Standing before what is greater than oneself: the test of the sublime

The Romantics sought out the high mountain, the sea, the storm or the night sky to feel the sublime: that mixture of vertigo and exaltation before what overwhelms us. To expose oneself willingly to something vaster than oneself dislodges the self for a moment from its worries and reopens the sense of the infinite that busy life covers over. A salutary counterpoint to a world where everything is on our scale and under control.