Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/335

 from my kind companion with the promise of a second visit.

On my arrival at Charleston in the evening I was met by Mr. M. with the carriage. When we reached Mrs. W. H.'s house the young people were dancing to the piano in the brilliant drawing-room; Mr. M. and I danced in, arm in arm, among them amid great jubilation. And I found myself here almost as if in my own home. Certain it is that this home has more the impression of our Scandinavian homes, (N.B.—when they are good and happy) than any home I have yet seen or heard of in this country. The domestic life, the dancing, the music, and the evening games, are altogether in the Swedish style.

I was yesterday present at the funeral-procession of the statesman and senator of Carolina, Calhoun, whose body passed through Charleston. The procession was said to consist of above three thousand persons; and it seemed indeed to be interminable. The hearse was magnificent, and so lofty from a large catafalk that it seemed to threaten all gates made by human hands.

Many regiments paraded in splendid uniforms, and a great number of banners with symbolic figures and inscriptions were borne aloft; it was very splendid, and all went on well. All parties seems to have united with real devotion and admiration to celebrate the memory of the deceased, and his death is deplored in the Southern States as the greatest misfortune. He has sate many years in Congress as the most powerful advocate of slavery, not merely as a necessary evil, but as a good, both for the slave and the slave owner; and has been a great champion for the rights of the Southern States. Calhoun, Clay, and Webster, have long been celebrated as a triumvirate of great statesmen, the greatest in all the land. Calhoun was the great man of the Southern States, Clay of the Western and Middle States, Webster of the States