Tablets
()
About this ebook
Read more from Amos Bronson Alcott
Tablets Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsConcord Days Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSonnets and Canzonets Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Tablets
Related ebooks
Woodland Gleanings: Being an Account of British Forest-Trees Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Battle of Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Some Winter Days in Iowa Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Woman's Hardy Garden Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Battle of Life: A Love Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Battle of Life Illustrated Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFive Acres Too Much Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 35, September, 1860 A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 35, September, 1860 A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEssays & Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gerard's Herball - Or, Generall Historie of Plantes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStudies of Plant Life in Canada: Wild Flowers, Flowering Shrubs, and Grasses Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPrivate Edens: Beautiful Country Gardens Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One Green Field - And Other Essays on the Appreciation of Nature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOsceola the Seminole The Red Fawn of the Flower Land Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Battle Of Life: “I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.” Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Garden, You, and I Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Khedive's Country Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPudd'nhead Wilson Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSecrets of the Past Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsField and Hedgerow: Being the Last Essays of Richard Jefferies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWoodland Gleanings Being an Account of British Forest-Trees Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCountryside Contemplations: Reflections on Our Wild Wonders Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFlowering Earth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe inner house Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Battle of Life. A Love Story - Charles Dickens Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Mysteries of Udolpho Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Classics For You
Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sense and Sensibility (Centaur Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Things They Carried Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master & Margarita Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wuthering Heights (with an Introduction by Mary Augusta Ward) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rebecca Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mythos Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Have Always Lived in the Castle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Republic by Plato Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Farewell to Arms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Jungle: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Women (Seasons Edition -- Winter) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ulysses: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master and Margarita Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Learn French! Apprends l'Anglais! THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY: In French and English Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Animal Farm: A Fairy Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5East of Eden Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAs I Lay Dying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Count of Monte Cristo (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Count of Monte-Cristo English and French Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Titus Groan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Tablets
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Tablets - Amos Bronson Alcott
Amos Bronson Alcott
Tablets
Published by Good Press, 2022
EAN 4057664595003
Table of Contents
BOOK I
PRACTICAL
I.
THE GARDEN.
THE GARDEN
II.
RECREATION.
RECREATION.
III.
FELLOWSHIP.
FELLOWSHIP.
IV.
FRIENDSHIP.
FRIENDSHIP.
V.
CULTURE.
CULTURE.
VI.
BOOKS.
BOOKS.
VII.
COUNSELS.
COUNSELS.
BOOK II
SPECULATIVE
I.
INSTRUMENTALITIES.
INSTRUMENTALITIES.
II.
MIND.
MIND.
III.
GENESIS.
GENESIS.
IV.
METAMORPHOSES.
METAMORPHOSES.
BOOK I
PRACTICAL
Table of Contents
Philosophy, the formatrix of judgment and manners, has the privilege of having a hand in everything.
—
Montaigne.
I.
THE GARDEN.
Table of Contents
If Eden be on earth at all, 'Tis that which we the country call.
Henry Vaughan.
Illustration: Banner of birdTHE GARDEN
Table of Contents
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