American Adventures: A Second Trip 'Abroad at home'

Charleston is the last stronghold of a unified American upper class; the last remaining American city in which Madeira and Port and noblesse oblige are fully and widely understood, and are employed according to the best traditions
A SECOND TRIP ABROAD AT HOME BY JULIAN STREET
WITH PICTORIAL SIDELIGHTS BY WALLACE MORGAN
NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1917
Copyright, 1917, by The Century Co.
Copyright, 1916, 1917, by P. F. Collier & Son, Inc.
Published, November, 1917
TO MY AUNT AND SECOND MOTHER
JULIA ROSS LOW

Though much has been written of the South, it seems to me that this part of our country is less understood than any other part. Certainly the South, itself, feels that this is true. Its relationship to the North makes me think of nothing so much as that of a pretty, sensitive wife, to a big, strong, amiable, if somewhat thick-skinned husband. These two had one great quarrel which nearly resulted in divorce. He thought her headstrong; she thought him overbearing. The quarrel made her ill; she has been for some time recovering. But though they have settled their difficulties and are living again in amity together, and though he, man-like, has half forgotten that they ever quarreled at all, now that peace reigns in the house again, she has not forgotten. There still lingers in her mind the feeling that he never really understood her, that he never understood her problems and her struggles, and that he never will. And it seems to me further that, as is usually the case with wives who consider themselves misunderstood, the fault is partly, but by no means altogether, hers. He, upon one hand, is inclined to pass the matter off with a: There, there! It's all over now. Just be good and forget it! while she, in the depths of her heart, retains a little bit of wistfulness, a little wounded feeling, which causes her to say to herself: Thank God our home was not broken up, but—I wish that he could be a little more considerate, sometimes, in view of all that I have suffered.