Le toucher est le plus de¤  mystificateur de tous les sens, a'   la diffe¤  rence de la vue, qui est le plus magique. Touch is the most demystifying of all senses, different from sight which is the most magical.

-Barthes, Roland
  Mythologies,'La nouvelle Citroe«  n'.

Jesus saith unto her,Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.Jesus saith unto her,Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.

-Bible (NewTestament)
St  John 20:15^17. The Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible, ascribed to St  Jerome, famously renders the phrase'Do not touch me'as 'Noli me tangere'.

   Noli me tangere. Do not touch me. See Bible (NewTestament) 118:23.

-Bible (Vulgate)
St  John 20:17.

There is no event so commonplace but that God is present in it, alwayshiddenly, alwaysleaving you roomto recognize him or not to recognize him† Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the heavenlyand hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.

-Buechner, (Carl) Frederick
  Now and Then.

O fat white woman whom nobody loves, Why do you walk through the fields in gloves, When the grass is soft as the breast of doves And shivering-sweet to the touch? Oh why do you walk through the fields in gloves, Missing so much and so much? See Chesterton 213:99.

-Cornford, Frances ne¤  e Darwin
  'To a Fat Lady Seen from a Train'.

Thou art not, Penshurst, built to envious show Of touch or marble, nor canst boast a row Of polished pillars, or a roof of gold; Thou hast no lantern whereof tales are told, Or stair, or courts; but standst an ancient pile, And these grudged at, art reverenced the while.

-Jonson, Ben
  The Forest,'To Penshurst'.

Do not all charms fly At the mere touch of cold philosophy? There was an awful rainbow once in heaven: We know her woof, her texture; she isgiven In the dull catalogue of common things. Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings.

-Keats,John
  Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St.  Agnes and Other Poems, 'Lamia', pt.2, l.229^34.

   He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, That dares not put it to the touch, To gain or lose it all.

-Montrose,James Graham, 1st Marquis of
c.1642  'My Dear and Only Love', stanza 2.

Move him into the sunö Gently its touch awoke him once, At home, whispering of fields unsown.

-Owen,Wilfred
  'Futility', collected in Poems (published1920).

The Big Bow-wow strain I can do myself like any now going; but the exquisite touch, which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting, from the truth of description and the sentiment, is denied to me.

-Scott, Sir Walter
  OnJaneAusten. Journal,14 Mar.

A slumber did my spirit seal; I had no human fears: She seemed a thing that could not feel The touch of earthly years. No motion has she now, no force; She neither hears nor sees; Rolled round in earth's diurnal course With rocks, and stones and trees.

-Wordsworth,William
  'A slumber did my spirit seal', complete poem (published 1800).

A babe, by intercourse of touch I held mute dialogues with my Mother's heart.

-Wordsworth,William
^1805  The Prelude, bk.2, l.267^8 (published1850).

: Do not let him touch you! It is not true That drunken men cannot beget, And if he touch he must beget And you must bear his murderer. Deaf! Both deaf!

-Yeats,W(illiam) B(utler)
OLD MAN1939  Purgatory.