LETTER IV.
DESCRIBING THE SOUTH IN TWELVE LINES, DEFINING THE CITIZEN'S FIRST DUTY, AND RECITING A PARODY.
Washington, D.C., April —, 1861.
The chivalrous South, my boy, has taken Fort Sumter, and only wants to be "let alone." Some things of a Southern sort I like, my boy; Southdown mutton is fit for the gods, and Southside particular is liquid sunshine for the heart; but the whole country was growing tired of new South wails before this, and my present comprehensive estimate of all there is of Dixie may be summed up in twelve straight lines, under the general heading of
REPUDIATION.
'Neath a ragged palmetto a Southerner sat,
A-twisting the band of his Panama hat,
And trying to lighten his mind of a load
By humming the words of the following ode: