Club Papers on Emerson’s Essays

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXX, Issue XXII, 30 May 1903, Page 1542

Club Papers on Emerson’s Essays

(No. 3.)

"CONSISTENCY.”

(L. M. Eastgate, A.C.)

In writing on consistency one is moved to tread warily for fear of uttering platitudes. Platitudes are odious, and one is tempted to think cursorily that, from the study of consistency, it would be difficult to extract any great charm or novelty. On the contrary, you may find much fascination in inconsistency. Doubtless the light and shade is very pretty; probably that is why inconsistency is popularly supposed to constitute one of the chief charms of woman.

Well, let inconsistency have the helm an yon will. It is very pleasant to dance hither and thither while sky and sea are sunny and blue, but I fear me when the storms come that you will find yourself in a rudderless boat and wish that you had steered a straight course. 1 do not call changing one’s e'onxSetions inconsistency. That is almost inevitable with the passage of time, and to most minds it is accompanied with a good deal of pain. I think you will find that he who has the courage to relinquish cherished convictions, however unwillingly, is one who has the depth to most consistently follow the riper views which take their place. It is a weak nature which will live a lie rather than disavow that in which he no longer believes.

It were a truism to say that consistency is a virtue —as such we Hold" it —■ a virtue dressed in sober grey methinks, lacking the power to stir our blood with enthusiasm as the glory and colour of courage never fail to do, with none of the stern sweetness of Truth or the severe loveliness of Purity. Our imagination would fain linger with these, round which the very fragrance of life seems to dwell. Suddenly we realise that they are indissolubly linked with consistency, which is the ve'ry cornerstone on which they are built. Of what avail for courage, truth, purity, to flit in and out of a human soul, shedding a light like a very Will-’o-the-Wisp instead of a steady flame. Be the flame never so small—every soul knows its own limitations—keep it steady. Amiel says: “A man ean only understand that which he has the beginnings of in himself.” Whatever your ideals may be—you have the beginnings of tnem in yourself—follow them unfalteringly, and in that very strenuousness you will find gain.

“Thy South or thy North —little matters the end. The crown's iu the doing. If I risk mine own soul. That sooner or later I reach a low goal, It Is only my soul’s low worth that I spend; But the struggle, the steadfastness—there lies my gain. Gives my soul in the end strength meet to its pain.”

Good or evil, choose one or the other, and in the name of all that is strong follow it consistently. Does not any woman prefer a man who is relentless in his purpose, even though it be a harsh one, to one who weakly tyrannical one day needs her for a prop the next? In the one life you can breathe because you can find something to respect—the other is a daily degradation. Be anything rather than that most pitiful thing, “A reed shaken by the wind.” “I would that ye were either hot or cold,” says Holy Writ, “but, because ye are neither hot nor cold I will spew thee out of my mouth” —a right scathing denunciation of inconsistency. The only perfect life that Was ever lived on this earth was utterly consistent; it never faltered in its high purpose from the beginning right through to the bitter end; ay, through Gethsemane and Calvary. And that is why, when everything in our life seems to be going to pieces, when everything human is as the shifting sand, we stretch out desperate hands as to a rock, knowing that whatever the temptest it has always stood immovable,

“And that Rock was Christ.”