from Middlemarch

When Mrs Casaubon was announced he started up as from an electrick shock, and felt a tingling at his finger-ends. Any one observing him would have seen a change in his complexion, in the adjustment of his facial muscles, in the vividness of his glance, which might have made them imagine that every molecule in his body had passed the message of a magic touch. And so it had. For effective magic is transcendent nature; and who shall measure the subtlety of those touches which convery the quality of soul as well as body, and make a man's passion for one women differ from is passion for another as joy in the morning light over valley and river and white mountain-top differes from joy among Chinese lanterns and glass panels?

GEORGE ELIOT (1819-90)