vinity School of "no complicity," must have been cheering to
Emerson. His unseen yet dominating ambition is shown throughout the
address, and in this note in his diary of the following year:--

"_August_ 31. Yesterday at the Phi Beta Kappa anniversary. Steady,
steady. I am convinced that if a man will be a true scholar he
shall have perfect freedom. The young people and the mature hint at
odium and the aversion of forces to be presently encountered in
society. I say No; I fear it not."

The lectures and addresses which form the latter half of the first
volume in the collected edition show the early Emerson in the ripeness
of his powers. These writings have a lyrical sweep and a beauty which
the later works often lack. Passages in them remind us of Hamlet:--

"How silent, how spacious, what room for all, yet without space to
insert an atom;--in graceful succession, in equal fulness, in
balanced beauty, the dance of the hours goes forward still. Like an
odor of incense, like a strain of music, like a sleep, it is inexact
and boundless. It will not be dissected, nor unravelled, nor
shown.... The great Pan of old, who was clothed in a leopard skin to
signify the beautiful variety of things and the firmament, his coat
of stars,--was but the representative of thee, O rich and various
man! thou palace of sight and sound, carrying in thy senses the
morning and the night and the unfathomable galaxy; in thy brain, the
geometry of the City of God; in thy heart, the bower of love and the
realms of right and wrong.... Every star in heaven is discontent
and insatiable. Gravitation and chemistry cannot content them. Ever
they woo and court the eye of the beholder. Every man who comes into
the world they seek to fascinate and possess, to pass into his mind,
for they desire to republish themselves in a more delicate world
than that they occupy.... So it is with all immaterial objects.
These beautiful basilisks set their brute glorious eyes on the eye
of every child, and, if they can, cause their nature to pass through
his wondering eyes into him, and so all things are mixed."

Emerson is never far from his main thought:--

"The universe does not attract us till it is housed in an
individual." "A man, a personal ascendency, is the only great
phenomenon."

"I cannot find language of sufficient energy to convey my sense of
the sacredness of private integrity."

On the othe