What Is Awe?

The Wonder and Fear That Stir Us

An image of an oil painting by Edwin Howland Blashfield from 1893 depicting the north entrance of the Palace of Fine Arts at the World’s Columbian Exposition, which also hung in the office of architect Daniel Burnham. Photo and description: Getty Images

On a morning in June, the air in Chicago was hazy and so was my head. The woozy in me was the result o…