Page:Historic towns of the southern states (1900).djvu/314

 Time does not appear to have changed the character of the people or their social amenities, for, in 1836, an Englishman, the Honorable Charles Augustus Murray, writes:

"A gentleman must be very difficult to please if he does not find Charleston society agreeable; there is something warm, frank and courteous in the manner of a real Carolinian; he is not studiously, but naturally polite; and though his character may not be remarkable for that persevering industry and close attention to minutiæ in business which are so remarkable in the New England merchants, he is far from deficient in sagacity, courage or enterprise."

One characteristic of the Charleston women which still abides with them is noted by Mr. Murray, who says:

"They are pretty, agreeable and intelligent, and in one respect have an advantage over most of their Northern sisters—(if the judge is to be a person accustomed to English society)—I mean as regards voice; they have not that particular intonation which I have remarked elsewhere, and which must have struck every stranger who has visited the other Atlantic cities."

There was little of the Puritanical element in the thriving capital of South Carolina. Many of its citizens had frequented, in their college days, the pit of Drury Lane or Covent