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TABLETS

by

A. BRONSON ALCOTT

"For curious method expect none, essays for the most part
not being placed as at a feast, but placing themselves as at
an ordinary."
_Thomas Fuller._







Boston
Roberts Brothers
1868.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by
A. Bronson Alcott,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.

Electrotyped and Printed by
Alfred Mudge & Son,
No. 34 School St., Boston.




CONTENTS.


  BOOK I.--PRACTICAL.

  I. THE GARDEN.                                PAGE.

    1 Antiquity                                    5

    2 Ornaments                                   11

    3 Pleasures                                   14

    4 Orchard                                     20

    5 Sweet Herbs                                 25

    6 Table Plants                                28

    7 Rations                                     36

    8 Economies                                   41

    9 Rural Culture                               48


  II. RECREATION.

    1 The Fountains                               59

    2 The Cheap Physician                         65


  III. FELLOWSHIP.

    1 Hospitality                                 69

    2 Conversation                                75


  IV. FRIENDSHIP.

    1 Persons                                     81

    2 Woman                                       88

    3 Family                                      92

    4 Children                                    95


  V.  CULTURE.

    1 Modern Teaching                            103

    2 Socratic Dialectic                         108

    3 Pythagorean Discipline                     113

    4 Mother Tongue                              118


  VI. BOOKS.                                     127


  VII. COUNSELS.

    1 Religious                                  139

    2 Personal                                   145

    3 Political                                  148

    4 Soul's Errand                              151


  BOOK II.--SPECULATIVE.

  I. INSTRUMENTALITIES.

    1 Tendencies                                 159

    2 Method                                     162

    3 Man                                        166


  II. MIND.

    1 Ideas                                      173

    2 The Gifts                                  179

    3 Person                                     181

    4 Choice                                     184


  III. GENESIS.

    1 Vestiges                                   189

    2 Serpent Symbol                             191

    3 Embryons                                   193

    4 Temperament                                195


  IV. METAMORPHOSES.

    1  Sleep                                     201

    2  Reminiscence                              203

    3  Immortality                               205




TABLETS




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