for a brief second seem to know

... it will be sufficient if I say that the first time I saw him writing, and saw the writing that came as he wrote, I had that thrill and tremble of the heart that otherwise I can only remember having had when first I touched her [Mary's] body or saw her hair coming down.... or when I first heard the plainchant of the Church (as they sang it at Louvain in the Abbey of Mont Cesar) or when I first entered the Church of San Clemente in Rome or first saw the North Transept of Chartres from the little alley between the houses... there are many occasions when, in a manner of speaking, you seem to pierce the cloud of unknowing and for a brief second seem to know even as God knows - sometimes, when you are drawing the human body, even the turn of a shoulder or the firmness of a waist, it seems to shine with the radiance of righteousness.

Eric Gill, Autobiography