"Rapt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pronounced the last words he flung his black overcoat wide open with an ample gesture, thrust one hand into his breast, and assumed the fixed and far-seeing gaze of a man in a cabinet photograph. He seemed lost to his surroundings, and rapt by some great vision of enchanted architects, busy in drawing plans of the magic buildings of the future ages. The Prophet felt that it would be impious to disturb him. Malkiel's reverie was long, and indeed the two prophets might well have been sitting in Jellybrand's ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... saw them here. Off the sidewalk, upon the pavement of the street, there is a crowd of men and boys, closely grouped around something in the way of a show. As I approach, old voices of the once familiar woodlands and farm-yards greet my ear. I listen to them, for a brief moment, rapt. Alas! they are spurious. They emanate from a dirty man, who stands in the centre of the group, with a small wooden box slung before him. By his side stands his torch-bearer, who illuminates him with a lamp suspended from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... expressing in its fulness the character of any great man. The lines in which holiest passion, subtilest thought, divinest activity have recorded in the face their existence and presence, are hieroglyphs unintelligible to one who has not kindled with that passion, been rapt in that thought, or swept away in sympathy with that activity; he may follow the lines, but must certainly miss their meaning. A successful portrait implies an equality, in some sense, between the artist and his original. The greatest ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... was especially complaisant, since opposite the sieve-maker's was a fascinating embroidery shop, the keeper of which was entirely willing, when he had no customers, to let Utta lounge on one of his sofas and inspect embroideries to her heart's content. So lounging, rapt in the contemplation of Egyptian appliqus, Syrian gold-thread borders, Spanish linen-work, silk flower patterns from Cos, Parthian animal designs and Celtic cord-labyrinths after originals in leather thongs, Utta could ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... short visit to Mrs. Allen, in which Henry talked at random, without sense or connection, and Catherine, rapt in the contemplation of her own unutterable happiness, scarcely opened her lips, dismissed them to the ecstasies of another tete-a-tete; and before it was suffered to close, she was enabled to judge how far he was sanctioned by parental authority in his present ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... package tied between two thin wide boards. From this came the metallic clink. "Oo, I know what dem is!" cried Lee, breaking the silence of suspense. Then Jean, tearing open a long flat parcel, spread before the mute, rapt-eyed youngsters such magnificent things, as they had never dreamed of—picture books, mouth-harps, dolls, a toy gun and a toy pistol, a wonderful whistle and a fox horn, and last of all a box of candy. Before these treasures on ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... Cowfold, which thought it knew everybody in the place, could not tell. There was no sign of their existence on the next day. People gathered together and looked at the mischief wrought the night before, and talked everlastingly about it; but the doers of it vanished, rapt away apparently into an invisible world. On Sunday next, at one o'clock, Cowfold Square, save for a few windows not yet mended, looked just as it always looked; that is to say, not a soul was visible in it, and the ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... the sight of the long rows of tired, haggard, perspiring, praying pilgrims, who stood patiently for hours in the broiling August sun, moving only when permitted, and then at a snail's pace, towards their Mecca. Plebeian though the majority of faces were, their devotional, solemn, rapt expressions for the time being ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson
... on beside me in silence. The sun-shot haze of a beautiful autumn day hung over the face of nature, and his eyes wandered down the long stretches of landscape, and into the depths of the distant sky, rapt by the vision that was unfolding before him. The changing phases of the town he regarded with curious interest, which often expressed itself in childish exclamations of surprise as we made our way through the ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller
... year 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, and ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... 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 ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... of that boy—a merry, mischievous young imp—to Mr. Craven; but she never did so. Perhaps because the clerks always gave her rapt attention; and an interested audience was very ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... paused, then raised her arms toward heaven and added, with a sudden exultant ring in her thrilling voice, and a strange rapt splendor ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... during the existence of the colony. There was a general relaxation of the severe laws that had been so rigidly enforced. They took great interest in public meetings, devoured with avidity every scrap of news regarding the movements of the Tory forces, listened with rapt attention to the patriotic conversations of their masters, and when the storm-cloud of war broke were as eager to fight for the independence of North ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... on the bankside we viewed the beautiful scene of lake, valley and village stretching out so peacefully before us, all framed in the dark towering hills. Even Grace forgot to say, "How lovely!" but sat there, chin in hand, rapt and speechless. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... standing upon the teacher's rostrum. She was speaking in low terms which could not be heard from the door, which had been left open for coolness. Fifty women sat below her in creaking split-bottom chairs, with faces as rapt and attentive as if they had been listening to a revival sermon. Some of them were mature maidens of thirty years; some were young wives who had reached that stage of feminine dissolution when women cease to curl their front hair and permit ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... Jock with a curious, fascinated stare. It was a blank little look, such as we sometimes wear when the mind is working furiously. If the insinuating waiter, presenting the laden tray for her inspection, was startled by the rapt expression which she turned upon the cunningly wrought wares, he was too much a waiter to ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... And the Christmas moon, rising high above the mountains of Gilead and Moab, had found for a short space of time an opening in the curtain of mist and had poured down its light upon the hills of Judea, making the city of Bethlehem seem to the rapt minds of the two Yorkshire dalesmen as though it had been the city of the living God ...
— More Tales of the Ridings • Frederic Moorman
... those kindred powers (Of form, of colour's cheerful pomp, of sound Melodious, or of motion aptly sped), Detains the enliven'd sense; till soon the soul Feels the deep concord, and assents through all 160 Her functions. Then the charm by fate prepared Diffuseth its enchantment Fancy dreams, Rapt into high discourse with prophets old, And wandering through Elysium, Fancy dreams Of sacred fountains, of o'ershadowing groves, Whose walks with godlike harmony resound: Fountains, which Homer visits; happy groves, Where Milton dwells; the intellectual ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... silent still remain'd the throng Whilst rapt attention own'd the power of song. Then loud as when the wintry whirlwinds blow From ev'ry voice the thundering plaudits flow; Darius smil'd, Apame's sparkling eyes Glanc'd on the King, and Woman ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... Wanderers we. Our rapt delights, our wisdoms rare But shape our darknesses of thee,— We know thee not, thou ...
— Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure • W.D. Lighthall
... the one being profoundly human, preeminently natural.' In the dove which descended at His baptism, Mr. Furness 'discovers the presence of a common dove divested of its ordinary appearance, and transfigured by a rapt imagination into a sign and messenger from heaven.' He says 'there is no intrinsic impossibility in supposing that Jesus was naturally possessed of an unprecedented power of will, by which the extraordinary ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... immediately, because I ascended there above in thought when I say, "There I beheld a Lady glorified," to let you understand that I was certain, and am certain by its gracious revelation, that she was in Heaven; wherefore I, thinking many times how this was possible for me, went thither, rapt, as it were. Then subsequently I speak of the effect of this thought, in order to let you understand its sweetness, which was such that it made me desirous of Death, that I also might go where she was gone. And of this ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... variety, and power, which are for ever grateful to them, delight in these to an extent never before known; rejoice in all the wildest shattering of the mountain side, as an opposition to Gower Street, gaze in a rapt manner at sunsets and sunrises, to see there the blue, and gold, and purple, which glow for them no longer on knight's armour or temple porch; and gather with care out of the fields, into their blotted herbaria, the flowers ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... On the way you get full and fuller of dark forebodings at every step; and your worst expectations are realized as soon as you enter and are relieved of your hat by a colored person in white gloves, and behold spread before you a great horde of those ladies and gentlemen whose rapt expressions and general air of eager expectancy stamp them as true devotees of whatever is most classical in the realm of music. You realize that in such a company as this you are no better than ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... bird win one dear note of thee To pipe eternally? Art thou the secret of the small field-flowers Nodding thy time for hours, —Blown by the happy winds from hill to hill, And such a secret still? Or wert thou rapt awhile to other spheres To gladden tenderer ears? Doth music's soul contain thee, precious air, Sleepest thou clasped there, Until a time shall come for thee to start Into some unborn heart? Then wilt thou as the clouds of ages roll, Thou migratory soul, Amid a different, ...
— Poems • Alice Meynell
... spoken such and such things within her. And hence arises what I may call the quite extraordinary purity and spirituality of her life of prayer. 'Defecate' is Goodwin's favourite and constant word for the purest, the most rapt, the most adoring, and the most spiritual prayer. 'I have known men'—it must have been himself—'who came to God for nothing else but just to come to Him, they so loved Him. They scorned to soil Him and ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte
... irritable father, or the bright animation of his brother, was so rapt in heavy thought, that he seemed unmindful of all that was going on. He had cast one quick, almost wild glance at the head of the table as he entered, and after that took his seat ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... making a temple of the whole lodging. "How ridiculous of him!" Yet he appeared to be happy over it; there was an exalted look in his moonlit face; she seemed now first to see his soul there. She studied his countenance like an inscription, and deciphered each rapt expression that crossed it; and ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... I stood behind his chair looking over his shoulders, as he turned the faded, musty-smelling leaves one by one. The law clerk's cheeks were slightly flushed, and a rapt and expectant expression was ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... the table, and had Chamberlain von Swerte (of the House of Hellebrand) and the Landrath, to right and left of her. Paul, who sat opposite, insisted against all the rules of etiquette on having Schrotter beside him as his left-hand neighbor. On his right, Frau Brohl, in rustling silk, sat in rapt silence. The ever-modest Frau Marker was content to take a ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... slime, Will Cromwell with the smaller score Dare to cross o'er to Dunbar shore? Tho' shipped were half his guns and men The foe falls ere he turn again. With foresight keen, like one inspired, He saw the end ere Leslie fired. "THE LORD," said he, as rapt he stands, "HATH GIVEN THEM INTO OUR HANDS!" 'Tis the ninth month and second day, A wild, wet night, historians say. Quit you like men, and bravely stand; Death's wrestle now is close at hand; Heed not the hoarse sea's doleful moan, As on the cliffs its waves are thrown. ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... four times, with his clenched fist, shouting all the while, "Probe the Major! Probe the Major!" I suppose he must have had a dispute with a major before he started out. Part of the way he sat still and stared at the moon and the stars with such a rapt expression that he fell off the wagon three times and nearly broke his neck from sheer learning. Rasmus Nielsen laughed at that, and said to himself, "Rasmus Berg may be a wise man in the heavens, but he is a ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... a long time rapt in calculations, concerning the various "numbers" allotted him by the First Luff, otherwise known as the First Lieutenant. In the first place, White-Jacket was given the number of his mess; then, his ship's ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... marveling admiration. For long stretches at a time he permitted himself to fall into silent, rapt contemplation of this perfected bit of womanhood. Every childish feature that he remembered so well had been subtly vignetted by the soft touch of nature; he was sensing for the first time the vast distinction between fifteen and twenty—the distinction without the difference; for she was ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... Evangelist lifts his eyes heavenward as if beholding a vision. His lips are parted, and he has the rapt expression of one absorbed in meditation. His right hand still holds the pen as he pauses ...
— Correggio - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... spread her visions gay, Love fondly view'd the fair display, Hope shew'd the blissfu' nuptial day, And I was rapt with Mary, My ain dear Mary; The flowers of Eden strew'd the way That led me ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... no where else, ritual might be studied; where, too, was Laotse, with whom he longed to confer. Marquis Chao, hearing of this, provided him with the means; and he went up with a band of his pupils. There at Loyang, which is Honanfu, we see him wandering rapt through palaces and temples, examining the sacrificial vessels, marveling at the ancient art of Shang and Chow. But for a few vases, it ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... from fixed habitations until, in an excess of spiritual fervor, they found themselves in the caves of the mountains, desolate and dreary, where no sound of human voice broke in upon the silence. The companions of wild beasts, they lived in rapt contemplation on the eternal mysteries of ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... that he may advance with tranquil steps through the flowery paths of investigation, till arriving at some noble eminence, he beholds, with awful astonishment, the boundless regions of science, and becomes animated to attain a still more lofty station, whilst his heart is incessantly rapt with joys of which the groveling herd have ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... She stared ahead over the horse's head with a strange, rapt look in the wonderful eyes. An artist would have loved to paint her at that moment, but it would not have been as a type of happiness. The expression spoke rather of struggle, of restlessness, and want—a spiritual want which lay ever at the back of the excitement and glamour, ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... complete mastery of custom. Mrs. Windsor stood near the window, idly following with her eyes the perambulations of Bung, who was flitting about the garden like a ghost with a curled tail and a turned-up nose. Mr. Amarinth leaned largely upon the piano, in an attitude of rapt attention. His clever, clean-shaved face wore an ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... his counter. His face was rapt, and he spread his finger-tips a little, as if something within them stirred to ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee
... could scarcely hear it; sometimes quickly and excitedly, sometimes doubtingly and with quivering lips, now raising his eyes to heaven, and with drooping lower jaw gurgling the words in his thick throat; then sighing and muttering them with closed eyes and a rapt expression of countenance, till with a sudden snort of satisfaction, he ceased—at least I thought he had. He took up a young coconut, drank it, and began ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... to Budapest all the young women, urged on to insubordination, had removed their veils, and Kalora had boldly invaded another compartment to engage in rapt and feverish dialogue with ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... outer world increased his devotion and gave it wings. The starry sky seen through his little monastery window, often kept him rapt in deep meditation for hours; often he was as if beside himself, so strong was his pious feeling when he saw the power and glory of God reflected in charming flowers ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... trees and skies and fields are one in dusky mood, Every heart of man is rapt within the mother's breast: Full of peace and sleep and dreams in the vasty quietude, I am one ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... besought Him to take pity on all orphans, prisoners and captives, to take pity on the master of the fields sorely harried by the Lombard usurers, to take pity on the stags and hinds of the forest chased by the hunters, and on all trapped creatures, whether of fur or feathers. And lo! he was rapt away in an ecstasy, and saw a ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... sky is dim with snow, The light flakes falter and fall slow; Athwart the hill-top, rapt and pale, Silently drops a silvery veil; And all the valley is shut in By flickering ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... room was the woman who stood beside the fireplace, smiling as she always smiled when a situation was at its worst and she at her best. Her high-bred, aristocratic face was as insensitive to an inward softness as a chiseled block of marble is to the eye that gazes upon it in rapt admiration. She had trained herself to smile in the face of the disagreeable; she had acquired the art of tranquillity. This long anticipated interview with her daughter's cast- off, bewildered lover was inevitable. They ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... saw shadows on the floor; but it was too late. He was discovered sitting on the bed, in rapt attention to the machine industriously grinding away upon the table. Dan Anderson, with great gravity, took up a collection of four pins from each of the newcomers and handed them to Tom. "No bent ones," said ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... she lay awake for one rapt hour, and then she slept the sleep of conquerors. In the morning, after Eben had gone safely off to work, and the children were still asleep, she began singing, in a monotonous, high voice, and took her way out of doors. She always sang at moments when she purposed leaping ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... 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
... him in every particular. During the Cheng1-yuuan period[6] I was sitting one day with Li Kung-tso[7] of Lung-hai; we fell to talking of wives who had distinguished themselves by remarkable conduct. I told him the story of Miss Li. He listened with rapt attention, and when it was over, asked me to write it down for him. So I took up my brush, wetted the hairs and made this rough outline of ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... the earth's surface were extremely monotonous; some couples indeed only walked stiffly to and fro; on the other hand a few exhibited variety, lightness and grace, in manoeuvres which involved a high degree of mutual trust and comprehension. While only some of the faces were ecstatic, all were rapt. The ordinary world was shut out of this room, whose inhabitants had apparently abandoned themselves with all their souls to the performance of ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... the greatest privileges to which the boys at our school at that time looked forward, was being selected to go and listen to Doctor Newman playing the violin. Five or six of us were taken to his study in the evening. In mute silence, with rapt attention, we watched the thin-featured man, whose countenance to us seemed to belong even then to a world beyond this, and we listened to what to us seemed the ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... personal character of a distant author. KLOPSTOCK, the votary of the muse of Zion, so astonished and warmed the sage BODMER, that he invited the inspired bard to his house: but his visitor shocked the grave professor, when, instead of a poet rapt in silent meditation, a volatile youth leaped out of the chaise, who was an enthusiast for retirement only when writing verses. An artist, whose pictures exhibit a series of scenes of domestic tenderness, awakening all the charities of private life, I have heard, ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... thou couldst measure; now, alas! A little dust on Matine shore has spann'd That soaring spirit; vain it was to pass The gates of heaven, and send thy soul in quest O'er air's wide realms; for thou hadst yet to die. Ay, dead is Pelops' father, heaven's own guest, And old Tithonus, rapt from earth to sky, And Minos, made the council-friend of Jove; And Panthus' son has yielded up his breath Once more, though down he pluck'd the shield, to prove His prowess under Troy, and bade grim death O'er skin and nerves alone exert its power, Not he, you ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... the garden of Gethsemane, his face was flushed with the rapt stillness of pious ecstasy; hours had vanished during his passionate reverie, and he stared upon the ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... are hints of summer in the air, A sense of restfulness, of rapt repose; And from remote sea gardens, lush and fair, Rich attars ...
— From The Lips of the Sea • Clinton Scollard
... question, he leapt from his hammock, peering into that thing, and his fleet feet were away, running after the truth with that rapt abandonment that had characterized his hunting and football. This was clear: that there was some difference between land and sea as working-grounds for men. Shore people, like a shoemaker, did not have for themselves enough shoes from even five, or six, days' work on which to live in plenty ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... twice, to close up the ranks, and had marched some two miles, seeing and hearing nothing more. I had got all I could out of our new guide, and was striding on, rapt in pleasing contemplation. All had gone so smoothly that I had merely to fancy the rest as being equally smooth. Already I fancied our little detachment bursting out of the woods, in swift surprise, upon the Rebel quarters,—already the opposing commander, after hastily ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... however, how she had caught Dick's eyes once as he sat in the box near the stage, and how his rapt gaze had thrilled her to intenser playing of her part. And she remembered how dear he was afterward in the car when he held her roses and told her softly what a wonderful, wonderful Rosalind she was. But, on the whole, Dick, like ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... Realm shall, during the present Regency, be veritably 'First', and in no case last"; anon he blew his bugle: "Let us play the man!—easy to say, hard to do: yet it was first said by an Englishman when the doing, I think, was hard enough, his martyr's shroud already rapt aloft in flame: that was magnanimous, my lords, I declare! there was ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... looked full into Bradford's steadfast eyes upraised to his, and his own gaze became rapt and well-nigh prophetic. When he spoke again it was in a lower and less ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... of this poem is of strong, solemn, and varied music; and it involves in its construction a principle after which perhaps the great composers most work,—namely, spiritual auricular analogy. At first it would seem to defy analysis, so rapt is it, and so indirect. No reference whatever is made to the mere fact of Lincoln's death; the poet does not even dwell upon its unprovoked atrocity, and only occasionally is the tone that of lamentation; but, with ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... him might be fond to choose. How might he tune the alternate reed with thee, Perhaps a Strephon thou, a Daphnis he, While some old Damon, o'er the vulgar wise, Thinks he deserves, and thou deserv'st the prize! Rapt with the thought, my fancy seeks the plains, And turns me shepherd while I hear the strains. Indulgent nurse of every tender gale, Parent of flowerets, old Arcadia, hail! 40 Here in the cool my limbs at ease I spread, Here let thy poplars whisper o'er my head, Still slide thy waters soft ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... said Wyvis, as quietly as if his mother knew all that was involved in that very simple formula. He was still holding the girl by the hand and gazing in his former rapt manner into her face. It was not the look of a lover, to Janetta's eye, half so much as the worship of a saint. Margaret embodied for Wyvis Brand the highest aspirations, the purest dreams ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... evening there was a little music, which Mr. Tymperley seemed much to enjoy. He let his head fall back, and stared upwards; remaining rapt in that posture for some moments after the music ceased, and at length ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... every breath of pure air. The barred windows opened on a street hardly six feet wide, and while we were preparing for bed there was a buzz of subdued whispers outside. We switched on a powerful electric flashlight and there stood at least forty men, women and children gazing at us with rapt attention, but they melted away before the blinding glare like ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... chair; her eyes were gazing, with rapt attention, toward the purple dusk by the window. She was listening. Nurse, as she had often assured her friends, "was not cursed with imagination," but now fear held her so that she could not stir nor move save that her hand trembled against the wall paper. The chatter ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... speaker in all educational gatherings. For several consecutive years he has addressed the National Educational Association, where from ten to fifteen thousand of the cream of the educational workers of the nation listen to his addresses with rapt attention. Without question he is the great leader of his race, and one of the great ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... 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 born with him or was a development of his job—whatever his job might be. Now I ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... now announced, but 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 ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... trilithon towering above them in the centre, its shadow, thrown by the bright moon behind it, lying long and black upon the dazzling sheet of snow, and, standing clear of this shadow so that I could distinguish his every motion, and even the rapt look upon his dying face, the white-draped figure of Mr. Holly. He appeared to be uttering some invocation—in Arabic, I think—for long before I reached him I could catch the tones of his full, sonorous voice, and see his waving, outstretched arms. In his right hand he ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... unconscious gesture of her little hand, and stopped, her beautiful eyes sparkling, her thin pink nostrils dilated, her red lips parted, her round throat lifted in the air, and one small foot advanced before her. The men glanced hurriedly at each other, and then fixed their eyes upon her with a rapt yet frightened admiration. To their simple minds it was Anarchy and ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... doorway, and as I passed in my rubber-soled shoes I caught a glimpse through a rent in the fabric. Three young chaps, the second-cabin steward and the two apprentices, were sitting on the settee, their eyes rapt, their mouths open. The Third Mate, an officer, of all the people in the world, was leaning against the wash-stand, his hands in his pockets, his eyes fixed in the same attentive way. I moved a little and saw my brother on the drawer-tops, smoking a cigarette, his eyes cast down, ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... answer: looked up, with quiet, rapt eyes, through the silent city, and the clear gray beyond. They passed a little church lighted up for evening service: as if to give a meaning to the old man's words, they were chanting the one anthem of the world, ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... so called from the steeds ("inferni raptoris equos," Claud. de Rapt. Pros. i. 1) by which he stole away Proserpine. ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... wags were there who had witnessed the Rebellion—at the moment, had I not become callous, another might have seemed imminent—and were looked up to by the crowd as heroes of a horrid past, being listened to with rapt attention as they described what it was the crowd looked at and whence it came. Had I been a wild animal let loose from its cage, mingled curiosity and a peculiar foreboding among the people of something terrible about to happen could not have ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... not laugh; she did not even smile. She sat down beside Jim's bed and looked seriously at his eager, rapt, shamed little boy-face on the pillow. "Well?" said she, after a minute ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... approached him without being observed, and peered over the side too. His face brightened up with excitement as he heard the sounds of men's voices speaking in Chinese rapidly, and then he listened with rapt attention for a minute. Only for a minute, however, as the serang, turning rapidly round, saw him, and, calling out something which he could not catch, a sampan, or native boat, quickly sheered off from the vessel, and, impelled by two rowers, darted off shore wards; the serang, ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... magnificent in guilt, Splendid in scorn, rapt in a cloudy dream, He paused at last upon the Stygian silt, And raised calm eyes above the angry stream.... Hand in his breast, he stood till Charon came, While Hades hummed with gossip of ...
— Ships in Harbour • David Morton
... with rapt delight— This time a tale of classic lore Our captain chose, with lofty flight; And far from that low-curving shore He took us, with that pleasing tale, Through leafy ...
— Within the Golden Gate - A Souvenir of San Fransisco Bay • Laura Young Pinney
... wide open, shouting, and the unchecked tears running down; Joan forged her slow way through the solid masses, her mailed form projecting above the pavement of heads like a silver statue. The people about her struggled along, gazing up at her through their tears with the rapt look of men and women who believe they are seeing one who is divine; and always her feet were being kissed by grateful folk, and such as failed of that privilege touched her horse and then kissed ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... four, which included Mr. Harold Stopford. The verdict of "Death by misadventure," promptly returned by the coroner's jury, had been shortly followed by his release from custody, and he now sat with his brother and me, listening with rapt attention to ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... talk to her of the stories of old gods and heroes, of gallant deeds and lofty aims, or he might hold forth upon moon and stars, and let his fancy wander over the hidden secrets of the universe, and he would have a rapt listener with flushed cheeks and eloquent eyes, who could repeat after him the very words which had fallen from his lips. But when it came to almagest and astrolabe, the counting of figures and reckoning of epicycles, away would go her ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... low,—let him abide, his goods A cloth, a deerskin, and the Kusa-grass. There, setting hard his mind upon The One, Restraining heart and senses, silent, calm, Let him accomplish Yoga, and achieve Pureness of soul, holding immovable Body and neck and head, his gaze absorbed Upon his nose-end,[FN11] rapt from all around, Tranquil in spirit, free of fear, intent Upon his Brahmacharya vow, devout, Musing on Me, lost in the thought of Me. That Yojin, so devoted, so controlled, Comes to the peace beyond,—My peace, the ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... that pride may urge Thy claims to memory's grateful lore, And boast, as rapt from Lethe's surge, The ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... sea-boots dripping with water. The face of the boy was pale and swollen. The mouth hung down hideously. The hair was matted with moisture. Only the eyes were beautiful, for they looked upward with a rapt and ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Across the face of Enid hearing her; While slowly falling as a scale that falls, When weight is added only grain by grain, Sank her sweet head upon her gentle breast; Nor did she lift an eye nor speak a word, Rapt in the fear and in the wonder of it; So moving without answer to her rest She found no rest, and ever failed to draw The quiet night into her blood, but lay Contemplating her own unworthiness; And when the pale and bloodless east began ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... pocket the Automatic Record of Events, and watched with breathless interest the incidents occurring in different parts of the world. A big battle was being fought in the Philippines, and so fiercely was it contested that Rob watched its progress for hours, with rapt attention. Finally a brave rally by the Americans sent their foes to the cover of the woods, where they scattered in every direction, only to form again in a deep valley hidden ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum
... up the steps a stir within announced the dreaded demonstration. Warwick did not seem to hear it; he stood looking far across the trampled plain and ruined town toward the mountains shining white against the deep Italian sky. A rapt, far-reaching look, as if he saw beyond the purple wall, and seeing forgot the present in some vision of ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... made in the City by the new glory that has fallen upon the ninth of November (it is said that Sir PETER LAURIE has been so rapt by the auspicious coincidence, that he has done nothing since but talk and think of "the Prince of Wales"—that on Wednesday last he rebuked an infant beggar with, "I've nothing for you, Prince of Wales")—independently of the lustre flung upon the new ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 • Various
... picked their way along the rough trail, the Captain told her such tales of the settlement as he could make clear to her and repeated some simple English words he had been trying to teach her. As he talked and as she said over and over the words she had learned, Pocahontas gripped his arm with rapt interest and longed to follow where he led. But night was coming on, it was unwise for her to go beyond the last fork of the trail, and so, reluctantly, she parted from her new and wonderful friend. But before she left ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... exploits of Stingaree (included a garbled version of the recent fiasco across the Murray) with a zest only equalled by his confidant undertaking to avenge the death of Robert Duncan before another day was out; all listened in a rapt silence, and the younger men were duly disappointed when the party broke up prematurely between nine and ten. But they also had played their part in a fatiguing week; by the later hour all were in their rooms, and before ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... summer's heat, 45 To the convent portals came All the blind and halt and lame, All the beggars of the street, For their daily dole of food Dealt them by the brotherhood; 50 And their almoner was he Who upon his bended knee, Rapt in silent ecstasy Of divinest self-surrender, Saw the Vision and ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... declarations of what is spiritual. They are the scientific proofs that Christ's words to 'THIS generation,' namely, this particular phase of creation,—are true. 'Blessed are they which have not seen and yet believed,' He said;—and many there are who have passed away from us in rapt faith and hope, believing not seeing, and with whom we may rejoice in spirit, knowing that all must be well with them. But now—now we are come upon an age of doubt in the world—doubt which corrodes and kills the divine spirit in man, and therefore ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... couplet or gracious image seems not to spring from the inspiration of the poem conceived as a whole, but rather to have dropped of itself into the mind of the poet in one of his rambles, who then, in a less rapt mood, has patiently built up around it a setting of verse too often ungraceful in form and of a material whose cheapness may cast a doubt on the priceless quality of the gem it encumbers.[49] During the most happily productive period of his life, Wordsworth ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... voice was rapt and dreamy. Truedale put his hands across the space dividing them and ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... of—bitter fancies, I heard another horse at no great distance 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 Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... desirable and more glorious to suffer with Christ, than to be honored with him in glory: this is an honor above all others. Christ himself left heaven to meet his cross: and St. Paul received more glory from his chains, than by being rapt up to the third heaven, or by curing the sick by the touch of his scarfs, &c. He desires to feast his heart by dwelling still longer on the chains of this apostle, being himself fettered with a chain from which he would not be separated: for he declares himself to ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... positively and distinctly not. Frightfully interested and rapt and all that, only I didn't quite get ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... the carol rapt me, As I held as if by their hands my comrades in the night, And the voice of my spirit tallied ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... he comes to the mound and climbs it, and will see if the man be dead Some King of the days forgotten laid there with crowned head, Or the frame of a God, it may be, that in heaven hath changed his life, Or some glorious heart beloved, God-rapt from the earthly strife: Now over the body he standeth, and seeth it shapen fair, And clad from head to foot-sole in pale grey-glittering gear, In a hauberk wrought as straitly as though to the flesh it ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... pure in heart, She tunes the lyre to David's flame, And rapt, as mortal scenes depart, She hymns the heaven ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... The unexpected softness of her father utterly subdued her; nor was she sufficiently possessed of that all-denying zeal of the Catholic enthusiast to which every human tie and earthly duty has been often sacrificed on the shrine of a rapt and metaphysical piety. Whatever her opinions, her new creed, her secret desire of the cloister, fed as it was by the sublime, though fallacious notion, that in her conversion, her sacrifice, the crimes of her race might be expiated in the eyes of Him whose death had been the great ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... enough, from the glassy pond-like water at St. Cloud, lulled only by gentle catspaws, half asleep and dreaming, to the rattling of spars and blocks, and hissing of the water, in the merry whistling gale by which we now were rapt away. ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... is therefore, if I may so express it, vegetal. Trees as well as flowers and fruits symbolize for me beings and emotions. Plants as well as animals and stones filled my childhood with a mysterious charm. When I was four years old I remained rapt in contemplation of the broken stones of the mountain, lying in heaps along the roads. When struck they gave forth fire in the twilight. When rubbed against one another they felt the burning heat. I gathered pieces of marble from among them which ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes
... bird in a shrubbery. The valet was quite unlike himself as he followed his master homewards and asked leave of absence for the evening—for the first time in his period of service. Manvers had no doubt at all how that evening was spent—in rapt attention below the barred windows of the House ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... Clement Moore, brown, hollow-cheeked, and clad in army blue, looked out with weary eyes on all the confusion. Half asleep in the parching heat, visions of cool, green forest depths, and endless ripple of leaves, of the ceaseless wash and sway of salt tides, drifted across his brain, and rapt him out of the sick, comfortless present. But they vanished like a flash with the sudden cessation of motion, and the reality of his surroundings came back with a great shock. Captain George, coming in five minutes after with a ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... in rapt contemplation of a pear-tree in full blossom, her hands tightly clasped behind the back, for greater safety from the temptation, when, hearing the shrubbery gate open, she turned, expecting to see her papa, but was frightened ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... problems which are ever vexing the life of our free Republic, we must solve them by the principles of the Golden Rule and the democracy of the Lord's Prayer. It is not sufficient for us to stand with Thomas and say in rapt admiration, "My Lord and my God." Side by side with our black brother and with our white brother, with our yellow brother and with our red brother, we are to kneel and say, not "My Lord and my God," but "Our Father," and the spirit of common prayer to a common Father ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 1, January, 1896 • Various
... that I played was memorable. As the tones floated through the air they caught the ears of those outside, and soon great numbers came into the apartment, listening in amazement and in rapt attention. Even the painful light was disregarded in the pleasure of this most novel sensation, and I perceived that if the sense of sight was deficient among them, that of hearing was sufficiently acute. I ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... had borrowed from the utterer, the words met the cold condemnation of the well-judging; but at that moment all things seemed possible to the hero of the people. He spoke as one inspired—they trembled and believed; and, as rapt from the spectacle, he stood a moment silent, his arm still extended—his dark dilating eye fixed upon space—his lip parted—his proud head towering and erect above the herd,—his own enthusiasm kindled that of the more humble and distant spectators; and ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... drag you back 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 ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... one or two exquisite movements in the prayer harmony, and I turned to note their effect on Mrs. Yocomb, and was greatly struck by her appearance. She was looking fixedly into space, and her face had assumed a rapt, earnest, seeking aspect, as if she were trying to see something half hidden in the far distance. With a few rich chords the melody ceased. Mr. Yocomb glanced at his wife, then instantly folded his hands and assumed ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... decorated cathedral, the workmanship of human hands. Its application to this use, at this time, recalled forcibly to the mind of the youth the forms and features of that primitive worship, when the trees bent with gentle murmurs above the heads of the rapt worshippers, and a visible Deity dwelt in the shadowed valleys, and whispered an auspicious acceptance of their devotions in every breeze. He could not help acknowledging, as, indeed, must all who have ever been under the influence of such a scene, that in this, more properly ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... a kind of Christianity; and really, if we look at the wild rapt earnestness with which it was believed and laid to heart, I should say a better kind than that of those miserable Syrian Sects, with their vain janglings about Homoiousion and Homoousion, the head full of worthless noise, the heart empty and dead! The truth of it is imbedded in portentous ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... already seized the other apparatus connected with the art-gallery and had the wireless receiver over his head. He was listening with rapt attention, talking ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... in a tumult would be to but faintly express my condition. I was rapt into a heaven of delight which had no measure in all my adventurous life—the lifting of the veil which showed that my wife—mine—won in all sincerity in the very teeth of appalling difficulties and dangers—was ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... "The Last of the Mohicans," which everybody will admit to be one of the most interesting of his works,—full of rapid movement, brilliant descriptions, hair-breadth escapes, thrilling adventures,—which young persons probably read with more rapt attention than any other of his narratives. In the opening chapter we find at Fort Edward, on the head-waters of the Hudson, the two daughters of Colonel Munro, the commander of Fort William Henry, on the shores of Lake George; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... and Henrietta, a little awed by the rapt, triumphant look with which, sitting upright with head thrown back, he gazed into the distance, kept silence also. And in a few moments their ship bumped into its berth and they joined silently the crowd ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... is the gathering of loose intellectual activity into a fast focus; that creative sensibility is human feeling refined of its dross, stilled of its tumultuousness in the glow of the beautiful; that musical cadence is heard by him who can hearken with such rapt reverence as to catch some sound of the tread in divine movement, we may apprehend that a genuine poem implies, for its conception, an illuminated plenitude of mind, and involves in its production ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... more to say of Rogers and Lord Jeffrey, and other pets of aristocratic circles,—those who were conventionally favored, like Sydney Smith; or those who gave banquets to people of fashion, like Lord Lansdowne. These were the people he loved best to associate with, who listened to his rhetoric with rapt admiration, who did not pique his vanity, and who had something to give to him,—position ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... elegant in fashion; one could tell how it belonged aforetime to the footwear of a beautiful girl. Perhaps this thought was aided by the reverent preoccupation of Richard as he regarded it, for he set the boot-heel on the table and hung over it in a rapt way that had the outward features of idolatry. It was right that he should; the little heel spoke of ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... looked into space; 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
... Rapt with joy, the happy Orpheus hastened on the way, thinking only of Eurydice, who was following him. Past Lethe, across the Styx they went, he and his lovely wife, still silent as a Shade. But the place was full of gloom, the silence weighed upon him, he had not seen her for so long; ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody
... to the coveted condition. Some have pursued it in eager intensity, dancing and singing as they went. Others have rushed after it in mad determination, cursing and grumbling as they ran. Many have sought it in rapt contemplation of the Sublime and Beautiful. Thousands have grubbed and grovelled for it in the gratification or the drowning of the senses, while not a few have sought and found it in simple, loving submission to their Maker's will, as made known by ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... the great injury of the grammar, to the great grief of the reader, for most part! What we want to get at is the thought the man had, if he had any: why should he twist it into jingle, if he could speak it out plainly? It is only when the heart of him is rapt into true passion of melody, and the very tones of him, according to Coleridge's remark, become musical by the greatness, depth and music of his thoughts, that we can give him right to rhyme and sing; that we call him a Poet, and listen to him as the Heroic of Speakers,—whose ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... the warm, throbbing contact of her bosom, to her strong arms clinging round his neck, to her closed eyes, to the rapt whiteness of her face. And he bent to cold lips that seemed to receive his first kisses as new and strange; but tremulously changed, at last to meet his own, and then to burn with sweet ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... on the Colonel, as by one rapt impulse he uplifts both his eyes an' his nosepaint, 'as I gazes r'arward, I says, on them sun-filled days, an' speshul if ever I gets betrayed into talkin' about 'em, I can hardly t'ar myse'f from the subject. I explains yeretofore, that not only by inclination but ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... the initiates, their gesture, their calm glance. I have heard how in rapt thought, in vision, they speak with another race, more beautiful, more intense than this. I could laugh— ...
— Sea Garden • Hilda Doolittle
... open along its entire length, is dark and mysterious, with touches of gilding in distant corners melting away into the gloom. In the very remotest part are seated idols, and from outside one can vaguely see their clasped hands and air of rapt mysticism; in front are the altars, loaded with marvellous vases in metalwork, whence spring graceful clusters of gold and silver lotus. From the very entrance one is greeted by the sweet odor of the incense-sticks unceasingly burned by the priests ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... graceful movements of the ship in rapt admiration, and longed to be aboard her. Presently his keen eyes caught the faintest suspicion of smoke on the far northern horizon, and he wondered over the cause of such a thing out ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... gathered. Heavy veils shrouded their faces and fell to their feet. They held in their hands tall wax-candles, whose yellow flames burned steadily in the semi-darkness. Five or six young girls knelt, motionless as statues, in their midst. They also carried tapers, and their rapt faces were turned towards the unseen altar within, of which the outer one is but the visible token. Their eyelids were downcast. Their white veils were thrown back from their calm foreheads, and floated like wings ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... sudden good fortune, Marjorie stood in rapt contemplation of her friends' tributes. Before she had time to go nearer to examine them, sounds of stifled laughter informed her that she ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... 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 ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... jolly old carpet. When I came in, he was goggling at it in a sort of glassy way. Absolutely rapt, don't you know. My coming in gave him a start—seemed to rouse him from a kind of trance, you know—and he jumped like an antelope; and, if I hadn't happened to grab him, he would have trampled bang on the thing. It was deuced unpleasant, you ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... to give than to receive." Now, kindness and tenderness melt the hardness of our natures. Now, as we stretch the helping hand and witness the joy and gratitude evoked, by our God-like deeds, we feel in every fiber of our being the thrill of the poet's rapt exclamation: ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... life begins anew, And Youth, from gathering flowers, From vague delights, rapt musings, twilight hours, Turns restless, seeking some great deed to do, To sum his foster'd dreams; when that fresh birth Unveils the real, the throng'd and spacious Earth, And he awakes to those more ample skies, By other aims and by new powers possess'd: How ...
— Primavera - Poems by Four Authors • Stephen Phillips, Laurence Binyon, Manmohan Ghose and Arthur Shearly Cripps
... young woman was rapt as she spoke, and Blaine could guess without further explanation that she herself was a protegee of Miss Lawton's, and a grateful one—unless she were playing a part. If so, she was ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... and glanced around the court room as if to see how much sympathy she could read in the countenances of her hearers. The rapt attention, the kindly look in their eyes gave her courage to take up a question which the situation in the South made exceedingly delicate, when one's audience was composed ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... attentive to the godlike man; you might hear a pin drop: the subject is announced once and again in a very audible voice; the touch-paper is ignited, the magazine will blow up presently! Incontinently we are rapt off to Pere la Chaise, where the great composer lies buried, and a form of communication is made to us on this suitable spot, that Bellini is dead; then comes, in episode, a catalogue of all the operas he ever wrote, with allusions to each, and not a little vapouring ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... letter just received enables me to answer this question. "When I first met him, I looked on him with the deepest interest, and realized the charm that everyone felt. He had just gone up to Oxford, and was intensely keen on Ruskin and Browning, and devoted to music. He would listen with rapt attention when we played Chopin and Schumann to him. I used to meet him at dinner-parties when I first came out, by which time he was very enthusiastic on the Catholic side, and very fond of St. Barnabas, Pimlico, and was ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... once for splendid manliness of self-command and an ominous and savage vehemence; the glad, saving, comforting cry to Virginia, "Is she here?"—that cry which never failed to precipitate a gush of joyous tears; the rapt preoccupation and the exquisite music of voice with which he said, "I never saw thee look so like thy mother, in all my life"; the majesty of his demeanour in the forum; the look that saw the knife; the mute parting ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... behest I always heed with rapt attention, Most fervently I must protest Against this horrible invention; Your word has hitherto been law, But this appears the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 14, 1893 • Various
... Plover in his accustomed place in the front rank, just under the light of the torches, where he would meet the speaker's eye, his face rapt and worshipful. Then he looked ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... has taken hold of thee," Maieddine said one day, when he had watched her in silence for a while, and seen the rapt look in her eyes. "I knew the time would come, sooner or later. It ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... hands quiet, had not the watch happened just then to come up and clear the ground. A moment afterwards the ears of all who were awake in the quarter were greeted by an admirable voice proceeding from a man who had seated himself on a stone opposite the door of the Sevillano. Everybody listened with rapt attention to his song, but none more so than Tomas Pedro, to whom every word sounded like a sentence of excommunication, for the romance ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... a sudden amazement at my own perverse proceeding struck like a blow upon me. I felt from the first it was me he wanted—me he was seeking—and had not I wanted him too? What, then, had carried me away? What had rapt me beyond his reach? He had something to tell: he was going to tell me that something: my ear strained its nerve to hear it, and I had made the confidence impossible. Yearning to listen and console, while I thought audience and solace beyond hope's ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... or two with her when she started to return and remained silent and rapt for the few minutes of ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... 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
... soon begin their usual spinning chorus. Their hands and feet work busily while two verses of the song are sung, and all are remarkably diligent except Senta, who sits with her hands in her lap, gazing in rapt attention at the portrait of the Flying Dutchman, whose mournful fate has touched her tender heart, and whose haunting eyes have made her indulge in many a long day-dream. Roused from her abstraction ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... teemed with a spirit of savage grandeur. Many of the glens on each side were deep and precipitous, where rock beetled over rock, and ledge projected over ledge, in a manner so fearful that the mind of the spectator, excited and rapt into terror by the contemplation of them, wondered why they did not long ago tumble into the chasm beneath, so slight was their apparent support. Even in the mildest, seasons desolation brooded over the lesser hills and mountains ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... discovered to St. Paul, when he was rapt up into the third heaven; whatever new ideas his mind there received, all the description he can make to others of that place, is only this, That there are such things, 'as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... Shalt house with melodists of Greece and Rome, Or awed by Dante's wintry presence be, Or won by Goethe's regal suavity, Or with those masters hardly less adored Repose, of Rydal and of Farringford; And—like a mortal rapt from men's abodes Into some skyey fastness of the gods— Divinely neighboured, thou in such a shrine Mayst for a ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson |
