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.