Thank you very much for your comments... and clues.

Wow. I love this short story by G. Eliot, and it's nice to find it here. Just a question, maybe you can help...

I have a translation to Spanish (not yet published), and I have a doubt with this (to me cryptic reference): 

by this unerringly directed discharge operating on movements corresponding to what we call Estimates, and by necessary mechanical consequence on movements corresponding to what we call the Funds, which with a vain analogy we sometimes speak of as "sensitive."

Do you know what she means/alludes with "Estimates" "Funds"?

BTW, My take on the origin of this story is that it is a reference to Bulwer-Lytton's novel Vril (The Coming Race, 1871)