Part 11

You can compare Richmond with Rome if you will, with an allusion upon the side to her seven hills; but, if you have even a remote desire for originality, you will not. Rather compare the old southern capital with a bit of rare lace or a stout bit of mahogany. Of the two we would prefer the mahogany, for Richmond is substantial, rather than diaphanous. And like some of the fine old tables in the dining-rooms of her great houses she has taken some hard knocks and in the long run come out of them rather well. She is scarred, but still beautiful. And she wears her scars, visible and invisible, both bravely and well.

But if a man come down from the North with any idea of the histories of that war, which is now fifty years old and almost ready to be forgotten, too sharply in his memory, and so imagines that he is to see a Richmond of 1865, with grass growing in the streets, ruins everywhere, mules and negroes in the streets, he is doomed to an awakening. There are still plenty of mules and negroes in the streets and probably will be until the end of time, but the Richmond of today boasts miles and miles of as fine modern smooth pavements as his motor car might ever wish to find. And as for ruins, bless you, Richmond has begun to tear down some of the buildings which she built after the war so as to get building-sites for her newest skyscrapers.

Do not forget that there is a new spirit abroad in the South--and Virginia, in many ways the most poetic and dramatic of all our states, has not lagged in it. There are Boards of Trade at Roanoke and Lynchburg that are not averse to sounding the praises of those lively manufacturing towns of the up-country, and as for Norfolk--let any Norfolk man get hold of you and in two hours he will have almost convinced you that his town is going to be the greatest seaport along the North Atlantic--and that within two decades, sir. But this chapter is not written of Roanoke or Lynchburg or Norfolk. This is Richmond's chapter and in it to be writ the fact that the capital of Virginia has not lagged in enterprise or progress behind any of the other cities of the state. In the transformation she has sacrificed few of her landmarks, none of that delightful personality that makes itself apparent to those who tarry for a little time within her gates. That makes it all the better.

It is the spirit of the new South that is not only bringing such wonderful towns as Birmingham, to make a single instance, to the front, but is working the transformation of such staunch old settlements as Memphis or Atlanta--or Richmond. Not that Richmond is willing to forget the past. There is something about the Virginia spirit that seems incapable of death. There is something about the Virginian's loyalty to his native state, his blindness to her imperfections, almost every one of them the result of decades of civic poverty, that cannot escape the most calloused commercial soul that ever walked out of North or South. And there is something about this bringing up of spirit and of loyalty with the spirit of the new America that makes a combination well-nigh irresistible.

Here, then, is the new South. The generation that liked to discuss the detail of Pickett's charge and the horrors of those days in the Wilderness is gone. The new generations are rather bored with such detail. The new generations are not less spirited, not less loyal than the old. But they are new. That, of itself, almost explains the difference. Now see it in a little closer light.

Volumes have been written of the loyalty of the old South. Richmond herself today presents more volumes, although unwritten, of that loyalty. You can read it in her streets, in her fine old square houses, in that stately building atop of Schokoe hill, which generations have known as the Capitol and which was for a little time the seat of government of a new nation. Within that Capitol stands a statue. It is the marble effigy of a great Virginian, who was, himself, the first head of a new government. The guide-books call it the Houdini statue of Washington, and keen critics have long since asserted that it is not only the finest statue in the United States but one of the most notable art works of the world. It was known as such in France at the time of the Civil War. And hardly had that very dark page in our history been turned before the Louvre made overtures to Virginia for the purchase of the Houdini statue. The matter of price was not definitely fixed. France, in the spendthrift glories of the Second Empire, was willing to pay high for a new toy for her great gallery.

Poor Virginia! She was hard pressed those days for the necessities of life, to say nothing of its ordinary comforts. Her pockets were empty. She was bankrupt. Her mouth must have watered a bit at thought of those hundreds of thousands of French francs. But she stood firm, and if you know Virginia at all, you will say "of course she stood firm." A Southern gentleman would almost repudiate his financial obligations before he would sell one of the choice possessions of his families. There are great plantation houses still standing in the Old Dominion, which were spared the torch of war by the mercy of God, and whose walls hold aloft the handiwork of the finest painters of England, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; rare portraits of the masters and mistresses of those old houses. In them, too, are furniture and silver whose real value is hardly to be computed, not even by the screw of a dealer in antiques. The folk in these old houses may be poor--if they come of the oldest Virginia stock they very likely are. They stand bravely, though, to the traditions of their hospitality, even though they wonder if the bacon is going to last and if it is safe for the brood to kill another chicken. But they would close their kitchen and live on berries and on herbs before they would part with even the humblest piece of silver or of furniture; while if a dealer should come down from Washington or New York and make an offer, no matter how generous, for one of the paintings, he would probably be put off the place.

Family means much to these Virginians. If you do not believe this go to Richmond, stop in one of its fine houses and make your host take you to one of the dances for which the city is famed. Almost any dance will do and from the beginning you will be charmed. The minor appointments will approach perfection, and you will find the men and women of the city worthy of its best traditions. Some places may disappoint in their well-advertised charm but the girls of Richmond never disappoint. Here is one of them. She gets you in a quiet corner of the place, meets a friend over there, and a conversation somewhat after this fashion gets under way:

"Miss Rhett, allow me to introduce my friend, Mr. Blinkins, of New York."

You bow low and ask Miss Rhett if by any chance she is related to the Rhetts of Charleston.

"Only distantly. My people are all Virginians. The Charleston Rhetts are quite another branch. My grandfather's brother married a Miss Morris, from Savannah and the Charleston Rhetts all come from them. If my papa were only here he would explain."

You say that you understand and murmur something about having met a Richard Henry Rhett at the old Colonial town of Williamsburgh a few years ago when you were down for the Jamestown exposition.

"He was a Petersburgh Rhett," the young lady explains, "son of a cousin of my father. He married Miss Virginia Tredegar last year."

You remember hearing of a Miss Virginia Tredegar of Roanoke, and you slip out that fact. But this is Miss Virginia Tredegar of Weldon and a cousin of Miss Virginia Tredegar of Roanoke. Miss Virginia Tredegar of Weldon--now Mrs. Richard Henry Rhett, of course, is a delightful girl. The young lady who has you in the corner assures you that--and she, herself, is not lacking in charms. Mrs. Rhett was a sponsor for the state for several years, and you vaguely wonder just what that may mean as you have visions of large floats lumbering along in street parades, with really lovely girls in white standing upon them. And you also have visions of the Miss Virginia Tredegar, of Weldon, sitting in the other days upon the door-steps of an old red and white Colonial house, which faces a hot little open square, visions of her accomplishments and her beauty; of her ability to ride the roughest horse in the county, to dance seven hours without seeming fatigue, of the jealous beaux who come flocking to her feet. You find yourself idly speaking of these visions to your companion. She laughs.

"I've just the right girl for you," she says, "and she is here in this ball-room. She is all these things--and some more; the rightest, smartest girl in all our state--Miss Virginia Bauregard, daughter of Mr. Calhoun Bauregard, of Belle Manor in King and Queen county."

Apparently they are all named Virginia in Richmond, seemingly three-quarters of these girls who live in the nicer parts of the town are thus to bespeak through their lives the affectionate loyalty of their parents to the Old Dominion.

All these folk come quite easily to the transformation that has come over the South within the decade, since she ceased to grieve over a past that could never be brought back and overcome. The young boys and the young girls turn readily from fine horses to fine motor cars, the coming of imported customs causes few shocks, it is even rumored that the newest of the new dances have invaded the sober drawing-rooms of the place. But the New South is kind to Richmond. She does not seek to eliminate the Old South. And so the old customs and the old traditions run side by side with the new. And even the old families seem to soften and many times to welcome the new.

* * * * *

If you wish to see the real Old South in Richmond go out to Hollywood cemetery, which is perhaps the greatest of all its landmarks. It is easy of access, very beautiful, although not in the elaborate and immaculate fashion of Greenwood, at Brooklyn, or Mount Auburn, just outside of Boston. But where man has fallen short at Hollywood, Nature has more than done her part. She rounded the lovely hills upon which Richmond might place the treasure-chest of her memories, and then she swept the finest of all Virginia rivers--the James--by those hills. Man did the rest. It was man who created the roadways and who placed the monuments. And not the least interesting of these is the strange tomb of President James Monroe, an imposing bronze structure, in these days reminding one of an enlarged bird-cage. It is interesting perhaps because nearby there is another grave--the grave of still another man who came to the highest office of the American people. The second grave is marked by a small headstone, scarcely large enough to accommodate its two words: "John Tyler."

But more interesting than these older monuments is the group that stands alone, at the far corner of the cemetery and atop of one of those little hillocks close beside the river. The head of that family is buried beneath his effigy. It is the grave of Jefferson Davis, who stands facing the city, as if he still dreamed of the days that might have been but never were. And close beside is the grave of his little girl, "The Daughter of Confederacy." When she died, only a few years since, the South felt that the last of the living links that tied it with the days when men fought and died for the Lost Cause had been severed. It was then that it set to work to build the new out of the old.

Nowadays the Old South does not come publicly into the streets of Richmond--save on that memorable occasion in the spring of 1907 when a feeble trail of aging men--all that remained of a great gray army--limped down a triumphant path through the heart of the town. The Old South sits in her dead cities, and perhaps that is the reason why the Southerner so quickly takes the stranger within his gates to the cemetery. It is his apologies for thirty or forty years lost in the march of progress. And it is an apology that no man of breadth or generosity can refuse to accept.

* * * * *

Here, then, is the new Richmond, riding stoutly upon her great hills and shooting the tendrils of her growth in every direction. For she is growing, rapidly and handsomely. Her new buildings--her wonderful cathedral, her superb modern hotels, the fine homes multiplying out by the Lee statue--what self-respecting southern town does not have a Lee statue--all bespeak the quality of her growth. But her new buildings cannot easily surpass the old. It was rare good judgment in an American town for her to refrain from tearing down or even "modernizing" that Greek temple that stands atop of Schokoe hill and which generations have known as the Capitol. The two flanking wings which were made absolutely necessary by the awakening of the Old Dominion have not robbed the older portion of the building of one whit of its charm.

It typifies the Old South and the New South, come to stand beside one another. In other days Virginia was proud of her capital, it was with no small pride that she thrust it ahead when a seat of government was to be chosen for the Confederacy, that for a little time she saw it take its stormy place among the nations of the world. In these days Virginia may still be proud of her capital town--it is still a seat of government quite worthy of a state of pride and of traditions.

8

WHERE ROMANCE AND COURTESY DO NOT FORGET

"You are not going to write your book and leave out Charleston?" said the Man who Makes Magazines.

We hesitated at acknowledging the truth. In some way or other Charleston had escaped us upon our travels. The Magazine Maker read our answer before we could gain strength to make it.

"Well, you can't afford to miss that town," he said conclusively. "It's great stuff."

"Great stuff?" we ventured.

"If you are looking into the personality of American cities you must include Charleston. She has more personality than any of the other old Colonial towns--save Boston. She's personality personified, old age glorified, charm and sweetness magnified--the flavor of the past hangs in every one of her old houses and her narrow streets. You cannot pass by Charleston."

After that we went over to a railroad ticket office in Fifth avenue and purchased a round-trip ticket to the metropolis of South Carolina. And a week later we were on a southbound train, running like mad across the Jersey meadows. Five days in Charleston! It seemed almost sacrilege. Five miserable days in the town which the Maker of Magazines averred fairly oozed personality. But five days were better than no days at all--and Charleston must be included in this book.

The greater part of one day--crossing New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the up-stretched head of little Delaware, Maryland--finally the Old Dominion and the real South. A day spent behind the glass of the car window--the brisk and busy Jersey towns, the Delaware easily crossed; Philadelphia, with her great outspreading of suburbs; Wilmington; a short cut through the basements of Baltimore; the afternoon light dying on the superb dome of the Washington Capitol--after that the Potomac. Then a few evening hours through Virginia, the southern accent growing more pronounced, the very air softer, the negroes more prevalent, the porter of our car continually more deferential, more polite. After that a few hours of oblivion, even in the clattering Pullman which, after the fashion of all these tremendously safe new steel cars, was a bit chilly and a bit noisy.

In the morning a low and unkempt land, the railroad trestling its way over morass and swamp and bayou on long timber structures and many times threading sluggish yellow southern rivers by larger bridges. Between these a sandy mainland--thick forests of pine with increasing numbers of live-oaks holding soft moss aloft--at last the outskirts of a town. Other folk might gather their luggage together, the vision of a distant place with its white spires, the soft gray fog that tells of the proximity of the open sea blowing in upon them, held us at the window pane. A river showed itself in the distance to the one side of the train, with mast-heads dominating its shores; another, lined with factories stretched upon the other side. After these, the streets of the town, a trolley car stalled impatient to let our train pass--low streets and mean streets of an unmistakable negro quarter, the broad shed of a sizable railroad station showing at the right.

"Charleston, sah," said the porter. Remember now that he had been a haughty creature in New York and Philadelphia, ebon dignity in Baltimore and in Washington. Now he was docility itself, a courtesy hardly to be measured by the mere expectation of gratuity.

The first glimpse of Charleston a rough paved street--our hotel 'bus finding itself with almost dangerous celerity in front of trolley cars. That unimportant way led into another broad highway of the town and seemingly entitled to distinction.

"Meeting street," said our driver. "And I can tell you that Charleston is right proud of it, sir," he added.

Charleston has good cause to be proud of its main highway, with the lovely old houses along it rising out of blooming gardens, like fine ladies from their ball gowns; at its upper end the big open square and the adjacent Citadel--pouring out its gray-uniformed boys to drill just as their daddies and their grand-daddies drilled there before them--the charms of St. Michael's, and the never-to-be-forgotten Battery at the foot of the street.

We sped down it and drew up at a snow-white hotel which in its immaculate coat might have sprung up yesterday, were it not for the stately row of great pillars, three stories in height, with which it faced the street. They do not build hotels that way nowadays--more's the pity. For when the Charleston Hotel was builded it entered a distinguished brotherhood--the Tremont in Boston, the Astor and the St. Nicholas in New York, Willard's in Washington, the Monongahela at Pittsburgh, and the St. Charles in New Orleans were among its contemporaries. It was worthy to be ranked with the best of these--a hotel at which the great planters of the Carolinas and of Georgia could feel that the best had been created for them within the very heart of their favorite city.

We pushed our way into the heart of the generous office of the hotel, thronged with the folk who had crowded into Charleston--followers of the races, just then holding sway upon the outskirts of the town, tourists from the North, Carolinans who will never lose the habit of going to Charleston as long as Charleston exists. In due time a brisk and bustling hotel clerk--he was an importation, plainly, none of your courteous, ease-taking Southerners--had placed us in a room big enough for the holding of a reception. From the shutters of the room we could look down into Meeting street--into the charred remnants of a store that had been burned long before and the débris never removed. When we threw up the window sash we could thrust our heads out and see, a little way down the street, the most distinctive and the most revered of all Charleston's landmarks--the belfried spire of St. Michael's. As we leaned from that window the bells of St. Michael's spoke the quarter-hour, just as they have been speaking quarter-hours close upon a century and a half.

We had been given the first taste of the potent charm of a most distinctive southern town.

* * * * *

"... The most appealing, the most lovely, the most wistful town in America; whose visible sadness and distinction seem almost to speak audibly, speak in the sound of the quiet waves that ripple round her southern front, speak in the church-bells on Sunday morning and breathe not only in the soft salt air, but in the perfume of every gentle, old-fashioned rose that blooms behind the high garden walls of falling mellow-tinted plaster; King's Port the retrospective, King's Port the belated, who from her pensive porticoes looks over her two rivers to the marshes and the trees beyond, the live-oaks veiled in gray moss, brooding with memories. Were she my city how I should love her...."

So wrote Owen Wister of the city that he came to know so well. You can read Charleston in _Lady Baltimore_ each time he speaks of "King's Port" and read correctly. For it was in Charleston he spun his romance of the last stronghold of old manners, old families, old traditions and old affections. In no other city of the land might he have laid such a story. For no other city of the land bears the memory of tragedy so plaintively, so uncomplainingly as the old town that occupies the flat peninsula between the Cooper and the Ashley rivers at the very gateway of South Carolina. Like a scarred man, Charleston will bear the visible traces of her great disaster until the end of her days. And each of them, like the scars of Richmond, makes her but the more potent in her charm.

Up one street and down another--fascinating pathways, every blessed one of them. Meeting and King and Queen and Legare and Calhoun and Tradd--with their high, narrow-ended houses rising right from the sidewalks and stretching, with their generous spirit of hospitality, inward, beside gardens that blossom as only a southern garden can bloom--with jessamine and narcissus and oleander and japonica. Galleries give to these fragrant gardens. Only Charleston, unique among her sisters of the Southland, does not call them galleries. She calls them piazzas, with the accent strong upon the "pi."

The gardens themselves are more than a little English, speaking clearly something of the old-time English spirit of the town, which has its most visible other expression in the stolid Georgian architecture of its older public buildings and churches. And some of the older folk, defying the Charleston convention of four o'clock dinner, will take tea in the softness of the late afternoon. Local tradition still relates how, in other days, a certain distinguished and elderly citizen, possessing neither garden nor gallery with his house, was wont to have a table and chair placed upon the sidewalk and there take his tea of a late afternoon. And the Charleston of that other day walked upon the far side of the street rather than disturb the gentleman!

Nor is all that spirit quite gone in the Charleston of today. The older negroes will touch their hats, if not remove them, when you glance at them. They will step into the gutter when you pass them upon the narrow sidewalks of the narrow streets. They came of a generation that made more than the small distinction of separate schools and separate places in the railroad cars between white and black. But they are rapidly disappearing from the streets of the old city. Those younger negroes who drive the clumsy two-wheeled carts in town and out over the rough-paved streets have learned no good manners. And when the burly negresses who amble up the sidewalks balancing huge trays of crabs or fresh fruits or baked stuffs smile at you, theirs is the smile of insolence. Fifty years of the Fifteenth Amendment have done their work--any older resident of Charleston will tell you that, and thank God for the inborn courtesy that keeps him from profanity with the telling.

But if oncoming years have worked great changes in the manner of the race which continues to be of numerical importance in the seaport city, it will take more than one or two or three or even four generations to work great changes in the manners of the well-born white-skinned folk who have ruled Charleston through the years by wit, diplomacy, the keen force of intellect more than even the force of arms. And, as the city now runs its course, it will take far more years for her to change her outward guise.