Union County courier. [volume] (Elk Point, Union County, D.T. [S.D.]) 187?-1913, 1878-02-06
NUMBER II.
LOST GRANDEUR.

LOST GRANDEUR.
The Sad Decay Of the Southern Metro]
; oils, New Orleans.
Correspondence Cincinnati Commercial.
have spoken with enthusiasm of til
beauty Of New Orleans; must spea
with pain of her decay. The city is fat
ing, moldering, crumbling-slowly bu
certainly.
As molders and crumbles some quain
pleasure-house in the midst of weet
grown gardens, once luxuriantly roman
tic as those which form background fo
the warm pictures of the Decameron, 3
mOlders this fair, quaint city in tn
midst of the ruined paradise Of Louisi
ana. So, also, are moldering all the ole
cities of the south, for their prosperity
had its root of nourishment in the enor
nous wealth of the planters of cottor
and rice and sugar, and that wealth i
gone.
/ suppose that when the hatreds of wal
have burnt themselves out; when tn.
descendants of the ruined planters re-
member the family misfortunes only a,
traditions are remembered; when q new
social system shall have arisen from the
ashes of the old, as the new world of the
Scandinavian Edda from the fires of
RagDarock-then shall the old planta-
tons be again made fertile, and the cot
tonwood cleared away, and the life of
those old southern cities be resurrected.
But the new south shall never be as the
old. Those once grand residences that
are being devoured by messy decay can
never be rebuilt; the old plantations
which extend over parishes will be par
celed out to hundred farmers from
states that are not southern; and the for
eign beauties of New Orleans will never
be restored. 1t is the picturesqueness
of the south, the poetry, the traditions,
the legends, the superstitions, the quaint
faiths, the family prides, the luxurious
ness, the splendid Incidence and the
splendid sins OF the old social system
which has passed. or which is now pass
ing away forever. 1t is all this which is
dead or dying in New Orleans, and which
can hope for no trumpet-call to resurrec-
tion. The new south may, perhaps, be-
come far richer than the old south; but
there will be no aristocracy, no lives of
unbridled luxury, no reckless splendors
OF hospitality, no mad pursuit of costliest
pleasures. The old southern hospitality
has been starved to death, and leaves no
trace of its former being save the thin
ghost of romance. The new south will
be less magnificent, though wealthier;
less generous, though more self-denying;
less poetical, though more cultured. The
new cities will be, probably, msre pros
porous and less picturesque than the old
They will have plain streets and plain
faced houses; they will have cheaper
balconies and commonplace facades; they
will not delight an artistic eye or suggest
curious ghost fancies to an artistic mind !;
they will be quite practical aud quite
This period of decay seems
to me the close eff the romantic era of
southern history.
You are aware, no doubt, that the city
is bankrupt; but without living here one
can hardly comprehend the utter hopeless
ness OF her bankruptcy. Her wealth and
hersSrange foreign beauty were created by
an aristocracy which has been destroyed
beyond possibility of resurrection, and
were nourished by social system that
has become thing of the dead past.
Even her beauty must pass away, as her
riches have passed away; and her once
generous life must contract into narrow
veins as the years glide by, till it has
ceased to pulsate save in the great
arteries Of her commerce. Already /
think her beauty is fading and crumbling
Many of her noblest buildings arc sink
ing into ruin; those dear old French
houses, SO quantity picturesque with
their green vsrandas: and peaked gables
and dormer windows, are falling into
and are but too often being
removed to make place for hideous
French opera house on Bourbon street,
where the Creoles supported opera for
nearly half a century, is dark and dead
and silent. Even Aimee has not sung
there for years, and ! suppose she could
not now fill the dress-circle boxes with
the remnant of her old Creole audiences.
Sometimes, when passing under the
sharply-cut shadows Of the building in a
night of tropical moonlight, / fancy that
a shadowy performance of Don Giovanni
or Masanie1lo must be going on within
for the entertainment of a ghostly
audience; that if somebody would but
open the doors an instant, one might
catch glimpse of spectral splendor; Of
dusky-eyed beauties, long dead; of for
gotten faces, pale with the sleep of battle
fields; of silks that should be molderine
in moldering chests, with the fashions ol
twenty years ago, and of gems secretly
given to the keep Of the children of Israel