He once called her his basil plant; and when she asked for an explanation, said that basil was a plant which had flourished wonderfully on a murdered… - George Eliot

Wouldst thou have asked aught else from any god Whether with gleaming feet on earth he trod Or thundered through the skies — aught else for share Of mortal good, than in thy soul to bear The growth of song, and feel the sweet unrest Of the world's spring-tide in thy conscious breast? No, thou hadst grasped thy lot with all its pain, Nor loosed it any painless lot to gain Where music's voice was silent; for thy fate Was human music's self incorporate: Thy senses' keenness and thy passionate strife Were flesh of her flesh and her womb of Life.

With thy coming Melody was come. This was thy lot, to feel, create, bestow, And that immeasurable life to know From which the fleshly self falls shrivelled, dead, A seed primeval that has forests bred.

When Mrs. Casaubon was announced he started up as from an electric shock, and felt a tingling at his fingerends. 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 convey the quality of soul as well as body, and make a man's passion for one woman differ from his passion for another as joy in the morning light over valley and river and white mountain-top differs from joy among Chinese lanterns and glass panels? Will, too, was made of very impressible stuff. The bow of a violin drawn near him cleverly, would at one stroke change the aspect of the world for him, and his point of view shifted— as easily as his mood. Dorothea's entrance was the freshness of morning.