Ix — 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
“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.”
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.
Recreation
Notes
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.
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