The Law of Compensation

Napoleon Hill, in his book "Grow Rich With Peace of Mind" writes that Ralph Waldo Emerson's Compensation is the greatest essay ever written. Here is an excert that he wrote.

"Every act rewards itself, or, in other words, integrates itself in a two-fold manner-first, in the thing, or in real nature; and secondly, in the circumstance, or in the apparent nature. Men call the circumstance the retribution. The casual retribution is in the thing and is seen by the soul. The retribution in the circumstance is seen by the understanding, it is inseparable from the thing, but it is often spread over a long time, and so does not become distinct until after many years. The specific stripes may follow late after the offence, but they grow because they accompany it. Crime and punishment grow out of the same stem. Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within the flower of the pleasure that concealed it. Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end pre exists in the means, the fruit in the seed. "

Here is the great sage's poem and essay on compensation; a literacy masterpiece.