We always exaggerate our losses in the moment
when they occur. With time, we feel the
idleness of our fears. The scattered flock is soon
recovered by a new Pastor. God never leaves
any community without the Shepherd who can
lead them to safe and pleasant pastures; always
assuming that the sheep are not of that perverse
breed which is properly decreed to the butcher.
You will not miss your present father, my children,
so much as he misses you; and, believe me,
it is high time that you should make provision for
the future. The fraternity has numerous brothers,
most of whom are quite as well fitted as myself
to serve you. They have seen my system. It is
generally approved of. They will carry out my
plans. You will enjoy society without formalities;
leisure and luxury even, without license;
sports and pleasure without excess; labor without
exhaustation; and the flow of a various conversation,
without dispute or controversy. We
have studiously excluded from our order, all that
class of spirits who lie in wait for disputation;
who cavil at words; who are forever on the
look out for flaws in your grammer or your

[figure description] Page 180.[end figure description]

argument; not so much with the view to correct
your error, as to exercise their polemics. You
will continue to exclude all such people from your
haunts: all peevish, captious spirits; all triflers
who never rise to the dignity of an earnest intelligence;
who never respect the moods of a neighbor;
and who find an excuse in the emission of a
bad pun, for interrupting a fine philosophy. You
will enjoy the creature comforts with like caution
and moderation; assured of this, that excess always
brings its own penalties, and that the pleasures
of life, of whatever kind, are like sweetmeats,
comfits, &c.—very good things in their
way, and at the proper season, but the worst
things in the world upon which to make a meal;
not only hurtful to the health, but to the appetite
itself. But a truce to this, my children. These
texts have been too often preached from before,
to render necessary their repetition, even at the
moment of parting. If, hereafter, you remember
me, you will not easily forget my lessons. Let
us now to other matters. I could wish, my dear
Pictor, that you would seize upon that evening
landscape. The view from this point, in the direction
of the City, would make a lovely one on canvass.
You look through a delicious avenue, the
long stretch of shore, Haddrell and Mount Pleasant
on the right, and the western extremity of
the Island on the left, forming, as it were, a framework
for the picture. The evening sun sheds a
glorious halo over the City that seems to loom
upwards to its embrace. Its darker features
turned towards us, with the sunlight in the back

[figure description] Page 181.[end figure description]

ground, affords all the effect of an exquisite and noble
contrast; while those richly dyed and fantastic
clouds, with edges of crimson and orange, hanging
over it as the ample curtain of some imperial
couch, render wholly unnecessary the relief which
flat scenery so commonly seems to need in the
absence of lofty wood crowned elevations. Here,
in the foreground, the village of Moultrie comes
out boldly and beautifully: a city seemingly
itself, and seeming, indeed, at its western extremity,
to unite with the more distant City. It is
only by the bold outline and lively clearness of
the one, and the faint, subdued and dimly shining
aspects of the other, that you are led to suspect
the interval that lies between them. The two
steamers now sweeping over the space between,
give you all that is needed for the vitality of the
picture; which, beheld as we behold it now, and
from this point of view, is as lovely a landscape
as ever charmed the eye. It is not, indeed, the
common painter who can do such a subject well.
Bold outlines may be hit off by a very ordinary
hand; but the delicacy, the sweetness, the soft
tenderness and grace of this picture, require the
nicest circumspection, the sweetest fancy, and the
most elaborate finish. Such a subject would
honor the pencil of Fraser.

Pictor.—I have been sketching the very scene
already, Father. I have seen it very much with
your eyes. If permitted it shall appear in the
gallery of the Abbey, at the next regular chapter.

Abbot.—Ah! my son! This is what I love!
The art which works, rather than talks—which

[figure description] Page 182.[end figure description]

performs rather than promises;—this is what is
most needful among our social virtues. We are
beginning to bestir ourselves my children. I feel
that a new era has dawned upon our people. We
can all of us report progress. Charleston has
hitherto consisted, really of two communities, and
these have been in deadly conflict for twenty
years or more. The one community consisted
of a people coerced by the necessities of life, devoted
to toil and business, and bringing to their
work the capital of fresh energies, eager hopes and
sleepless enterprise. Their deficiencies chiefly lay
in the respects of social tone. They had no acknowledged
place in a society, which, peculiar at
first, and forming one of the oldest communities
in the country, had acquired a certain permanence
of position;—was fixed and recognised;—
and had, in various ways, reached a very high
distinction. This distinction formed the capital
of the other portion of the City. Its people could
boast of a past. They could look back with pride
to their ancestry, many of whom occupied an
acknowledged and high place in our annals. They
had been accustomed to wealth,—had all the advantages
of social training and education, and
could assert those graces of manner which require
leisure and society as well as education and wealth.
It is difficult to realize the charm and extent of these
accomplishments, and we are thus too frequently
led to over-rate their value. Certainly, there
is nothing so grateful in society as exquisite manners—
that nice delicacy of deportment, which
never outrages a sensibility, which tempers

[figure description] Page 183.[end figure description]

earnestness with grace, and seasons an attic wit with
a politeness that takes all venom from the point.
Now, to attain these graces of society, we are
required to make some sacrifices; but our old
community had made too many. The danger is
always that, in the perfection of our tastes, we
lose some of our necessary energies. The secret
is to refine our manners without forfeiting our
strength. This might always be effected, if a
miserable vanity did not interpose equally to
thwart natural events, and a just philosophy. The
man of manners and refinements, is apt to make
them especial objects of pride; and in doing so,
emasculates his mental energies. He perpetually
contrasts his quiet, graceful manner, with the
rude hurry of the working man; and in proportion
as the rough energy of the other offends his
tastes, will he turn away equally disgusted with,
or unobservant of, the vigor and power which are
coupled with the roughness which offends him.
In rejecting what is evil, or inferior, in the manners,
he makes the mistake of rejecting also the
virtues of that manhood which is the secret of
safety in all communities. He learns to dispise
labor and art, which are the two great conquering
agencies of society and man; and, in the over
appreciation of his own graces, he loses utterly
the great virtues of his neighbor. The other, in
turn, too often revenges himself on the society
which rejects him, by disparaging the accomplishments
which he had not allowed himself the
leisure to acquire. He rushes to the other extreme
of behaviour. He adopts a rude bearing

[figure description] Page 184.[end figure description]

and an abrupt manner. He studiously roughens
his tone, and strips his deportment, as far as he
may, of the exterior graces which convention has
established as the means of softening the necessary
attritions of society and business. You will
have perceived, you who can remember, what a
contrast in the behaviour of too many of our
youth to what it was only twenty years ago. In
the school which furnished our models, at that
period, we were studiously taught to give way
to age, to infancy, to woman, whether white or
black. The concession was made to feebleness
no less than dignity and distinction. We never
hustled the crowd for place or position. If we
entered the lobby of the theatre there was no
struggle. Did we go to the post-office for letters,
we waited our turn. It was no justification for
thrusting our elbows into the ribs of our neighbor,
that we were in a hurry. My neighhor's
corns still demanded my respect, though I had business
elsewhere. The truth was not then wholly
forgotten, that the world was not made simply on
our account. I see a great and melancholy change
in this respect, which change I charge, in some degree,
upon the recklessness of trade, and its too
little regard for the requisitions of society. This
demeanor is the more reprehensible, inasmuch as
trade should especially cultivate the graces and
needs not violate a single social propriety in order
to success. Its energies need not be impaired, in
any degree, by a careful regard to the suavitor
in modo. Trade, which is the tributary of
commerce, has only to take its character from its

[figure description] Page 185.[end figure description]

superior. Commerce is, perhaps, the greatest of
civilizers. It subdues war; it reconciles hostile
nations; it appeals to art, and nourishes it with
veneration; its representative have been the most
noble of the princes of the earth. There could be
no better teacher of what is at once manly in social
energies, and lovely in social refinement. Denied
social position, at the beginning of his career, the
working man has only to wait patiently, and prosecute
his toils, modestly and earnestly, with his
proper lights and guides before him. Society demands
an apprenticeship, as well as arts and sciences.
At all events, no man must seek to revenge
himself upon society for its seeming neglects, by
abandoning his soul to Mammon. This is to sacrifice
the substance for the shadow; the soul for
the purse. Too many are apt to make this mistake,
and to set up Plutus as the only true idol in
society. The faith is a common one enough, but
a false one. That society which mere money can
command, is seldom worth having. The wise and
the good must equally despise it. Yet a bad passion
helps this vulgar faith, too frequently, into a
strange activity. The disappointed and vain aspirant
after position, feels that money brings him
power; that, with money he can master men; that,
in process of time, he will buy the homestead of
the haughty aristocrat, who has too much scorned
his pretensions; that he will become the master of
those fair fields that have hitherto mocked his eyes
at a distance; and that the sons, or grandsons, of
his social rival, will yet be compelled to throng
about the doors of his counting room, soliciting the

[figure description] Page 186.[end figure description]

patronage, and employment of the very person
whom their sires could despise. This has been a
common history among us. What with exclusiveness,
and the enjoyment of the dolce far niente, the
honored names of a past generation are greatly
reduced in dignity and fortune. They thrive no
longer; but the good omen is to be found in the
fact that so many of their descendants are showing
themselves willing to work. I have in my eye at
this moment several noble youth, who are grappling
with their duties with that hearty zeal and
courage, which make the only true manhood—not
dipping a little into business as a timid boy goes
into the water, as if he dreadfully feared to wet
his feet;—but plunging, head-foremost, fearless, as
the bold swimmer who is resolved on wrestling
fortune from the waves. When this shall become
general in our community;—when society shall
recognize the necessity of coupling manhood always
with its refinements; not suffering taste to
degenerate into fastidiousness, or good manners
into feeblenees;—but honoring these only as they
are tributary to manly performance;—and when,
on the other hand, the performing and the business
men, shall recognize the just claims of a social organization;—
shall recognize what is due to good
taste, social refinement, delicacy and propriety of
manners; and all those arts which tutor the sensibilities,
and civilize the rude humanity,—then shall
the two branches of our society work together as
they have not done before in my recollection.—
Hitherto, there has been no communion between
them. They have not only not worked together,

[figure description] Page 187.[end figure description]

but one portion has opposed to the other vis inertiæ,—
denying itself almost wholly to a cause that was
common to them both,—the maintenance and progress
of the community. Now, we have a grateful
prospect of better things. We are fast getting
rid of our absurdities. We are beginning to see
life in its just attributes. Necessity is doing its
work, and vanity and pretention no longer fold
their robes about them, looking with contempt
upon that energy which impels the engine,—which
drives the barge, and harnesses the very lightning
to the cars of commerce and society. True manhood,
now, is everywhere regarded as to be found
only in performance; and the youth now-a-days,
who is not willing to work cheerfully in his vocation,
and according to his endowments, should be
shorn of his beard, dressed up in petticoats, and
set to brood with foolscap and bells to the end of
his baby destiny.

Editor.—The exclusiveness, Father, of which
you have spoken on the part of a portion of our
community, was, perhaps, in no respect more injurious
than in the frequent family intermarriages.

Abbot.—You are right, my son. Nothing so
much tends to destroy the moral and the physical
virtues of a race as a habit like this. The breeds
must be crossed. It is surprising that, with the
general conviction, so common among us, of this
necessity in the case of animals, we should have
disdained to acknowledge the importance of the
rule in respect to man. In this connexion men
are to be considered as animals also. No man
should marry his cousin, of any remove; and it

[figure description] Page 188.[end figure description]

would be well if men always sought their wives in
other Districts, or in other States. Insular and
small communities, in particular, should always
send their young men abroad to wive. Failing in
this, their children must necessarily be of a puny
and inferior physique, will be of inferior intellectual
endowment; in repeated cases, will become idiots,
and finally will cease to breed at all. Family intermarriages
in our country, are too frequently devised
for the maintenance of that exclusiveness which family
pride too much regards as its only security.
It is thus that we seek to supply the guaranties of
distinctions which, in aristocratic governments, are
afforded by titles of nobility. The better specimens
of the European nobility, are almost invariably
the fruit of a cross; the nobleman seeking
alliance with the commoner. The motive with the
British nobility for such alliances, is that wealth
which the heir to a great house requires to sustain
his dignity. The result is the perfection of physical
manhood. The British aristocracy are probably
the finest looking set of men in the world;
exhibiting an organization of form and feature
which has never been surpassed. The effect upon
their character has been equally admirable. You
would be surprised to see the number of these
young scions of nobility who traverse the world in
all sorts of exploring enterprises. Now you find
them in the East, on the back of a dromedary,
coasting the desert, and sleeping in tents, among
the most lawless tribes of the country. You remember
the exquisite picture painted by Lord
Byron, in his “Dream;”

[figure description] Page 189.[end figure description]

The picture is common to the English nobleman.
Anon, you find them, ranging over the plains and
prairies of our Northwest, pursuing the buffalo
and the grisly bear. No hardships discourage, no
dangers affright them; and they combine admirably
the virtues of a bold, impulsive manhood, with
the best breeding of a social aristocracy. We
must protect our family dignities by other virtues
than those of exclusiveness, my children—by performance,
by achievement, by deeds, by enterprise,
energy, perseverance—the very virtues which originally
conferred distinction upon, and planted
pride within the bosom of the founder of the family.
Many, if not most of the leading names in Carolina
were merchants, tradesmen and mechanics. There
are few, however haughty, who, travelling backward
a few generations, would not stumble over
the family heir-loom in the shape of an axe, an anvil,
a jack plane, or an anchor. Let us teach the
true pride to our sons which should make them
honor forever, and prize, with a sort of reverence,
the implements by which their fathers acquired
fortunes for their children, who have not always
preserved, or prized properly, the tools by which
they did so. He who feels shame to be reminded
of the craft of his ancestor, deserves none of the
profits which followed from its exercise. What I
should like to teach in particular is—that nobility
lies wholly in noble performance; that without
performance, there is no manhood, and that, while

[figure description] Page 190.[end figure description]

occupations differ in degree, quality or profit, he
is to be esteemed as a man, and he only, who, having
ascertained what he is good for, goes to his
task; not merely beneath the goad of necessity, for
that betrays the base nature of the slave; but as
one eager for the duty which is assigned him, and
anxious to make himself distinguished in his vocation:
and every vocation may have its distinctions,
if those only attempt it who are equal to its tasks.

Editor.—Were these the common principles—
the general sentiments, Father, what a glorious
community we should have. What a splendid
spectacle is that of a great city, all parties working
together in the common cause; all eager, hopeful,
cheerful, industrious—proud only in emulation,
and thoughtful chiefly of the means of multiplying
the common resources and the common securities.

Abbot.—Do you remember Milton's picture,
my son, in the “Areopagitica?” “Behold now
this vast city; a city of refuge, the mansion-house
of liberty, encompassed and surrounded with his
protection. The shop of war hath not there more
anvils and hammers waking, to fashion out the
plates and instruments of armed justice in defence
of beleaguered truth, than there be pens and heads
there, sitting at their studious lamps, musing,
searching, revolving new notions and ideas where-with
to present, as with their homage and their fealty,
the approaching reformation. Others as fast reading,
trying all things, assenting to the force of reason
and convincement. What could a man require
more from a nation so pliant and so prone to seek
after knowledge? What wants there to such a

[figure description] Page 191.[end figure description]

towardly and pregnant soil, but wise and faithful
laborers, to make a knowing people a nation of
prophets, of sages, and of worthies? We reckon
more than five months yet to harvest; there need
not be five weeks, had we but eyes to lift up. The
fields are white already.” There is another passage
of this noble sort of eloquence near this, in
the same treatise.

Editor.—I remember. “Methinks, I see in
mind a noble and puissant nation, rousing herself
like a strong man after sleep and shaking her invincible
locks, &c.”

Abbot.—Let us now stroll upon the beach, and
gazing upon the distant city in the evening sunlight,
our Poet shall declaim for us Milton's description
of Athens.

Editor.—The motion is a good one. The evening
speaks to us very seductively, and Brother
Bonhommie talks of a late supper—an intimation
with a significance quite as great as that of Lucullus,
when he ordered his supper in the Apollo
chamber.

Beauclerk—(aside to Pictor)—I am afraid the
old man heard me. I am monstrously ashamed.

Pictor—(aside to B.)—No! I think not. I am
sure not.

Beauclerk.—Yet he spoke of the very subject.

Pictor.—Which he would not have done had
he heard you. Be at ease, and repent of your error
with what speed you may.

eaf372.n2

[2]

Thus stunn'd, and stupified, and deadly pale,
Falls to the earth the Shepherd, as he hears,
The sudden burst of thunder o'er his head.


† But, as he finds how idle were his fears,
He rises from the earth—he breathes once more,
And seeks and numbers his fear-scattered flock.

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