i somehow or other know exactly when i suddenly bought that is the title, the greater journey, because i was trying to think what is this book about. it s about a journey, but a different kind of journey, or a mission, or an adventure, or an odyssey. the word journey kept coming back. then i was thinking about the voyage of these americans who ventured off to france at a time when they all were only able to go across the north atlantic by sailing ship. it was rough and anything but traveling on a cruise liner, and what a journey that was. and then they landed at the same place, almost all of them, and they went by land to paris, which was a two-day trip by a huge, cumbersome stagecoach affair. they would stop at rouen for the first time, and they would see for the first time a european masterpiece, the cathedral. many of them wrote at length and very much from the heart about the impact of this one building, this one experience and that they knew something greater had begun