It was instinctive; as instinctive as the reciprocal flash of mutual understanding.
"I think I know, but tell us," she said.
Paul, challenged, defined it as the swift wave of sympathy that surged over the earth.

A famine in India, a devastating earthquake in Mexico, a bid for freedom on the part of an oppressed population, a deed of heroism at sea--each was felt within practically a few moments, emotionally, in an English, French or German village.

Our hearts were throbbing continuously at the end of telegraph wires.
"And you call that pleasure ?" asked Count Lavretsky.
"It isn't hedonism, at any rate," said Paul.
"I call it life," said the Princess.

"Don't you ?"--she turned to Doon.
"I think what Mr.Savelli calls the emotive force of mankind helps to balance our own personal emotions," said he.
"Or isn't it rather a wear and tear on the nervous system ?" laughed his wife.
"It seems so to me," said Count Lavretsky.

"Perhaps, being a Russian, I am more primitive and envy a nobleman of the time of Pharaoh who never heard of devastations in Mexico, did not feel his heart called upon to pulsate at anything beyond his own concerns.