"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.