Resumo de Essay Iii _compensation*part 2*

The senses would make thingsof all persons; of women, of children, of the poor. Fear is an instructer ofgreat sagacity, and the herald of all revolutions. Of the like nature is that expectation of change which instantly followsthe suspension of our voluntary activity. The terror of cloudless noon, theemerald of Polycrates, the awe of prosperity, the instinct which leads everygenerous soul to impose on itself tasks of a noble asceticism and vicariousvirtue, are the tremblings of the balance of justice through the heart and mindof man. The borrower runs in his own debt. The transaction remains in thememory of himself and his neighbour; and every new transaction alters,according to its nature, their relation to each other. Benefit is the end ofnature. He is base ? and that is the one base thing in the universe ? toreceive favors and render none. Cheapest, say the prudent, is the dearestlabor. The swindler swindles himself. The cheat, the defaulter, the gambler,cannot extort the knowledge of material and moral nature which his honest careand pains yield to the operative. The law of nature is, Do the thing, and youshall have the power: but they who do not the thing have not the power. Human labor, through all its forms, from the sharpening of a stake tothe construction of a city or an epic, is one immense illustration of theperfect compensation of the universe. The absolute balance of Give and Take,the doctrine that every thing has its price, ? and if that price is not paid,not that thing but something else is obtained, and that it is impossible to getany thing without its price, ? is not less sublime in the columns of a legerthan in the budgets of states, in the laws of light and darkness, in all theaction and reaction of nature. The beautiful laws and substances of the worldpersecute and whip the traitor. Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass.Commit a crime, and it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground, such asreveals in the woods the track of every partridge and fox and squirrel andmole. The laws and substances of nature ? water, snow, wind, gravitation ?become penalties to the thief. The stag in the fable admired his horns andblamed his feet, but when the hunter came, his feet saved him, and afterwards,caught in the thicket, his horns destroyed him. The wise man throws himself onthe side of his assailants. As the Sandwich Islander believes that the strengthand valor of the enemy he kills passes into himself, so we gain the strength ofthe temptation we resist. The nature and soul of things takes on itself theguaranty of the fulfilment of every contract, so that honest service cannotcome to loss. The longer the payment is withholden, the better for you; forcompound interest on compound interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer.The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast. It resemblesthe prank of boys, who run with fire-engines to put out the ruddy aurorastreaming to the stars. The inviolate spirit turns their spite against thewrongdoers. The martyr cannot be dishonored. Hours of sanity and considerationare always arriving to communities, as to individuals, when the truth is seen,and the martyrs are justified. The man is all. But the doctrine of compensationis not the doctrine of indifferency. The soul _is_. Vice is the absence ordeparture of the same. Our instinct uses "more" and "less"in application to man, of the _presence of the soul_, and not of its absence;the brave man is greater than the coward; the true, the benevolent, the wise,is more a man, and not less, than the fool and knave. But all the good ofnature is the soul's, and may be had, if paid for in nature's lawful coin, thatis, by labor which the heart and the head allow. The gain is apparent; the taxis certain. But there is no tax on the knowledge that the compensation exists,and that it is not desirable to dig up treasure. I contract the boundaries ofpossible mischief. I learn the wisdom of St. In the nature of the souls the compensation for the inequalities ofcondition. The radical tragedy of nature seems to be the distinction of Moreand Less. Love reduces them, as the sun melts the iceberg in the sea. The heartand soul of all men being one, this bitterness of _His_ and _Mine_ ceases. Itis the nature of the soul to appropriate all things. Such, also, is the natural history of calamity. Then there can beenlargement, and the man of to-day scarcely recognizes the man of yesterday. Thevoice of the Almighty saith, 'Up and onward for evermore!' We cannot stay amidthe ruins. And yet the compensations of calamity are made apparent to theunderstanding also, after long intervals of time. It permits or constrains theformation of new acquaintances, and the reception of new influences that proveof the first importance to the next years; and the man or woman who would haveremained a sunny garden-flower, with no room for its roots and too muchsunshine for its head, by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener,is made the banian of the forest, yielding shade and fruit to wideneighbourhoods of men.

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