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Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 39, January, 1861
The Project Gutenberg eBook, Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January,
1861, by Various
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Title: Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861
Author: Various
Release Date: February 16, 2004 [eBook #11118]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY VOLUME 7, NO. 39, JANUARY, 1861***
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THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
VOL. VII.--JANUARY, 1861.--NO. XXXIX.
WASHINGTON CITY.
Washington is the paradise of paradoxes,--a city of magnificent distances, but of still more magnificent discrepancies. Anything may be affirmed of it, everything denied. What it seems to be it is not; and although it is getting to be what it never was, it must always remain what it now is. It might be called a city, if it were not alternately populous and uninhabited; and it would be a wide-spread village, if it were not a collection of hospitals for decayed or callow politicians. It is the hybernating-place of fashion, of intelligence, of vice,--a resort without the attractions of waters either mineral or salt, where there is no bathing and no springs, but drinking in abundance and gambling in any quantity. Defenceless, as regards walls, redoubts, moats, or other fortifications, it is nevertheless the
Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 39, January, 1861
by Various