With regard to our manners; if there is any state which has a claim to superior refinement, it is certainly South Carolina. Generally speaking, we are divided into but two classes, very rich and very poor; which, if no advantage in a political view, is undoubtedly favourable to a polished state of society. Our gentlemen having large fortunes, and being very little disposed by the climate to the drudgery of business or professions, have full leisure for the attainment of polite literature, and what are usually called accomplishments; you therefore meet with few of them who are not tolerably well informed, agreeable companions, and completely well bred. The possession of slaves renders them proud, impatient of restraint, and gives them a haughtiness of manner which, to those unaccustomed to them, is disagreeable; but we find among them a high sense of honour, a delicacy of sentiment, and a liberality of mind, which we look for in vain in the more commercial citizens of the northern states. The genius of the Carolinian, like the inhabitants of all southern countries, is quick, lively, and acute; in steadiness and perseverance he is naturally inferior to the native of the north; but this defect of climate is often overcome by his ambition or necessity; and, whenever this happens, he seldom fails to distinguish himself. In his temper he is gay and fond of company, open, generous, and unsuspicious; easily irritated, and quick to resent even the appearance of insult; but his passion, like the fire of the flint, is lighted up and extinguished in the same moment. I do not mention his hospitality and kindness to strangers, for they are so common they are no longer esteemed virtues; like common honesty, they are noticed only when not possessed. Nor is it for the elegance of their manners only that the South Carolinians are distinguished; sound morality is equally conspicuous among them. Gaming, so far from being a fashionable vice, is confined entirely to the lower class of people; among gentlemen it is deemed disgraceful. Many of them, it is true, are fond of the turf; but they pursue the sports of it merely as an amusement and recreation, not a business. As to hunting, the country gentlemen occasionally engage in it, but surely there is nothing criminal in this! From my education and other pursuits I have seldom participated in it myself; but I consider it, above all exercises, the most manly and healthful.
But come, let us dismiss the gentlemen and their amusements, and take up the female part of the community.
The ladies of Carolina, I confess, are not generally as handsome as those of the northern states; they want that bloom which, in the opinion of some, is so indispensable an ingredient in beauty; but their paleness gives them an appearance of delicacy and languor which is highly interesting. Their education is perhaps more attended to than anywhere else in the United States; many of them are well informed, all of them accomplished. For it would be far more unpardonable in a girl to enter a room or go through a congo ungracefully, than to be ignorant of the most common event in history or the first principles of arithmetic. They are perfectly easy and agreeable in their manners, and remarkably fond of company; no Charleston belle ever felt "ennui" in her life. In the richness of their dress and the splendour of their equipages they are unrivalled. From their early introduction into company, and their constant and unreserved intercourse with the other sex, they generally marry young; and if their husbands want only companions for the theatre or the concert-room, or some one to talk over the scandal of the day with when at home, they make tolerable wives. As we have now brought them to the "ne plus ultra" of human happiness, marriage, we will leave them there, and so finish our description.
The reason of your not hearing from me so long after your return to New-York was this: not knowing till you wrote me from Ballston how my letters would be received, I was really afraid to venture writing.
You ask how Miss P. walks? If it is your object, as you say, from knowing bow you stand with her in point of forces, to preserve better what you have won, receive a general lesson. "Continue in every respect exactly as you are, and you please me most."
You wish me to acquire French. I already understand something of it, and, with a little practice, would soon speak it. I promise you, therefore, if you become my instructress, in less than two months after our marriage to converse with you entirely in that language. I fix the period after our marriage, for I cannot think of being corrected in the mistakes I may make by any other person than my wife. Suppose, till then, you return to your Latin, and prepare to use that tongue with me, since you are averse to one understood by all the canaille. Adieu. I have literally given you a folio volume.
Yours, my dear Theodosia,
JOS. ALSTON.
P. S. The arrangement you speak of proposing in your letter for an interview has determined me. I shall there fore sail certainly in a few days. Winds be propitious!
Miss BURR.