The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 04, February, 1858

More recent revulsions are still more to the point. In 1825, in England, there were enormous speculations in joint-stock enterprises and foreign loans. Some five hundred and thirty-two new companies were formed, with a nominal capital of about $2,200,000,000, and Greek, Austrian, and South American loans were negotiated, to the extent of $275,000,000. Scarcely one of these companies or of these loans ever paid a dividend; and the consequence was a general destruction of credit and property, and a degree of distress which was compared to the terrible sufferings inflicted by the Mississippi and the South-Sea Bubbles. Yet there were no bank-notes in circulation in England under five pounds, or twenty-five dollars. Again, our readers may recall the monstrous overtrading in railroad shares in the years 1845-6. Projects involving the investment of £500,000,000 were set on foot in a very little while; the contagion of purchasing spread to all the provincial towns; the traditionally staid and sober Englishman got as mad as a March hare about them; Mr. Murdle reigned triumphant; and, in the end, the nation had to pay for its delirium with another season of panic, misery, and ruin. Yet during all this excitement there were not only no small notes in circulation, but, what is most remarkable, there was no unusual increase in the issues of the banks, of any kind.

Let us not hope too much, therefore, from the suppression of small notes, should that scheme be carried into effect; let us not delude ourselves with the expectation that it will prove a satisfactory remedy, in any sense, for the periodical disease of the currency; for its benefits, though probable, must be limited.[5 - It is very curious, that, while our leaders are in favor of exorcising small notes, many of the French and English Liberals are calling for an issue of them!] It is a remedy which merely plays round the extremities of the disorder, without invading the seat of it at all.

We have endeavored, in the foregoing remarks, to point out (for our limits do not allow us to expound) two things: first, that in the universal modern use of credit as the medium of exchanges,—which credit refers to a standard in itself fluctuating,—there is a liability to certain critical derangements, when the machinery will be thrown out of gear, if we may so speak, or when credit will dissolve in a vain longing for cash; and, second, that in the paper-money substitutes which men have devised as a provision against the consequences of this liability, they have enormously aggravated, instead of counteracting or alleviating the danger. But if these views be correct, the questions to be determined by society are also two, namely: whether it be possible to get rid of these aggravations; and whether credit itself may not be so organized as to be self-sufficient and self-supporting, whatever the vagaries of the standard. The suppression of small notes might have a perceptible effect in lessening the aggravations of paper, but it would not touch the more fundamental point, as to a stable organization of credit. Yet it is in this direction, we are persuaded, that all reformatory efforts must turn. Credit is the new principle of trade,—the nexus of modern society; but it has scarcely yet been properly considered. While it has been shamefully exploited, as the French say, it has never been scientifically constituted.

Neither will it be, under the influence of the old methods,—not until legislators and politicians give over the business of tampering with the currency,—till they give over the vain hope of "hedging the cuckoo," to use Locke's figure,—and the principle of FREEDOM be allowed to adjust this, as it has already adjusted equally important matters. Let the governments adhere to their task of supplying a pure standard of the precious metals, and of exacting it in the discharge of what is due to them, if they please; but let them leave to the good sense, the sagacity, and the self-interest of Commerce, under the guardianship of just and equal laws, the task of using and regulating its own tokens of credit. Our past experiments in the way of providing an artificial currency are flagrant and undeniable failures; but as it is still possible to deduce from them, as we believe, ample proof of the principle, that the security, the economy, and the regularity of the circulation have improved just in the degree in which the entire money business has been opened to the healthful influences of unobstructed trade,—so we infer that a still larger liberty would insure a still more wholesome action of the system. The currency is rightly named the circulation, and, like the great movements of blood in the human body, depends upon a free inspiration of the air.

Under a larger freedom, we should expect Credit to be organized on a basis of MUTUAL RESPONSIBILITY AND GUARANTY, which would afford a stable and beautiful support to the great systolic and disastolic movements of trade; that it would reduce all paper emissions to their legitimate character as mere mercantile tokens, and liberate humanity from the fearful debaucheries of a factitious money; and that Commerce, which has been compelled hitherto to sit in the markets of the world, like a courtesan at the gaming-table, with hot eye and panting chest and painted cheeks, would be regenerated and improved, until it should become, what it was meant to be, a beneficent goddess, pouring out to all the nations from her horns of plenty the grateful harvests of the earth.

THE BUSTS OF GOETHE AND SCHILLER

This is GOETHE, with a forehead
Like the fabled front of Jove;
In its massive lines the tokens
More of majesty than love.

This is SCHILLER, in whose features,
With their passionate calm regard,
We behold the true ideal
Of the high heroic Bard,

Whom the inward world of feeling
And the outward world of sense
To the endless labor summon,
And the endless recompense.

These are they, sublime and silent,
From whose living lips have rung
Words to be remembered ever
In the noble German tongue:

Thoughts whose inspiration, kindling
Into loftiest speech or song,
Still through all the listening ages
Pours its torrent swift and strong.

As to-day in sculptured marble
Side by side the Poets stand,
So they stood in life's great struggle,
Side by side and hand to hand,

In the ancient German city,
Dowered with many a deathless name,
Where they dwelt and toiled together,
Sharing each the other's fame:

One till evening's lengthening shadows
Gently stilled his faltering lips,
But the other's sun at noonday
Shrouded in a swift eclipse.

There their names are household treasures,
And the simplest child you meet
Guides you where the house of Goethe
Fronts upon the quiet street;

And, hard by, the modest mansion
Where full many a heart has felt
Memories uncounted clustering
Round the words, "Here Schiller dwelt."

In the churchyard both are buried,
Straight beyond the narrow gate,
In the mausoleum sleeping
With Duke Charles in sculptured state.

For the Monarch loved the Poets,
Called them to him from afar,
Wooed them near his court to linger,
And the planets sought the star.

He, his larger gifts of fortune
With their larger fame to blend,
Living, counted it an honor
That they named him as their friend;

Dreading to be all-forgotten,
Still their greatness to divide,
Dying, prayed to have his Poets
Buried one on either side.

But this suited not the gold-laced
Ushers of the royal tomb,
Where the princely House of Weimar
Slumbered in majestic gloom.

So they ranged the coffins justly,
Each with fitting rank and stamp,
And with shows of court precedence
Mocked the grave's sepulchral damp.

Fitly now the clownish sexton
Narrow courtier-rules rebukes;
First he shows the grave of Goethe,
Schiller's next, and last—the Duke's.

Vainly 'midst these truthful shadows
Pride would daunt her painted wing;