Touch

“ But let us beware of words; let us use our eyes and our imagination in dealing with the young; let us see what they are feeling and help them by the flow of our responsive feeling. But words, even words of praise and tenderness, touch this delicate bloom of nature as with a hot finger, and behold! ”

“ There is the breadth of touch, the large-minded equable spirit of loving contemplative thought, which is fully conscious of the narrow limitations of the actor's thoughts and habits, but does not cease on that account to sympathise with his joys and sorrows. ”

“ It has been said that touch is the surest, and perhaps the only witness of the existence of bodies; for without it, all sensations would be nothing more than simple modifications of our being, to which we could attribute no external object. ”

“ Touch, the last of the senses, and most ignoble, yet of as great necessity as the other, and of as much pleasure. This sense is exquisite in men, and by his nerves dispersed all over the body, perceives any tactile quality. ”

“ There is something truer and more real than what we can see with the eyes and touch with the finger. ”

“ In mere tender emotion not sexual, there is nothing but the sense of touch to gratify, unless we assume the occult magnetic influences.... In a word, our love pleasures begin and end in sensual contact. Touch is both the alpha and omega of affection. As the terminal and satisfying sensation, the ne plus ultra, it must be a pleasure of the highest degree.... Why should a more lively feeling grow up towards a fellow-being than towards a perennial fountain? ”

“ The touch takes in the pleasure of softness, which is not primarily an object of sight; the sight, on the other hand, comprehends color, which can hardly he made perceptible to the touch: the touch, again, has the advantage in a new idea of pleasure resulting from a moderate degree of warmth; but the eye triumphs in the infinite extent and multiplicity of its objects. ”

“ Had I no eyes but ears, my ears would love,
That inward beauty, and invisible:
Or were I deaf, thy outward parts would move
Each part in me that were but sensible.
⁠Though neither eyes nor ears, to hear nor see,
⁠Yet should I be in love by touching thee.
Say, that the sense of feeling were bereft me,
And that I could not see, nor hear, nor touch,
And nothing but the very smell were left me,
Yet would my love to thee be still as much,
⁠For from the Stillatory of thy face excelling,
⁠Comes breath perfum'd, that breedeth love by smelling. ”

“ Touch gives much by way of interpretation only when an individual object, for example a man's hat, is recognized by aid of this sense alone, in which case the perception distinctly involves the reproduction of a complete visual percept. ”

“ Thus touch is the sense which best teaches us the action of foreign bodies upon ourselves, the sense which most directly supplies us with the knowledge required for self-preservation.
As the trained touch takes the place of sight, why should it not, to some extent, take the place of hearing, since sounds set up, in sonorous bodies, vibrations perceptible by touch? ”

“ LOVE IN A LOOK Let me but feel thy look's embrace,
Transparent, pure, and warm,
And I'll not ask to touch thy face,
Or fold thee with mine arm.
For in thine eyes a girl doth rise,
Arrayed in candid bliss,
And draws me to her with a charm
More close than any kiss. ”

“ The perfection of touch becomes in a manner a second sight, which enables the mind to feel and see fine details which escape the generality of men and constitutes a quality of the first order, moral tact, that touch of the soul as it has been called, which is the mark of people with a delicate skin, and whose sensory nerves, like tense cords, are always ready to vibrate at the contact of the slightest impressions. ”

“ The expression, “I feel the table,” includes both the antecedent and the consequent. It does not mark the sensation alone; it marks the sensation, and, along with the sensation, its antecedent, namely, the organ, and its object in conjunction.
The phrase, sense of touch, or the word feeling, often synonymous, has the same complexity of meaning, which we have observed in the phrases, sense of hearing, sense of sight, and the rest of the senses. ”

“ But the sense of touch gives to man a number of the properties of matter, which he retains as abstract ideas, such as dimension, form, condition of surface, hardness, softness, elasticity, compressibility, fluidity, quiescence, motion. In many and most important respects it assists the eye; and, indeed, the senses of sight and of touch appear to be correctors and supporters of each other. ”

“ If you want to improve our acquaintance with the sense of touch, you accumulate and methodize all the experiences relating to touch; you compare them, see whether they are consistent or inconsistent, select the good, reject the bad, improve the statement of one by light borrowed from the others ”

“ We receive by touch an impression, just as we do by the other senses; this impression is in all cases an affection of our being, and not something external. When, from the continuance of these impressions, their order, and their independence of our will, we judge them to proceed from objects without us, our judgment is true not only of impressions of the sense of touch, but also of those of the other senses. ”

“ In like manner, if we despoil the sensations received through the sense of touch, of those qualities which affect this sense, the object that caused them is not annihilated, neither is it represented by the impressions it transmits to us. ”

“ To feel is, in its two senses, either much more limited or much more general, being confined, in its restricted meaning, to the sensations of one organ, that of touch,—and as a more general word, being applicable to all the varieties of our consciousness, as much as to those particular varieties, which are immediately successive to the affections of our organs of sense. ”

“ There is a property in bodies which is necessary to all sensations, or at least, to the two principal sensations of sight and touch. This property is extension, which, whether considered subjectively or objectively, we regard as a recipient of all sensations. ”

“ Now as there is a moving tone of voice, an impassioned countenance, an agitated gesture, which affect independently of the things about which they are exerted, so there are words and certain dispositions of words which being peculiarly devoted to passionate subjects, and always used by those who are under the influence of passion, touch and move us more than those which far more clearly and distinctly express the subject-matter. ”

“ Those eyes that so often glisten with the most touching sensibility,—those cheeks that so beautifully mantle with the varying dies of quick transition of sentiment,—that mouth, which so expressively plays in harmony with every word,—nay, every thought,—all, all announce a heart where every virtue is seconded and softened by every feeling!—a mind alive to the quickest sensations, yet invigorated with the ablest understanding! ”

“ Many authorities hold that all of the five senses are modifications of the sense of touch, or feeling; as for instance, the impression upon the organs of sight is really in the nature of a delicate touch or feeling of the light-waves as they come in contact with the nerves of vision, etc. ”

“ The sense of touch, for instance, in the blind man, has sometimes proved no mean substitute for eyes; and, indeed, any of the senses by cultivation, in peculiar exigencies, may be prodigiously strengthened. ”

“ These souls so entirely formed by the sights and sounds of nature blended with inner feeling give a secret, mystical significance touched with the finest spiritual sense to the pictures and parallels which they produce. ”

“ Touch, as Aristotle tells us, is the “mother sense.” Starting from this form of sensibility as a basis, the other senses develop as we ascend the animal series, by processes of increasing complexity and refinement. ”

“ Need I suggest the importance of remembering, in this connection, how much in our modern life is conveyed by the hand clasp, or the deep delight that comes to lovers in caressing touches, when impelled to pat the hands or cheek of the beloved one, or to stroke her hair? It is through the emotional life that our sensitiveness is led from the physical to the psychic plane of sensation. ”

“ Filled with this love, the heart is readily touched by discourse upon His words and acts. It hears of nothing more willingly, reads nothing more carefully, recalls nothing more frequently, and meditates upon nothing more sweetly. ”

“ An essay showing that all the senses resolve themselves ultimately into a sense of touch, and that eating is touch carried to the bitter end. ”

“ There are four Powers: memory and intellect, desire and covetousness. The two first are mental and the others sensual. The three senses: sight, hearing and smell cannot well be prevented; touch and taste not at all. ”

“ It is necessary to take notice, that, as each of our senses has its separate class of sensations, so each has its separate class of ideas. We have ideas of Sight, ideas of Touch, ideas of Hearing, ideas of Taste, and ideas of Smell.
1. By Sight, as we have sensations of red, yellow, blue, &c., and of the innumerable modifications of them, so have we ideas of those colours. We can think of those colours in the dark; that is, we have a feeling or consciousness, which is not the same with the sensation, but which we contemplate as a copy of the sensation, an image of it ”

“ In this equation it is probably the touch-feeling which prevails as real and the sight which serves as sign—a reduction made necessary not only by the far greater constancy of felt over seen magnitudes, but by the greater practical interest which the sense of touch possesses for our lives. As a rule, things only benefit or harm us by coming into direct contact with our skin: sight is only a sort of anticipatory touch; the latter is, in Mr. ”

“ And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips. ”

“ The beam of the eye, the tone of voice, the thousand tendernesses which emanate from every word and look and action,--these form the true eloquence of love, and can always be felt and understood, but never described. Can we wonder that they should readily win a heart young, guileless, and susceptible? ”

“ It there becomes part and parcel of the eye, the organ of light and the throne of expression,—of the blood, which is so eloquent in cheek and brow,—of the nerves, the telegraph-wires of the soul,—of the persuasive tongue,—of the tear-drop, the dew of emotion, which only the human eye can shed,—of the glossy tresses of beauty, the nets of love. ”

“ It gave us a new sensation, a new and a higher notion of what the mind of man can put into, and bring out of, landscape painting; how its representative and suggestive truthfulness may be perfect, forming the material elements,—the body, as it were, of the picture,—while, at the same time, there may be superadded that fine sense of the indefinable relation of the visible world to mental emotion, which is its essence and vivifying soul. ”

“ What inundation of life and thought is discharged from one soul into another, through them! The glance is natural magic. The mysterious communication established across a house between two entire strangers, moves all the springs of wonder. The communication by the glance is in the greatest part not subject to the control of the will. It is the bodily symbol of identity of nature. We look into the eyes to know if this other form is another self, and the eyes will not lie, but make a faithful confession what inhabitant is there. ”

“ Throughout this discussion of the elements of the experience of art, I have used the terms emotion and feeling with an inclusive meaning, to cover impulses as well as feelings in the narrower sense. For in the aesthetic experience, there are impulses—impulses to move when action is represented in picture and statue, impulses to act, as when, in watching a play, we put ourselves in the place of the persons. ”

“ They say to you, oh Poet, ‘Perfect those gifts of your higher nature—yet be not of them vainglorious, since, humanly speaking, they are not yours, but lent for a purpose, and the brief space of earth-life.’ Look upon every beautiful thought, every gift of expression, as the direction of One who has dowered you with the possibility of opening other eyes to the beauty, and other minds to the understanding of such expression. ”

“ Let the body imitate, reproduce⁠—in a bedroom, in a wood⁠—anywhere⁠—the movements of the stars, and the meaning of those stars shall sink down into the heart. The movements constitute a script, a language. To mimic the gestures of a stranger is to understand his mood, his point of view⁠—to establish a grave and solemn intimacy. ”

“ Recollect all the sweet, the beautiful, and the various expressions of the human countenance,—the fire, the vigor, and sparkling triumph of the eye, the restless energy or quiet repose of the limbs, the smiling, speaking expression of the lips,—and you can faintly conceive the models and patterns that spirit artists and sculptors seek to emulate. ”

“ An object, by making an impression, produceth an emotion or passion, which again gives the mind a certain tone suited to it.
10. Perception and sensation are commonly reckoned synonymous terms, signifying the consciousness we have of objects; but, in accurate language, they are distinguished. The consciousness we have of external objects, is termed perception. Thus we are said to perceive a certain animal, a certain colour, sound, taste, smell, &c. The consciousness we have of pleasure or pain arising from external objects, is termed sensation. ”

“ The first sight of such a scene will be unforgotten to your dying day—for such passive impressions are deeper than we can explain—our whole spiritual being is suddenly awakened to receive them—and associations, swift as light, are gathered into one Emotion of Beauty which shall be imperishable, and which, often as memory recalls that moment, grows into genius, and vents itself in appropriate expressions, each in itself a picture. ”