In the English city of Norwich, if you go to the outskirts of the city, you will find the small church of St Julian. I have just finished reading a new novel by Claire called I, Julian, a beautifully written imagining of the life and times of this celebrated English mystic.
The late Hubert Butler once wrote a delightful essay called Influenza on Aran in which he examined the evidence for the early Irish saints. His title is explained in the first few sentences: “When I arrived in Aran by the Naomh Eanna at Kilronan I was sneezing, and by the time I had raced to St Enda’s Church at Killeany and seen the stone on which he had floated in from Connemara I was feverish and coughing.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882 ), was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society He remains among the linchpins of the American romantic movement, and his work has greatly influenced many thinkers, writers and poets that followed him. Emerson is also well known as a mentor and friend of Henry David Thoreau, a fellow transcendentalist.