"Rapt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not help glancing at the wretched inmates. Here was a poor half-naked creature, with a straw crown on his head, and a wooden sceptre in his hand, seated on the ground with all the dignity of a monarch on his throne. There was a mad musician, seemingly rapt in admiration of the notes he was extracting from a child's violin. Here was a terrific figure gnashing his teeth, and howling like a wild beast;—there a lover, with hands clasped together and eyes turned passionately upward. In this cell was a huntsman, who had fractured ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... behind me; but I never conjectured who the rider might be, or troubled my head about him, till, on slackening my pace to ascend a gentle acclivity, or rather, suffering my horse to slacken his pace into a lazy walk—for, rapt in my own reflections, I was letting it jog on as leisurely as it thought proper—I lost ground, and my fellow-traveller overtook me. He accosted me by name, for it was no stranger—it was Mr. Lawrence! Instinctively the fingers of my whip-hand tingled, and grasped their ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... returning home From fruitful meads where they have grazed their fill, No longer in the stalls contain'd, they rush With many a frisk abroad, and, blaring oft, With one consent, all dance their dams around, 500 So they, at sight of me, dissolved in tears Of rapt'rous joy, and each his spirit felt With like affections warm'd as he had reach'd Just then his country, and his city seen, Fair Ithaca, where he was born and rear'd. Then in wing'd accents tender thus they spake. Noble Ulysses! thy appearance fills Our soul with ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... middle compartment—the operating compartment of the ship—was a man with the spiritual face of one who keeps lonely, intense vigils. He sat on a camp-stool, and his business seemed to be not ever to let his rapt gaze wander from several rows of gauges which were screwed to the bulkhead before him. Since I first stepped down into the sub I had spotted him, and had been wondering if his ascetic look was ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... iv), in speaking of prophetic visions, says that "the wise theologian calls that vision divine which is effected by images of things lacking a bodily form through the seer being rapt in divine things." And these images illumined by the Divine light have more of the nature of a mirror than the Divine essence: since in a mirror images are formed from other things, and this cannot be said of God. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... cook-lady, with the rapt expression of a high-priestess. "Allenby told me how you arranged for a hot spoon. It was beautiful of ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... would be the gainer, for he had allotted to her Lord Skye, the British Minister, "a most agreeable man and not married, as I have the misfortune to be;" and on the other side "I have ventured to place Senator Ratcliffe, of Illinois, whose admirable speech I saw you listening to with such rapt attention yesterday. I thought you might like to know him. Did I ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... choir, and chapel, the embowed roof high above, sustained on massive pillars, she uttered a low murmur of 'beautiful!' and there was a heart-felt expression of awe and reverence on her face, a look as of rapt thought, chased away in a moment by his eye, and giving place to quiet pensiveness. After the service they went over the building; but though eager for information, the gravity did not leave her, nor did she speak at once when they ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Kensington; and up-stairs in her room Aunty Nan slept, with that rapt smile on her face and Joscelyn's red roses in her hands. Thus it was that Mrs. William found her, going in the next morning with her breakfast. The sunlight crept over the pillow, lighting up the sweet old face and silver hair, and stealing downward to the faded red roses on her breast. ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Roses bloomed in her cheeks, her eyes were fathomless wells of splendor, an exquisite smile played about her lips; with her nimbus of golden hair she looked a rapt mediaeval saint. Her slender figure swayed towards Landless, and when she spoke her voice was like the tone of a violin, soft, ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... her back and took leave of her with a solemn tenderness which spoke far more than his words how much was now at stake. After his departure Georgiana became rapt in musings. She considered the character of Aylmer, and did it completer justice than at any previous moment. Her heart exulted, while it trembled, at his honorable love,—so pure and lofty that it would accept nothing less than perfection, nor miserably make itself contented with an earthlier ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... nearly as numerous and quite as obstinate as the majority, always refuses to be bound by it. No sooner does some sapient librarian, with the sublime confidence of conviction, get his classification house of cards constructed to his mind, and stands rapt in admiration before it, when there comes along some wise man of the east, and demolishes the fair edifice at a blow, while the architect stands by with a melancholy smile, and sees all his household gods lying ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... better than this. There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hands. I love a broad margin to my life. Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a reverie, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around, or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... longed to sleep in one of those temporary chambers that are set up anywhere in the "compound" of an English bungalow for the accommodation of the bachelor guests whom the house itself is too small to hold; now she was enchanted at the prospect of a whole fortnight under canvas, and watched with rapt interest the driving of the pegs, the raising of the poles, and the careful furnishing of her dwelling. There was a carpet, and armchairs, and tables, and even a small bookcase with a few favourite volumes. To us in civilised life it seems a great deal of trouble to transport a lunch basket ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... rapt in thought that he did not hear a heavy step in the outer office and was unaware that he had a visitor until a voice spoke respectfully from ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... act had begun, that scene in which Adrienne accomplishes her generous sacrifice in furnishing herself the ransom which must deliver her unfaithful lover. The rapt attention that Zibeline paid to this scene, and the slight movements of her head, showed her approval of this disinterested act. Very touching in her invocation to her "old Corneille," Mademoiselle ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... I commenced my narration. As well as I could remember, I related the circumstances that had led up to the present disposition of the property and then proceeded to the actual provisions of the will; to all of which my two friends listened with rapt interest, Thorndyke occasionally stopping me to jot down a memorandum ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... the salute mechanically. His eyes were fastened on the distance. They had a rapt, shining look, and he walked like one in a pleasant dream. A moment afterwards he mounted his horse with the lightness of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... a rapt eye upon her. "You know they say he has eight hundred thousand a year—and spends nothing, except on some rubbishy old books. And his mother has heart-disease and will leave him a lot more. OH, LILY, DO GO ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... listened with an amused smile on his lips. His gaze swept the rapt faces of the dozen or more customers seated at the tables, and he found himself wondering if one of these men was the father of the little girl whose mother had described Hart's Tavern as a "shindy." Was it only yesterday that he had spoken with the barefoot child? An ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... away; and break. But one of the loveliest at last sailed over the Well-House and between the ropes of the swing and among the fruit-laden boughs, miraculously escaping all perils; and over the hedge, where a small wind bore it up and up out of sight. And Martin, who had been looking after it with a rapt gaze, sighed, "Oh!" And six other "Ohs!" echoed his. Then he looked up and saw the six milkmaids standing quite close to him, full of hesitation and longing. So he took six more pipes from his pockets, and soon the air was glistening with bubbles, big ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... go to them," said Shere Ali; he sought refuge amongst them from the thought of those people in the galleries. Ahmed Ismail was well content with the results of his pilgrimage. Shere Ali, as he paced the streets of Delhi with a fierce rapt look in his eyes, had the very aspect of a Ghazi fresh from the hills and bent upon ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... principle of Divine Love on which he rested, and in which all his trust was placed, Jesus endured the utmost extremity of agony and deprivation; and today the world prostrates itself at his pierced feet in rapt adoration. ...
— The Way of Peace • James Allen
... or a novel. She always strove to be a teacher, and the intellectual gifts with which she had been endowed were only valued by her in so far as they enabled her to serve the education and the moral progress of humanity. "The rapt One of the godlike forehead, the heaven-eyed creature," as Wordsworth described Samuel Taylor Coleridge, died in 1834. Coleridge belonged to an order of intellect far higher than that to which Crabbe or Hannah More had any claim. He was indeed a man of genius in all but the very highest meaning ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... no doubt that Mrs. Stowe was wholly possessed by her theme, rapt away like a prophet in a vision, and that, in her feeling at the time, it was written through her quite as much as by her. This idea grew upon her mind in the retrospective light of the tremendous stir the story made in the world, so that ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... saw that if he was to make progress with this silent girl, he must do the talking. He could be both brilliant and amusing when he chose, and he exerted himself as he had not done for some time. He was rewarded by a rapt attention, a humble and profound admiration that would have flattered a demi-god. And in truth he was a demi-god to this girl, with her experience of elderly old-fashioned men and an occasional callow youth encountered on ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... again she seemed rapt in dreamy contemplation of an air-vision. "The natural beauty of Sampaolo is to my thinking unparalleled. At a distance, as your ship approaches it, Sampaolo lies on the horizon like a beautiful soft cloud, all vague rose-colours ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... the flashing of the diamond buckles upon her shoes, the faint perfume from her clothes, the soft touch of her ermine as she swept by—all these things were indeed strange to him. His eyes followed her with rapt interest as she approached ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sacred page, How Abram was the friend of God on high; Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage With Amalek's ungracious progeny; Or how the royal bard did groaning lie Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire; Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry; Or rapt Isaiah's wild seraphic fire; Or other holy seers that tune the ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... ceiling, Where, trancing the rapt spirit's feeling, And God himself to man revealing, The harmonious spheres Make music, though unheard their pealing ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... Mr. Mackintosh did not notice a subtle change of expression. That latter gentleman's rapt gaze was wholly absorbed by the half-tumblerful he held in mid air. But only for a moment; the next, he was smacking his lips. "We'll have a bite to eat and then go," he now said more cheerfully. "Ready ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... my fancy fill, Sweet soothing dreams of verse and rhyme, That mark the poet's happy skill, And bid him live to latest time, Each rising thought With music fraught, All full, all flowing, nothing wanting, All harmonious, all enchanting, Oh thus, in rapt delights I say, Thus let ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... in almost rapt entrancement, and soon stood in the old cemetery beside the moss-grown memorial stones which had stood amid the flight of over two centuries, and emotions deep and strange struggled in my breast, sealed by that golden, sacred silence ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... Later on a wise man, guided by special portents, recognised him as the long-expected and divinely appointed light-bringer and life-giver of mankind. When but a youth he was lost for a time and was found by his father in the midst of a circle of holy men, sunk in rapt contemplation of the great mystery of existence. The parallel between these legends and the Christian version of the marvels attending the birth of Jesus is so close as to preclude the possibility of its being altogether accidental. There must have been a connection somewhere, and ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... Juan spoke very little during the meal. Mr Laffan, however, conversed for all the party; rattling away, as he could do when he had had a glass or two of good wine to raise his spirits, and listening, apparently with rapt attention, to Uncle Richard's sea stories and jokes, though he had heard them fifty times before. Dona Maria, too, spoke English very fairly, having learned it from her husband; and Juan could understand what was said, though he was bashful ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... ear; 'Charles! thy spirit shall now issue from thy body; thou shalt go and behold the judgments of God; they shall serve thee only as presages, and thy spirit shall again return shortly afterwards.' Instantly was my spirit rapt, and he who bore me away was a being of the most splendid whiteness. He put into my hand a ball of thread, which shed a blaze of light, such as the comet darts when it is apparent. He divided it, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... make some biscuit for supper, mother?" asked Rose Ellen, coming out of her rapt contemplation of the goldenrod that Gray condescended to call rare, he to whom all things ...
— "Some Say" - Neighbours in Cyrus • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... cloth. In its depths, framed in a mat of odorous double violets, stood the photograph of the face of a handsome man of forty—a face crowned with clustering black locks, from beneath which a pair of large, mournful eyes looked out with something like religious fervor in their rapt gaze. It was the face of ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... neared Monte Carlo—the hour was roseate and matutinal—Henry had observed Tom staring at the scenery through the window, his coffee untasted, and tears in his rapt eyes. 'What's up?' Henry had innocently inquired. Tom turned on him fiercely. 'Silly ass!' Tom growled with scathing contempt. 'Can't you feel how beautiful it ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... gaming was less from the joy of winning than the philosophical complacency with which he feasted on the emotions of those who lost; always serene, and, except in debauch, always passionless,—Majendie, tracing the experiments of science in the agonies of some tortured dog, could not be more rapt in the science, and more indifferent to the dog, than Lord Lilburne, ruining a victim, in the analysis of human passions,—stoical in the writhings of the wretch whom he tranquilly dissected. He wished to win money of Vaudemont—to ruin this ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... took a pitcher with a narrow neck at the top, but spreading at the bottom. Arrived at the meeting-house, she placed it under the seat. The exercises of the day soon commenced, and the old lady became wholly rapt in her devotional feelings. Though no philosopher, she knew by practice—as many church-goers seem to have learned—that she could receive and 'inwardly digest' the sermon by shutting her eyes, and opening her mouth, ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... Brighton boys were long to remember was that on which they first watched a new arrival to the airdrome, an experienced flier, loop the loop and nose-dive on one of the fast chasers. The whirling, darting plane seemed so completely at the mercy of the pilot that the boys were rapt in silent wonder. That exhibition of what the birdmen of to-day call real flying was a revelation ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... stood there, almost like two children, fascinated by the sight of the theater. Charmian was rapt. For a moment she forgot the passers-by, the gliding motor-cars, the noises of the city, even herself. She was giving herself imaginatively to fate, not as herself, but merely as a human life. She was feeling ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... trees no longer hiding it, I looked down the vale, which was the gate of Tuscany. There—high, jagged, rapt into the sky—stood such a group of mountains as men dream of in good dreams, or see in the works of painters when old age permits them revelations. Their height was evident from the faint mist and grey of their hues; their outline was tumultuous, yet balanced; full of accident and poise. ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... frothing green and white-streaked among mighty boulders in the gorge below. Then as we swung giddily over a gossamer-like timber bridge, the walls of quartz and blue grit fell back on either hand; and, for the first time, I gazed in rapt silence upon the cold unsullied whiteness of eternal snow, undefiled from the beginning by any foot of man. It stretched in a glimmering saw-edge high above us athwart the brightening east, and, below, smooth-scarped ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... other apparatus connected with the art-gallery and had the wireless receiver over his head. He was listening with rapt attention, talking while ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... Susy Lansing at one of the Rue de la Paix openings, where rows of ladies wan with heat and emotion sat for hours in rapt attention while spectral apparitions in incredible raiment tottered endlessly ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... Joanna is the most noble being in tragedy. We figure her with her slender lovely form, her mild but spirit-speaking countenance; 'beautiful and terrible;' bearing the banner of the Virgin before the hosts of her country; travelling in the strength of a rapt soul; irresistible by faith; 'the lowly herdsmaid,' greater in the grandeur of her simple spirit than the kings and queens of this world. Yet her breast is not entirely insensible to human feeling, nor her faith never liable to waver. When that inexorable vengeance, ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... talking with her, and unconsciously attracting the attention of their fellow-voyagers, and leading them to believe that this handsome young man, speaking so earnestly in such low tones to his companion, and the lovely youthful widow, who was listening to him with such rapt attention, were a pair of ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... leaning motionless against the window, drinking in with rapt attention the notes which at that moment came in a torrent ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... of death" on the desert plains of Ethiopia? And while thou hast heard the lady president plead so eloquently for those nations, who, groaning in their self-forged chains, bow to the great Moloch of superstition and idolatry, as to "draw tears of blood," as it were, from the eyes of her rapt and devoted listeners, hast ever marked a pale, trembling child of want totter to the door, and ask for the "crumbs that fall" from this humane society's tea-table, and heard the answer, "Begone! this is a benevolent ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... resplendent official obeyed. The long cushion, rapt from another compartment, was placed on the knees of the quartette, and the game began. The ticket-collector examined the tickets of Brindley and Edward Henry, and somehow failed to notice that they were of the wrong colour. And at this proof of their ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... the silence held save for the tempest of sobs that were not unhappy and that gradually subsided, but after a little the rapt happiness on the man's face became clouded under a thought that carried a heavy burden of anxiety and he seemed groping for words that were needed ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... a kingdom of mystery, Rapt from this weariful world to see Magic sights in the yellow glare, Breathing delight in the gas-lit air, Careless of sorrow, of grief or pain, Two by two, again and again, Strephon and Chloe together move, Walking ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... Faery Harp. And in it flew, And, perching on the kitchen table, sang Jocund and jubilant, with a sound Of those gay, golden-vowered madrigals The shy thrush at mid-May Flutes from wet orchards flushed with the triumphing dawn; Or blackbirds rioting as they listened still, In old-world woodlands rapt with an old-world spring, For Pan's own whistle, savage and rich and lewd, And mocked him ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... would ever have a chance of being personally presented to Caesar. They had been awestruck when I told them of their amazing good fortune. They had said almost nothing. But I knew that they were, all nine of them, as nearly rapt into ecstasy as Sabine farmers could be at the prospect of personally saluting Caesar in his Palace, in his Audience Hall on his throne. I had been too inert to worry about anything, but I almost worried at the thought ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... attention to him as "rapt," Macbeth still goes on talking to himself, for at length he ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... for a long while. The old man gazed into the water and mumbled something to himself, while Janina was rapt in thought. ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... you persisted in seeing her that night," I said, watching the rapt expression of his face. He looked up quickly, became conscious of my scrutiny, and dropped his eyes again, smiled feebly, and drawing a circle in the ashes with ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... sweet dingle which was his home—forsaken by the nightingale—is regarded by birds as men regard a haunted house; for that at still summer midnight, when other thrushes sleep, a shadowy form, more like a skeleton leaf than a living bird, swings upon the tall tree-tops where he sat of old, and, rapt in a happy ecstasy, sings a song more sweet and joyous than ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... cleep The Anuile of my Sword, and do contest As hotly, and as Nobly with thy Loue, As euer in Ambitious strength, I did Contend against thy Valour. Know thou first, I lou'd the Maid I married: neuer man Sigh'd truer breath. But that I see thee heere Thou Noble thing, more dances my rapt heart, Then when I first my wedded Mistris saw Bestride my Threshold. Why, thou Mars I tell thee, We haue a Power on foote: and I had purpose Once more to hew thy Target from thy Brawne, Or loose mine ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... should less have liked the annoying "how d'ye," of a casual rencontre. One could not even give or receive the exciting "is it not charming," which Rousseau talks of, for if it were uttered, it could not be heard, or, if heard, would fall most earthly dull on the spirit, when rapt by the magic of such a scene. A look, or the silent pressure of the arm, is all the interchange of feeling that such a scene allows, and in the midst of my terror and my pleasure, I wished for the arm and the eye of some few from the ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... he held his congregation. That was evident. Rows of rapt faces gazed up at him, as he leaned over the edge of the pulpit, or stood upright with his hands pressed palm downward upon it. But it seemed to Malling that he held them rather because of his reputation, because of what they confidently expected of him, ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... I'll go in and see." James threw the door open. Old Mr. Bowdoin was standing, still puffing, in front of the fire, evidently quite breathless. In the corner by the window, too rapt to notice her father's entrance, sat Miss Abby, intently gazing into a round glass crystal that, with a carved ebony frame, formed one of the Oriental ornaments ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... of hard travail I raised a temple. It had no doors or windows, its walls were thickly built with massive stones. I forgot all else, I shunned all the world, I gazed in rapt contemplation at the image I had set upon the altar. It was always night inside, and lit by the lamps of perfumed oil. The ceaseless smoke of incense wound my heart in its heavy coils. Sleepless, ...
— The Gardener • Rabindranath Tagore
... The rapt look faded from the strained face, leaving it downcast. "I'm afeared, then, I won't be able to claim that there ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... and the gifted being whose powers I had envied was there, the centre of attraction and the observed of all observers. He read to those assembled from a book; and what he read flashed with a brightness that was dazzling. All listened in the most rapt attention, and, by the power of what the gifted one read, soared now, in thought, among the stars, spread their wings among the swift-moving tempest, or descended into the unknown depths of the earth. As for myself, my mind seemed endowed with new faculties, and to rise almost into the power ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... had speculated in the scholarship of the lad, and watched him with rapt attention, as he would anything else that ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... and I became very good friends. Often when she had nothing to do we would wander along the river through the forests, always, I noticed, by a route which took us away from the village. Each day I discovered some new accomplishment. Sometimes I would read Heine or Goethe to her, and she would grow rapt and silent. In the midst of some murmurous stanza I would suddenly stop, only to see her start and look at me as though I had committed a sacrilege, in that I had spoiled some dream of hers. Then again I myself would become lost ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... and workmanship, these windows seemed to us most beautiful, especially those on the right-hand side through which the light streamed red, yellow and blue from the jewelled panes. The window representing the crowning of Charles VII at Rheims is especially rich in color. Joan, with a rapt ecstatic expression on her face, is here to see her King crowned and with her is the banner that she loved even more than her mystic sword. Below are inscribed her own simple words, "It has been with him in the suffering, it is right that it should be with him in the glory." ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... throbbing heart at the door of Claybank Academy, and in a moment more he had slipped into a back seat of the crowded room, where a young orator was ringing Poe's "Bells" through all the varying cadences of his changing voice to a rapt audience of relations and friends. Here unobserved Ezra hoped to recover his self-possession, remove the beads of perspiration one by one from his brow with a corner of his neatly folded handkerchief, and perhaps from this vantage-ground ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... not this,' and of the other, 'that, I am.' Wonderful encounter of thoughts across the distance of ages and the distance of races! The meditation of this young French soldier, in face of the enemy who is to attack on the morrow, resumes the strange ecstasy in which was rapt the warrior of the Bhagavad Gita between two armies coming to the grapple. He, too, sees the turbulence of mankind as a dream that seems to veil the higher order and the Divine unity. He, too, puts his faith in that 'which knows neither ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... to where you were before, only leaving you with a greater burden of worry and expense," she continued, unheeding. "I was rapt, I was deadened to selfish forgetfulness by the sweet music of those dreams. I am awake now, and I tell you that you must not do it, that I shall never permit you to ruin your life by assuming a load which ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... will not be careless of form, but the passion that is in him will make simple words burn and live; never will he in the mode of the time go wide of the truth to make a picturesque phrase; his mind rapt on the thing will fix on the true word; his heart warm with the battle will fashion more beautiful forms than you, O detached and dainty artist; his soul full of music and adventure will scale those heights it is your fate to dream of but not your fortune to possess. Yet, you, too, ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... needed to confirm Dave Patton in his resolve, it was this. From the rapt child his eyes turned and met his ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... lasted a much longer time than the investigation by Herr Grosse. He pursued it in perfect silence. When he had done he rose without a word, and left Lucilla as he had found her, rapt in the trance of her own happiness—thinking, thinking, thinking of the time when she should open her eyes in the ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... of his testimony, as Basil was rapt in devotion, with hands and face uplifted to the great silent stars, an Angel, clothed in silver and the blue-green of the night, stood in front of him in the air, and said: "Descend from thy pillar, ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... provide Providence with a suitable abode. For a long while he sought in vain, and could find no place that was really like Jerusalem, but at last, towards the end of 1491, he came to Varallo alone, and had hardly got there before he felt himself rapt into an ecstasy, in the which he was drawn towards the Sacro Monte; when he got up to the plain on the top of the mountain which was then called "La Parete," perceiving at once its marvellous resemblance ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... was saying to Miss Unity, who had taken a seat near him. He stood before her with upraised finger, while she, fearful of losing a word, neglected her tea and refused any kind of food, gazing at him with rapt attention. ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... next day on what proved to be the most disagreeable stage of my illness. McMeekin called on me in the morning. He performed some silly tricks with a stethoscope and felt my pulse with an air of rapt attention which did not in the least deceive me. Then he intimated that I might sit up for an hour or two after luncheon. The way he made this announcement was irritating enough. Instead of saying straightforwardly, "You can get out of bed if ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... speak. She took his silence and his rapt gaze on the little spray of green as token of ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... paused a moment just inside the open door, and stared; he looked about him as though the incredible thing had really happened at last. A rapt expression passed over his face, and his eyes seemed fixed upon something radiant that hung upon the air. He sighed, and caught his breath. His heart grew amazingly light within him. Every thought and feeling that made ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... persons and other living things. The desire is in its essence one for intercourse, for communion, for the interchange of thoughts, of feelings, of experiences. The normal child is, as we all know, an inveterate chatterbox; but he is also a rapt listener. If he desires, as he certainly does, to tell others about himself, he desires, in no less a degree, to hear about others, either from themselves, or from those who are best able to tell him about them. The balance between the two desires is well maintained by Nature; ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... authority, antiquity, and all great mark, is, through their insolence, become the lowest scorn of the age; and those men subject to the petulancy of every vernaculous orator, that were wont to be the care of kings and happiest monarchs. This it is that hath not only rapt me to present indignation, but made me studious heretofore, and by all my actions, to stand off from them; which may most appear in this my latest work, which you, most learned Arbitresses, have seen, judged, and to my crown, ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... tear his eyes from the rapt, white face of the girl at that instant, and look at the sand, he did not know. But he seemed compelled to look. Something moved, close to Sanda's feet; something thin and long and very flat, like a piece of rope pulled ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... Both listened with rapt attention; but of the two Angela was the more eager listener. She several times interrupted me with requests for information as to matters which even among European children are of common knowledge, for, though the abbe was a man of high learning and she an apt pupil, her experience of ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... moment she did not answer: still sitting, with that strange, rapt, straining gaze, and with an unconscious, mechanical motion, rolling the little sand pebbles down the ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... it seemed to the maid that she had never seen anything quite so exquisite. A gold case, richly set with brilliants, encompassed the portrait of a girl of very positive beauty. After a rapt dwelling on the portrait for some minutes, further examination revealed the letters W. H. J. B. interlaced on ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... she thought a flame Sprang from her feet, when looking, startled, down, She saw the glory of the rising sun Touching the pinnacle of sparkling ice On which she stood. Silent and rapt she gazed While thousand golden flames on thousand spires Were low and lower lit; and here and there Some broad plain glimmered into sudden white— And frozen cataracts which, in daring leaps Midway between vast depths were holden tight, Gleamed out like streams of ...
— The Arctic Queen • Unknown
... before beginning his tall form stood in commanding attitude on the rostrum, the impressiveness of his theme and the significance of the occasion reflected in his thoughtful and earnest features. The spell of the hour was visibly upon him; and holding his audience in rapt attention, he closed in a brilliant peroration with an appeal to the people to join the Republican ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... Sir, you seem rapt; And yet the time is not akin to thought. 450 These old walls will be noisy soon. The baron, Or count (or whatsoe'er this half drowned noble May be), for whom this desolate village and Its lone inhabitants show more respect Than did ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... up from a bed of vapors, and seemed fairly to dissolve with tenderness and warmth. For an hour or two the air was perfectly motionless, and full of low, humming, awakening sounds. The naked trees had a rapt, expectant look. From some unreclaimed common near by came the first strain of the song sparrow; so homely, because so old and familiar, yet so inexpressibly pleasing. Presently a full chorus of voices arose, tender, musical, half suppressed, but ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... many trials and many approximations, the result is at last achieved. There comes a day at last, when, while the wonted Marriage Chorus goes forth from universal Lineland, the three far-off Lovers suddenly find themselves in exact harmony, and, before they are awake, the wedded Triplet is rapt vocally into a duplicate embrace; and Nature rejoices over one more marriage ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... that on this life's rough sea Loves t' have his sail filled with a lusty wind, Even till his sailyards tremble, his masts crack, And his rapt ship run on her side so low That she drinks water, and her ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... and ethical argument. Only once, when he accused Mr. BONAR LAW of holding the same doctrine as Herr BETHMANN-HOLLWEG, did he lose, for a moment, the sympathy of his audience. But he soon recovered himself, and thereafter held the House rapt ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various
... an art store in Boston, a crowd of persons stood gazing intently upon a famous piece of statuary. The red curtains were drawn aside, and the white marble seemed almost to speak. A group of girls stood together, and looked on in rapt admiration. One of them said, "Just to think that ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... riotous escapades, he was careful to avoid the use of any offensive epithet. He phrased his narrative in choice imaginative language, as if paying due regard to the presence of the young girls, who, like their elders, including Marcolina, listened with rapt attention. The hour grew late, and Amalia sent her daughters to bed. They all kissed Casanova a tender good-night, Teresina behaving exactly like her sisters. He made them promise that they would soon come with their father and mother to visit him in Venice. When they had gone, he spoke with less ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... with ribbon all her copybooks, and the letters of her girl-friends, shut up all the drawers, watered the flowers and caressed every blossom with her hand. All this she did without haste, noiselessly, with a kind of rapt and gentle solicitude on her face. She topped at last in the middle of the room, slowly looked around, and going up to the table above which the crucifix was hanging, she fell on her knees, dropped her head on to her clasped hands and ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... thus by far To once have felt the barriers unbar, And known the moment in a rapt surprise ...
— The Rose-Jar • Thomas S. (Thomas Samuel) Jones
... Mr. Hall said Gawd.) "I met you the other night at your uncle's. The young man whose life we then despaired of has recovered." And with more of this, Mr. Hall told Julia's secret, while Mrs. Anderson, between her anger and her rapt condition of mind, seemed ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston |
