The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 66, April, 1863

Of Columella we know scarcely more than that he lived somewhere about the time of Tiberius, that he was a man of wealth, that he travelled extensively through Gaul, Italy, and Greece, observing intelligently different methods of culture, and that he has given the fullest existing compend of ancient agriculture. In his chapter upon Gardening he warms into hexameters; but the rest is stately and euphonious prose. In his opening chapter, he does not forego such praises of the farmer's life as sound like a lawyer's address before a county-society on a fair-day. Cincinnatus and his plough come in for it; and Fabricius and Curius Dentatus; with which names, luckily, our orators cannot whet their periods, since Columella's mention of them is about all we know of their farming.

He falls into the way, moreover, of lamenting, as people obstinately continue to do, the "good old times," when men were better than "now," and when the reasonable delights of the garden and the fields engrossed them to the neglect of the circus and the theatres. But when he opens upon his subject proper, it is in grandiose, Spanish style, (he was a native of Cadiz,) with a maxim broad enough to cover all possible conditions:—"Qui studium agricolationi dederit, sciat haec sibi advocanda: prudentiam rei, facultatem impendendi voluntatem agendi." Or, as Tremellius says,—"That man will master the business, qui et colere sciet, et poterit, et volet."

This is comprehensive, if not encouraging. That "facultatem impendendi" is a tremendous bolster to farming as to anything else; it is only another shape of the "poterit," and the "poterit" only a scholarly rendering of pounds and pence. As if Tremellius had said,—That man will make his way at farming who understands the business, who has the money to apply to it, and who is willing to bleed freely.

With a kindred sagacity this shrewd Roman advises a man to slip upon his farm often, in order that his steward may keep sharply at his work; he even suggests that the landlord make a feint of coming, when he has no intention thereto, that he may gain a day's alertness from the bailiff. The book is of course a measure of the advances made in farming during the two hundred years elapsed since Cato's time; but those advances were not great. There was advance in power to systematize facts, advance in literary aptitude, but no very noticeable gain in methods of culture. Columella gives the results of wider observation, and of more persistent study; but, for aught I can see, a man could get a crop of lentils as well with Cato as with Columbia; a man would house his flocks and servants as well out of the one as the other; in short, a man would grow into the "facultatem impendendi" as swiftly under the teachings of the Senator as of the later writer of the reign of Tiberius.

It is but dull work to follow those teachings; here and there I warm into a little sympathy, as I catch sight, in his Latin dress, of our old friend Curculio; here and there I sniff a fruit that seems familiar,—as the fraga, or a morum; and here and there comes blushing into the crabbed text the sweet name of some home-flower,—a lily, a narcissus, or a rose. The chief value of the work of Columella, however, lies in its clear showing-forth of the relative importance given to different crops, under Roman culture, and to the raising of cattle, poultry, fish, etc.; as compared with crops. Knowing this, we know very much that will help us toward an estimate of the domestic life of the Romans. We learn, with surprise, how little they regarded their oxen, save as working-animals,—whether the milk-white steers of Clitumnus, or the dun Campanian cattle, whose descendants show their long-horned stateliness to this day in the Roman forum. The sheep, too, whether of Tarentum or of Canusium, were regarded as of value chiefly for their wool and milk; and it is surely amazing, that men who could appreciate the iambics of Horace and the eloquence of Cicero should have shown so little fancy for a fat saddle of mutton or for a mottled sirloin of beef.

I change from Columella to Virgil, and from Virgil back to some pleasant Idyl of Tibullus, and from Tibullus to the pretty prate of Horace about the Sabine Hills; I stroll through Pliny's villa, eying the clipped box-trees; I hear the rattle in the tennis-court; I watch the tall Roman girls—

"Grandes virgines proborum colonorum"—

marching along with their wicker-baskets filled with curds and fresh-plucked thrushes, until there comes over me a confusion of times and places.

–The sound of the battle of to-day dies; the fresh blood-stains fade; and I seem to wake upon the heights of Tusculum, in the days of Tiberius. The farm-flat below is a miniature Campagna, along which I see stretching straight to the city the shining pavement of the Via Tusculana. The spires yonder melt into mist, and in place of them I see the marble house-walls of which Augustus boasted. As yet the grander monuments of the Empire are not built; but there is a blotch of cliff which may be the Tarpeian Rock, and beside it a huge hulk of building on the Capitoline Hill, where sat the Roman Senate. A little hitherward are the gay turrets of the villa of Maecenas, and of the princely houses on the Palatine Hill, and in the foreground the stately tomb of Cecilia Metella. I see the barriers of a hippodrome, (where now howling jockeys make the twilight hideous); a gestatio, with its lines of cherry-trees, is before me, and the velvety lavender-green of olive-orchards covers the hills behind. Vines grow upon the slope eastward,—

"Neve tibi ad solem vergant vineta cadentem,"—

twining around, and flinging off a great wealth of tendrils from their supporting-poles (pedamenta). The figs begin to show the purple bloom of fruitage, and the villicus, who has just now come in from the atriolum, reports a good crop, and asks if it would not be well to apply a few loads of marl (tofacea) to the summer fallow, which Cato is just now breaking up with the Campanian steers, for barley.

Scipio, a stanch Numidian, has gone to market with three asses loaded with cabbages and asparagus. Villicus tells me that the poultry in the fattening-coops (as close-shut as the Strasburg geese)[7 - "Locus ad hanc rem desideratur maxime calidus, et minimi luminis, in quo singulae caveis angustioribus vel sportis inclusae pendeant aves, sed ita coarctatae, ne versari posslnt."—Columella, Lib. VIII. cap. vii.] are doing well, and he has added a soupçon of sweetening to their barley-gruel. The young doves have their legs faithfully broken, ("obteras crura") and are placidly fattening on their stumps. The thrush-house is properly darkened, only enough light entering to show the food to some three or four thousand birds, which are in course of cramming for the market. The cochlearium has a good stock of snails and mussels; and the little dormice are growing into fine condition for an approaching Imperial banquet.

Villicus reports the clip of the Tarentine sheep unusually fine, and free from burrs. The new must is all a-foam in the vinaria; and around the inner cellar (gaudendem est!) there is a tier of urns, as large as school-boys, brimming with ripe Falernian.

If it were not stormy, I might order out the farm-chariot, or curriculum, which is, after all, but a low, dumpy kind of horse-cart, and take a drive over the lava pavement of the Via Tusculana, to learn what news is astir, and what the citizens talk of in the forum. Is all quiet upon the Rhine? How is it possibly with Germanicus? And what of that story of the arrest of Seneca? It could hardly have happened, they say, in the good old days of the Republic.

And with this mention, as with the sound of a gun, the Roman pastoral dream is broken. The Campagna, the olive-orchards, the columbarium, fall back to their old places in the blurred type of Columella. The Campanian steers are unyoked, and stabled in the text of Varro. The turrets of the villa of Maecenas, and of the palaces of Sylla and the Caesars, give place to the spires of a New-England town,—southward of which I see through the mist a solitary flag flying over a soldiers' hospital. It reminds of nearer and deadlier perils than ever environed the Roman Republic,—perils out of which if the wisdom and courage of the people do not find a way, some new Caesar will point it with the sword.

Looking northward, I see there is a bight of blue in the sky; and a lee set of dark-gray and purple clouds is folding down over the eastern horizon,—against which the spires and the flag show clearer than ever. It means that the rain has stopped; and the rain having stopped, my in-door work is done.

* * * * *

GOLDEN WEDDING

The reader whose eye is arrested by my title will doubtless anticipate a romance on that ever-old, ever-new theme of a certain god with a torch leading two souls bound together by iron concealed in flower-wreaths, until, alas! life seems ordinary enough to be symbolized by tin,—of the tin-wedding entering into the refiner's fire, and, by sure transmutation, rising from the baser metal to the paler, but purer silver,—of the subtile alchemy of years, which, in human life's great crucible,

"Transmute, so potent are the spells they know
Into pure gold the silver of to-day."

Perhaps, reader, you are not altogether to be disappointed; and yet, for the present, it is only a glass of sparkling wine I wish you to take with me. You will please read on that delicate strip of paper around the bottle's neck the name in gilt,—"Golden Wedding." At once you grow transcendental, and suppose that some German vine-dresser in Catawba-land—by the way, Gerritt Smith's gardener is a nephew of Schiller!—was dreaming of the marriage of the Sun with the Vine, his darling plant, in whose juice linger and sparkle the light and joy of many faded days. But no, it was named from a real Golden Wedding.

Let me take you—as the clairvoyants say—to a large, sooty, toiling city in the West. From street to street you shall go, and see but little to excite your admiration, unless you are a constant believer that work is worship. But here, in the centre of the city, is a noble old mansion with its beautiful park around it, which a traveller who saw it once compared to a pearl on the breast of a blacksmith. Here it was that the Golden Wedding took place.

Who that was there can ever forget it? In my own memory that throng of the worthy, the beautiful, the gay of a great city will stand as the one fulfilment which Fate has given me of many Oriental promissory dreams, most of which she has failed to honor. In that great company you might have traced all the circles of that city's growth, as you may trace a tree's history in its rings. That lady there was the first white baby born here, where now over two hundred thousand human beings reside. Here are the pioneers who filled the first log-huts on the city's site, until they overflowed through the roofs. And here is an inner circle of children, and an outer one of grandchildren, about the two who are the heart of this beautiful celebration. Can that lovely, erect, blooming lady be a bride of fifty years? Looking at her, one would say it is a great and unnecessary mistake of ours to grow old. But more closely must we look at that quaint old man by her side. Lately he has passed away; but every day of his long life left a trace worthy to be noted well. His eighty years and twenty-five days of life comprise an epitome of the history and growth of a great community. Not so would you at first interpret that plain old man; though, to a knowing eye, that eye, clear with looking at the duty that lies nearest, that mouth, telling of patient, unimpulsive energy, that broadness about the brow, would be guaranties of a marked life.

And now for my story, which you must let me tell in a rambling way; for any systematic biography of that man would be like putting one of his own Catawba-vines into your herbarium.

I introduce you to a fair-haired, handsome youth, on the deck of a small steamboat, which is bearing him to his fortune in the great West. He is penniless. His father was wealthy; but in the war he was a Tory, and, in the confiscation of his property, his sin was visited upon his son. But he was not the boy to repine, with youth and the great West before him. And now as from the steamer's deck he sees a fine landscape with a few log-houses on it, he believes that it is one day to be a great city, and concludes to stop there. So he is put ashore with his trunk.

He has already determined to study law. He goes to the one judge who resides there, and is taken as a student into his office. More log-houses are built; a court-house is erected; and presently that institution at sight of which the shipwrecked Englishman fell on his knees and thanked God he was in a Christian land—the gallows—made its appearance. So the young man had a fair practice.

The records of the West, if they are ever written, will testify how often whimsical Fortune thrusts her favors on men against their will. This very judge with whom our youth studied law became environed with pecuniary difficulties, and wished once to satisfy a claim of a few hundred dollars by deeding away a sheep-pasture of a few acres, which was of no sort of use to him. But when he went to get his wife's signature to the conveyance, she burst into tears; she knew, she said, that the pasture was worthless; but she had in her childhood heard there the tinkling of the bells of her father's sheep; it was very foolish, she knew, but now that they had all passed away, the bells over in the pasture tinkled on in her memory, and she hated to give it up. The kind husband would not insist, but went sadly to his work. It was not long before the sheep-pasture was worth a million dollars! Sentiment, you see, is not always an unproductive article.

But this case was scarcely so curious as that which presently thrust a goodly capital on the hands of our young law-student. His first case in the court was that of a horse-thief, whom he induced a jury to acquit. When he came to his client for a fee, the scapegrace whispered that he had nothing on earth wherewith to pay the fee except two old whiskey-stills and—a horse. When he heard this last word, the lawyer's conscience gave him a twinge. After a moment's reflection, he said,—"You will need the horse; and you had best make him take you as far as possible from this region of country. I must be satisfied with the whiskey-stills." It was not for a long time that he thought even to inquire about the stills. When he did so, he found them in possession of a man who implored him not to take them away, and promised to pay something for them. Finding that he could not do this, he begged our hero to accept as payment for them a few acres of barren land, which, with great reluctance, he agreed to do. Erelong the tide of emigration set westward, and this land is to-day worth two million dollars!

But his subsequent life showed that the man's fortune was not luck; for by economy, not by hoarding,—by foresight, and a generous trust to all laborers who wished to lease lands, his wealth grew to nearly fifteen million dollars.

When he found that he had enough to live comfortably upon, he retired from the bar, and devoted himself to horticulture. He found that the region in which he lived was adapted to the growth of the vine, and began his experiments, which, during his life, extended to the culture of more than forty varieties. He laid before the community, from time to time, a report of his successes, he called on all to come and taste the wines he made, until the tidings went over the earth, and from Germany, France, Italy, came vine-dressers and wine-makers, who covered every hill-side for miles around him with vintages.

Those who came from afar to inquire into this new branch of industry, for which he had opened the way, were surprised to meet the millionnaire, the Catawba-Prince, in his plain garb and with his humble habits.

How many stories I could tell you of this unintentional, odd homeliness of manner and life, from which he never departed, and which those around him found it impossible to depart from, even in respect to the style of the coffin in which he was laid, and the procession which followed him to the beautiful cemetery! His dress was always that of a man of the humblest fortunes; and Dame Gossip says that he was so fond of his old coat, that, when a change became absolutely necessary, his daughters were obliged to prepare the new one, and substitute it for the old whilst he was asleep, so that in the morning he should put it on unconsciously, or, if he discovered the change; must wear the new or none. The same dame has it that a youth, who afterward became his son-in-law, having caught sight somewhere of one of the old man's daughters, desired to know her, and that, in the park, which was open to all, he met the old gentleman, whom he supposed to be the gardener, and offered him a bribe, if he would bring the lady out among the roses. The old man accepted the bribe, and returned with the lady, whom, with a sly twinkle of the eye, he introduced as "my daughter" to the blushing youth. And again it is told, that once, on a very warm day, the old man, having to wait for a friend, sat down on a stone just outside of his own gate, took off his hat, and, closing his eyes, dozed a little. When he got up, he found a silver quarter in his hat. Whether it was put there by some one who really thought he was an object of charity, or by a wag, the old man appreciated the joke, and, with a smile, put it into the pocket out of which had to come forty thousand dollars for annual taxes. These stories may or may not be true; but in some sense such stories have a certain truth, whether invented or not. They can live and circulate only in a community where they are characteristic of the person of whom they are told. Generous men are not pursued by stories of parsimony; mean men never hear even untrue stories of their generosity.

And this last remark leads me to speak of the relation in which the wealthiest man of the West stood to the throngs of the poor and the suffering who surrounded him.

If, in the city, you had gone to the President of the Boorioboola-Gha Sewing-Circle, or to the Tract-Society Rooms, or to the clergy, and inquired whether the city's richest man was charitable, you would have received an ominous shrug in reply. Vainly have they gone to him for any such charities. Vainly did they go to him for some "poor, but worthy and Christian woman."

"I will give nothing," he replied; "there are enough who will give to her; what I have to give shall go to the unworthy poor, whom none will help,—the Devil's poor, Sir,—those whom Christians leave to the Devil."

Many a minister has been sorely puzzled by the receipt of a fifty-dollar bill "for the relief of the depraved." His office was constantly thronged with outcasts, who were generally relieved by small sums. In his relations with these people, his simplicity and eccentricity were noted by all who knew him. Among many stories which I know to be true, I select the following.

Some six or eight years ago the winter was very cold; the river was frozen, and all the "wharf-rats" were thrown out of work. A near relative of the old gentleman came to the city, and passed the night at his house. After tea he sauntered to the office to take a quiet cigar. To his surprise, he found it filled with a crowd—more than fifty—of brawny, beastly-looking men. The presence of the childlike old man, his face beaming with shrewdness and kindly humor, seemed alone to keep them from being a mob. His manner to them said,—"You poor wretches, I know how reckless you are; yet I am not sure but I should be as bad, had I been exposed to the same bad influences." These houseless vagrants had been coming every night, while the river was frozen, to get a dime for a night's lodging.

The young man had been forced by the unpleasantness of the crowd to go and enjoy his cigar outside. As he sat there, the ugly crowd filed out quietly, each with his dime, (the clerk distributing,) till the last man. He seemed to feel very ill-used, and was scarcely clear of the door-way before he gave vent to his indignation:—"I'll be d–d, if I don't let Old – know that I won't be put off with a five-cent piece and a three-cent piece! Let me ketch him out, and I'll mash his," etc., etc.

Glowing with righteous indignation, and glad of the opportunity, the young relative rushed in and exclaimed,—

"Mr. –! I have had many occasions to remonstrate with you on your indiscriminate charities, your encouragement of beggary and vice. The wretch who went out last is breathing threats of personal violence against you, because he has been put off with a five-cent piece and a three-cent piece!"

How was the indignant remonstrant mortified, when the old man simply turned his head to the clerk and said,—

"Mark, why did you not give that man his dime?"

"I had given out all the dimes, Sir, and I gave him all I had left."

"See that he gets his extra two cents the next time he comes. I have no doubt I should have been mad, if I had been in his place."

A forlorn-looking man once came and asked for help.

"I am afraid to give you money. I think I know how you will spend it."

Of course the man protested that strong drink was an abomination unto him,—that what his nature most craved was "pure, fresh milk."

The old man, with a look in which it would be hard to say whether shrewdness or credulity predominated, at once hastened to the milk-cellar and returned with a glass of milk; the fellow swallowed the dose with an eager reluctance quite comical to behold, but which excited no movement in the muscles of the old gentleman's face.

On a raw, wet winter's day, a loafer applied for a pair of shoes. He had on an old, shambling pair, out at both toes. The old Wine-Prince was sitting with a pair of slippers on, and had his own shoes warming at the fire.

"Well," said he to the applicant, "you do look rather badly off, for such a cold, wet day; here, see if these shoes will fit you," handing his own.