y mind's
eye. There the people do not live so fast as to have no time to enjoy
their life, while they have all that makes life enjoyable. Successful
effort is my nearest approach to a definition of what constitutes
happiness. There, there is every scope for various effort. The city
and country around are still in process of active growth. "Fecundity"
is writ large across the surface of the State, on fields, in mills, in
mines. All the men are busy the livelong day. Here it is different
from in England; you do not find a large section of men who spend the
day either at various kinds of sport, at cricket, or loitering
listlessly about the clubs. An idle man would be a solitary of his
own sex. But it is not the material conditions that constitute the
chief attraction of life in a Southern city, excellent as they are;
the principal charm of the South is the character of the people
themselves. There is an undefined flavour of old-world politeness and
courtesy perfuming their environment The bow of a Southern gentleman
does not appear to be the jerk of a string-pull; it suggests having
been learned remotely from the bow that brought the sword projecting
through the long coat-tails as the hat was removed from the powdered
wig.

There is an indefinite something that tells one that all these people
have had grandfathers and grandmothers, instead of as in New York,
where the suggestion is that they are the offspring of stock-market
tickers or have been shot into the world through a pneumatic tube.

That almost universal formula in America on a man being introduced
bears here a real significance, "I am glad to meet you, Mr. Blank."
The English equivalent is "How-d-do?" and, although inarticulate,
there is frequently a silent suggestion of the phrase, "Bored to meet
you," "Awfully bored to meet you." In the South they are glad to meet
and welcome the stranger at their gates, and he must be hard to please
if he does not have a good time within them.

The general rule that the men are at work all day has its effect in
various ways on the life of the community. The social life differs
from that of England in many marked features, in none more than in the
part played by the Southern girl. At the first reception given by the
mother of the young _debutante_, the men of the set in which she is to
move are presented to her, and tacitly it is a presentation to them,
by the mother, of what she holds most tenderly precious; to them, in
tr