The soul selects her own society,
Then shuts the door;
On her divine majority
Obtrude no more.

Unmoved, she notes the chariot’s pausing
At her low gate;
Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling
Upon her mat.

I’ve known her from an ample nation
Choose one;
Then close the valves of her attention
Like stone.

by Emily Dickinson

My take on this is the soul’s tendency to isolate itself, to select from the world what is most comforting to it, and to shut out the rest.  We tend to believe what we want to believe and quickly relegate everything else to a trash heap, to attribute it to “them”.