AMERICAN ADVENTURES

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

FOREWORD

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."

For my part, I am the humble but devoted friend of the family. Having known him first, having been from boyhood his companion, I may perhaps have sympathized with him in the beginning. But since I have come to know her, too, that is no longer so. And I do think I know her—proud, sensitive, high-strung, generous, captivating beauty that she is! Moreover, after the fashion of many another "friend of the family," I have fallen in love with her. Loving her from afar, I send her as a nosegay these chapters gathered in her own gardens. If some of the flowers are of a kind for which she does not care, if some have thorns, even if some are only weeds, I pray her to remember that from what was growing in her gardens I was forced to make my choice, and to believe that, whatever the defects of my bouquet, it is meant to be a bunch of roses.

J. S.

October 1, 1917.

The Author makes his grateful acknowledgments to the old friends and the new ones who assisted him upon this journey. And once more he desires to express his gratitude to the friend and fellow-traveler whose illustrations are far from being his only contribution to this volume.

—J. S.

New York, October, 1917.

CONTENTS

THE BORDERLAND
CHAPTER PAGE
[I]ON JOURNEYS THROUGH THE STATES[3]
[II]A BALTIMORE EVENING[13]
[III]WHERE THE CLIMATES MEET[27]
[IV]TRIUMPHANT DEFEAT[38]
[V]TERRAPIN AND THINGS[44]
[VI]DOUGHOREGAN MANOR AND THE CARROLLS[53]
[VII]A RARE OLD TOWN[69]
[VIII]WE MEET THE HAMPTON GHOST[80]
[IX]ARE WE STANDARDIZED?[89]
[X]HARPER'S FERRY AND JOHN BROWN[97]
[XI]THE VIRGINIAS AND THE WASHINGTONS[105]
[XII]I RIDE A HORSE[117]
[XIII]INTO THE OLD DOMINION[136]
[XIV]CHARLOTTESVILLE AND MONTICELLO[150]
[XV]THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA[159]
[XVI]FOX-HUNTING IN VIRGINIA[169]
[XVII]"A CERTAIN PARTY"[186]
[XVIII]THE LEGACY OF HATE[193]
[XIX]"YOU-ALL" AND OTHER SECTIONAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS[203]
[XX]IDIOMS AND ARISTOCRACY[214]
[XXI]THE CONFEDERATE CAPITAL[222]
[XXII]RANDOM RICHMOND NOTES[233]
[XXIII]JEDGE CRUTCHFIELD'S COT[242]
[XXIV]NORFOLK AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD[248]
[XXV]COLONEL TAYLOR AND GENERAL LEE[258]
THE HEART OF THE SOUTH
[XXVI]RALEIGH AND JOSEPHUS DANIELS[273]
[XXVII]ITEMS FROM "THE OLD NORTH STATE"[285]
[ XXVIII]UNDER ST. MICHAEL'S CHIMES[296]
[XXIX]HISTORY AND ARISTOCRACY[312]
[XXX]POLITICS, A NEWSPAPER AND ST. CECILIA[326]
[XXXI]"GULLA" AND THE BACK COUNTRY[338]
[XXXII]OUT OF THE PAST[349]
[ XXXIII]ALIVE ATLANTA[356]
[XXXIV]GEORGIA JOURNALISM[369]
[XXXV]SOME ATLANTA INSTITUTIONS[384]
[XXXVI]A BIT OF RURAL GEORGIA[392]
[ XXXVII]A YOUNG METROPOLIS[403]
[XXXVIII]BUSY BIRMINGHAM[417]
[XXXIX]AN ALLEGORY OF ACHIEVEMENT[426]
[XL]THE ROAD TO ARCADY[440]
[XLI]A MISSISSIPPI TOWN[447]
[XLII]OLD TALES AND A NEW GAME[458]
[XLIII]OUT OF THE LONG AGO[467]
[XLIV]THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND HIM[474]
[XLV]VICKSBURG OLD AND NEW[482]
[XLVI]SHREDS AND PATCHES[494]
[XLVII]THE BAFFLING MISSISSIPPI[500]
[ XLVIII]OLD RIVER DAYS[508]
[XLIX]WHAT MEMPHIS HAS ENDURED[518]
[L]MODERN MEMPHIS[535]
FARTHEST SOUTH
[LI]BEAUTIFUL SAVANNAH[553]
[LII]MISS "JAX" AND SOME FLORIDA GOSSIP[572]
[LIII]PASSIONATE PALM BEACH[579]
[LIV]ASSORTED AND RESORTED FLORIDA[595]
[LV]A DAY IN MONTGOMERY[603]
[LVI]THE CITY OF THE CREOLE[619]
[LVII]HISTORY, THE CREOLE, AND HIS DUELS[629]
[LVIII]FROM ANTIQUES TO PIRATES[648]
[LIX]ANTOINE'S AND MARDI GRAS[663]
[LX]FINALE[675]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

[Transcriber's Note: Illustrations were interleaved between pages in the original text. In this version, they have been moved beside the relevant section of the text. Page numbers below reflect the position of the illustration in the original text but links link to current position of illustrations.]

FACING PAGE
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[Frontispiece]
"Railroad tickets!" said the baggageman with exaggerated patience[8]
Can most travellers, I wonder, enjoy as I do a solitary walk, by night, through the mysterious streets of a strange city?[17]
Coming out of my slumber with the curious and unpleasant sense of being stared at, I found his eyes fixed upon me[24]
Mount Vernon Place is the centre of Baltimore[32]
If she is shopping for a dinner party, she may order the costly and aristocratic diamond-back terrapin, sacred in Baltimore as is the Sacred Cod in Boston[48]
Doughoregan Manor—the house was a buff-colored brick[65]
I began to realize that there was no one coming[80]
Harper's Ferry is an entrancing old town; a drowsy place piled up beautifully yet carelessly upon terraced roads clinging to steep hillsides[100]
"What's the matter with him?" I asked, stopping[117]
When I came down, dressed for riding, my companion was making a drawing; the four young ladies were with him, none of them in riding habits[124]
Claymont Court is one of the old Washington houses[132]
Chatham, the old Fitzhugh house, now the residence of Mark Sullivan[148]
Monticello stands on a lofty hilltop, with vistas, between trees of neighboring valleys, hills, and mountains[157]
Like Venice, the University of Virginia should first be seen by moonlight[168]
One party was stationed on the top of an old-time mail-coach, bearing the significant initials "F. F. V."[180]
The Piedmont Hunt Race Meet[189]
The Southern negro is the world's peasant supreme[200]
The Country Club of Virginia, out to the west of Richmond[216]
Judge Crutchfield[228]
Negro women squatting upon boxes in old shadowy lofts stem the tobacco leaves[237]
The Judge: "What did he do, Mandy?"[244]
Some genuine old-time New York ferryboats help to complete the illusion that Norfolk is New York[253]
"The Southern statesman who serves his section best, serves his country best"[280]
St. Philip's is the more beautiful for the open space before it[300]
Opposite St. Philip's, a perfect example of the rude architecture of an old French village[305]
In the doorway and gates of the Smyth house, in Legaré Street, I was struck with a Venetian suggestion[316]
Nor is the Charleston background a mere arras of recollection[320]
Charleston has a stronger, deeper-rooted city entity than all the cities of the Middle West rolled into one[328]
The interior is the oldest looking thing in the United States—Goose Creek Church[344]
A reminder of the Chicago River—Atlanta[353]
With the whole Metropolitan Orchestra playing dance music all night long[368]
The office buildings are city office buildings, and are sufficiently numerous to look very much at home[376]
The negro roof-garden, Odd Fellows' Building, Atlanta[385]
I was never so conscious, as at the time of our visit to the Burge Plantation, of the superlative soft sweetness of the spring[396]
The planters cease their work[400]
Birmingham—the thin veil of smoke from far-off iron furnaces softens the city's serrated outlines[408]
Birmingham practices unremittingly the pestilential habit of "cutting in" at dances[424]
Gigantic movements and mutations, Niagara-like noises, great bursts of flame like falling fragments from the sun[437]
A shaggy, unshaven, rawboned man, gray-haired and collarless, sat near the window[444]
Gaze upon the character called Daniel Voorhees Pike![456]
The houses were full of the suggestion of an easy-going home life and an informal hospitality[465]
Her hands looked very white and small against his dark coat[480]
As water flows down the hills of Vicksburg to the river, so the visitor's thoughts flow down to the great spectacular, mischievous, dominating stream[485]
Over the tenement roofs one catches sight of sundry other buildings of a more self-respecting character[492]
Vicksburg negroes[497]
On some of the boats negro fish-markets are conducted[504]
The old Klein house[512]
Citizens go at midday to the square[520]
Hanging in the air above the middle of the stream[536]
These small parks give Savannah the quality which differentiates it from all other American cities[556]
The Thomas house, in Franklin Square[561]
You will see them having tea, and dancing under the palm fronds of the cocoanut grove[576]
Cocktail hour at The Breakers[581]
Nowhere is the sand more like a deep warm dust of yellow gold[588]
The couples on the platform were "ragging"[600]
Harness held together by that especial Providence which watches over negro mending[613]
It was a very jolly fair[616]
The mysterious old Absinthe House, founded 1799[620]
St. Anthony's Garden[632]
Courtyard of the old Orleans Hotel[641]
The little lady who sits behind the desk[656]
The lights are always lowered at Antoine's when the spectacular Café Boulot Diabolique is served[664]
Passing between the brilliantly illuminated buildings, the Mardi Gras parades are glorious sights for children from eight to eighty years of age[672]

THE BORDERLAND

O magnet-South! O glistening, perfumed South!
O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse and love! good and evil!
O all dear to me!

Walt Whitman.