twixt earth and heaven's most high and rapturous orb." ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... at Flick a moment in frowning incomprehension. Petted, spoiled child that she was, she could not bear to be scolded where she had expected a rapturous welcome. From Flick to her father she glanced, and then back again. "What's the matter with you two?" she cried. "Are you mad just because I didn't come chasing down the hill in the dead of night? How did I know that the boys were going to get the ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... and the discernment of excellence, and what is approved; and of these two things let the love of his hoards of the yellow-skinned treasure go first, and after that attachment to the silver-skinned of creation, the fair, the rapturous; even to them! So by this see ye not Boolp will yearn in his soul for another spouse? Now, O ye well-matched pair! what a chance were this, knew ye but a damsel of the mountains, exquisite in symmetry, a moon to enrapture the imagination of Boolp, and in the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... eloquence of Otis, the convincing arguments of Sewall, and the tender pleadings of Belknap. He had learned to spell out the fundamental principles that should govern well-regulated communities and states; and, having come to the rapturous consciousness of his freedom in fee simple, the brightest crown God places upon mortal man, he felt himself neighbor and friend. His patriotism was not a mere spasm produced by sudden and exciting circumstances. It was an ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... operetta Arkwright had been more than doubtful of the way that story would be received, should he ever summon the courage to tell it. Since then his fears had been changed to rapturous hopes. It was very eagerly, therefore, that he turned now to greet Billy as she ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... by Weever. And in the year 1749, some unknown poet, soliloquising upon the top of Primrose Hill, bursts out into the following rapturous musing at the sight of "the old ...
— Notes and Queries, 1850.12.21 - A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, - Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. • Various
... swung into his arms, and handled with a great and terrible tenderness, and hugged and kissed with the hunger and awkwardness of a bear, and held with her feet off the ground, and rendered blind, dizzy, rapturous, and frightened, and utterly torn asunder from her ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... softly behind her and stood with her back against it watching them a moment. Then Georgina spied her, and with a rapturous cry of "Barby!" scrambled down and ran to throw herself into her mother's arms. Barby was her way of saying Barbara. It was the first word she had ever spoken and her proud young mother encouraged her to repeat it, even when her Grandmother Shirley insisted ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... But I had a power of comprehending persons and things which gave rise to the strongest hopes on the part of those who wished to convert me and who thought me entirely their own." Thus Lamartine, in a rapturous strain, had congratulated himself on having been the instrument of saving his friend from the abysm of unbelief. When Lamennais was forming the group of disciples who retired with him to La Chesnaye, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... praising God at the top of his voice for hearing his prayer and pardoning his sins. It was the mason. He had been under deep concern for three days; had not slept at all the night before, but after a day's agony, he had found Jesus; and such tumultuous, rapturous joy I think I never witnessed. Again and again, during the evening, he broke out with a voice that drowned all others, and rose above our songs of praise ascribing glory to Jesus for what He had done for his soul. There were many ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... of horror rose from the lines of tonsured heads which skirted the high wall—a wail which suddenly died away into a long hushed silence, broken at last by a rapturous cry of thanksgiving and ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... prevented the expression of natural passion in tragedy, prohibited all indelicate licence in comedy. Charles, probably, was secretly pleased with a system, which cramped the effusions of the tragic muse, and forbade, as indecorous, those bursts of rapturous enthusiasm, which might sometimes contain matter unpleasing to a royal ear.[5] But the merry monarch saw no good reason why the muse of comedy should be compelled to "dwell in decencies for ever," and did not feel at all degraded when enjoying a gross pleasantry, ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... simply fulfilling her natural career; and she had no dislike to Montjoie. She liked him well enough. He had answered well to her test. He was not clever, to be sure; but what then? She was well enough content, if not rapturous, when she walked out of the church Marchioness of Montjoie on her husband's arm. There was a large and fashionable assembly, it need not be said. Lucy, in a first place, looking very wistful, wondering if ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... these rapturous flights to the fugitive sweetness of the present: he is wandering in May meadows, young and impetuous, on fire with hopes, and his heart's beloved beside him. It is almost too good to be true. "I have never known any unalloyed happiness ...
— A Day with Keats • May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron
... of rapturous beauty, vivid in word painting. The play has been staged with magnificent cast and ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... later to Almira's bower. Bee ushered him into a pretty room whose windows were overhung with honeysuckle and pink chintz, and there in a great old-fashioned rocking-chair reclined the lovely invalid, who greeted him with outstretched arms and rapturous cry, and who was sufficiently restored to exhibit him at the Sunday-school picnic as originally planned. So far as she was concerned, all went blithely as a marriage-bell until the morning of July 5, when there came the fearful news of the massacre ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... the rapturous idea of proving the innocence of Mme. Zette, triumphing over the fat pig of a husband, and eventually, in a fantastic fashion, carrying off the insulted and spotless lady to some bower of delight (the castle in Perpignan—why not?), you must blame, not him, but Provence, whose sons, if ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... friend in need. All potent smoke! thine influence is supreme; thy virtues are legion; and thy capabilities are boundless as the vapour into which thou meltest as a holocaust for thy happy devotees. If the pipe could but speak, what mysteries could it reveal! the rapturous visions of the inspired lover, rising in the circular imageries of its vaporous fumes, to beguile his fancies in the absence of his loved one; or the workings of a deep despondency and bitter disappointment, carrying its victim ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... that Jessie read aloud more than formerly, and not always out of a Latin book. Sometimes it was poetry, and sometimes it was the Bible that she read to him; and then he used to stop her, and pour forth such eloquent, such rapturous remarks on what he heard, that Jessie used to sit and watch him like a young angel holding converse with a spirit. She was beginning to love him very deeply in her innocent, girlish, unconscious ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... my romantic love for Ernest, I had often sighed for the companionship of one of my own sex; and now, restored to Edith, whom I had always regarded a little lower than the angels, I felt that if love was more rapturous than friendship, ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... brilliance at his pleasure." His inclination as a thinker is evidently towards the Copernican theory, but he saw that the Ptolemaic, however inferior in sublimity, was better adapted to the purpose of a poem requiring a definite theatre of action. For rapturous contemplation of the glory of God in nature, the Copernican system is immeasurably the more stimulating to the spirit, but when made the theatre of an action the universe fatigues ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... been standing behind her chair you would have seen, emerging miraculously from the white surface under Fanny's pencil, a thin, undersized little figure in sleazy black and white, whose face, under the cheap hat, was upturned and rapturous. Her skirts were wind-blown, and the wind tugged, too, at the banner whose pole she hugged so tightly in her arms. Dimly you could see the crowds that lined the street on either side. Vaguely, too, you saw the faces and stunted figures of the little group of girls ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... listening in ecstacy to the notes of a violin which an angel is playing to him; another portrays St. Diego of Alcala, asking a blessing on a kettle of broth he is about to give to a group of beggars clustered before him; another represents the death of St. Clara of Assisi, in the rapturous trance in which her soul passed away, surrounded by pale nuns and emaciated monks looking upward to a contrasting group of Christ and the Madonna, with a train of celestial virgins bearing her shining robe of immortality. The companion picture is a Franciscan monk ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... to rise, and as she lay on the borderland of sleeping and waking, she half dreamt, half knew, that a face bent over her, and that lips were pressed against her own; and such a thrill struck through her that, though now fully conscious, she had not power to stir, but lay as in the moment of some rapturous death. For when the presence entered into her dream, when the warmth melted upon her lips, she imagined it the kiss which might once have come to her but now was lost for ever. It was pain to open her eyes, but when she did so, and met Stella's silent gaze, she knew that love was offered ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... in a little sitting-room at the top of the house which Chris shared with her cousin. His greeting of Bertrand was effusive, even rapturous. Like his mistress, ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... I make you a promise. If after the first week you want to return from any point, I shall send you back with all speed. But you won't want to, I guarantee you that. Why, my dear sir, think of the route," and Mr. Blair went off into a rapturous description of the marvels of the young province, its scenery, its resources, its climate, its sport, playing upon each string as he marked the effect upon his listener. By the time Mr. Blair's visit was over, the colonel had made ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... lifting his hair, With nostril expanded, and scenting the air Like a mettled young war-horse that tosses his mane, And frettingly champs at the bit and the rein,— Stands eager, exultant, a twelve-year-old boy, His face all aflame with a rapturous joy. ...
— Beechenbrook - A Rhyme of the War • Margaret J. Preston
... said Crinoline, with a rapturous expression which pervaded her whole head and shoulders as well as her face and bust—'very ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... nothing! She saw not the ladies weeping with emotion, not the rapturous glances of the men; she had entirely forgotten all those strange, unknown people; and when the constantly increasing storm of applause finally reminded her of them, it was all over with her inspiration—the words died upon ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... his narrative, breathing hard, as if the memory of the incident described had stirred strong and thrilling feeling in him. Stillwell's smile was rapturous. Madeline leaned toward ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... had not met for years: With grief that was too deep for tears They parted last. He clasped her hand, and in her eyes He sought Love's rapturous surprise. "Oh, Sweet!" he cried, "hast thou come back To say thou lov'st thy lover still?" —Into the starlight, pale and cold, She gazed afar—her hand was chill: "Dost thou remember how we kept Our ardent vigils?—how we kissed?— Take thou these kisses as of old!" ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... The amorous colocynth Yearns for the aloe, faint with rapturous thrills, How can he hymn their throes Knowing, as well he knows, That they are ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... City! Forever Its rapturous praises resound; We fain would behold it— but never A glimpse of its dory is found: We slacken our lips at the tender White breasts of our mothers to hear Of its marvellous beauty and splendor—; We see— but the ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... (however ridiculous) they are so bolstered up in an airy imagination, as to promise themselves an everlasting name, and promise, by their balderdash, at the same time to celebrate the never-dying memory of others. To these rapturous wits self-love and flattery are never-failing attendants; nor do any prove more zealous or constant devotees ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... purpose, are yellow with pollen and laden with honey. They find more, infinitely more, nectar than they can carry away. The days are long, and every hour is full of joy. But already the tide is at the turn. The nightingale's rapturous song has become a lazy twitter; the bird has done with courtship; it has a family in immediate prospect, if not one already screaming for food, and the musician has half lost his passion for music. It will come again next ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... spoonfuls enter'd That mouth on which the gaze Of ten fair girls was centred In rapturous amaze. Soon that august assemblage clear'd The dish; and—as they ate - The stones, all coyly, re-appear'd On ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... not know I was here," he said. "You were so enraptured I would not speak. Once it would have enraptured me too, but I am afraid my rapturous days are past." ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... end of Samow Island in the morning; but the high peaks of Timor were not seen till near noon. The eager eyes of the native whom we had brought with us from Swan River were the first to descry them; and he exclaimed in tones of rapturous astonishment, "Land! big fella! all the same cloud!" I shall not easily forget the amazement of this savage, accustomed as he was to behold the level plains of his native land, when he saw, towering in ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... in November when laboring in my garden a transparent glory shone all around me, and my soul was filled with peace. It was on election day. After working a few hours amid rapturous bliss, we went to the place of voting and cast our ballot along with political men. A shade came over my spirit, and for the remainder of the day it appeared that God had forsaken me and would never smile on me again. He taught me once more that he had chosen ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... heart. Boiling and bubbling in its hidden recess, an ethereal vapor mounted up and mantled those blazing orbs in a dim and dreamy veil. A charmed wand had touched every sense, every power of his being, and held him fast in a rapturous thrall, from which he did not wish to be released. Under the spell of this enchantment, the careless boy had passed into the ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... back to earth with a thud, didn't we? But, was there ever anything like it while it lasted," ended Natalie with a rapturous sigh. ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... reflections were exorcised by the rapturous Jubilate that hope was singing through the sunlit chambers of his happy heart; and when he entered the grounds of "Solitude" they seemed bathed in that soft glamour, that witching "light that never was on ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... what way he was to put to use the strength so gained. The first effect of the sacraments was what one might call the natural one of making more visible the shadows which enveloped his path, as well as stimulating his instinctive efforts to pierce through them. After the rapturous joy which succeeded confession and absolution, a period of desolation and dryness heavier than he had ever known at once set in. Perhaps he had expected the very reverse of this. At all events, it was ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... independence which one desires to believe to have been a leading feature of his character. There may have been great subtlety in the way in which he was tempted; that may be admitted even by the stoutest defenders of the character of George III; but nothing can excuse the eager, rapturous gratitude with which the glittering bait was caught. The whole circumstances are related in the Chatham Correspondence, ii. 146, coupled with Adolphus's ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.01 • Various
... he called the Hope, he set out for Port Jackson, 750 miles distant. There he obtained the assistance of two vessels, beside the Cumberland, a colonial schooner of 29 tons. The inhabitants, unsolicited, sent many presents to the sufferers, who soon hailed the arrival of Flinders with rapturous cheers. ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... Inebriate, taking one parting drink, staggered—fell—rolled over and over down the hill into the abyss, from which flames burst forth, red, green, and blue, and the audience were wild with delight. Three times was Eglantine Mowbray compelled, by the rapturous encores, to roll down that hill into the fiery pit. No wonder that, at the last trial, there rose from the abyss a wild cry of 'I'll be blessed if I do ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... lately lounging away a Roman morning among the gems in Castellani's sparkling rooms in the Via Poli. One of the treasures handed out for rapturous examination was a diamond necklace, just finished for a Russian princess, at the cost of sixty thousand dollars, and a set of pearls for an English lady, who must pay, before she bears her prize homeward, the sum of ten thousand dollars. Castellani junior, a fine, patriotic ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... expedient. A public table was no place for long explanations. Our hearts were already one. I requested an interview, and the next day was appointed, the place the Trotzer garden, where I passed three rapturous hours in her company: thanks to her woman, who was ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... all assembled. There was a general cry of 'Hear, hear!' and 'Bravo Jink!' when Mr Jinkins appeared with Charity on his arm; which became quite rapturous as Mr Gander followed, escorting Mercy, and Mr Pecksniff brought up the rear ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... Emperor!" were repeated. Along a line of two leagues blazed thousands of fires and flames. The Russians wondered what was the cause of this unusual brilliancy, and thought the French were retreating. Napoleon was at first annoyed by this rapturous demonstration, but at last he was touched by it, and passing through a number of bivouacs, all brightly lit, he expressed his gratitude to his soldiers, saying it was the happiest evening of his life. ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... Charlotte and Mademoiselle eluded the eye of vigilance; and Montraville, who had waited their coming with impatience, received them with rapturous and unbounded acknowledgments for their condescension: he had wisely brought Belcour with him to entertain Mademoiselle, while he enjoyed an uninterrupted conversation ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... thrilled the lonely girl to the core; once again her dead self woke, her dead ancestors that would not be shaken off lived and moved in her. She was sucked up into the great wave of passionate faith, and from her lips came, in rapturous surrender to an overmastering impulse, ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... live near the timber, where one could wander for hours, days, ages, in the cool freshness of its shady paths. The sunburned child, with her jug hanging by a strap from the saddle horn, had a swift, rapturous vision of alluring, mossy banks, canopied by rustling leaves, before she was called back to the stern hills of her native Kansas and the sterner necessity of forcing a hundred head of maddened cattle to keep within the confines of an ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... rather than surrender truth, or in order to save another, is positive enjoyment as well as ennobling to the soul. Did you ever receive even a blow meant for another in order to shield that other? Do you not know that there was actual pleasure in the keen pain far beyond the most rapturous thrill of nerve which could be gained from pleasure in the midst of painlessness? Is not the mystic yearning of love expressed in words most purely thus, ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... gratitude to Heaven for this, My one late flower; And such a sense of rapturous bliss Ascends each hour. Dear Heaven, still a gift bestow And grant to me The grace to train my flower to grow For Heaven ...
— Nestlings - A Collection of Poems • Ella Fraser Weller
... world, and warned him that he had but a few moments to execute his plans. He sprang from his couch strong in his purpose to depart, for the fever of adventure was still burning in his veins, and the rapturous looks with which Pepeeta had received his promise to be her companion still made his pulses bound. He hurriedly put a few things into a bundle and ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... struggling is childish,' He continued, seeing her repell his caresses, and endeavour to escape from his grasp; 'No aid is near: Neither heaven or earth shall save you from my embraces. Yet why reject pleasures so sweet, so rapturous? No one observes us: Our loves will be a secret to all the world: Love and opportunity invite your giving loose to your passions. Yield to them, my Antonia! Yield to them, my lovely Girl! Throw your arms thus fondly round me; Join your lips thus closely to mine! Amidst ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... A swaying, quietly rapturous mood came over him. He had of course been a little depressed because they had wanted to arrest him at home as a swindler—although to a certain extent he had found it quite proper. But then after going aboard he had watched, as he and his father had sometimes done, the loading of the ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... "Bier! meine Herrschaften!" roused them from their lethargy. Ices and beer and cherries and peaches successively filled up the weary hours until "the tocsin of the soul, the dinner bell," carried joy to their hearts. I can never forget the rapturous look of anticipation and satisfaction which those stolid middle-class Teutonic countenances wore when "Mittagsessen" was announced. They shook off their normal and habitual torpidity, and cheerfully ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson
... sing of this WAR In rapturous anthems of praise, I know not. Its meanings so jar, Its purpose hath so many ways, The SPHINX never readeth the whole. 'Tis a riddle propounded to me That I am unskillful to tell. The Sphinx by the way-side, I see, Is watching ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the state of the world, that the most obsequious of the slaves of pride, the most rapturous of the gazers upon wealth, the most officious of the whisperers of greatness, are collected from seminaries appropriated to the study of wisdom and of virtue, where it was intended that appetite should ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... the friend of Izaak Walton and the admirer of Herbert, has in his poems some lines which breathe almost as rapturous a passion of spiritual love as anything in Crashaw. Such is his epigram on the ...
— Mysticism in English Literature • Caroline F. E. Spurgeon
... and the stout of limb, Meek maids, and grandsires hoary; Who have sung on the cross their rapturous hymn, As they passed to their doom of glory;— Their radiant fame is never dim, Nor their names ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... assembly burst into a rapturous cry. Even the common Arab attendants who were peeping in at the doors raised their melodious native cry, "Alloe, Fullah! ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... again came across Bernardo, who insisted upon taking me to the opera to hear a new prima donna who had turned everybody's heart at Naples. Rumour had not belied her. Her appearance was greeted with rapturous applause. Bernardo seized my arm; he had recognised in her his Jewish maiden, just as I was about to exclaim, "It is she!"—the lovely child who had preached that Christmas at Ara Coeli. There were endless calls for "Annunciata" when the curtain fell; flowers ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... rapturous admiration of him: "Well, Edward, you have got a brain! I declare, the cook had utterly gone out of my mind. Forgetting that plush bag makes me forget everything. I've got a splendid one—a perfect treasure. She won't do any of the wash, and we'll have to put that ...
— The Albany Depot - A Farce • W. D. Howells
... could scarcely grasp this but when she did she caught the cat to her in a rapturous hug. "Isn't he the very smartest cat? Why, he's self-supporting, isn't he?" And she hugged him again. "If he keeps on earning his board I can send for Solomon. I don't suppose you would want to board a dog, too? I think I'd almost feel as if I were in Heaven to have my ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... rapturous cry, and Dolly, who had before seemed not to have the strength of a child, was sitting up, a white, tremulous figure, with outstretched arms and fluttering breath, and Grif was ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... A long, rapturous sigh was the only answer. It lasted while the queen got down on her knees—just like an every-day, ordinary person—and pulled from under the throne a great carved chest. She threw open the lid wide; and there, ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... the hand she offered me, and helped her to rise. We walked out from the scarlet awning into the glare of the sunshine, she leaning on me, flushing, and so radiantly lovely that the people began to hail her with rapturous shouts of "A Goddess; our Goddess Phorenice." But for me they had no welcoming word. I think the set grimness of my face both scared and ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... clothing, with such boots, and such general equipment," said my uncle, in a state of rapturous delight, "we may hope to ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... light-headed and light-hearted women, who float upon the topmost and frothiest wave of society, herself a glittering bubble. To win admiration was the chief object of her life. The breath of flattery wafted her upward toward her heaven,—that rapturous state which was heaven to her. To be the belle of every reunion where she appeared was a triumph she could not forego; and there were no arts to which she would not stoop to obtain this victory. Madame de ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... my heart, after its dreadful languors, its excruciating agonies, know once more a rapturous emotion? So lately sunk into despondency; so lately pondering on obstacles that rose before me like Alps and menaced eternal opposition to my darling projects; so lately the prey of the deepest anguish: what spell diffuses through my frame ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... was one perfect, rapturous, intoxicating, supreme vision of beauty, and I felt, as I now believe, that at last I had reached a scene on which foreign eyes had never looked. The glories of the tropical forest closed us in with their depth, colour, and redundancy. Here the operations ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... persecuted and almost desponding brethren as one instantaneous, transporting and triumphant event, in which the world was to be judged, the living changed, the dead raised immortal and incorruptible, and the rapturous song of final victory was to be sung over death, ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... A half-rapturous and utterly astonished cry broke from her lips. She stared a moment, then dropped to the moss-covered rock, leaning back on her brown hands and gazing intently. She sat there forgetful of everything except the sketch which stood on the ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... will walk in the front of his confident creditor as if he were the lord of a thousand argosies; the meditating suicide will smile on the arm of a companion as if to breathe in this sunny world were the most ravishing and rapturous bliss. We cling to our stations in our fellow-creatures' minds and memories; we know too well the frail tenure on which we are in this world great and considered personages. Experience makes us shrink from the specious sneer of sympathy; ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... consented, and Billy was the first to hasten into the room. He stood rapturous while Lin buckled the belt round his scanty stomach, and ingeniously buttoned the suspenders outside the accoutrement to retard its immediate descent ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... liverwort, and where the largest and finest may be found. On a dry, gravelly, half-wooded hill-slope the bird's-foot violet grows in great abundance, and is sparse in neighboring districts. This flower, which I never saw in the North, is the most beautiful and showy of all the violets, and calls forth rapturous applause from all persons who visit the woods. It grows in little groups and clusters, and bears a close resemblance to the pansies of the gardens. Its two purple, velvety petals seem to fall over tiny ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... scorn 'em both; ...I have traced the Oxus and the Po, traversed the Riphaean Mountains, and pierced into the inmost deserts of Kilmuc Tartary ...I have followed the ravages of Kuli Chan with rapturous delight. There is a land of wonders; finely depopulated; gloriously laid waste; fields without a hoof to tread 'em; fruits without a hand to gather 'em: with such a catologue of pats, peetles, serpents, scorpions, caterpillars, toads, and putterflies! Oh, 'tis a recreating ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... party but Hemstead had some kind of a revolver; these were accordingly loaded and disposed about the persons of the castaways, and the packing was resumed and finished in the same rapturous spirit as it was begun. The sun was not yet ten degrees above the eastern sea, but the brig was already close in and hove-to, before they had launched the boat and sped, shouting at the oars, towards ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson |
