Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1886-01-16
SOCIETY IN THE NEW SOUTH.
An Extract from n Paper by Charles
Dudley Warner.

From the New Princeton Review
The historian VINO writes the social life OF
the southern states will be embarrassed with
romantic and picturesque material. Nowhere
else in this leveling age will he find com
munity developing so much OF the dramatic
SO much splendor, and such pathetic contrasts
in the highest social cultivation as in the
plantation and city life of South Carolina
Already, in regarding it, 1t assumes the ar OF
unreality, and vanishes in its strong lights and
heavy shades like a dream of the cLivalric age
An alusiOn to its character is sufficient for
the purposes of this paper. Persons are still
alive who saw the prodigai style of liv-
Ing and the reckless hospitality OF the plant
ers in those days, when in the Charleston
and Sea Island mansions the guests con.
stantly entertained were only outnumbered
by the SwarmS of servants, when it was NOT
lncongruouS and scarcely oStentatious tina,
the courtly company, which had the fine and
free manner of another age, should dine of
gold aud silver plate; and when all that
wealth and luxury could suggest was lavished
in a princeiy magnficence that was almost
were educated in England; the young women
were reared like helpless princesses, with q
servant for every want and whim; 1t was a
day Of elegant plishments and deferen.
tial manners, but the men gained like Fox
and drank like Sheridan, and the duel was the
ordinary arbiter OF any difference Oh opinion
The agricultural life of Virginia appeals with
scarcely less attraction to the Imagination OF
the novelist 10 Ell Inaekeray caught the favor
of It in the old houses when 1t was becoming
faded memory. The vast estates-princi.
palities in size-with troops of slaves attached
TO each plantation; the hospitality, less costly
but as free as that of South Carolina, the
land in the hands OF few people; politics and
society controlled by small number of his.
toric families intermarried until all Virgin.
ians of q certain grade were related-all this
forms picture as feudailike and foreign to
this age as can be imagined. The writer re-
Gently read the will of a country gentleman
OF the last century in Virginia, which raises a
distinct image of the landed aristocracy Of the
time. 1t devised his plantation of six thousand
acres with its slaves attached, his plantation
OF eighteen hundred acres and slaves his
plantation Of twelve hundred acres and slaves
with other farms and outlying property: II
mentioned all the cattle, sheep and hogs, the
several coaches with the six horses that drew
them ian acknowledgment of the wretcbed
state OF the roads, and SO on in all the details
of vast domain. All the slaves are called by
Grated, and all the homely articles of furni
ture down to the beds and kitchen utensils
This whole structure of unique civilization
Is practically swept away now, and with Il
pause a moment upon a few details OF it, Of
1t had Its highest development in Eastern
Virginia.
The family was the fetch. In this high 50
limit of the law, for one generation, and thi,
entail was commonly religiously renewed by
the heir. 1t Was not expected that a widow
would remarry; as rule she did not, and Il
or the husband should make the enioymen nj
OF even the entailed state dependent upor
the non-marriage OF the widow. These bro
hibitions upon her freedom OF choice were no
chief gospel was the preservation of the farnil,
name 4-.<