Tablets Part 2

VII.--RATIONS.

The food of a people may be taken as a natural gauge of their civility.

In any scale of the relative virtues of plants, fruits take their place at the top, the grains next, then the herbs, last and lowest the roots.

The rule seems this:

_Whatever grows above ground, and tempered in the solar ray, is most friendly to the strength, genius and beauty proper to man._

The poet has intimated the law:

"Plants in the root with earth do most comply, Their leaves with water and humidity; The flowers to air draw near and subtilty, And seeds a kindred fire have with the sky."

So the ancient doctrine affirms that the originals of all bodies are to be found in their food, every living creature representing its root and feeding upon its mother; and that from the food chosen, is derived the spirit and complexion of each; persons, plants, animals, being tempered of earth or sun, according to their likings.

Apollo feeds his fair ones, Ceres hers, Pomona, Pan, dun Jove, and Luna pale; So Nox her olives, so swarth Niobe.

It was the doctrine of the Samian Sage, that whatsoever food obstructs divination, is prejudicial to purity and chast.i.ty of mind and body, to temperance, health, sweetness of disposition, suavity of manners, grace of form, and dignity of carriage, should be shunned. Especially should those who would apprehend the deepest wisdom and preserve through life the relish for elegant studies and pursuits, abstain from flesh, cherishing the justice which animals claim at man's hands, nor slaughtering them for food nor profit. And, anciently, there existed what is called the Orphic Life, men keeping fast to all things without life, and abstaining wholly from those that had.

And, aside from all considerations of humanity for the animals, genius and grace alike enjoin abstinence from every indulgence that impairs the beauty and order of things. Our instincts instruct us to protect, to tame and transform, as far as may be, the animals we domesticate into the image of gentleness and humanity, and that these traits in ourselves are impaired by converting their flesh into ours. Nor do any pleas of necessity avail. Since the experience of large cla.s.ses of mankind in different climates shows conclusively that health, strength, beauty, agility, sprightliness, longevity, the graces and attainments appertaining to body and mind, are insured, if not best promoted, by abstinence from animal food. Science, moreover, favors this experience, since it teaches that man extracts his bodily nourishment mediately or immediately from the vegetable kingdom, and thus lives at the cost of the atmosphere, needing not the interfusion of the spirit of beasts into his system to animalize and sustain him. "He feeds on air alone, springs from it, and returns to it again."

A purer civilization than ours can yet claim to be, is to inspire the genius of mankind with the skill to deal dutifully with soils and souls, exalt agriculture and manculture into a religion of art; the freer interchange of commodities which the current world-wide intercourse promotes, spread a more various, wholesome, cla.s.sic table, whereby the race shall be refined of traits reminding too plainly of barbarism and the beast. "Ye desire from the G.o.ds excellent health and a beautiful old age, but your table opposes itself, since it fetters the hands of Zeus."[A]

[Footnote A: Grillis having been transformed from a beast into a man, used to discourse with his table companions, about how much better he fed while in that state than his present one, since he then took instinctively what was best for him, avoiding what was hurtful; but now, he said, though endowed with reason and natural knowledge to guide him in the selection, he yet seemed to have fallen below the beast he was, since he found he liked what did not like him, and took it, moreover, without shame.]

"Time may come when man With angels may partic.i.p.ate and find No inconvenient diet, no too light fare, And, from these corporal nutriments, perhaps, Their bodies may at last turn all to Spirit Improved by tract of time, and winged ascend Ethereal as they; or may at choice Here, or in heavenly Paradises, dwell."

An elegant abstinence is complimentary to any one, as, fed from the virgin essences of the season, his genius, dispositions, tastes, have no shame to blush for, and modestly claim the honor of being well bred. And one's table, like Apelles', may be fitly pictured with the beauty of sobriety on the one side, the deformity of excess on the other, the feast substantial as it is lyrical, praising itself and those who partake; and his guests as ready to compliment him, as Timotheus did Plato, when he said: "They who dine with the philosopher never complain the next morning."

THE SEER'S RATIONS.

Takes sunbeams, spring waters, Earth's juices, meads' creams, Bathes in floods of sweet ethers, Comes baptized from the streams; Guest of Him, the sweet-lipp'd, The Dreamer's quaint dreams.

Mingles morals idyllic With Samian fable, Sage seasoned from cruets, Of Plutarch's chaste table.

Pledges Zeus, Zoroaster, Tastes Cana's glad cheer, Suns, globes, on his trencher, The elements there.

Bowls of sunrise for breakfast Brimful of the East, Foaming flagons of frolic His evening's gay feast.

Sov'reign solids of nature, Solar seeds of the sphere, Olympian viand Surprising as rare.

Thus baiting his genius, His wonderful word Brings poets and sibyls To sup at his board.

Feeds thus and thus fares he, Speeds thus and thus cares he, Thus faces and graces Life's long euthanasies,

His gifts unabated, Transfigured, translated-- The idealist prudent, Saint, poet, priest, student, Philosopher, he.

VIII.--ECONOMIES.

"----Much will always wanting be To him who much desires. Thrice happy he To whom the indulgency of heaven, With sparing hand, but just enough has given."

Life, when hospitably taken, is a simple affair. Very little suffices to enrich us. Being, a fountain and fireside, a web of cloth, a garden, a few friends, and good books, a chosen task, health and peace of mind--these are a competent estate, embracing all we need.

"Like to one's fortune should be his expense, Men's fortunes rightly held in reverence."

The country opens the best advantages for these enjoyments. And where one has the privilege of choosing for himself, he prefers the scope for seclusion and society that a homestead implies. For his human satisfactions, he draws upon his dispositions and gifts. His appet.i.tes he willingly digs for, nor cares to cherish any that he is ashamed to own. For n.o.bler pleasures he delights to climb. His best estate is in himself. He needs little beside. With good sense for his main portion to make the most of that little, he may well consider Hesiod's opinion of weight:

"The half is better far than whole."

If his house is an ancient one, or ancestral, by so much the stronger are the ties that bind his affections to it; especially if it stand in an orchard, and have a good garden. Even if inconvenient in some respects, he will hesitate about pulling it down in hopes of pleasing himself better in a new one. The genius that repairs an old house successfully may fail in building another. Besides, there were many comforts provided for by our ancestors, who were old Englishmen even here in New England, and knew well what a house was built for, and they built for that, against any odds of counsel or expense. Then 'tis fatal to take time out of a building, which so consecrates it.

An old house, well built, pleases more with the repairs rendered necessary than a costlier new one. There are good points about it which have been proved by a century or two, and these may be adopted as parts for preserving, while any additions may be made for holding the whole in keeping with the orignal design, or as improvements on it. Perhaps there are snug recesses, and window-seats, s.p.a.cious entries, hospitable stairways, wainscoting, finished summers running across the ceilings, a dry cellar, a good well, fence rows in natural places, shrubbery, which if not well set can be reset in the grounds; an orchard and garden whose mould is infused with the genius of years and humanized for culture.

Then the tenement has its genealogy, and belongs to the race who have built into it a history. Trees, too, venerable with age it has, or it could not have been the residence of gentlemen. Outbuildings of any kind, useful or ornamental, have found their proper sites, and meet the eye as if they had always been there. It takes some generations to complete and harmonize any place with the laws of beauty, as these best honor themselves in that fairest of structures, a human mansion; which, next to its occupant, is the n.o.blest symbol of the mind that art can render to the senses. One may spend largely upon it, if he have not ousted his manliness in ama.s.sing the money. That is an honest house which has the owner's honor built into its apartments, and whose appointments are his proper ornaments.

Building is a severe schoolmaster, and gets the best and worst out of us, both, before it has done with us. I conclude no man knows himself on terms cheaper than the building of one house at least, and paying for it out of his pains. The proverb says:

"'Tis a sweet impoverishment, and a great waste of gall."

Do we not build ourselves into its foundations, to stand or fall with its beams and rafters, every nail being driven in trouble from sills to roof-tree, and the whole proving often a defeat and disappointment: no one liking it, the builder least of all? One may thank heaven, and not himself, if he do not find

He builded costlier than he knew, Unhoused himself and virtues too,

at the dismission of his carpenters, and occupancy of it. Perhaps the idea of a house is too precious to be cut into shapes of comfort and comeliness on cheaper conditions than this trial of his manliness by the payment of his equanimity as the fair equivalent for the privilege. Nor is this the end of the matter, since it costs many virtues to deal dutifully by his household, by servants--if served by second hands--day by day, and come forth from the stewardship with credit and self-respect.

But a garden is a feasible matter. 'Tis within the means of almost every one; none, or next to none, are so dest.i.tute, or indifferent, as to be without one. It may be the smallest conceivable, a flower bed only, yet is prized none the less for that. It is loved all the more for its smallness, and the better cared for. Virgil advises to

----"Commend large fields, But cultivate small ones."

And it was a saying of the Carthaginians, that "the land should be weaker than the husbandman, since of necessity he must wrestle with it, and if the ground prevailed, the owner must be crushed by it." The little is much to the frugal and industrious; and the least most to him who puts that little to loving usury.

"We are the farmers of ourselves, yet may If we can stock ourselves and thrive, repay Much, much good treasure for the great rent day."

'Tis a pity that men want eyes, oftentimes, to harvest crops from their acres never served to them from their trenchers. Civilization has not meliorated mankind essentially while men hold themselves to services they make menial and degrading. aeleas, king of Scythia, was wont to say ingeniously, that "while he was doing nothing, he differed in nothing from his groom," thus discriminating between services proper to freemen and slaves. The humblest labors may enn.o.ble us. Honorable in themselves when properly undertaken, they promote us from things to persons. They give us the essential goods of existence as we deserve and can best enjoy them: order, namely, industry, leisure, of which idleness defrauds, and distraction deprives us. Labor suffices. Putting us, for the time, beyond anxiety and our caprices, it calls into exercise the sentiments proper to the citizen. It softens and humanizes other pleasures. Like philosophy, like religion, it revenges on fortune, and so keeps us by THE ONE amidst the mult.i.tude of our perplexities--against reverses, and above want. By making us a party in the administration of affairs, and superior to Fate, it puts into our hands the iron keys for unlocking her wards, and thus gives us to opulence and independence. We become, thereby, the subjects and friends of Saturn, ever known to be a person of so strict justice as he forces none to serve him unwillingly, and has nothing private to himself, but all things in common, as of one universal patrimony. And so, owning nothing, because wanting nothing, he had all things desirable to make life rich and ill.u.s.trious.

----"This Golden Age Met all contentment in no surplusage Of dainty viands, but, (as we do still,) Drank the pure water of the crystal rill, Fed on no other meats than those they fed-- Labor the salad that their stomachs bred."

Labor saves us from the chaos of sloth, the pains of shiftlessness. It sweetens the fountains of our enjoyments; 'tis neighbor to the elements.

Coming in from July heats, we taste the sweetness of Pindar's line,

"Water with purest l.u.s.tre flows,"

of whose zest the idler knows nothing, and which the sensualist soils and spoils. Besides, there are advantages to be gained from intimacy with farmers, whose wits are so level with the world they measure and work in. We become one of them for the time, by sympathy of employment, and get the practical skill and adaptedness that comes from yoking our idealism in their harness of uses. Thus, too, we come to comprehend the better the working cla.s.ses which minister so largely to the comforts of all men, and are so deserving of consideration for their services.

Moreover, this laboring with plain men is the best cure for any foolishness one may have never sounded in the depths of his egotism, or scorn of persons in humbler stations than his own; and the swiftest leap across the gulf yawning between his pride and the humility gracing a gentleman in any walk of life.

X.--RURAL CULTURE.

"Nor need the muse to palaces resort, Or bring examples only from the court, The country strives to do our subject right, And gard'ning is the gentleman's delight."