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.

[Illustration: 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 appetite, 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 passing 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 classic

pictures of the Paradise, "planted by the Lord God 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 noblest 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 Assyrian 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 associate 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 nobler 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 grasses 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 anticipated

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

rectitude, 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 balusters in twisted pairs,

Rhyming their rival coils for sportful stairs;

Scrolls, antlers, volutes--full-armed he brings

His fagot 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

title 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 assisted 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 passing! 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

rectitude and probity of carriage: his hearty affection for his pursuit,

shedding lustre 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 glass,

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.

His is no mere cloud tillage, nor unproductive earth culture. The

firmament overhead reflects its lustre in his mind, the mists ascend

there from the watered ground beneath, and he sows the mingled sense and

sunshine over his fields, enriching both them and himself. He takes

account of the double harvest of profits: both rewarding him for his

pleasures and painstakings. His faithful counsellor and genial moralist,

the ground, holds strict terms with him; nor weeds nor nettles have

tales to tell, since they cannot thrive under his shadow. He minds his

proper affairs; is industrious, punctual; home keeper, and time keeper

no less, taking his tasks diligently as they rise. His work begins with

the spring, and continues till winter; nor has he many spare minutes;

the slipping away of twelve hours being the loss of a twelvemonth,

unless he do that instantly which ought to be done at the moment.

Taking timely counsel of his experience, he adapts his labors to the

seasons as they pass; has his eye on sun and soil at once. Nor shall I

think the less of his piety, if he be touched a little with that amiable

superstition concerning the planetary influences; since it ill becomes

him to hold lightly any faith that serves to brighten his affections and

establish sweet relationships between himself and natural things. In

sympathy with earth and heaven, these conspire for his benefit: all

helping to fructify and ripen his crops. It is unlawful to regard them

as enemies of human tillage. Gracefully the seasons come round for

weaving into his fancy, if not his faith, the old world's ritual as a

religion of engagements. He is an ephemeris and weather-glass. He has

his signs too, and aspects, his seasons, periods and stints. The months

sway him. What if he sympathize with the year as it rolls; take

equinoxially his March and September? Will his intermediate times be the

less genial in consequence, or his April fail of distilling mystic moods

with her fertilizing rains? His winter may come hoar with ideas, and

brown October shall be his golden age of orchards and their ambrosia.

And as June best displays the garden's freshness, so October celebrates

the orchard's opulence, to crown the gardener for his labors. The golden

days running fast and full have not run to waste. Orchards and gardens

bloom again. He harvests the richer crop these have ripened; bright

effluences of the stars, for the feast of thought and the flow of

discourse. Having thus "gathered the first roses of spring and the last

apples of autumn," he is ready to dispute felicity with the happiest man

living, and to chant his paean of praise for his prosperity:--

The earth is mine and mine the sheaves,

I'll harvest all her bounty leaves,

Nor stinted store she deals to me,

Gives all she has, and gives it free,

Since from myself I cannot stir

But I become her pensioner:

Sun, cloud, flame, atom, ether, sea,

Beauteous she buildeth into me,

Seasons my frame with flowing sense,

Insinuates intelligence;

Feeds me and fills with sweet contents,

Deals duteously her elements:

Dawn, day, the noon, the sunset clear,

Delight my eye; winds, woods, my ear,

While apple, melon, strawberry, peach,

She plants and puts within my reach;

Regales with all the garden grows,

Whate'er the orchard buds and blows;

Lifts o'er my head her sylvan screens,

And sows my slopes with evergreens,

While odorous roses, mint, and thyme,

Steep soul and sense in softer clime;

Preserves me when lapsed memory slips

Fading in sleep's apocalypse;

Surprising tasks and leisures sends,

And crowns herself to give me friends;

The morn's elixir pours for me,

And brims my brain with ecstasy.

Earth all is mine and mine the sheaves,

I harvest all her Planter leaves.

IV.--THE ORCHARD.

Orchards are even more personal in their charms than gardens, as they

are more nearly human creations. Ornaments of the homestead, they

subordinate other features of it; and such is their sway over the

landscape that house and owner appear accidents without them. So men

delight to build in an ancient orchard, when so fortunate as to possess

one, that they may live in the beauty of its surroundings. Orchards are

among the most coveted possessions; trees of ancient standing, and

vines, being firm friends and royal neighbors forever. The profits, too,

are as wonderful as their longevity. And if antiquity can add any worth

to a thing, what possession has a man more noble than these? so unlike

most others, which are best at first and grow worse till worth nothing;

while fruit-trees and vines increase in worth and goodness for ages. An

orchard in bloom is one of the most pleasing sights the eye beholds; as

if the firmament had stooped to the tree-tops and touched every twig

with spangles, and man had mingled his essence with the seasons, in its

flushing tokens. And how rich the spectacle at the autumnal harvest:

"Behold the bending boughs, with store of fruit they tear,

And what they have brought forth, for weight, they scarce can bear."

Apples are general favorites. Every eye covets, every hand reaches to

them. It is a noble fruit: the friend of immortality, its virtues blush

to be tasted. Every Muse delights in it, as its mythology shows, from

the gardens of the Hesperides to the orchard of Plato. A basket of

pearmains, golden russets, or any of the choice kinds, standing in

sight, shall perfume the scholar's composition as it refreshes his

genius. He may snatch wildness from the woods, get shrewdness from

cities, learning from libraries and universities, compliments from

courts. But for subtlety of thought, for sovereign sense, for color, the

graces of diction and behavior, he best betakes himself

"Where on all sides the apples scattered lie,

Each under its own tree."

Or to his bins, best, Columella says, when beechen chests, such as

senators' and judges' robes were laid in in his day; these to be "placed

in a dry place, free from frosts, where neither smoke, nor any thing

noisome may come; the fruit spread on sawdust, and so arranged that the

fleurets, or blossom ends, may look downwards, and the pedicles, or

stalks, upwards, after the same manner as it grew upon the tree; and so

as not to touch one another. And better if gathered a little green; the

lids of the chests covering them close."

The ancient rustic authors give very little information concerning the

apples and pears of their time, thinking them too well known to be

described, as an author writing of our time might of ours. Most of them

had their names from men who brought them into Italy and there

cultivated them, and, "by so small a matter," says Pliny, "have rendered

their names immortal."

Phillips thus describes the favorites of his time, most of which we find

in our own orchards, and still in good repute:--

"Now turn thine eye to view Alcinous' groves,

The pride of the Phoeacian isle, from whence,

Sailing the spaces of the boundless deep,

To Ariconian precious fruits arrived:--

The pippin burnished o'er with gold, the moyle

Of sweetest honied taste, the fair pearmain,

Tempered, like comeliest nymph, with red and white;

Nor does the Eliot least deserve thy care,

Nor John's apple, whose withered rind, intrenched

With many a furrow, aptly represents

Decrepit age; nor that from Harvey named,

Quick relishing. Why should we sing the thrift,

Codling, or Pomroy, or of pimpled coat

The russet; the red-streak, that once

Was of the sylvan kind, uncivilized,

Of no regard, till Scudamore's skilful hand

Improved her, and by courtly discipline

Taught her the savage nature to forget:

Let every tree in every garden own

The red-streak as supreme, whose pulpous fruit

With gold irradiate, and vermilion spires,

Tempting, not fatal, as the birth of that

Primeval interdicted plant, that won

Fond Eve, in hapless hour, to taste and die."

A quaint old Englishman, writing about orchards, quotes the proverb: "It

will beggar a doctor to live where orchards thrive." So Cowley writes:--

"Nor does this happy place only dispense

Its various pleasures to the sense,

Here health itself doth live,

That salt of life which doth to all a relish give;

Its standing pleasure and intrinsic wealth,

The body's virtue, and the soul's good fortune, health.

The tree of life when it in Eden stood,

Did its immortal head to heaven rear;

It lasted a tall cedar till the flood,

Now a small thorny shrub it doth appear,

Nor will it thrive too everywhere;

It always here is freshest seen,

'Tis only here an evergreen:

If, through the strong and beauteous fence

Of temperance and innocence,

And wholesome labors and a quiet mind,

Diseases passage find,

They must fight for it, and dispute it hard

Before they can prevail;

Scarce any plant is growing here,

Which against death some weapon does not bear:

Let cities boast that they provide

For life the ornaments of pride;

But 'tis the country and the field

That furnish it with staff and shield."

Nor can we spare his praises of budding and grafting from our account:--

"We nowhere art do so triumphant see,

As when it grafts or buds a tree;

In other things we count it to excel

If it a docile scholar can appear

To nature, and but imitates her well:

It overrules and is her master here:

It imitates her Maker's power divine,

And changes her sometimes, and sometimes does refine;

It does like grace, the fallen tree restore

To its blest state of Paradise before;

Who would not joy to see his conquering hand

O'er all the vegetable world command,

And the wild giants of the wood, receive

What laws he's pleased to give?

He bids the ill-natured crab produce

The gentle apple's winy juice,

The golden fruit that worthy is

Of Galatea's purple kiss;

He does the savage hawthorn teach

To bear the medlar and the pear;

He bids the rustic plum to rear

A noble trunk and be a peach;

Even Daphne's coyness he does mock,

And weds the cherry to her stock,

Though she refused Apollo's suit,

Even she, that chaste and virgin tree,

Now wonders at herself to see

That she's a mother made, and blushes in her fruit."

V.--SWEET HERBS.

"Thick growing thyme, and roses wet with dew,

Are sacred to the sisterhood divine."

As orchards to man, so are flowers and herbs to women. Indeed the garden

appears celibate, as does the house, without womanly hands to plant and

care for it. Here she is in place,--suggests lovely images of her

personal accomplishments, as if civility were first conceived in such

cares, and retired unwillingly, even to houses and chambers; something

being taken from their elegancy and her nobleness by an undue absorption

of her thoughts in household affairs. But there is a fitness in her

association with flowers and sweet herbs, as with social hospitalities,

showing her affinities with the magical and medical, as if she were the

plant All-Heal, and mother of comforts and spices. Once the herb garden

was a necessary part of every homestead; every country house had one

well stocked, and there was a matron inside skilled in their secret

virtues, having the knowledge of how her

"Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that they

Have their acquaintance there,"

her memory running back to the old country from whence they first came,

and of which they retained the fragrance. Are not their names

refreshing? with the superstitions concerning the sign under which they

were to be gathered, the quaint spellings;--mint, roses, fennel,

coriander, sweet-cicely, celandine, summer savory, smellage, rosemary,

dill, caraway, lavender, tanzy, thyme, balm, myrrh; these and many more,

and all good for many an ail; sage, too, sovereign sage, best of

all--excellent for longevity--of which to-day's stock seems running

low,--for

"Why should man die? so doth the sentence say,

When sage grows in his garden day by day?"

This persuasion that the things near us, and under our feet, stand in

that relationship from some natural affinity they have to our welfare,

appears to be most firmly rooted with respect to the medical herbs,

whether growing wild in the fields and woods, or about the old

homesteads, though the names of most of them are now forgotten. A slight

reference to the herbals and receipt books of the last century would

show the good uses to which they were applied, as that the virtues of

common sense are also disowned, and oftentimes trodden under foot.

Certainly, they are less esteemed than formerly, being superseded, for

the most part, by drugs less efficacious because less related

geographically to our flesh, and not finding acquaintance therewith.

Doubtless many superstitions were cherished about them in ancient heads,

yet all helpful to the cure. The sweet fennel had its place in the rural

garden, and was valued, not as a spice merely, but as a sacred seed,

associated with worship, sprigs of it, as of caraway and dill, being

taken to the pews, for appetizing the service. So the balm and rue had

their sacredness. Pliny commends these natives to every housekeeper. "A

good housewife," he says, "goes to her herb garden, instead of a spice

shop, for seasonings, and thus preserves the health of her family, by

saving her purse." So the poet sends her there, too, for spouse-keeping.

"When Venus would her dear Ascanius keep,

A prisoner in the downy bands of sleep,

She odorous herbs and flowers beneath him spread,

As the most soft and sweetest bed,

Not her own lap would more have charmed his head."

VI.--TABLE PLANTS.

The last two centuries have added several plants of eminent virtues to

the products of the orchard and garden. The cucumber, the potato, sweet

corn, the melon, are the principal acquisitions, especially the last

named, for that line of Marvell's--

"Stumbling on melons as I pass,"

must be taken rhetorically, since Evelyn informs us, this fruit had but

just been introduced into England from Spain, in the poet's time, and

the others but a little before. He says, "I myself remember when an

ordinary melon would have sold for five or six shillings. 'Tis a fruit

not only superior to all of the gourd kind, but paragon with the noblest

of the garden." And of the cucumber, "This fruit, now so universally

eaten, was accounted little better than poison within my memory."

Columella shows some good ones growing in the Roman gardens:--

"The crooked cucumber, the pregnant gourd,

Sometimes from arbors pendant, and sometimes

Snake-like, through the cold shades of grass they creep,

And from the summer's sun a shelter seek."

Whittier has sung our sweet corn, as Marvell the melon for Old England.

But Raleigh declined that service for his new Roanoke plant, the potato,

leaving it for the books to give this prose version instead:--"Sir

Walter gave some samples of it to his gardener as a fine fruit from

Virginia, desiring him to plant them. The roots flowered in August, and

in September produced the fruit; but the berries were so different from

what the gardener expected, that, in ill-humor, he carried them to his

master, asking, if this was the fine fruit which he had praised so

highly? Sir Walter either was, or pretended to be ignorant of the

matter, and desired the gardener, since that was the case, to dig up the

weed and throw it away." It appears, however, that the gardener, who was

an Irishman, and had the best of rights to christen it, soon returned

with the good parcel of potatoes, from whose thrift his own country was

supplied, and in time distributed so widely as almost to supersede the

ancient turnips, once the favorite of husbandmen; the more religious of

them, Columella tells us, in his time, "sprinkling the seed when they

sowed it as if they meant to supply the King, and his subjects also."

The turnip and the bean--this last held sacred by the Greeks, and which

Pythagoras honored with a symbol--have lost much of the solid repute

they once enjoyed here in New England and elsewhere. Good citizens and

loyal republicans were fed chiefly from their stanch virtues, knowing

how to prize their independence, and to secure it to their descendants.

The great staples were grown on their farms and manufactured into

substantial comforts without loss of self-respect. Bread was home-grown,

kneaded of fresh flour, ground in the neighborhood; the grain sown in

hope, their

"Six months' sunshine bound in sheaves,"

being brought home in thankfulness. The grain harvesting was the pride

and praise of the country round, as good to be sung as the Syrian

pastoral of Ruth gleaning in the fields of Boaz. But this, and other

customs, introduced with the cultivation of wheat into Britain, and

brought here by the Puritan planters, are fast fading from memory, and

the coming generation will need commentaries on Tusser and Thomson to

make plain our reaping-idyl.

As kindles now the blazing East

Afield I haste,

Eager the sickle's feat to play,

Sweeping along the stalked fields my widening way;

Vexing the eared spires,

Pricked with desires,

My golden gavels on the stubble spend,

And to the fair achievement every member lend,

The laughing breeze my colleague in my forte,

While the grave sun beams zealous on the sport.

Nor doth penurious gain famish my fist,

As earing fast it sheds abundant grist,

And gleaning damsels kerchief all they list,--

Kindly conceive me friendliest of peers,

And glad my brows adorn with yellow ears;

The wide-spread field, its sheafed hoard,

The lively symbol of their liberal Lord,

Whose plenteous crop, and ripe supply

Areaped is of every hand and eye--

An opulent shock for poor humanity.

Their garments, too, were home-spun. Every house, the scene of sprightly

industry, was Homeric as were the employments in the garden of Alcinous,

"Where to encounter feast with housewifery,

In one room, numerous women did apply

Their several tasks; some apple-colored corn

Ground in fair querns, and some did spindles turn;

Some work in looms; no hand least rest receives,

But all have motion apt as aspen leaves;

And from the weeds they wove, so fast they laid

And so thick thrust together thread by thread,

That the oil of which the wool had drank its fill,

Did with his moisture in bright dews distil."

It was plain wool and flax which they spun and wove thus innocently, nor

suspected the web of sophistries that was to be twisted and coiled about

the countries' liberties from a coming rival. "The weed which, planted

long ago by the kings of Tyre, made their city a great nation, their

merchantmen princes, and spread the Tyrian dye throughout the world; of

which Solomon obtained a branch, and made his little kingdom the

admiration of surrounding nations; of which Alexander sowed the seed in

the city to which he gave his name, and Constantine transplanted to

Constantinople; which the first Edward sowed on the banks of the Thames,

and Elizabeth lived to see blossom through the nourishment which her

enlightened mind procured, not only from the original soil of the Levant

but from the eastern and newly discovered western world, as well as from

the North,"--this famous plant, thus cherished by kings, has now become

KING, and wields its sceptre over the most cultivated and prosperous

nations of the earth; its history for the last half century being more

closely woven with civilization, than perhaps any other commodity known

to commerce. And whether it shall be woven into robes of coronation or

the shroud of freedom, for the freest of Republics, the fortunes of

races, the present moment is determining.

Lettuce has always been loyal. Herodotus tells us that it was served at

royal tables some centuries before the Christian era, and one of the

Roman families ennobled its name with that of Lactucinu. So spinach,

asparagus and celery have been held in high repute among the eastern

nations, as with us. And the parable of the mustard seed shows that

plant was known in Christ's time. The Greeks are said to have esteemed

radishes so highly that, in offering oblations to Apollo, they presented

them in beaten gold. And the Emperor Tiberius held parsnips in such high

repute that he had them brought annually from the Rhine for his table.

The beet is still prized, but the carrot has lost the reputation it had

in Queen Elizabeth's time, the leaves being used in the head-dresses of

the ladies of her court, from whence the epithet applied to the hair is

derived.

Peas had scarcely made their appearance at the tables of the court of

Elizabeth, "being very rare," Fuller says, "in the early part of her

reign, and seldom seen except they were brought from Holland, and these

were dainties for ladies, they came so far and cost so dear." Nor did

the currant appear much earlier in European gardens, coming first under

the name of the Corinthian grape: Evelyn calls the berries Corinths. So

the damson took its name from Damascus; the cherry from Cerasus, a city

of Pontus; and the peach from Persia. The quince, first known as the

Cydonian apple, was dedicated to the goddess of love; and pears, like

apples, are from Paradise.

The apple is the representative fruit, and owes most to culture in its

ancient varieties of quince, pear, pomegranate, citron, peach; as it

comprehended all originally. Of these, pears and peaches have partaken

more largely of man's essence, and may be called creations of his, being

civilized in the measure he is himself; as are the apple and the grape.

These last are more generally diffused over the earth, and their history

embraces that of the origin and progress of mankind, the apple being

coeval with man; Eve's apple preserving the traditions of his earliest

experiences, and the grape appears in connection with him not long after

his story comes into clearness from the dimness of the past.

Fruits have the honor of being most widely diffused geographically,

grown with the kindliest care, and of being first used by man as food.

They still enter largely into the regimen of the cultivated nations, and

are the fairest of civilizers; like Orpheus, they tame the human

passions to consonance and harmony by their lyric influence. The use of

them is of that universal importance that we cannot subsist in any

plenty or elegance without them. And everywhere beside the cultivated

man grows the orchard, to intimate his refinement in those excellences

most befitting his race. The Romans designated the union of all the

virtues in the word we render fruit; and bread comes from Pan, the

representative of Nature, whose stores we gather for our common

sustenance in our pantries. Biography shows that fruit has been the

preferred food of the most illuminated persons of past times, and of

many of the ablest. It is friendly to the human constitution, and has

been made classic by the pens of poets who have celebrated its beauty

and excellence.

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 chastity 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 classes 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, classic table, whereby the

race shall be refined of traits reminding too plainly of barbarism and

the beast. "Ye desire from the gods 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 participate 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 appetites

he willingly digs for, nor cares to cherish any that he is ashamed to

own. For nobler 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, spacious 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 noblest 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 amassing 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 destitute, 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 ennoble 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 multitude 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 illustrious.

----"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 lustre 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 classes 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."

I consider it the best part of an education to have been born and

brought up in the country; the arts of handicraft and husbandry coming

by mother wit, like the best use of books, the language one speaks.

There is virtue in country houses, in gardens and orchards, in fields,

streams and groves, in rustic recreations and plain manners, that

neither cities nor universities enjoy. Nor is it creditable to the

teaching that so few college graduates take to husbandry and rural

pursuits. Held subordinate to thought, as every calling should be, these

promote intellectual freshness and moral vigor. They have been made

classic by the genius of antiquity; are recreations most becoming to men

of every profession and rank in life:--

"Books, wise discourse, garden and fields,

And all the joys that unmixed nature yields."

Rural influences seem to be most desirable, if not necessary, for

cherishing the home virtues, especially in a community like ours, where,

by prejudices of tradition, we seek culture more through books and

universities than from that closer contact with men and things to which

newer communities owe so much, which agriculture promotes, and for which

the classic authors chiefly deserve to be studied.

Men follow what they love, and the love of rural enjoyments is almost

universal. Every one likes the country whose tastes are cultivated in

the least, and who enjoys what is primitive and pure. The citizen tires

of city pleasures. He soon finds that there is no freedom comparable to

that which the country affords; for though he dwell in the city for

advantages of libraries, and social entertainments, he seeks the country

for inspiration when these lose their attractions, his spirits as his

friendships, crave refreshment and renewal.

"Who in sad cities dwell,

Are of the green trees fully sensible."

We see how this appetite declares itself in the general swarming during

the summer season from the cities to the suburban towns, if not to the

hill countries, for the freedom, the health, found there; and how to

gratify and meet the demand for more natural satisfactions, our Guide

Books have become, not only the most attractive geographies of the

territories therein described, but works of taste, combining some of the

choicest illustrations of poetry and prose in our literature: sketches

of such scenes and parties are sure of an eager reading. The rustic

books, too, are beginning to be inquired after; translations of the

ancient authors, which bring the sentiment of the originals within the

grasp of the plainest minds. And we look forward to the time, when,

according to the recommendation of Cowley and Milton,--poets who did so

much for the culture of their time,--these authors will be studied in

our schools and universities, as Virgil and Horace have been so long,

for cultivating the love of nature, of rural pursuits, beauty of

sentiment, the graces of style, without an acquaintance with which, the

epithet of a liberal and elegant culture were misapplied on any

graduate. Nor need the students be restricted to Greek and Roman

pastoral poets, when some of our own authors have given charming

examples of treating New England life and landscape in their pages. A

people's freshest literature springs from free soil, tilled by free men.

Every man owes primary duty to the soil, and shall be held incapable by

coming generations if he neglect planting an orchard at least, if not a

family, or book, for their benefit.

"Agriculture, for an honorable and high-minded man," says Xenophon, "is

the best of all occupations and arts by which men procure the means of

living. For it is a pursuit that is most easy to learn and most pleasant

to practise; it puts the bodies of men in the fairest and most vigorous

condition, and is far from giving such constant occupation to their

minds as to prevent them from attending to the interests of their

friends or their country. And it affords some incitement to those who

pursue it to become courageous, as it produces and sustains what is

necessary for human life without the need of walls or fortresses. A

man's home and fireside are the sweetest of all human possessions."

I have always admired the good sense and fine ambition of a friend of

mine, who, on quitting College, with fair prospects of winning respect

in any of the learned professions, chose rather to step aside into the

quiet retreat of a cottage, and there give himself to the pleasures and

duties of cultivating his family and grounds. And this he did from a

sense of its suitableness to promote the best ends and aims; esteeming

his gifts and accomplishments due to pursuits which seemed the natural

means of securing self-respect and independence. His first outlay was

moderate--a sequestered field, on which he erected a comfortable

dwelling, planned for convenience and hospitality. His grounds were laid

out and planted with shrubbery, the slopes dotted with evergreens and

shapely trees. A nursery was set; a conservatory, with suitable

outbuildings and ornaments. As he gave himself personally to the work,

everything prospered that he touched. A few years' profits paid for his

investment, and his thrift soon enabled him to add an adjoining orchard

to his first purchase. And so successful was his adventure, that his

most sceptical neighbors, the old farmers, confessed him to be the

better husbandman; his gold was ruddier than theirs; his fields the

neater. Nor did our Evelyn disgrace social engagements. His friendships

were kept in as good plight as his grounds. He was none the worse

citizen for being the better neighbor and gentleman they found him to

be, nor the less worthy of the honors of his college. "'Tis impossible

that he who is a true scholar, and has attained besides the felicity of

being a good gardener, should give jealousy to the State in which he

lives." Civilization has a deeper stake in the tillage of the ground

than in the other arts, since its roots are fast planted therein, and it

thrives only as this flourishes. Omit the garden, degrade this along

with the orchard to mere material uses, treat these as of secondary

importance, and the State falls fast into worldliness and decay.

"Oh blessed shades! oh gentle, cool retreat

From all the immoderate heat

In which the frantic world does burn and sweat!

This does the Lion-star, Ambition's rage;

This Avarice, the Dog-star's thirst assuage;

Everywhere else their fatal power we see,

They make and rule man's wretched destiny;

They neither set, nor disappear,

But tyrannize o'er all the year,--

Whilst we ne'er feel their heat nor influence here.

The birds that dance from bough to bough,

And sing above in every tree,

Are not from fears and cares more free,

Than we who muse or toil below,

And should by right be singers too.

What Prince's quire of music can excel

That which within this shade does dwell?

To which we nothing pay or give?

They, like all other poets, live

Without reward or thanks for their obliging pains;

'Tis well if they become not prey:

The whistling winds add their less ardent strains,

And a grave bass the murmuring fountains play.

Nature does all this harmony bestow;

But, to our plants, arts, music, too,

The pipe, theorbo, and guitar, we owe,

The lute itself, which once was green and mute;

When Orpheus struck the inspired lute

The trees danced round and understood,

By sympathy, the voice of wood."

Methinks I see great Dioclesian walk

In the Salonian garden's noble shade,

Which by his own imperial hands was made;

I see him smile, methinks, as he does talk

With the ambassadors, who come in vain

To entice him to a throne again.

"If I, my friends," said he, "should to you show

All the delights that in these gardens grow,

'Tis likelier much that you should with me stay,

Than 'tis that you should carry me away;

And trust me not, my friends, if every day

I walk not here with more delight

Than ever, after the most happy fight,

In triumph to the capitol I ride,

To thank the gods, and to be thought myself almost a god."

Do we ask, on viewing the rural pictures which the Pastoral Poets afford

us,--Whither is our modern civilization tending? What solid profits has

it gained on the state of things they describe, seeing the primitive

virtues and customs, once enjoyed by our ancestors, are fading,--the

generosity, the cheer, the patriotism, the piety, the republican

simplicity and heartiness of those times? Machinery is fast displacing

the poetry of farm and fireside; the sickle, the distaff, the

chimney-piece, the family institution, being superseded by prose powers;

and, with their sway, have come slavery, pusillanimity, dishonor. I know

there are reconciling compensations for all risks of revolution. For

while the Demos thus takes his inch, Divinity secures his ell; so the

garment of mankind comes the fuller from the loom in this transfer of

labors. The fig leaf thus cunningly woven, costs fair honors,

nevertheless, and we covet in our hearts the florid simplicity of times

of sturdier virtues and unassailable integrity.[B]

[Footnote B: Evelyn draws a lively picture of those old

times, though not without sadness at the contrast with his

own. "The style and method of life are quite changed as well

as the language, since the days of our ancestors, simple and

plain as they were, courting their wives for their modesty,

frugality, keeping at home, good housewifery, and other

economical virtues then in reputation. And when the young

damsels were taught all these at home in the country at

their parents' houses; the portion they brought being more

in virtue than money, she being a richer match than any one

who could bring a million and nothing else to commend her.

The presents then made when all was concluded, were a ring,

a necklace of pearls, and perhaps the fair jewel, the

paraphernalia of her prudent mother, whose nuptial kirtle,

gown and petticoat, lasted as many anniversaries as the

happy couple lived together, and were at last bequeathed

with a purse of old gold, as an heir-loom to her

granddaughter. The virgins and young ladies of that golden

age, put their hands to the spindle, nor disdained the

needle; were obsequious and helpful to their parents,

instructed in the management of the family, and gave presage

of making excellent wives. Their retirements were devout and

religious books, their recreations in the distillery and

knowledge of plants, and their virtues for the comfort of

their poor neighbors, and use of the family, which wholesome

diet and kitchen physic preserved in health. Nor were the

young gentlemen, though extremely modest, at all melancholy,

or less gay and in good humor. They could touch the lute and

virginal, sing

"Like to the damask rose,"

and their breath was as sweet as their voices. Then things

were natural, plain and wholesome; nothing was superfluous,

nothing necessary wanting. Men of estate studied the public

good, and gave examples of true piety, loyalty, justice,

sobriety, charity; and the good of the neighborhood composed

most differences. Laws were reasons, not craft; men's

estates were secure: they served their generation with

honor, left patrimonial estates improved to a hopeful heir,

who, passing from the free school to the college, and thence

to Inns of Court, acquainting himself with a competent

tincture of the laws of his country, followed the example of

his worthy ancestors. And if he travelled abroad, it was not

to count steeples, and bring home feather and ribbon and the

sins of other nations, but to gain such experience as

rendered him useful to his Prince and his countrymen upon

occasion, and confirmed him in the love of both of them

above any other. Hospitality was kept up in town and

country, by which the tenants were enabled to pay their

landlords at punctual day. The poor were relieved

bountifully, and charity was as warm as the kitchen, where

the fire was perpetual."]

[Illustration: Small decoration of a flower and leaves]

II.

RECREATION.

"Thou who wouldst know the things that be,

Bathe thy heart in the sunrise red,

Till its stains of earthly dross are fled."

GOETHE.

[Illustration: Decorative banner of a beetle among flowers and leaves]

RECREATION.

I.--THE FOUNTAINS.

Nature is wholesome. Without her elixirs daily taken we perish of

lassitude and inanity. The fountains must be stirred to their depths and

their torrents sent bounding along their sluices, else we sink presently

into the pool of inertia, victims of indecision and slaves of fate. "Thy

body, O well disposed man, is a meadow through which flow three hundred

and sixty-five rivulets." Every pulse pushes nature's quaternion along

life's currents recreating us afresh; the morn feeding the morn,

Memnon's music issuing from every stop, as if the Orient itself had

sung.

Nature is virtuous. Imparting sanity and sweetness, it spares from

decay, giving life with temperance and a continency that keeps our

pleasures chaste and perennial. Nothing short of her flowing atmosphere

suffices to refill our urns. Neither books, company, conversation,--not

Genius even, the power present in persons, nature's nature pouring her

floods through mind,--not this is enough. Nature is the good Baptist

plunging us in her Jordan streams to be purified of our stains, and

fulfil all righteousness. And wheresoever our lodge, there is but the

thin casement between us and immensity. Nature without, mind within,

inviting us forth into the solacing air, the blue ether, if we will but

shake our sloth and cares aside, and step forth into her great

contentments.

As from himself he fled,

Possessed, insane,

Tormenting demons drove him from the gate:

Away he sped,

Casting his woes behind,

His joys to find,

His better mind.

'Tis passing strange,

The glorious change,

The pleasing pain!

Recovered,

Himself again

Over his threshold led,

Peace fills his breast,

He finds his rest;

Expecting angels his arrival wait.

If we cannot spin our tops briskly as boys do theirs, the wailers may

chant their dirges over us. Enthusiasm is existence; earnestness, life's

exceeding great reward. How busy then, and above criticism. Our cup runs

over. But a parted activity, divorcing us from ourselves, degrades our

noblest parts to the sway of the lowest and renders our task a drudgery

and shame. For what avails, if while one's mind hovers about Olympus,

his members flounder in Styx, and he is drawn asunder in the conflict?

Let the days deify the days, the work the workman, giving the joyous

task that leaves pleasant memories behind, and ennobles in the

performance:

Tasked days

Above delays;

Hours that borrow

Speed of the morrow,

Light from sorrow:

Business bate not,

Want nor wait not,

Doubt nor date not;

Life from limb forbid to sever,

Recreate in rapt endeavor.

We come as a muse to our toil and find amusement in it; to a taskmaster

whose company never tires. 'Tis life, the partaking of immortality. A

day lived so, glorifies all moments afterwards. Long postponed, perhaps,

the hours wearisome, till broke this immortal morning with engagements

that time can complete never, nor compel, and whose importunity outlasts

the hours.

Sleep, too, having the keys of life in its keeping. How we rise from its

delectable divinations with eyes sovereign and anointed for the day's

occupations. All our powers are touched with flame, all things are

possible. But last night, the world had come to an end; the floods ebbed

low, as if the fates were reversing the torch. How we blazed all the

morning, to be cinders yesternight. Then came the god to re-kindle our

faded embers, the Phoenix wings her way to meet the rising dawn and

embrace the young world once more. Sleep took the sleep out of us. From

forth the void there rises a roseate morn upon us.

The flattering East her gates impearled,

We hunt the morning round the world.

Nor is a day lived if the dawn is left out of it, with the prospects it

opens. Who speaks charmingly of nature or of mankind, like him who comes

bibulous of sunrise and the fountains of waters?

"Mornings are mysteries, the first world's youth,

Man's resurrection, and the future's bud

Shown in their birth; they make us happy,

Make us rich."

Rise in the morning, rise

While yet the streaming tide

Flames o'er the blue acclivities,

And pours its splendors wide;

Kindling its high intent

Along the firmament,

Silence and sleep to break,

Imaginations wake,

Ideas insphere

And bring them here.

Loiter nor play

In soft delay;

Speed glad thy course along

The orbs and globes among,

And as yon toiling sun

Attain thy high meridian:

Radiant and round thy day;--

Speed, speed thee on thy way.

"Every day is a festival, and that which makes it the more splendid is

gladness. For as the world is a spacious and beautiful temple, so is

life the most perfect institution that introduces us into it. And it is

but just that it should be full of cheerfulness and tranquillity." Our

dispositions are the atmosphere we breathe, and we carry our climate and

world in ourselves. Good humor, gay spirits are the liberators, the sure

cure for spleen and melancholy. Deeper than tears, these irradiate the

tophets with their glad heavens. Go laugh, vent the pits, transmuting

imps into angels by the alchymy of smiles. The satans flee at the sight

of these redeemers. And he who smiles never is beyond redemption. Once

clothed in a suit of light we may cast aside forever our sables. Our

best economist of this flowing estate is good temper, without whose

presidency life is a perplexity and disaster. Luck is bad luck and

ourselves a disappointment and vexation. Victims of our humors, we

victimize everybody. How the swift repulsions play: our atoms all

insular, insulating; demonized, demonizing, from heel to crown; at the

mercy of a glance, a gesture, a word, and ourselves overthrown.

Equanimity is the gem in Virtue's chaplet and St. Sweetness the

loveliest in her calendar. "On beholding thyself, fear," says the

oracle. Only the saints are sane and wholesome.

II.--THE CHEAP PHYSICIAN.

"That which makes us have no need

Of physic, that's physic indeed.

Hark, hither, reader, wilt thou see

Nature her own physician be?

Wilt see a man all his own wealth,

His own music, his own health,--

A man whose sober soul can tell

How to wear her garments well:

Her garments that upon her sit,

As garments should do, close and fit;

A well-clothed soul that's not oppressed,

Nor choked with what she should be dressed;

A soul sheathed in a crystal shrine,

Through which all her bright features shine,

As when a piece of wanton lawn,

A thin, aerial veil is drawn

O'er beauty's face, seeming to hide,

More sweetly shows the blushing bride:

A soul, whose intellectual beams

No mists do mask, no lazy streams:

A happy soul that all the way

To heaven rides in a summer's day?

Wouldst see a man whose well-warmed blood

Bathes him in a genuine flood,--

A man whose tuned humors be

A seat of rarest harmony?

Wouldst see blithe looks, fresh cheeks beguile

Age; wouldst see December smile?

Wouldst see nests of new roses grow

In a bed of reverend snow?

Warm thought, free spirits flattering

Winter's self into a spring?

In sum, wouldst see a man that can

Live to be old, and still a man

Whose latest and most leaden hours

Fall with soft wings, stuck with soft flowers;

And when life's sweet fable ends,

Soul and body part like friends;

No quarrels, murmurs, no delay,

A kiss, a sigh,--and so away,--

This rare one, reader, wouldst thou see?

Hark within, and thyself be he."

[Illustration: Triangular decoration of two intertwined griffins]

III.

FELLOWSHIP.

"Health is the first good lent to men,

A gentle disposition then,

Next competence by no by ways,

Lastly with friends to enjoy one's days."

HERRICK.

[Illustration: Decorative banner of two birds among leaves and flowers]

FELLOWSHIP.

I.--HOSPITALITY.

Evelyn writes of the manners and architecture of his times: "'Tis from

the want of symmetry in our buildings, decorum in our houses, that the

irregularity of our humors and affections may be shrewdly discerned."

But not every builder is gifted with the genius and personal qualities

to harmonize the apartments to the dispositions of the inmates. I

confess to a partiality for the primitive style of architecture

commended by Evelyn, and question whether in our refinements on these we

have not foregone comforts and amenities essential to true hospitality.

What shall make good to us the ample chimney-piece of his day, with the

courtesies it cherished, the conversation, the cheer, the

entertainments? Very welcome were the spacious yards and hospitable

door-knockers on those ancestral mansions, fast disappearing from our

landscape, supplanted by edifices and surroundings more showy and

pretentious; yet, with all their costliness, looking somewhat asquint on

the visitor, as if questioning his right to enter them; and, when

admitted, seem unfamiliar, solitary, desolate, with their elaborate

decorations and furnishings. Can we not build an elegant comfort,

convenience, ease, into the walls and apartments, rendering the mansion

an image of the nobilities becoming the residence of noblemen? To what

end the house, if not for conversation, kindly manners, the

entertainment of friendships, the cordialities that render the house

large, and the ready receptacle of hosts and guests? If one's

hospitalities fail to bring out the better qualities of his company, he

fails of being the noble host, be his pretensions what they may. Let him

entertain the dispositions, the genius, of his guests, the conversation

being the choicer banquet; for, without baits for these, what were the

table but a manger, alike wanting in elegancy as in hospitality, and the

feast best taken in silence as an animal qualification, and no more.

What solitude like those homes where no home is, no company, no

conversation, into which one enters with dread, and from which he

departs with sadness, as from the sight of hostile tribes bordering on

civilization, strangers to one another, and of mixed bloods! Civility

has not completed its work if it leave us unsocial, morose, insultable.

Sympathy wanting, all is wanting; its personal magnetism is the

conductor of the sacred spark that lights our atoms, puts us in human

communion, and gives us to company, conversation, and ourselves.

"Oh wretched and too solitary, he

Who loves not his own company;

He'll find the weight of it many a day,

Unless he call in sin and vanity,

To help to bear it away."

The surest sign of age is loneliness. While one finds company in himself

and his pursuits, he cannot be old, whatever his years may number.

Perhaps those most prize society who find the best in solitude, being

equal to either; strong enough to enjoy themselves aside from companies

they would gladly meet and repay by a freedom from prejudices and

scruples in which these share and pride themselves, yet whose

exclusiveness thrusts them out of their own houses and themselves also.

"It ever hath been known,

They others' virtues scorn who doubt their own."

If solitude makes us love ourselves, society gives us to others,

peopling what were else a solitude. It takes us out of ourselves as from

a multitude to partake of closer intimacies and satisfactions. Alone and

apart, however well occupied, we lose the elasticity and dignity that

come from sympathy with the aims and prospects of others. Nor has any

been found equal to uninterrupted solitude. Our virtues need the enamel

of intercourse. Exalting us above our private piques, prejudices,

egotisms, into the commonwealth of charities, good company makes us

catholic, courteous, sane; we retire from it with a new estimate of

ourselves and of mankind. If intercourse have not this wholesome effect,

it is dissipating and best shunned. Nor is fellowship possible without a

certain delicacy and respect of diffidence. There hides a natural piety

in this personal grace, while nothing good comes of brass, from whose

embrasures there vollies forth but impudence, insolence, defiance. But

the more influential powers are attended by a bashful genius, and step

forth from themselves with a delicacy of boldness alike free from any

blemishes of egotism or pretence. Nor do we accept as genuine the person

not characterized by this blushing bashfulness, this youthfulness of

heart, this sensibility to the sentiment of suavity and self-respect.

Modesty is bred of self-reverence. Fine manners are the mantle of fair

minds. None are truly great without this ornament. A fine genius has the

timidity, the graces of a virgin nature, whose traits are as transparent

in the boldest flights of imagination as discernible in the stateliest

tread of reason, the play of fancy: a pleasing hesitancy, a refrain,

setting off the more boldly by such graceful carriage, the natural

graces due to beauty and truth; and bearing down all else by its

charming persuasions.

Affinities tell. Every one is not for every one; nor any one good enough

to flatter or scorn any; the kindly recognition being due to the

meanest; even the humblest conferring a certain respect by his call. Yet

one might as properly entertain every passing vagary in the presence

chamber of his memory as every vagrant visitor seeking his acquaintance.

Introductions are of small account. What are one's claims, a glance

detects; if ours, he stays, and house and heart are his by silent

understanding. If not ours, nor we his, the way is plain. He leaves

presently as a traveller the innkeeper's door, an inmate for his meal

only and the night.

The heroic bearing is always becoming. Egotists of the amiable species,

one kindly considers. But the sour malcontents, devastators of one's

time and patience,--what to do with such? Summon your fairest sunshine

forthwith: give your visitor's humors no quarters from the shafts; smite

him with the kindly radiance for dissipating his melancholy, and so send

him away the wholesomer, the sweeter for the interview, if not a convert

to the sun's catholicism, the courtesies due to civility and good

fellowship. So when X, your worst sample approaches, meet him blandly at

your door, and ask him civilly to leave his dog outside. But if he

persist in bringing him along into your parlor, never hesitate on

setting the cur forthwith upon his master though you should find him at

your throat straightways. It were giving your visitor the warmest

reception possible under the circumstances, and an interview very

memorable to all parties. One need not fear dealing his compliments

short and significant on the occasion; the deer running down the dogs

for a wonder.

Does it seem cold and unhandsome, this specular survey of persons? Yet

all hearts crave eyes whereby to measure themselves. And what better

foil for one's egotism than this reflection of himself in the mirror of

another's appreciation? The frank sun withholds his beams from none for

any false delicacy. Nor till one rejoices in being helped to discern

excellence in another, desiring to comprehend and compliment his own

therein, is he freed from the egotism that excludes him from the best

benefits one can bestow. Happy if we have dissolved our individualism in

the fluent affections, and so made intercourse possible and delightful

between us.

"We have three friends most useful to us; a sincere friend, a faithful

friend, a friend that hears every thing, examines what is told him, and

speaks little. But we have three also whose friendship is pernicious; a

hypocrite, a flatterer, and a great talker. Contract friendship with the

man whose heart is upright and sincere, who loves to learn and can teach

you something in his turn. And in what part of the world soever thou

chance to spend thy life, correspond with the wisest and associate with

the best."

II.--CONVERSATION.