these lectures were constructed. "All through his life he kept a
journal. This book, he said, was his 'Savings Bank.' The thoughts thus
received and garnered in his journals were indexed, and a great many
of them appeared in his published works. They were religiously set
down just as they came, in no order except chronological, but later
they were grouped, enlarged or pruned, illustrated, worked into a
lecture or discourse, and, after having in this capacity undergone
repeated testing and rearranging, were finally carefully sifted and
more rigidly pruned, and were printed as essays."

Besides his essays and lectures Emerson left some poetry in which is
embodied those thoughts which were to him too deep for prose
expression. Oliver Wendell Holmes in speaking of this says: "Emerson
wrote occasionally in verse from his school-days until he had reached
the age which used to be known as the grand climacteric,
sixty-three.... His poems are not and hardly can become popular; they
are not meant to be liked by the many, but to be dearly loved and
cherished by the few.... His occasional lawlessness in technical
construction, his somewhat fantastic expressions, his enigmatic
obscurities hardly detract from the pleasant surprise his verses so
often bring with them.... The poetic license which we allow in the
verse of Emerson is more than excused by the noble spirit which makes
us forget its occasional blemishes, sometimes to be pleased with them
as characteristic of the writer."

Emerson was always a striking figure in the intellectual life of
America. His discourses were above all things inspiring. Through them
many were induced to strive for a higher self-culture. His influence
can be discerned in all the literary movements of the time. He was the
central figure of the so-called transcendental school which was so