Sublime

The reader who would dig to the philosophical foundations of this is advised to read Hegel and Emerson for himself.

That is the uncommon school we want. Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men. If it is necessary, omit one bridge over the river, go round a little there, and throw one arch at least over the darker gulf of ignorance which surrounds us.

Mason teaches a religious tending of one’s own self. “Self-knowledge,” he says, “is that acquaintance with ourselves, which shows us what we are, and do, and ought to be, and do, in order to live comfortably and usefully here, and happily hereafter.” The means urged is self-examination, the purpose self-government and “self-fruition.” These books s