In India and other countries, not very
different in climate from the southern parts of the United
States, the inhabitants are distinguished for a softness and
inoffensiveness of manners, degenerating almost to
effeminacy; it is here then, only, that we are exempt from
the general influence of climate: here only that, in spite
of it, we are cruel and ferocious! Poor Carolina!"
And with regard to the manners of the Carolinians he assured the young
lady that if there was one State in the Union which could justly claim
superiority to the rest, in social refinement and the art of elegant
living, it was South Carolina, where the division of the people into
the very poor and the very rich left to the latter class abundant
leisure for the pursuit of literature and the enjoyment of society.
"The possession of slaves," he owns,
"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 honor, a delicacy of sentiment, and a liberality of mind,
which we look for in vain in the more commercial citizens of
the Northern States.
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