"Ecstasy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had undergone a material change. If king Mithradates had once come forward as the liberator of the Hellenes, if he had introduced his rule with the recognition of civic independence and with remission of taxes, they had after this brief ecstasy been but too rapidly and too bitterly undeceived. He had very soon emerged in his true character, and had begun to exercise a despotism far surpassing the tyranny of the Roman governors—a despotism which drove even the patient ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... were rolled together and lit into flame as the darkness of night came on. These great fires were to light the way for the Saviour when He should come. Men rolled their bodies through the forests in a kind of pagan ecstasy of self-sacrifice to meet Him. So credulous are the negroes of the Black Belt, says a resident white lawyer, that if a fellow with a wig of long hair and a glib tongue should appear among them and say ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 4, April 1896 • Various
... to the other. She was conscious of something which touched the stars—something which all her life she had missed, something which belongs to youth and ecstasy. ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... 1888, as I said before, Mr. Gallivant's mustaches began to curl. They became elastic. They twisted themselves this way and that in graceful good-humor. They twined themselves lovingly about his nose and danced in constant ecstasy. Mr. Gallivant's office in the Equitable Building saw less and less of him. He left his lodgings in Harlem and took a suite of large and beautiful apartments in a fashionable hotel. Every afternoon he drove ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... accompanying it with a flourish of defiance on his trumpet to the whole council, ending with a significant and nasal twang full in the face of Captain Partridge, who nearly jumped out of his skin in an ecstasy of astonishment. ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... liberty and an outlook into realities such as the open road and nature can but seldom give. But for my part, I can no more follow him further than I can write down the passion of the lover and the ecstasy of the musician. If these things could be said in words, they would have been said long ago. But at least it was along this path of perception that Frank went—a path that but continued the way along which he had come with such ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... that Prince Ernest opened his door, just as she came up to it, to let out the smoke, and then began to walk up and down, playing softly on his lute. Sidonia stood still for a few minutes with her eyes thrown up in ecstasy, and then passed on; but the Prince stepped to the door, and ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... brethren, is, as an abiding habit, law, and at the same time, a gift of the Gospel, and also finally exhausts it. This quiet, peaceful element was at the beginning strong and vigorous, even in those who lived in the world of ecstasy and expected the world to come. One may be named for all, Paul. He who wrote 1 Cor. XIII. and Rom. VIII. should not, in spite of all that he has said elsewhere, be called upon to witness that the nature of the Gospel is exhausted in its world-renouncing, ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... solitary walk in the evening, and, to divert his melancholy, was flinging the stones that lay in his path against each other, he happened to break a tolerably large one, and out of it jumped a toad. The moment John saw the ugly animal, he caught him up in ecstasy, and put him into his pocket and ran home, crying, "Now I have her! I have my Elizabeth! Now you shall catch it, you little mischievous rascals!" And on getting home he put the toad into a costly silver casket, as if it was the ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... the mountain behind, but was first received in a broad basin full of sacred fish and reflecting a little temple of Maheshwara and one of Surya the Sun. Here in this basin the water lay pure and still as an ecstasy, and beside it was musing the young Brahman priest who served the temple. Since I had joined Vanna I had begun with her help to study a little Hindustani, and with an aptitude for language could understand here and there. I caught a word or two ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... wonderful!" Estelle said ecstatically. Lionel said nothing. He looked slightly amazed. It seemed so funny that Winn, who hadn't much use for ecstasy, should have married a ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... glowing in her large dark eyes, just a suspicion of speech on her dainty red lips, her figure, fair and slim crowned with youth like a blossoming creeper, quickly uplifted in her graceful tilting gait, a dazzling flash of pain and craving and ecstasy, a smile and a glance and a blaze of jewels and silk, and she melted away. A wild glist of wind, laden with all the fragrance of hills and woods, would put out my light, and I would fling aside my dress and lie down on my bed, ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... a chair, kicking out his legs in an ecstasy of satisfaction. But the ladies are not certain that he is the little innocent they have hitherto thought him. The advent of MR. COADE and MR. PURDIE presently adds to their misgivings. MR. COADE is old, a sweet pippin of a man with a gentle smile for all; he must have suffered ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie
... That tale to college boys, whose lonely dreams Have shaped Iseult of Ireland, Helen of Troy, As end of heart's desire—and, lacking these, Clasp chorus-Aphrodites. But I know That from the topmost peak of ecstasy Falls a straight precipice; half-times the foot Misses the peak—but never mortal step Has missed the gulf beyond it. And I see Where, in night's gorgeous dome, to-morrow waits With cold insistence. Me you cannot lure With this poor opiate. And I beg of you Not ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... fatal but more glorious than many that have made countless widows and orphans, and, perhaps, one hero. Little round doll-like things, in lace and ribbons, were thumping second-door windows with their tiny hands, and crowing with ecstasy at the sight of the flaky shower. "Baked-tater" cans and "roasted-apple" saucepan lids were sputtering and frizzing in impotent rage as they waged puny war with the congealed element. Hackney charioteers sat on their boxes warped and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... she exclaimed, sinking into the easy chair placed for her accommodation, and lifting up her hands in a tragic ecstasy—"Is it true—true, that you are going to leave us? I cannot believe it; it is so absurd—so ridiculous—the idea of your going to Canada. Do tell me that I am misinformed; that it is one of old Kitson's idle pieces of gossip; ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... pause abruptly, in the midst of his interminable pacing, in order to watch her in her maddest antics. The sight is very pleasant to him, for his eyes glisten and a faint glow seems to irradiate his face and impart to it a hint of ecstasy. The Elsinore has a snug place in his heart, I am confident. He calls her behaviour admirable, and at such times will repeat to me that it was he who saw to ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... tea-rose is an exotic of exotics, and the daintiest of fine ladies bears it in her jewelled fingers to the opera, and there imbues it with the languid ecstasy of an Italian melody. The aroma, floating round those creamy buds, vibrates to the impassioned agony of artistic luxury—to the pleasurable pain that dies away in rippling ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... help it. She was crazy with delight over her little friend's good fortune, so she took several steps forward and cried in an ecstasy, 'O Brownie, ...
— Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... for the night, and thinking of the things she would ask from this garden. She and Peter had earned, and they would demand, the sweetest flowers, the most luscious fruits. Suddenly Gladys stretched wide her arms in an ecstasy of realization. "We're a Success, Peter! We're a Success! We'll have money and all the lovely things it will buy! Do you realize, Peter, what a hit ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... about it, but I checked myself, and merely smiled to myself. As I was going to bed, I rotated—I don't know why—three times on one leg, pomaded my hair, got into bed, and slept like a top all night. Before morning I woke up for an instant, raised my head, looked round me in ecstasy, and fell asleep again. ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... the realisation of how much he cared—must care, to have striven so hard to hide and fight it down—she was shaken with a shy, quivering ecstasy, a hesitant sweetness of need and longing that pulsed through every nerve of her. The thought of the morrow almost frightened her. He would come to-morrow—come to tell her all that he had left unsaid, to claim ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... reputation that toward evening a bevy of ladies—among them the queen mother—tripped down the palace stairs to feast their eyes upon the sight of the uncovered dead.[1025] Indeed, the king, the queen mother, and their intimate friends seemed to be in an ecstasy of joy. They indulged in boisterous laughter[1026] as the successive reports of the municipal authorities, from hour to hour, brought in tidings of the extent of the massacre.[1027] "The war is now ended in reality," they were ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... In some mysterious way, she seemed set free from bondage. Unsuspected fetters loosened; she had a sense of largeness, of freedom which she had never known before. She was quivering in an ecstasy of emotion when the ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... early. Let's wait a while," replied Ethel Blue, so they lay still for another hour in spite of increasing sounds of ecstasy from Dicky. After all they decided to follow the usual family custom and take their stockings into the living room before breakfast instead of going to Katharine's room. As they passed her door they knocked on it and begged ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... The old pirate lay rigid. Dolores, having heard so much, yet so little, hovered over the bed in an ecstasy of unsatisfied hunger for more; Milo stood by, a magnificent statue in living bronze, his eyes set in a steady blaze on the face of his master. Once more the blue lips moved. Dolores darted down with eager ear, her hands clasped ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... Baile-Cuinn (the Ecstasy of Conn, a rhapsody so called) dixit: "A Tailcend shall come who will found cemeteries, make cells new, and pointed music-houses, with conical caps [bencopar], and have princes bearing croziers." "When these signs shall come," ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... air in vain he likes it not. His ear no longer drinks the rich melody of music; it longs for the trumpet's clangor, and the cannon's roar. Even the prattle of his babes, once so sweet, no longer affects him; and the angel smile of his wife, which hitherto touched his bosom with ecstasy so unspeakable, is now unfelt and unseen. Greater objects have taken possession of his soul. His imagination has been dazzled by visions of diadems, and stars, and garters, and titles of nobility. He has been taught to burn with restless emulation at the names of ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... of life," he muttered. Rachel staring at him nodded her head in echo. They were standing motionless as if they had forgotten how to live. Beyond this there were no gestures to make, nowhere to go. They had come to a horizon—an end. Here was ecstasy. What else? Nothing. Everything, here. Sky and night and snow had fallen about their heads in an ending. They stood as if clinging to themselves. Dorn heard a ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... eternally grateful I am to you!" cried the lady, in an ecstasy; "my poor, dear husband will be so rejoiced. I wish I had ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... stopped, Andrews jumped off, clasped our hands in ecstasy, congratulating us that our difficulties were now all over; that we had the enemy at such a disadvantage that he could not harm us, and exhibited every sign of joy. Said he, "Only one more train to pass, and then we will put our engine to ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... and ever more that we need if we are to undo the work of Hate, if we are to add to the gaiety and splendour of life, to the sum of human achievement, to the aspiration of human ecstasy. The things that fill men and women with beauty and exhilaration, and spur them to actions beyond themselves, are the things that are now needed. The entire intrinsic purification of the soul, it was held by the great Spanish Jesuit theologian, Suarez, takes place at the moment ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... now, in bright Provencal bowers, A minstrel-knight am I: A gentle bosom on my own Throbs back its ecstasy; A cheek, as fair as the almond flowers, Thrills to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... ecstasy of happiness in the voice gave place to accents of dismay as some horror of fear ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... one cannot but feel he might have done had he been properly helped. Besides, the world would have been free from the reproach of accepting the fruits of his bright genius while condemning the worker to a life of misery, relieved only by the beauty of his own thoughts and the ecstasy awakened in him by the harmony and ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... later the vines parted and a recumbent form was borne gently down the mountain; William Henry Thomas, that was, his new name wrapped in soft leaves over which his wife sobbed in tender ecstasy. ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... union differs from rapture, or from transport, or from flight of the spirit, as they speak, or from a trance, which are all one. [1] I mean, that all these are only different names for that one and the same thing, which is also called ecstasy. [2] It is more excellent than union, the fruits of it are much greater, and its other operations more manifold; for union is uniform in the beginning, the middle, and the end, and is so also interiorly. But as raptures have ends of a much higher kind, ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... closing behind, with the surge and "swish" of a gentle surf. They smelled sweet and they felt soft, and Cousin Molly Belle let Bud down from her shoulder, and making a hammock of her arms, swung him back and forth through the pliant stems until he choked with ecstasy. ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... measureless faith in his brother and his passion for dreams, the mad arrogance of the declaration was lost. The ecstasy with which Ham spoke tinged the promise with a fire of conviction—so ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... if it were yesterday Nick Long telling me with bubbling ecstasy, shortly after he was engaged, that his lady-love had a clear, analytical mind, almost like a man's. "No nonsense about her," he said. "She sees things just as they are." I rather got the impression at the time that he intended ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... the effects obtained by movement in the mass were almost intoxicating. The first entrance of the masses gave a sense of dumb and patient force that was moving in the extreme, and the frenzied delight of the dancing crowd at the victory of the French communards stirred one to ecstasy. The pageant lasted for five hours or more, and was as exhausting emotionally as the Passion Play is said to be. I had the vision of a great period of Communist art, more especially of such open-air spectacles, which should have the grandeur and scope and eternal meaning ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... bright sunshine and the large freedom of the streets quickly intoxicated Sophia—intoxicated her, that is to say, in quite a physical sense. She was almost drunk, with the heady savour of life itself. A mild ecstasy of well-being overcame her. She saw the flat as a horrible, vile prison, and blamed herself for not leaving it sooner and oftener. The air was medicine, for body and mind too. Her perspective was instantly corrected. ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... all; that it did not really matter what happened: yet something inside her said, "It's the most important thing in the world, to win, to win, to make all these people envy you. It isn't the money, it's the joy, the triumph, the ecstasy." ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... care where we went, as long as Grace went with me, and when he ensconced us under an oaken canopy among the ancient carved stalls I longed that the service might last a century, while Grace's quiet "Thank you, I am so interested," filled me with ecstasy. ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... Aurelia in such a place, the seeming impossibility of relieving her, and his unspeakable eagerness to contrive some scheme for profiting by the interesting discovery he had made, concurred in brewing up a second ecstasy, during which he acted a thousand extravagances, which it was well for him the attendants did not observe. Perhaps it was well for the servant that he did not enter while the paroxysm prevailed. Had this been the ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... music of his sleeping hours. Day hath another—'tis a melody He trips to, made by the assembled flowers, And light and fragrance laughing 'mid the bowers, And ripeness busy with the acorn-tree. Such strains, perhaps, as filled with mute amaze— The silent music of Earth's ecstasy— The Satyr's soul, the Faun of ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... things and the virtues themselves behind; but the sagacity and exigencies of the school would not fail to arrange the steps in this progress—the end of which was unattainable except, perhaps, in a momentary ecstasy—so that the obvious duties of men would continue, for the nonce, to be imposed upon them. The chief difference made in morals would be only this: that the positive occasions and sanctions of good conduct would no longer be mentioned with respect, but the imagination would be invited to ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... are aunties to get up, if you chatter so? rather help us to dress, that we may see the wonderful things too.' We found our two mothers in the pretty drawing room. Three large windows looked out upon the busy town and blue sea below. The little mother was out in the balcony, in a perfect ecstasy of delight. A call to breakfast was obeyed, though we could hardly eat, the chicks jumping up every minute to look at something new and strange going on below, and the aunties quite wishing that they might ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... MRS. ROBERTS, in an ecstasy of satisfaction: 'Willis! Oh, you've come in time to see him just as he is. Look at him, Willis!' In the excess of her emotion she twitches her husband about, and with his arm fast in her clutch, presents him in the disadvantageous ...
— The Garotters • William D. Howells
... rejoice in the event; and when the angel of Judea could not prevail in behalf of the people committed to his charge, because the angel of Persia opposed it, he only told the story at the command of God, and was as content, and worshipped with as great an ecstasy in his proportion, as the prevailing spirit. Do thou so likewise: keep the station where God hath placed you, and you shall never long for things without, but sit at home, feasting upon the Divine Providence and thy own reason, by which ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... their dinners, either that they might buy paper and goose-quills or because they could not get anything to eat; Antiquity scowled sulkily out of its grave to see itself outdone, while even Posterity stood mute, gazing in gaping ecstasy of retrospection ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... all the power of an angel, is a matter not of history, but of direct knowledge and immediate recollection. Nothing, indeed, was ever witnessed in any country similar to it. Whereever it went, joy, acclamation, ecstasy accompanied it; together with a sense of moral liberty, of perfect freedom from the restraint, as it were, of some familiar devil, that had kept its victims in its damnable bondage. Those who had sunk exhausted before the terrible Molpch of Intemperance, and given themselves over ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... succeed in his hellish design to dash Hortense to the cruel rocks below. Merton, of course, had not a moment's doubt that the miracle would intervene; he had seen other serials. So he made no comment upon the gravity of the situation, but went at once to the heart of his ecstasy. ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... looked at Susan, as if waiting for her reply. Happy Susan! Eager, trembling, her face glowing with a tender enthusiasm, a tearful ecstasy, feeling that it would be sweet to die in the service of this man whom her thoughts had so wronged, she gave her answer: "I am so glad you have come to me! Anything on earth I can do to aid you I will do with all my heart—as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... myself!' said Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy, with a tone so inappreciably grand in mystification, that the showman had no choice but to share the universal convulsion of laughter, while Willie rolling on the floor with ecstasy, shouted, 'Yes, it is you that are the thing with such a long name that it can't bend its head to ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he had tipped the polite yet kindly guard magnificently, after doubting for a moment whether he ought to tip him at all, and he had gone about his hotel in London saying "Lordy! Lordy! My word!" in a kind of ecstasy, verifying the delightful absence of telephone, of steam-heat, of any dependent bathroom. At breakfast the waiter (out of Dickens it seemed) had refused to know what "cereals" were, and had given him his egg in a china egg-cup such as you see in the pictures in Punch. ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... broken, blocked with large stones and heavily shadowed by cedars projecting from the rocks above and draped with vines. He held out his hands and she took them, and he helped her across the rough places. He felt her hands tremble in his, and he thought it was with the ecstasy of the hope which ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... fiend, with body of fire, heart of marble, brow of bronze, and hand hollowed to hold money? It is the woman who sells herself in the street. And who is this, with upturned eyes of fathomless love, the radiant paleness of ecstasy transfusing her countenance, heaven flooding her soul, the world a forgotten toy beneath her feet? It is the woman who, in silence and secrecy, gives herself to God. So capacious of extremes is ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... we reached the Shrubbery gate the imp was in an ecstasy and Mr. Selwyn once more reduced to speechless indignation and astonishment. Here our ways diverged, Mr. Selwyn turning toward the house, while the Imp and I made our way to the orchard ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... was preached; and so also the Byzantine Chronicle relates of the Russian ambassadors, "That during the Divine liturgy, at the time of carrying the Holy Gifts in procession to the throne or altar and singing the cherubic hymn, the eyes of their spirits were opened, and they saw, as in an ecstasy, glittering youths who joined in singing the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... writer(9) of the last epoch, comparing Russia to a swift troika galloping to an unknown goal, exclaims, 'Oh, troika, birdlike troika, who invented thee!' and adds, in proud ecstasy, that all the peoples of the world stand aside respectfully to make way for the recklessly galloping troika to pass. That may be, they may stand aside, respectfully or no, but in my poor opinion the great writer ended his ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... systems are formed so long as they are substituted for the pernicious ones. It may be in the common experiences of every-day life, through the pleading of a friend, during sleep or trance, in some abnormal state of a hypnotic character, or during religious ecstasy, and we cannot well say in any given case that one form will be more efficacious than another. Mental healing creates nothing new, but simply makes use of the normal mechanism of the mind and body. The question then is, What method of mental healing is most ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... for? Why don't they move? Hark! A clatter and a cloud of dust by the market place, an ecstasy of cheers running in waves the length of the crowd. Make way for the dragoons! Here they come at last, four and four, the horses prancing and dancing and pointing quivering ears at the tossing sea of hats and parasols and ribbons. Maude Catherwood squeezes Virginia's arm. There, riding in front, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... round here this morning and I had the self-denial to stop to see you and leave Florence and the Marlboroughs to monopolize him all the way home. You ought to love me for ever for it. My dear Fleda!—" said Constance, clasping her hands and elevating her eyes in mock ecstasy,—"if you had ever ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... perhaps the worst. I can imagine no more wicked desecration than that the sacrilegious hand of the Anarchist should be laid upon the Indian song of songs, and that a masterpiece of transcendental philosophy and religious ecstasy should be perverted to the base uses of ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... beauty not mere prettiness. Joy is the outcome of detachment from self and lives in freedom of spirit. Beauty is that profound expression of reality which satisfies our hearts without any other allurements but its own ultimate value. When in some pure moments of ecstasy we realise this in the world around us, we see the world, not as merely existing, but as decorated in its forms, sounds, colours and lines; we feel in our hearts that there is One who through all things proclaims: "I have ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... of existence, apart from what they do or gain, is their chief happiness. Their "ealo," or the height of felicity, is a passive rather than an active state. It is (if I am not mistaken) a kind of serene rapture or tranquil ecstasy of the soul, which is born doubtless from a perfect harmony between the person and his environment. In it, they say, the illusion of the world is complete, and life is another name for ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... woman born worthy of such a man. She is to be the depository of all his secrets, and the recipient of all his thoughts. That other young ladies should accept her with submission in this period of her ecstasy would be surprising were it not that she is so truly exalted by her condition as to make her for a short period an object to them of genuine worship. In this way, for a month or six weeks, did Miss Holt's friends submit to her and bear with her. They endured ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... than in a whole world full of evidence denying, of such maunderers as you! See here; he was the most sensible of men; balanced; keeping his head always;—a mind no mood or circumstances could deflect from rational self-control, either towards passion or ecstasy. One explanation remains—as in the case of Joan, or of H.P. Blavatsky;—he was neither deceiving nor deceived, but what he claimed to hear, he did hear; and it was the voice of One that stood behind him, and might not appear in history at all, or in the outer world at all: a greater ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... opportunities of becoming acquainted with its strange secrets and peculiarities than, perhaps, ever yet were afforded to any individual, certainly to a foreigner." When he entered it, by crossing a brook, out of Portugal, he shouted the Spanish battle-cry in ecstasy, and in the end he described his five years in Spain as, "if not the most eventful"—he cannot refrain from that vainglorious dark hint—yet "the most happy years" of his existence. Spain was to ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... time they were all alone in the universe, the center of all ecstasy. Dave was whispering wild incoherencies as Alaire lay in his embrace, her limbs relaxed, her flesh touching his, her body ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... suffering, and, in a way, springs from it, is good, yet it must always be incomplete. Happiness has its light also, and in order to get the right explanation of any soul, or to understand the eternal meaning of any situation, one must have had at least a few glad hours, felt the ecstasy of thoughtless joy, drifted a little while with the rushing, unhindered tide. As Robert, behind the grille, watched the animated, beautiful girl who seemed to typify the very springtime of the world, he felt he had peered ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... from the other bank hailed me, in the magnificent language of Spain, in this guise: "Charity, Sir Cavalier, for the love of God bestow an alms upon me, that I may purchase a mouthful of red wine!" In a moment I was on Spanish ground, and, having flung the beggar a small piece of silver, I cried in ecstasy: "Santiago y cierra Espana!" and scoured on my way with more speed ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... right to liberty, this is indeed like a birth into a new world of happiness and freedom. This is the period, too, when the emotions rule us, and we idealize everything in life; when love and hope make the present an ecstasy and the ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... know the cause. In thy large state, life gives the next degree, Where sense and good apparent places thee; But thy chief palace is man's heart alone; Here are thy triumphs and full glories shown: Handsome desires, and rest, about thee flee, Union, inheritance, zeal, and ecstasy, With thousand joys, cluster around thine head, O'er which a gall-less dove her wings does spread: A gentle lamb, purer and whiter far Than consciences of thine own martyrs are, Lies at thy feet; and thy right hand does hold The mystic sceptre of ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... in pious revery, which soothes and lulls, one gazes with ecstasy on the fanciful details of the sculptures which vanish in the groined roof above, and on the quaint pipes of the organ with its hundred voices. The beliefs of childhood piously inculcated in your heart suddenly reawaken; a vague perfume of incense again penetrates the air. The ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... quickly beside the body, in an ecstasy of excitement. The others craned their necks to see. Then from a hundred throats went up a gasp ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... rushing down the streets, to the horror of timid watchers, towards the cool spaces by the river. A shrill music, a laughter at all things, was everywhere. And the new spirit repaired even to church to take part in the novel offices of the Feast of Fools. Heads flung back in ecstasy—the morning sleep among the vines, when the fatigue of the night was over—dew-drenched garments—the serf lying at his ease at last: the artists, then so numerous at the place, caught what they could, something, at least, of the richness, the flexibility ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... kennel rush the joyous pack; 100 A thousand wanton gaieties express Their inward ecstasy, their pleasing sport Once more indulged, and liberty restored. The rising sun that o'er the horizon peeps, As many colours from their glossy skins Beaming reflects, as paint the various bow When April showers descend. Delightful scene! Where all around is gay, men, horses, dogs, And in each ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... on the arm, he was uninjured, but his eyes roved about him in an ecstasy of fear. The heroic figure of the blasphemer, bristling with wounds and arrows, leaning defiantly upon his axe, indifferent, indomitable, superb, caught his wavering vision. And he felt a great ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... ecstasy that seemed as if the spirit would break away from the body, "Oh, brother, I shall sing! I shall shout! Won't we sing? Won't we shout? Yes, we ...
— Mary S. Peake - The Colored Teacher at Fortress Monroe • Lewis C. Lockwood
... patient waiting, the proud man who had never loved any one but the fair young girl in his arms, abandoned himself to the ecstasy of possession. He kissed the eyebrows that were so lovely in his sight, the waving hair on her white temples, and again and again the soft sweet trembling lips that glowed ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... before; and were it not for his sudden and unaccountable affection for Dorothy, he might have left it at once, had it not again been for the vision of splendor and happiness just faded from his sight. He could not bear the thought of losing forever the sensation of life and power and ecstasy just beginning to dawn upon him, when so cruelly snatched away; and but for Ah Ben he knew he should hope in vain for its return. Naturally, his emotions were strong and tearing him in opposite directions. The old man perceiving the depression of spirits ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... seen in the water, but they go there to catch fish and not to wash. I have often fancied that fish are a dirty, sly, and unintelligent people—this is due to their staying so much in the water, and it has been observed that on being removed from this element they at once expire through sheer ecstasy at escaping from ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... on the deaf, the blind, and the dumb, and they too were restored to their lost faculties and senses with the same remedy; which did so strangely amaze us (and not without reason, I think) that down we fell on our faces, remaining prostrate, like men ravished in ecstasy, and were not able to utter one word through the excess of our admiration, till she came, and having touched Pantagruel with a fine fragrant nosegay of white roses which she held in her hand, thus made us recover our senses and get up. Then she made us the following ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... is something very queer about that; when Kitty's head is on my shoulder, I am not capable of any consecutive train of thought. When she puts it there I see stars, then myriads of stars, then, oh! I can't begin to enumerate the steps by which ecstasy mounts to delirium; but, at all events, any operation which demands exclusive use of the intellect is beyond me at these times. Still, I gathered my stray wits ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... was startling, changed. With an elaborate show of friendliness he came eagerly forward. His gray face, twitching with nervous excitement, beamed with joyous welcome. As he hurried across the bit of lawn between them, he waved his arms and rubbed his hands together in an apparent ecstasy of gladness at this opportunity to receive such an honored guest. His voice trembled with high-pitched assurance of his happiness in the occasion. He laughed as one who could not ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... relieve mild depression, increase energy and activity, and include cocaine (coke, snow, crack), amphetamines (Desoxyn, Dexedrine), ephedrine, ecstasy (clarity, essence, doctor, Adam), phenmetrazine (Preludin), methylphenidate (Ritalin), ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... disturbance had now become terrific. Both sides were hard at it, and the Irishmen on the roof, rewarded at last for their long vigil, were yelling encouragement promiscuously and whooping with the unfettered ecstasy of men who are getting the treat of their lives without having paid a ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... it a funny, throaty chuckle so irresistibly infectious that suspicious old St. Anthony himself, would have joined in accord with it, had he heard its silver echo in his wilderness. Berkeley Hayden's immortal soul stood on the tiptoe of ecstasy when Anne ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... I pause in my writing to sit quite still and remember—more than remember, live through again—the sensation of that first physical contact with the heart of the grass. Ecstasy is a pale word to apply to the joy of touching and resting upon that verdure. Soft—yes, it was soft, but the way sand is soft, unyieldingly. Unlike sand, however, it did not suggest a tightlypacked foundation, but rather the firmness of a good mattress resting on a wellmade ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... "I'm such a dreamer. I'm afraid it—can't be true. I'm afraid you'll go away and—leave me. You won't ever— will you, Eliza? I couldn't stand that." Then fresh realization of the truth swept over him; they clung to each other, drunk with ecstasy, senseless of their surroundings. ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... hands would be withered," she said in an ecstasy of faith. "If you will bring me a single hair of his ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... his fleet, had coolly sailed away to Sardinia,[12] was now returned. Doria withdrew from the Lagune; and what was really due to the approach of Pisani's fleet was ascribed to the formidable name of Marino Falieri. Then the people and the seignory were seized by a kind of frantic ecstasy that such an auspicious choice had been made; and as an uncommon way of testifying the same, it was determined to welcome the newly elected Doge as if he were a messenger from heaven bringing honour, victory, and abundance of riches. Twelve nobles, each accompanied by ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... wandered about aimlessly, sometimes with his eyes fixed on the ground in humility, and sometimes raised to heaven in ecstasy. After some time, he found himself on the quay. Before him lay the harbour, in which were sheltered innumerable ships and galleys, and beyond them, smiling in blue and silver, lay the perfidious sea. A galley, which bore a Nereid ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... where we expect to see Our wives and sweethearts, we'll go! Let wildest revel lead us up to ecstasy! Quickly ...
— Zanetto and Cavalleria Rusticana • Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti, Guido Menasci, and Pietro Mascagni
... had fixed all eyes as desired, the lady turning alternately to Colonels Topham and Beauclerk, with rapid gestures of ecstasy, exclaimed, "The pouf! the pouf! Oh! on Wednesday I ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... melody, That, indistinctly heard, with ravishment Possess'd me. Yet I mark'd it was a hymn Of lofty praises; for there came to me "Arise and conquer," as to one who hears And comprehends not. Me such ecstasy O'ercame, that never till that hour was thing That held me ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... the newly born; they weep and struggle like men who are born to a new life, and who are restrained by no human respect, by no restriction. It is their own life they feel; and the value of their own life seems to them greater than the riches and convenience of the whole world. They feel an ecstasy of relief at having escaped from a great peril; their chief anxiety is that they may be liberated from the evil that oppresses them. Before they can take another step forward they are obliged to reconsider the terrible time when evil was rooted ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... try to make the trolley." He drew her along, and she followed, still in her dream. They walked as if they were one, so isolated in ecstasy that the people jostling them on every side seemed impalpable. But when they reached the terminus the illuminated trolley was already clanging on its way, its platforms black with passengers. The cars waiting behind it were as thickly packed; and the throng about ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... the rights of a neutral vessel were very vigorous. When the first gun was fired, he rushed below, and soon re-appeared in all the resplendent glory of gold lace and brass buttons which go to make up a naval uniform. He danced about the deck in an ecstasy of rage, and made the most fearful threats of the wrath of the British people. The passengers too became excited, and protested loudly. Every thing possible was done by the people of the "Trent" to put ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... in the hardest stone,—it must have been by immense labor,—pictures of cruel tortures and executions and of immense slaughters. A king is represented putting out the eyes of prisoners. What the pictures reveal is the lust of conquest, the delights of revenge, and the ecstasy of tyranny. After Assurbanipal took Susa he broke open the tombs of the old heroes of Elam, who had in their day defeated the Assyrians. He desecrated the tombs, insulted the monuments, and carried the bones away to Nineveh. It was believed ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... the slightly stolid girl there was a new lightness, a new ecstasy in walking rapidly through the stirring New York air, as she turned ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... the mamma, restraining the impetuosity of the darling, whose little fat legs were kicking, and stamping, and twining themselves into the most complicated forms, in an ecstasy of impatience. 'Be quiet, dear, that's ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... and admonitory letter, and he was clearly awakened to a perception of the false position in which he had placed himself, by keeping silence at Budmouth on his long engagement. An increasing reluctance to put an end to those few days of ecstasy with Cytherea had overruled his conscience, and tied his tongue till speaking ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... Frenchwoman, and a genius in the art of government. They quote her as a great authority. Her knowledge of his evil deeds and mistakes of administration is set forth as being flawless. They bemoan his treatment of this amiable female, and in the midst of their ecstasy of compassion and wrath they hand down to posterity a record of unheard-of woes. There is little doubt Napoleon's remark that "the Neckers were an odd lot, always comforting themselves in mutual admiration," is well ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... Song," and "Sweet and Low," form the most delightful part of this poem, which in general is hardly up to the standard of the poet's later work. Maud (1855) is what is called in literature a monodrama, telling the story of a lover who passes from morbidness to ecstasy, then to anger and murder, followed by insanity and recovery. This was Tennyson's favorite, and among his friends he read aloud from it more than from any other poem. Perhaps if we could hear Tennyson read it, we should appreciate ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... or conning-tower, was limited by the great waves of greenish-white water which curved upwards from either bow, and rolled astern in a welter of foam. There was an awe-inspiring fury in the thunder of the 700 h.p. engines revolving at 1350 per minute, and a feeling of ecstasy in the stiff breeze of passage and the atomised spray. When waves came the slap-slap-slap of the water as the sharp bows cleft through the crest and the little vessel was for a brief moment poised dizzily on the bosom of the swell caused tremors to pass through the thin grey hull, and, to ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... tiny throat, Songster of night! Flows such a wealth of note, Full of delight; Trembling with resonance, Rapid and racy, Sinking in soft cadence, Gushing with ecstasy, Dying away, All in their turns; Plaintive and gay, Thrilling with tones aglow, Melting in murmurs low, Till ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... chapter on this subject, in the present day, would be the history of the Seeress of Prevorst, the best observed subject of magnetism in our present times, and who, like her ancestresses of Delphos, was roused to ecstasy or phrensy by the touch ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... subjects as they were handled by Watts. A courtier like Rubens could, after painting with gusto a rout of Satyrs, put on a cloak of decorum to suit the pageantry of a court, or even simulate fervour to portray the ecstasy of a saint. He is clearly acting a part, but in Watts the character of the man is always seen. Whether his subjects are drawn from the Bible or from pagan myths, they are all treated in the same temper ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... From this ecstasy I was suddenly aroused by hearing once more the sound of a footstep upon the road behind me. So distinct and unmistakable was it that I turned sharp about, and, though the road seemed as deserted as ever, I walked back, looking into every patch of shadow, and even thrust into the ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... call him the painter of adoration, he did not feel even this movement of the soul with the intensity of Fra Angelico. In the person of S. Dominic kneeling beneath the cross Fra Angelico painted worship as an ecstasy, wherein the soul goes forth with love and pain and yearning beyond any power of words or tears or music to express what it would utter. To these heights of the ascetic ideal Fra Bartolommeo never soared. His sobriety ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... of chill air puffed in their faces as they entered; and a great owl blundered screamingly out into the night, the rush and noise of it startling Will to a cold ecstasy of terror. He would have plunged madly back to the hall had not Robin ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... how he went through those moments which to her were such pure ecstasy. The blood was beating wildly in his brain, and he thought of that devils' tattoo on the roof at Udalkhand when first that dreadful knowledge had sprung upon him like an evil thing out of the night. But he held himself in an iron grip; he forced his ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... farther. I let him out by the little back door of my cabinet, so that nobody perceived him, and as soon as I had closed it, I threw myself into a chair like a man out of breath, and I remained there a long time alone, reflecting upon the strange kind of ecstasy I had been in, and the horror it ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... to the other for such remarks. And now he drank up the conversation of Mr. Oxford, and perceived that he had long been thirsty. And he spoke his mind. He grew warmer, more enthusiastic, more impassioned. And Mr. Oxford listened with ecstasy. Mr. Oxford had apparently a natural discretion. He simply accepted Priam, as he stood, for a great painter. No reference to the enigma why a great painter should be painting in an attic in Werter Road, Putney! No inconvenient queries about the great painter's ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... bills; and, save the kitchen and the two attics, the empty house, uninhabited, was surrendered to the sportive mischief of the idle urchins, who prowled about the silent chambers in fear of the silence, and in ecstasy at the space. The bedroom in which Caleb had died was, indeed, long held sacred by infantine superstition. But one day the eldest boy having ventured across the threshold, two cupboards, the doors standing ajar, attracted the child's curiosity. He opened one, and his exclamation ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the speech of man is vain. O mariner, we look upon the waves And they rebuke our babbling. "Peace!" they say,— "Mortal, be still!" My noisy tongue is hushed, And with my trembling finger on my lips My soul exclaims in ecstasy— ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... their leader, master, and finally their God. They loved him as a present reality, while they treasured the record of his human words. In such exaltation, like the intoxication of a heavenly wine, the untrained mind is creative in its ecstasy; hence the beautifully conceived and easily believed stories of announcing angels, miracles of ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... there, in the same manner as those in the Breisgau did, according to Schenck's account. They were not satisfied, however, with a dance of three hours' duration, but continued day and night in a state of mental aberration, like persons in an ecstasy, until they fell exhausted to the ground; and when they came to themselves again they felt relieved from a distressing uneasiness and painful sensation of weight in their bodies, of which they had complained for several weeks prior to St. ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... first few days had quite made up her mind not to worry at all about the future, did not much care for these gazing fits of Primrose's. She wanted to get into the parks. She exclaimed in ecstasy over the horses, and those picture-galleries which were free to the public quite enchanted her. Daisy frankly admitted that she liked toy-shops, and of all toy-shops those which displayed rows of dolls in their windows the best. Primrose had decided that the three should have one week's ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... the magic of the Spring!— With all green boughs to blossom white, and all bluebirds to sing! When all the air, to toss and quaff, made life a jubilee And changed the children's song and laugh to shrieks of ecstasy. ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... ate very little. And as time went on she seemed to draw away from the two men into a kind of secret ecstasy of enjoyment like some fierce animal scenting freedom. The sentences she dropped were shallow, impatient, even stupid. And yet there was Rufus Cosgrave with his hungry eyes fixed on her, trapped by the nameless force that lay behind her ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... seen John Edwin, in 'Sir Hugh Evans,' when preparing for the duel, keep the house in an ecstasy of merriment for many minutes together without speaking a ...
— 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.
... the antithesis, too, began to reveal its deficiencies. The difficulties of reaching the Zionist goal very soon proved far greater than had been anticipated in the blissful ecstasy of the Zionist honeymoon. The ultimate consummation of the national hope receded further and further before the longing gaze of the Jewish people, and no longer held out an immediate remedy for the pressing needs of suffering Jewry. The conviction also gradually gained ground ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... the reason. Here we see elements of revolt. For, as Dr. L. Ginzberg well says, 'while study of the Law was to Talmudists the very acme of piety, the mystics accorded the first place to prayer, which was considered as a mystical progress towards God, demanding a state of ecstasy.' The Jewish mystic must invent means for inducing such a state, for Judaism cannot endure a passive waiting for the moving spirit. The mystic soul must learn how to mount the chariot (Merkaba) and ride into the inmost halls of Heaven. ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... as large as the fruits they were intended to represent and of such brilliancy that Rosalie was completely dazzled by them. But scarcely had she seen this rare and unparalleled tree, when a noise louder than the first drew her from her ecstasy. She felt herself lifted up and transported to a vast plain, from which she saw the palace of the king falling in ruins and heard the most frightful cries of terror and suffering issue from its walls. Soon Rosalie saw the prince himself creep from the ruins bleeding and his clothing almost ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... the inspiration of faith a feeling of spiritual joy that he was called to the higher destiny of a favorite of Heaven. Had the fire of divine love glowed more fervently in her heart, she would feel the joy of ecstasy, such as consoled the death-bled of the mothers of the saints when the revelation of the sanctity of their children was the last crown of earthly joy. Anticipating the privilege the fond maternal heart would fain claim even in the kingdom free from all ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... Ecstasy! My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, And makes as healthful music: it is not madness That I have uttered: bring me to the test, And I the matter will re-word; which madness Would gambol from. Mother, ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... all realities true. This truth is not only of knowledge but of devotion. 'Namonamah,'—we bow to him everywhere, and over and over again. It is recognised in the outburst of the Rishi, who addresses the whole world in a sudden ecstasy of joy: Listen to me, ye sons of the immortal spirit, ye who live in the heavenly abode, I have known the Supreme Person whose light shines forth from beyond the darkness. [Footnote: Crinvantu vicve amritasya putra ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... amiable and beloved Brother, Peter Heywood, would soon be restored to Freedom. Oh, blissful hour!—oh moment of delight! Replete with happiness, with rapture bright! An age of pain is sure repaid by this, 'Tis joy too great—'tis ecstasy of bliss! Ye sweet sensations crowding on my soul, Which following each other swiftly roll,— Ye dear ideas which unceasing press, And pain this bosom by your wild excess, Ah! kindly cease—for pity's sake subside, Nor thus o'erwhelm me with joy's ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... turned towards him simultaneously. The ardour of the poet appeared to communicate itself to the audience. Their wild and sunburnt countenances assumed a fiercer and more animated expression; all bent forward towards the reciter, many sprang up and waved their arms in ecstasy, and some laid their hands on their swords. When the song ceased, there was a deep pause, while the aroused feelings of the poet and of the hearers gradually subsided into ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... mutual agreement we let our unwelcome visitors choose their sites and erect their huts, allowing them to enjoy the ecstasy of a vigorous abuse of the humble Sakai village and everything they could find within reach; then one fine morning, to their infinite wonder, we left them to their own devices and betook ourselves ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... Juliana, clasping her hands in ecstasy. "I will give a party for the sole purpose of drinking tea out of this machine; and I will have the whole room fitted up like an Indian temple. Oh! it will be so new! I die to send out my cards. The Duchess of B——- told me the other day, with such a triumphant air, when I was looking at her two ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... what remained of his exquisite faculty of minute sight—with a feeling of great peace; and thought prayerfully; lost himself in a kind of formless prayer without words—lost himself completely. It was as if the wished-for dissolution were coming of its own accord; Nirvana—an ecstasy of conscious annihilation—the blessed end, the end of all! as though ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... of air. She could have imagined a seraphic presence in the room, that bade her arise and live; take the cup of the wells of youth arrested at her lips by her marriage; quit her wintry bondage for warmth, light, space, the quick of simple being. And the strange pure ecstasy was not a transient electrification; it came in waves on a continuous tide; looking was living; walking flying. She hardly knew that she slept. The heights she had seen rosy at eve were marked for her ascent in the dawn. Sleep was one wink, and fresh as the dewy field and rockflowers ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... instructed Maggie to dress my nephews, and at three we started to make our call. As we approached, I saw Miss Mayton on the piazza. Handing the bouquet to Toddie, we entered the garden, when he shrieked, "Oh, there's a cutter-grass!" and with the carelessness born of perfect ecstasy, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... those perfections which he himself lacks, and he will consider imperfections, which are the reverse of his own, beautiful. This is why little men prefer big women, and fair people like dark, and so on. The ecstasy with which a man is filled at the sight of a beautiful woman, making him imagine that union with her will be the greatest happiness, is simply the sense of the species. The preservation of the type of the species rests on this distinct preference for beauty, and this ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... sphere of ecstasy and great joy. In this our consciousness of self is strongest, and it is impossible to give an idea of the wonderful clearness with which one views and admires everything, and the undoubted sense of a reality, though wholly unlike the reality ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... long a time I lay, Dreaming the ecstasy of joys Elysian, Within my marble shrine. It fled away— The rapture of that ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... suppose, however, that Abelard, with his rationalism, dreamed of undermining Christian dogma. Very far from it! He believed it to be rational, and thought he could prove it so. No wonder that the book gave offense, in an age when faith and ecstasy were placed above reason. Indeed, his rivals could have wished for nothing better than this book, which gave them a weapon to use against him. Led on by two old enemies, Alberich and Lotulf, they caused an ecclesiastical ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... little choleric outbursts or untempered enthusiasms, and yet, somehow, after a talk with his father he had so often found himself feeling much calmer or really happier. Anger in some way or other came to seem a foolish thing; and even if he had come in from an ecstasy of play, it was certainly pleasant to have the beating throbs in his head die away and to feel his cheeks grow cool again. In looking back, Horace knew that no philosophy had ever so deeply influenced him to self-control and to ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson |
