Plausibly, a form of that greatness can be found in a few tragic roles. Aeschylus' Orestes kills his own mother to avenge her murder of his father. Orestes then undergoes the sufferings of exile, and of the Furies' wrathful pursuit, followed by ritual cleansing of his crime. In Aeschylus, however, greatness is less in and of evil than in overcoming evil and attaining wisdom. Evil is not overcome.
Evil is accepted and admired.
We permit all things to ourselves, and that which we call sin in others is experiment for us. In this strongly observant passage Emerson appears to take no stand, to observe from afar. I read that sentence as strongly cautionary to our era. On an intellectual level, which Leopold and Loeb feverishly extended into deliberate actions, evil can become supremely cool. The online version of this article appears in two parts.