Beulah - Page 189/348

"Hand me the volume there on the table. His exposition of 'the

absolute balance of Give and Take, the doctrine that everything has

its price,' is the grandest triumph of his genius. For an hour this

sentence has been ringing in my ears: 'In the nature of the soul is

the compensation for the inequalities of condition.' We are samples

of the truth of this. Ah, Beulah, I have paid a heavy, heavy price!

You are destitute of one, it is true, but exempt from the other.

Yet, mark you, this law of 'compensation' pertains solely to earth

and its denizens; the very existence and operation of the law

precludes the necessity, and I may say the possibility, of that

future state, designed, as theologians argue, for rewards and

punishments." She watched her visitor very closely.

"Of course it nullifies the belief in future adjustments, for he

says emphatically, 'Justice is not postponed. A perfect equity

adjusts its balance in all parts of life.' 'What will you have? Pay

for it, and take it. Nothing venture, nothing have.' There is no

obscurity whatever in that remarkable essay on compensation." Beulah

took up one of the volumes, and turned the pages carelessly.

"But all this would shock a Christian."

"And deservedly; for Emerson's works, collectively and individually,

are aimed at the doctrines of Christianity. There is a grim,

terrible fatalism scowling on his pages which might well frighten

the reader who clasped the Bible to his heart."

"Yet you accept his 'compensation.' Are you prepared to receive his

deistic system?" Cornelia leaned forward and spoke eagerly. Beulah

smiled.

"Why strive to cloak the truth? I should not term his fragmentary

system 'deistic.' He knows not yet what he believes. There are

singular antagonisms existing among even his pet theories."

"I have not found any," replied Cornelia, with a gesture of

impatience.

"Then you have not studied his works as closely as I have done. In

one place he tells you he feels 'the eternity of man, the identity

of his thought,' that Plato's truth and Pindar's fire belong as much

to him as to the ancient Greeks, and on the opposite page, if I

remember aright, he says, 'Rare extravagant spirits come by us at

intervals, who disclose to us new facts in nature. I see that men of

God have, from time to time, walked among men, and made their

commission felt in the heart and soul of the commonest hearer.

Hence, evidently the tripod, the priest, the priestess, inspired by

the divine afflatus.' Thus at one moment he finds no 'antiquity in

the worships of Moses, of Zoroaster, of Menu, or Socrates; they are

as much his as theirs,' and at another clearly asserts that spirits

do come into the world to discover to us new truths. At some points

we are told that the cycles of time reproduce all things; at others,

this theory is denied. Again, in 'Self-Reliance,' he says,' Trust

thyself; insist on yourself; obey thy heart, and thou shalt

reproduce the foreworld again.' All this was very comforting to me,

Cornelia; self-reliance was the great secret of success and

happiness; but I chanced to read the 'Over-soul' soon after, and lo!

these words: 'I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher

origin for events than the will I call mine.' This was directly

antagonistic to the entire spirit of 'self-reliance'; but I read on,

and soon found the last sentence utterly nullified by one which

declared positively 'that the Highest dwells with man; the sources

of nature are in his own mind.' Sometimes we are informed that our

souls are self-existing and all-powerful; an incarnation of the

divine and universal, and, before we fairly digest this tremendous

statement, he coolly asserts that there is, above all, an 'over-

soul,' whose inevitable decrees upset our plans, and 'overpower

private will.' Cognizant of these palpable contradictions, Emerson

boldly avows and defends them, by declaring that 'A foolish

consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. With consistency a

great soul has simply nothing to do. Speak what you think now in

hard words; and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words

again, though it contradict everything you said to-day. Why should

you keep your head over your shoulder? Why drag about this corpse of

your memory, lest you contradict somewhat you have stated in this or

that public place? Suppose you should contradict yourself?' His

writings are, to me, like heaps of broken glass, beautiful in the

individual crystal, sparkling and often dazzling, but gather them up

and try to fit them into a whole, and the jagged edges refuse to

unite. Certainly, Cornelia, you are not an Emersonian." Her deep,

quiet eyes looked full into those of the invalid.