The lecture "Resources" was the third, following "Social Aims," in a course on American Life given in Boston in December, 1864, and January, 1865. Its topic was one that all the people of the United States had then brought home to them in earnest. The long drain which four years of war had made upon their lives, their fortunes, their courage and hopes made Mr. Emerson's word of cheer timely and welcome. But the essay represents only a scant half of what was then said. Many of the sheets used are marked on one corner "War," showing that they had done duty in some other cheering address in the anxious and sad days, and many with the same mark, more immediately dealing with the conditions of the day, are omitted. But nearly all of the latter half, the ascension to a loftier plane, such as occurs in all his lectures, was taken for a later lecture on Inspiration, and much of it is found in the essay of that name later in this volume.
Page 138, note 1. Journal, 1869. "I have written before that no number of Nays will help,—only one Yea, and this is moral."
Page 138, note 2. Among the manuscript leaves I find this other verson of the paragraph:—
"I delight in the man of resources. I am cheered by the bold and resolved mind. I like to see that every mind is born with a bias or talent, has a way of his own into Nature; that Nature has given him a private key, and I notice that not only the display of grand ability, penetration into the secret of largest laws, and so the working on nations and times, instructs
