Tablets Part 1

Tablets.

by Amos Bronson Alcott.

BOOK I

PRACTICAL

"Philosophy, the formatrix of judgment and manners, has the privilege of having a hand in everything."--MONTAIGNE.

I.

THE GARDEN.

"If Eden be on earth at all, 'Tis that which we the country call."

HENRY VAUGHAN.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Decorative banner of bird among grapes and leaves]

THE GARDEN

I.--ANTIQUITY.

"I never had any desire so strong and so like to covetousness," says Cowley, "as that one which I have had always that I might be master at last of a small house and ample garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there to dedicate the remainder of my life to the culture of them and the study of nature. Virgil's first wish was to be a wise man, the second to be a good husbandman. But since nature denies to most men the capacity or appet.i.te, and fortune allows but to very few the opportunities or possibility of applying themselves wholly to wisdom, the best mixture of human affairs we can make, are the employments of a country life. It is, as Columella calls it, the nearest neighbor or next in kindred to philosophy. And Varro says the principles of it are the same which Ennius made to be the principles of all nature; earth, water, air, and the sun. There is no other sort of life that affords so many branches of praise to a panegyrist; the utility of it to a man's self, the usefulness or rather necessity of it to all the rest of mankind, the innocence, the pleasure, the antiquity, the dignity."

This wish of the poet's appears to be nearly universal. Almost every one is drawn to the country, and takes pleasure in rural pursuits. The citizen hopes to become a countryman, and contrives to secure his cottage or villa, unless he fail by some reverse of fortune or of character. 'Tis man's natural position, the Paradise designed for him, and wherein he is placed originally in the Sacred Books of the cultivated peoples; their first man being conceived a gardener and countryman by inspiration as by choice.

Gardens and orchards plant themselves by sympathy about our dwellings, as if their seeds were preserved in us by inheritance. They distinguish Man properly from the forester and hunter. The country, as discriminated from the woods, is of man's creation. The savage has no country. Nor are farms and shops, trade, cities, but civilization in pa.s.sing and formation. Civilization begins with persons, ideas; the garden and orchard showing the place of their occupants in the scale; these dotting the earth with symbols of civility wherever they ornament its face. Thus by mingling his mind with nature, and so transforming the landscape into his essence, Man generates the homestead, and opens a country to civilization and the arts.

In like manner, are the woods meliorated and made ours. Melancholy and morose, standing in their loneliness, we trim them into keeping with our wishes and so adopt them into our good graces, as ornaments of our estates, heraldries of our gentility.

Our human history neither opens in forests nor in cities, but in gardens and orchards whose mythologies are woven into the faith of our race; the poets having made these their chosen themes from the beginning. And we turn, as with emotions of country and consanguinity to the cla.s.sic pictures of the Paradise, "planted by the Lord G.o.d eastward in Eden, and wherein he put the man, whom he had formed to dress and keep it;" where,

"Out of the fertile ground he caused to grow All trees of n.o.blest kind for sight, smell, taste; Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balms, Others whose fruit, burnished with golden rind, Hung amiable,-- Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose;"--

to this; or, of scarce inferior fame, to the gardens of the Hesperides with their golden apples;--or, to those other

"----gardens feigned Or of revived Adonis, or renowned Alcinous,"

whereof Homer sings:

"Without the hall and close upon the gate A goodly orchard ground was situate Of near ten acres, about which was led A lofty quickset. In it flourished High and broad fruit trees that pomegranates bore; Sweet figs, pears, olives, and a number more Most useful plants did there produce their store, Whose fruits the hardest winter could not kill, Nor hottest summers wither. There was still Fruit in his proper season; all the year Sweet zephyr breathed upon them blasts that were Of varied tempers: these, he made to bear Ripe fruits; these blossoms; pear grew after pear, Apple succeeded apple, grape the grape, Fig after fig; Time made never rape Of any dainty there. A sprightly vine Spread here her roots, whose fruit a hot sunshine Made ripe betimes; there grew another green, Here some were gathering; here some pressing seen; A large allotted several each fruit had, And all th' adorn'd grounds their appearance made In flower and fruit."

Or again to those preferred by the royal guest of Solomon above all other splendors of his court,

"Though she on silver floors did tread, With bright a.s.syrian carpets on them spread, To hide the metal's poverty; Though she looked up to roofs of gold, And naught around her could behold But silk and rich embroidery, And Babylonian tapestry, And wealthy Hiram's princely dye; Tho' Ophir's starry stones met everywhere her eye, Though she herself and her gay host were drest With all the shining glories of the East,-- When lavish art her costly work had done, The honor and the prize of bravery Was by the garden from the palace won; And every rose and lily there did stand Better attired by nature's hand; The case thus judged against the king you see, By one that would not be so rich, though wiser far than he."

So the orchard of Academus suggests the ripest wisdom and most elegant learning of accomplished Greece.

Thus we a.s.sociate gardens and orchards with the perfect condition of mankind. Gardeners ourselves by birthright, we also mythologize and plant our Edens in the East of us, like our ancestors; the sacredness of earth and heaven still clinging to the tiller of the ground. Him we esteem the pattern man, the most favored of any. His labors have a charming innocency. They yield the gains of a self-respect denied to other callings. His is an occupation friendly to every virtue; the freest of any from covetousness and debasing cares. It is full of honest profits, manly labors, and brings and administers all necessaries; gives the largest leisure for study and recreation, while it answers most tenderly the hospitalities of friendship and the claims of home. The delight of children, the pastime of woman, the privilege of the poor man, as it is the ornament of the gentleman, the praise of the scholar, the security of the citizen, it places man in his truest relations to the world in which he lives. And he who is insensible to these pleasures, must lack some chord in the harp of humanity, worshipping, if he worship, at some strange shrine.

Who loves a garden still his Eden keeps; Perennial pleasures plants, and wholesome harvests reaps.

II.--ORNAMENTS.

In laying out a garden there must be protection from the north winds, and if the hills are wooded thus much is gained for profit as for ornament. Every homestead supposes a wood-lot and forest paths for walking and meditation. So the garden claims some shading down from pasture fields and the wilder scenery skirting it. The orchard is an improvement on the garden, and holds a n.o.bler relation to the house and its occupants. Without suitable ornaments and enclosures, these must be set to the side of the farm solely, not to the house, humanity, nor art.

Eyes and feet have their claims along with the hands upon the landscape, beauty and convenience having one mind concerning the best ways of dealing with it. It is clear that art has an interest, and should have its hand, in a good well, wholesome cellar, as in the fertility of the soil, the modesty of the gra.s.ses and shrubbery. Alleys are best determined by the nature of the grounds. They have a picturesque effect; so have gates, especially when they open into a wood, or are seen in perspective at the end of an avenue or a lane. Winding paths give pleasing surprises, if accommodated to the grounds, take us by the most attractive route; slopes, swells, irregularities of surface, heightening the pleasure attending the prospect. There are spots, too, that plead for their clump of trees, for a single one, for an alcove, an arbor, a conservatory, for a fence,--structure of some sort, be it ever so plain--and these once there, please the eye as if grown there.

Arbors are especially ornamental. No country residence is furnished without the embellishment of a summer-house. It may be constructed of the simplest stuff grown near at hand in the woods. For one shall not range far in that direction without falling soon upon every curve in the geometry of beauty, as if nature designing to surprise him antic.i.p.ated his coming, and had grown his materials in the underwood along the lines especially of ancient fence rows, where young pines bent by the lopping of the axe, snow falls, or other accident, in seeking to recover their rect.i.tude, describe every graceful form of curve or spiral suited to his rustic works. These may be combined in ways wonderfully varied; and the pleasure attending the working them into a shapely whole, has charms akin to the composing of poems and pictures. There is a delight, too, in surprising these stags of the woods in their coverts, of which only artists can speak.

Neath hemlocks dark and whispering pines, Wandering he loiters curiously, The forest Muse her searching sense combines To range the shades their cunning curves to see-- Brackets grotesque, strange gnarled things, Wreathed rails and bal.u.s.ters in twisted pairs, Rhyming their rival coils for sportful stairs; Scrolls, antlers, volutes--full-armed he brings His f.a.got sheaf of spoils, and binds; While frolic fancy sylvan serpents finds, And Druid lyres for poet's pleasance strings.

Then for rainy days, one has the choice of books, pen, or handicraft, to vary his pleasures. There is a charm in using tools to him who has cunning in his hands for converting woods to ornamental uses,--the simplest, roughest sticks even,--in setting trellises, hurdles, espaliers for vines,

"----auxiliary poles for hops, Ascending spiral, ranged in meet array;"

in making or mending articles and implements of any kind, for house or grounds, to be objects of interest whenever he views them afterwards.

The eyes have a property in things and territories not named in any t.i.tle deeds, and are the owners of our choicest possessions. Nor do we dwell in this emblematic world, and call it ours, any part of it, without using them: that is ours which they have a.s.sisted the hands in creating. Nature sketches rudely the outlines of her plans on the landscape; 'tis the artist's privilege to fill out and finish these draughts, improving upon her suggestions. Nor is there a spot which does not kindly take ornament, as if its canvas were spread awaiting the finishing touches. And had he a thousand hands, uninterrupted leisure, the taste and genius, what pleasure were comparable to that of devoting them to drawing lines thereon which shall survive him, to enrich every eye beholding them, though it were only in pa.s.sing! So a good man impresses his image on the landscape he improves, and imparts qualities that perpetuate its occupant to after times.

III.--PLEASURES.

"Days may conclude with nights, and suns may rest As dead within the west, Yet the next morn regilds the fragrant east."

I know not how it is with others, to me the spring's invitations are irresistible. I may be scholarly inclined, and my tasks indoors delightful, yet my garden claims me, monopolizing all my morning hours; and I know for me has come the season's summons which I shall not set aside: no, not for studies nor hospitalities which become rivals for my time and attentions. My garden waits; is the civiller host, the better entertainer. Then I have a religion in this business, and duties must waive compliments. My tasks are not postponable during the summer days; if called away from these engagements, I shall first take counsel of my plants for leave of absence, with intent of hastening back.

Importunities were impertinent while the spell is on me. Would the sun but shine all night long for my work to continue! Sure of gathering the better crop, I bend to my task, foreseeing the avails of leisure coming in at the close of my autumn rounds.

"Me, let my poverty to ease resign When my bright hearth reflects its blazing cheer, In season let me plant the pliant vine, And, with light hand, my swelling apples rear."

Such toils are wholesome. One cannot afford to dispense with their income of vigor. Then they fill the days with varied business, the mind gliding from head to hands, from hands to head, in pleasing interludes, to pour for him so deep a draught of Lethe, and so refreshing, that the morning breaks only to release the sleeper to begin anew his labors with the old enthusiasm. Even the stiffness of his fatigues promotes rect.i.tude and probity of carriage: his hearty affection for his pursuit, shedding l.u.s.tre on all he takes in hand. His garden is ever charming, always opportune. He walks there at all hours, at sunrise, noon, nightfall, finding more than he sought in it, each successive visit being as new as the first.

"All living things," says the Bhagavad Gita, "are generated from the bread they eat; bread is generated from rain, rain from divine worship, and divine worship from good works." A creed dealing thus supersensibly with the elements must have fertilizing properties, and bring the gardener to his task little tinctured by noxious notions of any kind. If he fall short of being the reverent naturalist, the devout divine, surrounded thus by shapes of skill, types of beauty, tokens of design, every hue in the chromatic, every device in the symbolic gamut, I see not what shall make him these; nor why Newton, Goethe, Boehme, should have published their discoveries for his benefit; why it should occur to him to use his eyes at all when he looks through this gla.s.s, regards these signatures, views these blooms, these clasping tendrils, laughing leaves, Tyrian draperies, the sympathies of his plants and trees with the weather, their sleep, their thirst for the mists, and worship of the East; as if

Moistures their mothers were, Their fathers flames,

and earth were virtually "wife of heaven," as Homer says.