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The Contents and Basis of Emerson's Belief in Compensation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Henry F. Pommer
Henry F. Pommer*
Affiliation:
Allegheny College, Meadville, Penn.
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Extract

Despite reservations we may have about Emerson's theory of Compensation, it was fundamental to his philosophy. Nor was its truth or falsity settled by Stephen Whicher's assertion that “the notion of an automatic moral compensation ... is without question the most unacceptable of Emerson's truths, and a major cause of his present decline of reputation.” As Emerson himself said, “the great questions affecting our spiritual nature are not one of them decided. . . . The system of Compensations in moral and material nature, and a hundred other questions of primary concernment to the state of man, are all open to discussion.”

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 77 , Issue 3 , June 1962 , pp. 248 - 253
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1962

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References

Note 1 in page 248 Stephen E. Whicher, Freedom and Fate (Philadelphia, 1953), p. 36.

Note 2 in page 248 R. W. Emerson, Early Lectures, ed. Stephen E. Whicher and Robert E. Spiller, I (Cambridge, Mass., 1959), 383–384.

Note 3 in page 248 R. W. Emerson, Works, Centenary Edition (Boston, 1903–04), ii, 96.

Note 4 in page 248 R. W. Emerson, Journals, ed. Edward Waldo Emerson and Waldo Emerson Forbes (Boston and New York, 1909–14), vi, 74.

Note 5 in page 248 Journals, vi, 74; i, 96; ii, 502; R. W. Emerson, Letters, ed. Ralph L. Rusk (New York, 1939), ii, 201.

Note 6 in page 248 R. W. Emerson, Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks, ed. Gilman, Clark, Ferguson, Davis, i (Cambridge, Mass., 1960), 19. Some anticipations of Compensation appeared in correspondence of 1817–18 (Letters, I, 43, 45, 59).

Note 7 in page 248 R. W. Emerson, Young Emerson Speaks, ed. Arthur Cushman McGiffert, Jr. (Boston, 1938), p. 235; Ralph L. Rusk, The Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson (New York, 1949), p. 123.

Note 8 in page 249 Rusk, Life, p. 111. Also Young Emerson, pp. 101–102, 210.

Note 9 in page 249 Works, ii, 103, 121. Also Journals, ii, 75, 201–202.

Note 10 in page 249 Journals, II, 76. Italics in original.

Note 11 in page 249 Young Emerson, p. 68. Also p. 104.

Note 12 in page 249 Works, ii, 120. Also pp. 124–125.

Note 13 in page 249 Young Emerson, p. 35. Also 104, 160, 210; Journals, ii, 202.

Note 14 in page 249 Works, xii, 415; ii, 98, 104, 123.

Note 15 in page 250 Works, vi, 47. Also Young Emerson, p. 186.

Note 16 in page 250 Maria Moravsky, “The Idol of Compensation,” Nation, cvm (28 June 1919), 1005.

Note 17 in page 250 Works, ii, 131. Also Journals, ii, 72; iii, 453–454.

Note 18 in page 250 See above, p. 249.

Note 19 in page 251 Stephen E. Whicher, “Emerson's Tragic Sense,” The American Scholar, xxii (Summer 1953), 290. Italics in original.

Note 20 in page 251 Young Emerson, p. 209. Italics in original.

Note 21 in page 251 Journals, ii, 245. Italics in original.

Note 22 in page 251 Journals, ii, 432. Also the second stanza of “Compensation,” Works, ix, 83; Journals, x, 98–99.

Note 23 in page 251 Evidence of Charles Emerson's belief in some aspects of Compensation appears in five of his letters to his brother William: 4.12.31, 5.9.31, 10.1.31, 7.7.35, 8.29.35 (all owned by Dr. Ethel Wortis and temporarily deposited in the Reis Library of Allegheny College).

Note 24 in page 251 MS. C.C.E. to W.E., 2.6.31 (owned by Dr. Ethel Wortis). Printed with a slight misreading in Letters, i, 318.

Note 25 in page 252 MS. C.C.E. to E.B.E., 3.12.31 (the Houghton Library of Harvard University); Rusk, Life, pp. 230–231 (1835); Letters, ii, 117 (1838); Ralph L. Rusk, “Emerson and the Stream of Experience,” College English, xiv (April 1953), 378.

Note 26 in page 252 MS. R.H.E. to E.B.E., 3.1.31 (Houghton Library); Letters, i, 318.

Note 27 in page 252 Works, xii, 416. Also ii, 131; Journals, iii, 563.

Note 28 in page 252 Works, ii, 126. Also x, 129–130; xii, 102.

Note 29 in page 252 Works, ii, 125. Also ix, 92.

Note 30 in page 252 Phillips Russell, Emerson (New York, 1929), p. 81.

Note 31 in page 252 Journals, iii, 298–299. Also 454.

Note 32 in page 253 Moby-Dick, ch. Ixxxvii. Also Newton Arvin, “The House of Pain: Emerson and the Tragic Sense,” Hudson Review, XII (Spring 1959), 37–53.

Note 33 in page 253 Moby-Dick, ch. lviii.

Note 34 in page 253 Of Plymouth Plantation, ch. ix.

Note 35 in page 253 “The Open Boat.”

Note 36 in page 253 Whicher, Freedom and Fate, pp. 36–37.