Many Americans head to Europe for the same reason: to restore a sense of enchantment. Americans, with their emphasis on efficiency and pragmatism, seek out places that produce wonder, where the mind can roam freely. Despite its postwar concessions to American influence, Europe is still a place where wonder is bountiful and awe has not yet been swallowed by utilitarianism. At the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, in the year of our Lord, 2004, I found that the visual and metaphysical are indissolubly bound. Some ideas can only take flight in the right setting: amid medieval castles and cathedral ruins, cobblestone streets, and low-arched door frames from long ago, when people were malnourished and stooped over from looking up to God in prayer.
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