An Unexpected Confluence Between Emerson and The Wire

I'm reading Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club now, and I just ran across these lines:

[I]t is clear that [Oliver Wendell] Holmes [Jr.] had adopted [Ralph Waldo] Emerson as his special inspiration. A few years later, he wrote an essay on Plato expressly for Emerson's approval. (Holmes found Plato outdated on one or two points. Emerson's reaction, when Holmes showed him the essay, is choice: "When you strike at a king," he said, "you must kill him.")

Remind you of anything?