After using the context to determine the meaning of "rapture", we can conclude it means "delight" or even "euphoria".
We can come to this meaning <u>because of the words that describe the same action</u>, such as "passion", "intoxication", and "pleasure."
After looking the word up in an online dictionary, I confirmed my definition. The dictionary entry says "rapture" refers to "ecstasy" and an "overwhelming feeling".
The word "rapture" appears in Guy de Maupassant's short story "The Necklace" when the narrator describes the way the main character is dancing. See the excerpt below:
"She danced with rapture, with passion, intoxicated by pleasure, forgetting all in the triumph of her beauty, in the glory of her success . . ."
This feeling of forgetting about everything else when an overwhelming feeling comes over us can be described as ecstasy. Ecstasy is extreme delight, a sense of euphoria.
It's clear through the passage that there are no paved roads or cars to get the miners from place to place. They had to carry all of their gear and supplies through dangerous trails by foot, only being able to travel a certain amount each day.
Examples, one with a comma and one without: Shakespeare was born in Stratford and went on to write Hamlet. Shakespeare was born in Stratford, later writing Hamlet
