The author's influence was all the greater, because he was already an impressive lecturer. There was much more demand, both in England and in America, between 1830 and 1860, for literary culture and useful knowledge than was supplied by the magazines and public libraries. The Americans were peculiarly destitute of public amusements. Dancing, playing cards, and going to the theatre were still under the ban; and there was not yet culture enough for concerts to be popular. There was at the same time much more interest, especially in New England, in the anti-slavery movement than has been called out for later reforms; for these have been much less picturesque. The power with which Phillips and Parker pleaded for the slave was enough to make lectures popular; but I have known courses attended, even in 1855, by young people who went merely because there was nowhere else to go, and who came away in blissful ignorance of the subjects. Deeper than all other needs lay that of a live religion. Emerson was among the first to satisfy this demand. His earliest lecture, in 1833, took a scientific subject, as was then customary; but he soon found that he had the best possible opportunity for declaring that "From within, or from behind, a light shines through upon things and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all." Invitations were frequent as early as 1844, though the audience was usually small; and his genius became generally recognised after his return, in 1848, from a visit to England. There scholarship was high enough to give him, as early as 1844, thousands of readers for that little book on _Nature_, of which only a few hundred copies had been sold in America. Invitations to lecture came from all parts of Great Britain, and in such numbers that many had to be declined. The aristocracy of rank as well as of intellect helped to crowd the halls in Manchester, Edinburgh, and London. Once at least, he had more than two thousand hearers. The newspapers reported his lectures at such length that much of his time was spent in writing new ones. He had not intended to be anyone's guest; but invitations were so numerous and cordial, that he could seldom escape into solitude. He wrote to his wife, "My reception here is really a premium on authorship."