When Emerson began these journals in June of 1838, he "had achieved initial success in each of his main forms of public utterance. The days of finding his proper role and public voice were now behind him...and his...personal life had healed from earlier wounds." Now he was married to Lydia Jackson of Plymouth and was the father of a young son, Waldo. They lived in a large, comfortable house in Concord, only a half-day's drive from Boston but close to the solitude of nature. Still to come was the controversy he would create by his address to the graduating class at Harvard Divinity School...