'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.