On Rations and Economies : Selections From “Tablets” by Amos Bronson Alcott (vegan), Part 2 of 2

Let us continue reading “The Tablets” by Amos Bronson Alcott (vegan), in which he critiques materialism, advocating for spiritual and moral growth over financial gain. He emphasizes living simply and valuing wisdom and virtue over wealth.

“-- 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. […]

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. Ateas, King of Scythia, was wont to say (use 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. […]

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.”