Saul Bellow

I began to feel the sensation in my gums warning of something lovely, and with it a close or painful feeling in the chest. People allergic to feathers or pollen will know what I’m talking about; they become aware of their presence with the most gradual subtlety. In my case the cause that morning was the color of the wall with the sunrise on it, and when it became deeper I had to put down the baked yam I was chewing and support myself with my hands on the ground, for I felt the world sway under me and would have reached, if I were on a horse, for the horn of the saddle.  Some powerful magnificence not human seemed under me . And it was this same mild pink color, like the water of watermelon, that did it.  At once I recognized the importance of this, as throughout my life I had known these moments when the dumb begins to speak, when I hear the voices of objects and colors then the physical universe starts to wrinkle and change and heave and rise and smooth, so it seem that even the dogs have to lean against a tree, shivering.

- Henderson The Rain King, p.101