The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863

If social unity and political strength will be promoted by the suppression of the rebellion and the disappearance of slavery, the ties of our Union will be made stronger also by other causes. Emerging from the war victorious, not only without being seriously injured, but with eventual and speedy increase of power, the Union will command the respect of foreign nations in a higher degree than ever before. Those European nations, or rather their rulers and nobles, who now in their malignant envy hope for the permanent dismemberment of America, will then hail her resuscitation with a zeal which will be none the less advantageous to us for being forced from them in spite of their present hate and detraction. If the division of our country would destroy its influence abroad, and subject the parts to constant intrigues and interference from foreign powers, the restoration of the Union with even more than its former glory will give us unexampled weight in the counsels of mankind. Our unexpected and astounding exhibition of military power, our thorough command of the American continent, and its immense resources, hardly yet begun to be developed, and the unlimited prosperity which the future will assuredly bring us, cannot fail to strike the minds of European thinkers, and to awaken deep interest among the European people. The stream of immigration, interrupted by the war, will be renewed with at least its former fulness, and will keep pace with the demands of our country for labor and population. The South may then be expected to receive her full share of this increase by people from abroad, and will then commence that process of condensing and permanently fixing her population, without which she can never attain any high position in the scale of civilization.

The large public debt destined to be incurred, may be expected to have some influence in preventing immigration and improvement; but unless the war shall unfortunately linger far beyond the period at which its end is now anticipated, the liabilities of the Government will not be so great as to prevent the speedy return of our usual prosperity. A different and far better system of taxation will be required—one more favorable to commerce and at the same time equally productive, or at least sufficiently so to meet all our liabilities and provide for the extinguishment of the debt within a reasonable time. One of the advantages attending this great debt and modifying its certain evils and burdens, will be the necessity of devising a stable revenue system, intended solely to provide means for sustaining the Government and meeting the public obligations. Periodical changes, often depending on party ascendency and popular elections, have hitherto marked the financial policy of our Government. So long as the sources of revenue were superabundant and the demands of the Treasury very moderate, we could well afford to make experiments, and even to depart from the true principles of taxation, or at least to do so without any very serious or ruinous consequences. Now, however, when the public expenditure is about to be vastly increased, and when it will be for the first time really felt by the people, it will become the first duty of our rulers to study the extent and true character of our resources, and to adjust the burdens of taxation, with all practicable fairness, to the respective capacities of all classes and interests. We may expect to have a system stable and permanent in its principles, if not in its details; and the basis of this system will be a wise arrangement of duties on imports, which must, from various reasons, ever form the great bulk of our taxes.

It is not an American maxim that a great public debt is a public blessing; nor is it likely that an educated and eminently practical people like ours will ever accept that mischievous paradox. Yet if it be desirable that our large public debt should be widely scattered among the people, so that every man may be directly interested in maintaining the public credit and the stability of the Government, the present system, now but imperfectly adapted to that object, might easily be made to accomplish it fully. If the Treasury notes recently issued were the only paper circulation in the country—that is to say, if the banks were prohibited, by taxation or otherwise, from making any issues of their own—the Government might increase their amount to at least five hundred millions, with even less than the present depreciation, and would thus enjoy the benefit of a loan to that amount without the payment of any interest. As it is now, the banks get the advantage of a great part of this extensive loan, and at the same time perform a function which properly belongs to the Government—that of furnishing a currency for the people. By the proposed system, the entire community would be interested in this part of the public debt, and would doubtless find the circulating medium much safer and better than that now manufactured by the numberless banks chartered by the States. The issue of these notes by State institutions was always an evasion of that clause of the Constitution which prohibits the States from issuing bills of credit, and is plainly against the spirit and intention of the instrument. If our public debt should, in this way, eventually drive all bank notes out of circulation and banish them forever, it will have accomplished a valuable work in restoring the true construction of the Constitution, and, in this particular at least, will have proved a public blessing. It will be very easy, in the course of time, to redeem the Treasury notes, and gradually to substitute for them a species of national paper based on actual deposits, which will afford all the conveniences with none of the dangers of the present system, by which the local banks virtually establish the currency of the country, flooding it with all varieties of paper, without uniformity of value, with no adequate control or regulation of its quantity, thus producing periodical convulsions and robbing the people of their hard-earned savings.

If the rebellion, by the burdens which it leaves behind, shall bring about these two results—the adoption of a wise and permanent system of revenue, and the establishment of a sound currency by the prohibition of all bank circulation—it will have accomplished ends only inferior in importance to the two primary consequences, the overthrow of the principle of secession and the destruction of slavery. Thus, this tremendous convulsion would bring out of the chaos a new order in the political world, by annihilating secession, and by perpetuating the Union and banishing all fear of its dissolution; in the social, by substituting free men for slaves; in the financial, by a permanent adjustment of tariffs and taxation; and in the commercial, by the prohibition of bank paper and the substitution of a safe and uniform currency.

'I;' OR, SUMMER IN THE CITY.'

'I love the sweet security of streets.'—Charles Lamb.

'I,' my charming friend, do not fully sympathize with the late Mr. Lamb's statement, as quoted above; which statement I always have believed partially owed its origin to its very tempting alliterative robe.

For myself, I do not particularly like the 'sweet security of streets,' but vastly prefer 'a boundless contiguity of shade,' especially during the present month—August—or

'A life on the ocean wave.'

I do not mean a permanent residence there—that would be liable to be damp and unhealthy, and altogether too insecure to be 'sweet;'—but when I say a 'life on the ocean wave,' it is merely my poetical license for a cottage at Newport. (I wish, indeed, that I had any but a poetical one for such a possession!)

But what folly for me to talk of a cottage there! when my limited income does not even admit of a cot in the cheapest of seaside inns.

Gentle reader! shrink not from me when, in addition to this melancholy confidence, I also announce to you that I live in town—in 'Boston town,' to be accurate—during August! I belong to the 'lower orders of society;' and my only Newport is the Public Garden, or a walk to Longwood, and, when I am very affluent, a horse-car drive to Savin hill, where a teaspoonful of sea view is administered to the humble wayfarer.

Yes! I positively did exist in the city, not only through the month of August, but all the summer days of all the summer months. I mention August in the city, because I know that has a peculiarly God-forgotten and forsaken sound.

I should soon cease to exist anywhere, I fancy, if I did not stay in town, for (horror No. 2!) I work at a trade in order to earn my daily bread and coffee! What my particular trade is, I am not going to divulge—that shall remain a delicious mystery (the only delicious thing about it); only this much I will confide: I do not, à la Mr. Frederick Altamont, 'sweep the crossing.' Unhappy Altamont! he did not appreciate the sweet security of streets.

'Poor thing!' you exclaim, 'work at a trade?'

Rest tranquil, fair one; the phrase doubtless sounds harshly to your delicate, aristocratic ears. (Oh, what lovely earrings!) Be tranquil! I do not work very hard; my hands are perhaps so audacious as to be as small, as white, and as soft as your own.

But I have to 'work reg'lar,' every week day of all the months of every year; and when the time arrives for me to go into the country, I shall not return again to Boston; for I shall go to a land from whence no traveller returns. Apropos of this rather dismal topic: A queer cousin of mine, 'Sans Souci,' who has a taste for 'morbid anatomy,' was the other day enjoying himself with Mr. Smith, the cheerful sexton of the King's Chapel. These two were 'down among the dead men,' under the church, when Mr. Smith apologized for leaving my cousin, on the plea that he had a previous engagement to take a young gentleman into the country—a delicate way of stating that he was about to convey a body out to Mount Auburn!

Some fine day, I too shall take a drive with some Mr. Smith—not, of course, the S. C. Smith, for, as I have mentioned, 'I' belong to the 'lower orders.'

Now let me tell you of my Newport, and of what mitigations there are for the poor wretches who pass their summer in the city, to whom the joys of Sharon, Saratoga, the Hudson, and of Lake George are as impossible as though these delightful resorts were in other planets. Perhaps, like Mr. T. A.'s 'good Americans,' they have a vague hope that when they die they can visit these famous places! For myself, I long ago made out my 'visiting list.' Oh, bless you! as soon as I shall be 'out of the body,' I shall start on the most delightful tour (no bother about the luggage, checks, or couriers!); it will be years and years before I fairly 'settle down' in that

'bright particular star'

I have selected for my permanent residence. Yes! you horrible madame! oh, you horrible madame, who express your fears that I shall 'never be settled,' speaking of me as if I were the coffee in your coffee-pot—(only, of course, such a well-regulated dame's coffee is never anything but quite clear and settled)—yes, to relieve your poor, narrow mind, I can bid you hope that in another and pleasanter world I fully expect to be—'settled.' I tell you this beforehand, for I am very sure that you won't go to the same planet, and therefore will never have the satisfaction of knowing the fact from personal observation.

But what am I about? Building castles in the skies! Mr. Editor Leland, as usual, protests against my sad lack of con-cen-tra-tion! Let us concentrate, therefore, my beloved hearers! With or without sugar? Oh, I was beginning to tell you about Newport—my Newport, the Public Garden of Boston, alias Hub-opolis—which you, poor things! belonging to the 'higher orders' and living on Arlington, Berkely, Clarendon, and the Duke of Devonshire streets, never have a chance to see in its Augustan pomp and glory. In fact, till this summer, its 'pomp and glory' were quite concealed by dust and ashes; but now, thanks to the 'City Fathers,' it is

'Ye land of flowers.'

Let me describe it to you; for though your dwellings are directly opposite, yet, custom compelling you to leave them before the flower season begins, you in reality know less of it than I do, living in a street whose name must not be mentioned to ears polite. 'Tis far from the Beacon 'haunts of men,' far from the Garden, and uncommonly far from the Common. I rise betimes on these summer mornings, and, before I go to my work, shaking off the dust of my obscure street, I enter your sacred precincts, oh, F. F. B.'s! Bless you, it can do you no harm, for even your boudoirs do not look out at me; their eyes are shuttered to all such vulgar sights. It was impertinent, but this morning I pitied you (you!) that you could not see the wondrous beauty of the—city in August!

The morning was gloriously beautiful: it might have been the sister to that one born so long ago, on which its Creator looked, and said that it was 'good.' I actually forgot that I had no position; I imagined I had, for the very brightest beauty filled my soul—I saw angels ascending and descending (not Beacon street, as in the winter season) the charmed air around me. 'Ye land of flowers,' indeed! All of them mine—mine, though I must not pluck the humblest one. In truth, I had no desire to do so. Why should I take the lovely creatures from their beautiful home, to the close, dull room where I must sit all the bright day? Let me rather think of them fresh, free, and happy there, as I often think of a golden-haired child in heaven; one so dear to my heart of hearts, I bless God that I can think of her there with the angels who stand nearest the Throne—and far, far away the weary paths that I must tread to the end. But if heaven had not wanted another cherub, and she had been left to be the flower of my life, think you I could have seen her beauty wither in the dull room to which I must hasten in an hour? No! a thousand times no! I should leave her with her sisters in the garden here, with her cousins, the birds and butterflies, while I worked for both. Lilies must neither 'toil nor spin.' How idly I am dreaming! She is far away from this worky-day world; I shall never see her again, but in dreams, as now! Little sister! with starry eyes, and soft curls clustering around the sweet infant face; so many nights the same bright vision—with the same wreath which I myself placed on her head, of May's pale flowers, and she the palest. Only lilies of the valley, I remember, seemed fitting for my darling's brow, or to grow on

ANNIE'S GRAVEBright Roses, wither on the spray!Your sweetness mocks the doomOf her whose cheeks, so pale to-day,Were rivals of your bloom.Sweet Violets, I charge ye, fade!Wear not those robes of blue,For eyes are closed which Nature madeOf a more lovely hue.Pale Lilies, sad and drooping low,With perfume like her breath,On Annie's grave alone shall grow,Fair flower, plucked by Death.

Call it an affectation, if you will, but I never take a flower from its home without a slight twinge of pain. I know it suffers! However, I have no scruples in accepting flowers after they are plucked by others. So pray do not hesitate about sending me that superb bouquet, which you intended to send me to-morrow! Have you never observed the brutal habit which 'some persons' have, of recklessly attacking shrubs and flowers, as though they were rank weeds (or secessionists), and, without in the least enjoying their spoils, tossing their quivering, trembling victims aside, before they are dead or even withered? Such are not worthy of flowers, excepting French flowers, which are not supposed to suffer. Oh, my countrywomen! would that they did suffer a little from our neglect.

Do you know who Lacoontolâ is? I have made her acquaintance this summer, and find it one of the compensations for passing the summer in town.

She is to be found at the City Library—'Lacoontolâ, or, The Fatal Ring,' translated from the Sanscrit. Go there for her, I pray you, and you will admire with me the exquisite description of her tenderness to these 'flower people,' as Mrs. Mann calls them.

But, pardon! You who belong to the 'highest orders' must be already intimate with Mlle. Lacoontolâ, for she is highly connected: her papa was a king (quite equal in position to Mr. Abe Lincoln); her mamma, I regret to state, though a very charming person, was an actress or goddess, or something in that line. Lacoontolâ, however, in spite of her papa's indiscretion, married a prince, and was, in fact, perfectly genteel and quite religious. Before her marriage, she appears to have 'lived in the woods' the year round; her wardrobe being 'turu-lural.' She used to wear the 'dearest' little zouave of the 'tender bark' of the 'Aurora tree.'

'Rich and rare were the gems she wore,'

for her bracelets were the 'long perfumed stems of the waterlilies!' and in her hair the lotus flower, in place of a lace barbe!

There is a very beautiful description of Lacoontolâ's love and tender treatment of all the flowers and shrubs—her companions—and of all dumb animals. (On dit that the prince was henpecked by Mrs. L.!)

This wild girl had a human love for the forest flowers; she says to thee, Madhari Creeper: 'Oh, most radiant of twining plants, receive my embraces, and return them with thy flexible arms: from this day, though at a distance, I shall forever be thine.' How unconventional! I fancy Mlle. L. must have inherited this style of conversation from her mamma; all very well, when confined to flowers and 'creeping' things; but one day, as she was out walking, she met 'by chance—the usual way,' Prince Dashuranti, and our young lady said pretty much the same sort of thing to him as to the 'Creeper,' falling violently in love with him at first sight. It struck H. R. H. as a little peculiar—rather extraordinary in a well-bred miss; but as it was leap year, and learning that she was the only child, and would inherit all of papa's immense fortune, he married her 'off-hand;'—well, that very afternoon at four o'clock—by the sundial. You see it didn't take so long 'in those days,' to get the trousseau, and all 'the things' in readiness. Papa raised his sceptre-wand, and mumbled some infernal gibberish—and, lo! all the trees and shrubs blossomed instanter, with the 'sweetest loves' of things trimmed with 'real point;'—well, with something just as delicious to the soul of a young (or middle-aged) maiden on the eve of matrimony. There was no necessity, either, for an order to Bigelow Bros., Boston—since, if Dushuranti wished to present her with a pair of bracelets on her wedding day, he had but to 'push out' on the pond, and get some waterlilies!

The 'gibberish' in which the old gentleman is said to have invoked the backwoods 'Chandlers' and 'Hoveys,' I will obligingly translate for you, as possibly you may not be able to read it in the original Sanscrit! Oh! don't tell me that you 'won't trouble me,' and all that. I will bore you, and nobody can save you!

'Hear, O ye trees of this hallowed forest, hear and proclaim that Lacoontolâ is going to the palace of her wedded lord. She who drank not, though thirsty, before you were watered; she who cropped not, through affection for you, one of your fresh leaves, though she would have been pleased with such an ornament for her locks; she whose chief delight was in the season when your branches are sprayed with flowers,' &c., &c. Should you like a photograph of this charming person, Lacoontolâ, taken by Black & Batchelder, at the time of her marriage, 'Williams & Everett' can oblige you. You will perceive, from her picture, that she is not too fond of dress, or a 'slave to fashion.'

'Rappacini's daughter' (one of Hawthorne's Mosses) was a morbid 'Lacoontolâ.' She loved her flowers,—'not wisely, but too well!' She became a sort of exterminatrix—a strychninus young person! From the poisonous arsenic embraces of her garden loves, she acquired, you remember, her fatal, glowing beauty—beauty altogether 'too rich for use, for earth too dear,' since it consigned the 'party' ensnared by it to the silent tomb!

'Rappacini's daughter,' indeed! Lovely girl-woman, seated at yonder bay window (to be accurate, the 'Back Bay window'!), playing with your ten cherub children; your tropical 'midsummer-night's-dream' beauty recalls Beatrice (Hawthorne's Beatrice I mean). How many have you slain, my love? And Madame Grundy echoes: 'Their name is legion!' 'A quick brunette, well moulded, falcon-eyed'! As in the description of Beatrice, one is reminded 'of all rich and intense colors'—the purple-black hair, the crimson cheek, the scarlet lips. And the eyes? ah! gazing into those wonderful eyes, one forgets the color they wear, in trying to interpret their language! 'Cleopatra!' who would not be an Antony for thee? I would not!

I have unconsciously interrupted a lady in her morning bath!—the 'stone lady' of the fountain. She seems to be looking for her Turkish towel, judging from her anxious expression! Rather a good-looking person—quite pretty, if only she would go to Summer street and purchase a black silk. Dress, I fancy, would improve 'her style of beauty.' Poor thing! it's rather a long walk to take, à la 'Lacoontolâ'! I must lend her my waterproof, only she appears already to be water-proved! How she must envy the coloring and the clothes of my beautiful dame of the window!

But my hour is passing away! 'Resurgam'—as the sun incorrectly remarked this morning—and go on my way, rejoicing to say 'bon jour' to all my dear flower friends. And first, the 'Asters'—they always were rich, you know, from 'John Jacob' down; but this summer, malgrè taxes and curtailment of incomes and go-comes, the family appear in unprecedented splendor. What gorgeous Organdies! all quilled in the fashion—but not by Madame Peinot: her cunning right hand, with all its cunning, ne'er quilled so exquisitely. Those graceful, fragile Petunias (what a family of sisters!), in their delicate glaze silks (ratherish décolleté!), and the Superbia, Empress 'Gladiolus,' in brocade of such daring hues, may call the Asters 'stiff and prudish' in their quilled muslins; but, what say the Asters in return? Ah! what do they not say?

The Verbenas seem fairly delirious this morning, as though the consciousness of their own beauty made them run wildly from their beds into the paths, to say to the passers-by, with their bright little faces:

'See! am I not charming?'

Well, you are pretty—very pretty; but I care not for you as for your plainer stepsister, the 'sweet-scented Verbena.' She has a pale, sad face; but she has a soul, which you have not, poor things! for perfume is the soul of 'flower people.'

But, who wants gold? Lives there a man with purse so full who does not want it? Well, then, snatch that heap of sunshine, that dazzling Coreopsis, and be off before the policeman turns into this path. Ah, ye Daylilies! You break my heart with your moonlight faces. Standing apart from the world-flowers, like novices in their white veils, who offer the incense of their beauty to Heaven—oh! give a little of your perfume to a poor un-otto-of-rosed mortal—breathe on me, and I can laugh at the costly 'Wood Violet,' 'Eglantine,' and 'Rose,' with which Harris & Chapman scent their patronesses—to be dollared in return!

Daylilies, your perfume is too subtle, too vague, to be coined or 'cabined, cribbed, confined' in scent bottles.

Ah! the flowering Mosses; they seem to be having one eternal picnic with the Myrtles and Verbenas, playing forever that dear-to-children game of 'Tag'! Some are arrayed in Solferino velvets, rather heavy for this warm day! Prettier these, in soft rose-colored robes, and this, in a

'Oh! call me fair, not pale'—

well, almost pale robe, the very climax of delicacy: the faintest thought of rose color alone prevents one from calling it lily-white. I am reminded of you, O flower-named friend! Vision of loveliness! which has in a few never-to-be-forgotten days oasised my Sahara life. Now I have reached the pond—my Lake George! It is fresh and breezy this morning, after last night's thunder-shower, and the mimic waves are impatiently breaking over the thus-far-shalt-thou-go stone. I cannot blame them for rushing over that green sward to give a morning kiss to the blushing 'Forget-me-nots,' and just say to them, 'Remember me!'