In every man's heart there is a secret nerve that answers to the vibrations of beauty.

Morley suggests that responsiveness to beauty is not an acquired taste reserved for a cultivated few but an innate human capacity. The metaphor of a “secret nerve” implies something intimate, hidden, and involuntary: beauty “vibrates” and the heart answers, as if by sympathetic resonance. The line also carries a democratic, humanist implication typical of Morley’s genial essays—beneath social differences, people share a common susceptibility to art, nature, or moral beauty. At the same time, calling it “secret” hints that this sensitivity may be private or suppressed, requiring the right encounter to awaken it.