The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2,
August, 1863, by Various

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Title: The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863
Devoted to Literature and National Policy

Author: Various

Release Date: August 23, 2009 [EBook #29767]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE

CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:

DEVOTED TO

LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY.

VOL. IV.--AUGUST, 1863.--No. II.

OUR FUTURE.

In these exciting times, when our country is enduring the throes of
political convulsion, and every time-honored institution, every
well-regulated law of society seems tottering from the broad foundation
of the past, how few are there who ask themselves the question, What is
to be our future? For the past two years we have lived in a state of
extraordinary and unnatural excitement, beside which the jog-trot
existence of the former days, with all its periodical excitements, its
hebdomadal heavings of the waves of society, pales into insignificance.
Like the grave, with its eternal 'Give! give!' our appetites, stimulated
to a morbid degree by their daily food of marvels, cry constantly for
more; and a lull of but a few brief months in the storm whose angry
pinions are constantly bringing new wonders to our view, begets an
almost insupportable _ennui_ in the public mind, and a restlessness
among the masses, such as our history has never before shown. Nor will
the craving be satiated so long as the war shall last; for the stirring
events, following so closely upon each other, and filling every hour of
our national life, will keep up the unnatural excitement, even as the
stimulating effect of alcoholic drinks is prolonged by repeated
draughts. Only when the source is entirely cut off will the stimulus
pass away; and then, when peace is established, and we drop again into
the ruts and grooves of the