Section 2. First Series of Essays published.--Contents: History,
Self-Reliance, Compensation, Spiritual Laws, Love, Friendship, Prudence,
Heroism, The Oversoul, Circles, Intellect, Art.--Emerson's Account
of his Mode of Life in a Letter to Carlyle.--Death of Emerson's
Son.--Threnody.


Section 1. On Sunday evening, July 15, 1838, Emerson delivered an
Address before the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge,
which caused a profound sensation in religious circles, and led to a
controversy, in which Emerson had little more than the part of Patroclus
when the Greeks and Trojans fought over his body. In its simplest
and broadest statement this discourse was a plea for the individual
consciousness as against all historical creeds, bibles, churches; for
the soul as the supreme judge in spiritual matters.

He begins with a beautiful picture which must be transferred without the
change of an expression:--

"In this refulgent Summer, it has been a luxury to draw the breath
of life. The grass grows, the buds burst, the meadow is spotted with
fire and gold in the tint of flowers. The air is full of birds, and
sweet with the breath of the pine, the balm of Gilead, and the new
hay. Night brings no gloom to the heart with its welcome shade.
Through the transparent darkness the stars pour their almost
spiritual rays. Man under them seems a young child, and his huge
globe a toy. The cool night bathes the world as with a river, and
prepares his eyes again for the crimson dawn."

How softly the phrases of the gentle iconoclast steal upon the ear,