It is enough to say, without applying this poetical
rhapsody to Aouda, that she was a charming woman, in all the European acceptation of the phrase.
And probably the half-unconscious
rhapsody was a Fetichistic utterance in a Monotheistic setting; women whose chief companions are the forms and forces of outdoor Nature retain in their souls far more of the Pagan fantasy of their remote forefathers than of the systematized religion taught their race at later date.
Martin paused from his
rhapsody, only to break out afresh.
"Simply, loveliest and most benign of your sex, that once already, in answer to a demand of your hand, you deigned to reply with that energetic and encouraging monosyllable, yes--dear and categorical affirmative--" exclaimed Tom, going off again at half-cock, highly impressed with the notion that
rhapsody, instead of music, was the food of love--"Yes, dear and categorical affirmative, with what ecstasy did not my drowsy ears drink in the melodious sounds--what extravagance of delight my throbbing heart echo its notes, on the wings of the unseen winds--in short, what considerable satisfaction your consent gave my pulsating mind!"
I affirm that he shared the general beatitude, and that, quite the reverse of La Fontaine, who, at the presentation of his comedy of the "Florentine," asked, "Who is the ill-bred lout who made that
rhapsody?" Gringoire would gladly have inquired of his neighbor, "Whose masterpiece is this?"
That insures us a temporal, but this an eternal happiness.--But I am afraid I tire you with my
rhapsody."
The
rhapsody welled up within me, like blood from an inward wound, and gushed out.
"I have not authorized you to suspect any part of this
rhapsody to be true--I have not said you were right in a single particular."
Osborne broke out into a
rhapsody of self-praise and imprecations;-- by the first, excusing himself to his own conscience for his conduct; by the second, exaggerating the undutifulness of George.
His lips curled with contempt at the passionate
rhapsody. He knew a thing or two, he allowed, about these wonderful Roses of Sharon and this Song of Songs.
After uttering this
rhapsody, the old gentleman snapped his fingers twenty or thirty times, and then subsided into an ecstatic contemplation of Miss La Creevy's charms.
Her discourse gave evidence of an imagination hopelessly entangled with her reason; it was a vague and incomprehensible
rhapsody, which, however, seemed to spread its own atmosphere round the hearer's soul, and to move his feelings by some influence unconnected with the words.