—and admiring the supply of cold water in one corner of the room, and turning out the fellows who do not like my way of waiting on myself, I see what may help to account for their intrusion. On the window-seat is a tray of fine fruit, prettily dished up in leaves. On the floor is a basket of delicate vegetables. Tray and basket show the cards of old acquaintances at Charleston; and so do the three bottles of a rare wine in the other window. On the dressing-table are two or three bunches of hyacinths, jonquils, jasmine, roses, &c, and there is a heap of envelopes containing tickets for lectures, orders of admittance to public institutions, &c. I am plunged into the flood of Southern hospitality already; and I am told that, if I had brought my wife, there would have been some rare ribbon, or collar, or fan, or bit of lace, or possibly all these. Considering the energy with which the Southern citizens proclaim themselves poor (and often with great truth), these methods of hospitality are remarkable. They are graceful, and not a little romantic, however.
After breakfast, my sister and I lounge for a while in the balcony which overhangs the court in the rear of the house. Below, we see the children, busy with their confidences and their play, each little white having a little black to play with and command; and very affectionate they look, going about with their arms round one another’s neck. When the sun gets a little higher, the young masters and mistresses must come in to lessons.
The clergyman’s wife—a Northern woman, who has far outstripped her native neighbours in her advocacy of slavery—happens to be calling when the children come in and get their books out. She ironically remarks that lessons are a sad necessity, and bids me observe that my nieces see little Nancy and Flora to be more free than they are themselves. My sister corroborates this, by relating how busy my nieces had been yesterday dressing little Nancy for a party, when they certainly thought her the privileged child of the household.
It is no desire of mine to talk on this eternal subject in a place where such discussion is never rational, never fair, and always useless; but neither I nor any one else can escape it. I have, now and then, felt tempted to relate at night the contradictory statements and arguments about slavery that I have heard in the course of the day; but I never introduce or prolong the subject which makes every advocate appear to disadvantage in one way or another. When with my brother-in-law in the city, at public institutions, at his club, or after dinner at a friend’s house, I observe that I am never let alone ten minutes about “the peculiar institution.” Everybody’s mind is full of it—full of consciousness of the world’s opinion of it; and by incessantly dwelling on it in a mood of party-spirit, the citizens have become unable to speak accurately or moderately on this subject, or to open their minds to any other. I find it truly a monomania. I am inclined to think that the citizens make their own case worse, by their way of talking to ladies. “The chivalry,” as they call themselves, behave to ladies as might be expected from gentlemen who talk of their society “advancing towards Orientalism.” Their talk is light and gay, gallant and flattering, and the unreasonableness of the ladies on the subject on which they talk most exceeds all bounds. I mean—of the ladies who do talk of it. Some are silent. They have dropped enough to my sister and me to show me why they are silent. I will only say that if native or stranger desires to know the worst of “the domestic institution,” he need not seek the abolitionist, or inquire in the streets for an honest man who will tell him the truth. Let him learn what is thought of it by sensible, unsophisticated mistresses of Southern households, and he need go no further.
This incessant recurrence to one topic of controversy, when nobody wants to controvert, is one sign of the great characteristic, in my eyes, of Southern manners—the absence of repose. I am struck with this even in the society of the most languid ladies; but I find much more of it in my morning walks with my brother-in-law. The citizens are always finding mares’ nests, it seems to me. Wherever I go, I see them fuming about some conspiracy, some defection or insult at Washington, some wound to their self-love, or to the dignity of the Palmetto State. On the wharves I am questioned about the intentions of the North in regard to the abolitionists, and when the South may expect redress from them. In the public library and any reading-room, I can never get through a newspaper without hearing of the power of South Carolina to stand her ground against the assaults of a hostile North. In the mansions we enter, the books on the centre table, and the newspapers generally, show the cast of politics of the household. The minority, who dread a severance from the Union and civil war, seek me, and try to learn how matters really stand in my own State, and whether we really want to crush South Carolina: and they tell me more than they dare tell their neighbours of their longing for peace and quiet, and for some freedom in reading, speaking, and corresponding. At other houses, I hear these loyalists denounced as disloyal. It is chiefly on suspicion, for the minority are extremely cautious; but I hear one man of business tell another that they must expect no good of A. or B., who shows no loyalty to the Palmetto flag, and none of the spirit which should distinguish the chivalry. After dinner in the balcony, or among the ladies in the drawing-room, I hear low-voiced communications, or loud censure of C. or D., who is suspected of receiving letters from Washington, or publications from the North, which should never be carried in a Southern mail-bag. The clergy and the ladies catch up such hints, and incite one another to exaggeration, till, at some unlucky moment, a citizen who desires nothing but to follow his own business in peace and quiet, finds himself held up to social execration for taking in abolition papers which ought to be burnt by the hangman. Then the postmaster is sure to have a call from some dozen of the chief men of the place, who inquire about the correspondence of the suspected neighbour, and advise the zealous functionary to make known to the authorities any remarkable phenomena that may present them-