and now went to Nature as his teacher, his inspiration. His first book,
"Nature," which he was meditating while in Europe, was finished here,
and published in 1836. His practice during all his life in Concord was
to go alone to the woods almost daily, sometimes to wait there for
hours, and, when thus attuned, to receive the message to which he was to
give voice. Though it might be colored by him in transmission, he held
that the light was universal.

"Ever the words of the Gods resound,
But the porches of man's ear
Seldom in this low life's round
Are unsealed that he may hear."

But he resorted, also, to the books of those who had handed down the
oracles truly, and was quick to find the message destined for him. Men,
too, he studied eagerly, the humblest and the highest, regretting always
that the brand of the scholar on him often silenced the men of shop and
office where he came. He was everywhere a learner, expecting light from
the youngest and least educated visitor. The thoughts combined with the
flower of his reading were gradually grouped into lectures, and his main
occupation through life was reading these to who would hear, at first in
courses in Boston, but later all over the country, for the Lyceum sprang
up in New England in these years in every town, and spread westward to
the new settlements even beyond the Mississippi. His winters were spent
in these rough, but to him interesting journeys, for he loved to watch
the growth of the Republic in which he had faith, and his summers were
spent in study and writing. These lectures were later severely pruned
and revised, and the best of them gathered into seven volumes of essays
under different names between 1841 and 1876. The courses in Boston,
which at first were given in the Masonic Temple, were always well