On all hands men's existence is converted into a preparation for existence. The end is lost in the means, life is smothered in appliances. We cannot get to ourselves, there are so many external comforts to wade through. Consciousness stops half way.
Reflection is dissipated in the circumstances of our environment.
Henry Hedge . I should have told them at once that I was a transcendentalist. That would have been the shortest way of telling them that they would not understand my explanations. We will organize our inquiry around the concepts of nature, culture, and interpretation, using these as paths for our exploration of the movement. In addition, we will attend to the ways in which others have made sense of and responded to Transcendentalist writing.