Tablets

"Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that theyHave 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 Certainly, they are less esteemed than formerly, being superseded, for the most part, by drugs less efficacious because less related geographically to our flesh, and not finding acquaintance therewith.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 sometimesSnake-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 EastAfield 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 supplyAreapéd 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 applyTheir several tasks; some apple-colored cornGround 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 laidAnd 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 Lactucinü. 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."1

"Time may come when manWith angels may participate and findNo inconvenient diet, no too light fare,And, from these corporal nutriments, perhaps,Their bodies may at last turn all to SpiritImproved by tract of time, and winged ascendEthereal as they; or may at choiceHere, 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 RATIONSTakes 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 idyllicWith 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 breakfastBrimful of the East,Foaming flagons of frolicHis evening's gay feast.Sov'reign solids of nature,Solar seeds of the sphere,Olympian viandSurprising as rare.Thus baiting his genius,His wonderful wordBrings poets and sibylsTo sup at his board.Feeds thus and thus fares he,Speeds thus and thus cares he,Thus faces and gracesLife's long euthanasies,His gifts unabated,Transfigured, translated —The idealist prudent,Saint, poet, priest, student,Philosopher, he.viii. – economies" – Much will always wanting beTo him who much desires. Thrice happy heTo 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 mayIf we can stock ourselves and thrive, repayMuch, 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. Æleas, 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 AgeMet all contentment in no surplusageOf 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.