The progressive farmer and the cotton plant., 1905-05-02
IN HISTORIC COLUMBIA,


for Education in the South in Columbia last
week. Columbia, always beautiful was at its
best last week; and Columbia people, always hos
pitable were never more gracious. This caritoI
city of the Palmetto State approaches in sono
fashion that ideal combination of the charm Of
the Old South with the enterprise of the New
1t was very aptly said by Hon. Edward NJ Sben-
ard of New York Friday night that he knew Of
no other city of which it would be so hard to tell
whether the beauty of its social life or the enerov
of it's business life it's most striking feature
We wrote last fall of some of the more notable
places in and about Columbia: the historic build
ings; the great Olympia mills, the largest under
one roof in the world; and of the Confederate
monument with the beautiful subscription which
we then reproduced. We did not then mention
however the old Preston or Hampton mansion
now used as the Presbyterian College for young
women This splendid and historic old mansion
which barely escaped the torch in Shermans
March to the Sea, is surrounded by one of the
most beautiful formal gardens to the found any
where in the country. 1t is indeed thing of
beauty and joy forever. And one wonders re-
gretfully whether not the New South has the
same high appreciation of the beautiful Old
South had If so. the present Capitol Square at
Columbia does not indicate it.
But about no other building in Columbia and
about few other buildings in all the world cus-
ter such tragic and pathetic memories as those
which distinguish the old Baptist Church where
the Ordinance of Secession passed in Decem-
ber, 1860. How little did those men know of the
colossal confagration they we're kindling-a
aagration whose influence should reach to the
uttermost parts of the earth and whose memories
should endure until the last syllable of recorded
time. One thinks inevitably of the opening lines
of the Iliad:
Achilles wrath, to Greece the dreful sprine>
Of woes unnumbered, heavenly goddess sing" Y
Here, here in this church of the Prince Of
Peace, was wrath, the direful spring of woes
hardly less memorable in the song and story Of
mankind than that of which Homer sang in his
immortal book
Out in old Trinity church-yard in Columbia
sleep two of South Carolina's greatest sons
Henry Timrod and Wade Hampton The Old
South with it's ideals of patriotic sacrifice
chivalric courage and knightly courtesy found
few filter exponents than Wade Hampton. And
Timrod, who died in 1867, and whose grave was
unmarked until three years ago, has now come
with the waning of sectional bitterness into that
high repute among American poets to which his
genius entities him. We shall soon publish some
selections from his writings in our series of poems
by Southern authors. "Maryland, Ny Mary
land" is not more spirited and sweeping than
Imrod's "Carolina" His 'ESpring" has properly
become classic, and his Glove and Life" line
Cotton Boil" and "Charleston,o would alone en-
title him to lasting recognition. His last poem
the "Ode Sung the Occasion of Decoratms
the Confederate Graves" Charleston, 1867, NmP
pie declares to be Gin IFS simD1e grandeur, tn'