In the article "Henry Adams, Globe Trotter in Space and Time," we learn "after Maria Adams committed suicide in December 1886, the widower became a compulsive traveler" (406).  His compulsiveness epitomizes the view set forth in the article "Disappearance of God": "We are alienated from God; we have alienated ourselves from nature; we are alienated from our fellow me; and, finally, we are alienated from ourselves, the buried life we never seem able to reach.  The result is a radical sense of inner nothingness" (903).  Adams filled this void with travels, and "they always became journeys in time as much as in space" (407). 

            The discuss of literature vs. architecture literally represents the process of constructing a set of knowledge which we discussed earlier in the semester.  During this time, "a stone was planted upright to be a letter and each letter became a hieroglyph.  And on every hieroglyph there rested a group of ideas, like capitals of a column" (400).  The construction arose out of a fear of losing all knowledge for "when the legends of primitive races became so numerous, and their reciting was so confused that the stories were about to be lost, people began to transcribe these memories" (400).  Having knowledge represented in architecture provides a visual medium so people don't lose their way.  Newman explains in "The Idea of a University" that "those on the other hand who have no object or principle whatever to hold by, lose their way, every step they take.  They are thrown out, and do not know what to think or say, at every fresh juncture" (322).    

            In this construction of knowledge, we also see the importance of place, because "not only the edifices, but also the location of the reveals the ideas they were to impart" (401).  For example, "if the thoughts to be expressed were gracious, Greece crowned her mountains with temples harmonious to the eye" (401).  In these ways, even the first glimpses of architecture reflected a significant union with nature.