American Literature and Charleston Society [pp. 380-421]

1853.] American Literature and Uharteston Society. 417
ing them with witty speeches which they can retain long enough to
repeat. (So have we seen straws and bits of paper fly up and attach
themselves to a piece of amber until they had as much electricity as they could hold, then fail back, yield it up and return for
more; the amber, like the brilliant woman of the world, never haying its electricity exhausted, or losing its attractive power.) WIlat
an incub~s upon society would "slow" men or "blaz~" men, be if
"fast women" did not take them off its hands! Yes, we cannot but
think that in the constitution of society the gay, light, easy, graceful
"woman of fashion," plays her appropriate and necessary p&t
She is, in fact, an unavoidable product of extreme civilization, if not
an evidence of it. She is the light and irridescent bubble w~hich
floats upon the surface of the heaker, and shows that the draught
is neither flat nor insipid.
Men talk a great deal in Charleston about hard work and want
of time for society. They don't work a bit harder than in other
places. They dawdle and waste more time over their work than
would suffice for all social demands and enjoyments. It is sometimes urged that we have not enough idle men, and therefore can
have no such social system as in Europe is called "society." The
best society in England is made up in a good measure of Ministej~
of State, Ambassadors, Peers, Members ~r Parijament, etc., who
work more, and are occupied a greater number of hours in their
work, than need be the case with us. In Germany and France as
well as England, men w~~rk hard during a fixed portion of the day
in order that they may keep a flxed portion sacred for healthy ro
creation, at least, if not for the amusements of society. llave our
lawyers and our merchants more to do than the lawyers and merchants in those countries? If so we will have, at least, the consolation of knowing that what is lost to our society is gained to our
city. If so we will wait patiently, for our growth in prosperity
must needs he so rapid fl~at we will very soon have a plentiful supply of men of wealth, leisure, and, consequently, refinement and
cultivation. But we fear our professional men and merchants are
not more overwhelmed with business than they are in other parts
of the world. But as it is the "custom" for women to keep at
home, so it is the "custom" for our men to keep abroad at their