Secret History of a Rosicrucian

slightest hint to escape them which could suggest anything more than sublimity original: "Erhabenheit"; a key 18th-century aesthetic concept referring to a greatness beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement, or imitation. and everything that can arouse astonishment. Solemnity reigned in those regions of which they only revealed the closedness, showing a darkness in which something sacred had wrapped itself, in order to instill earnestness and admiration into one's expectations.

Much was written about Freemasonry original: "Freymaurerey" around this time; no longer so much in France, but all the more in Germany. Cedrinus The pseudonym for the protagonist, likely based on the author's own experiences. read most of it and found only that Freemasonry would be a very incomprehensible thing if one were to try to understand it from these writings. He believed that whoever was a Freemason must understand what was incomprehensible to him; for he could not imagine that people would write books that no one was meant to understand, or that people would read books they could not understand. The Freemasons did not enlighten him on this. One might smile kindly, with a sly expression and not without self-complacency, when Cedrinus let it be known that he could not understand what was incomprehensible. But no one gave him an instructive hint, or even spoke of these things as one is accustomed to speak of human affairs. This was for him a world which seemed to have its own very special laws and relationships. The