RALPH WALDO EMERSON VISITS HOWARD UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL IN 1872

"By the early 1870s Emerson's reputation was so great that it had a life of its own. Eventually his fame effectively concealed him, especially from his admirers. When he was asked on the spur of the moment to address the law students of Howard University in 1872, Emerson improvised a talk on what books to read. What he said hardly mattered. A journalist who was present noted that the students 'we're all very much instructed by looking at Emerson's face and seeing him think.' When the event was reported in the Boston papers, local bookstores quickly sold out of the titles Emerson had mentioned." P.524-525, EMERSON THE MIND ON FIRE by Robert R. Richardson, Jr. (1995)