, did not appeal to the youth
who had been writing verses ever since he had arrived at the age of
eight years and now held a place in the poet's corner of a Charleston
paper. He went into the law office of his friend, Charles E. Carroll,
where his perusal of Blackstone was interspersed with reading poetry
and writing Byronic verses.

While thus variously engaged he received an invitation to visit his
father in the wilds of Mississippi, a call to which his adventurous
spirit gave willing response. Were there not Indians and other wild
things and the choicest assortment of the odds and ends of humanity
out there, just waiting to be made useful as material for the pen of
an ambitious romancer? Through untrodden forests he rode in a silence
broken only by his horse's feet and the howl of wolves in the
distance. To all the new views of the world he kept open the windows
of his mind and they were transmitted to his readers in the years to
come. If he did not sleep with head pillowed upon the grave of one of
De Soto's faithful followers, he at least thought he did, and the
fancy served him as the theme of verse. And those varying types of
human nature and beast nature--do they not all appear again upon the
printed page?

When the end of his visit came his father pleaded:

"Do not think of Charleston. Whatever your talents they will there be
poured out like water on the sands. Charleston! I know it only as a
place of tombs."

There came a time when he, too, knew it only as a place of tombs. Just
now he knew it as the home of the Only Girl in the world, so--what was
the use? And then, Charleston is born into the blood of all her sons,
whether she recognizes them or not. It is better to be a door-keeper
in Charleston than to dwell in the most gorgeous tents of outside
barbarians. So he who was born to the Queen City would hang on to the
remotest hem of her trailing robe at the imminent risk of having his
brains dashed out on the cobble-stones as she swept along her royal
way, rather than sit comfortably upon velvet-cushioned thrones in a
place unknown to her regal presence. Simms came back to his native
city with her "unsociable houses which rose behind walls, shutting in
beautiful gardens that it would have been a sacrilege to let the
public enjoy."

Soon after his return he was admitted to the bar and proved his
forensic prowess by earning $600 in the first year of his practice, a
degree of success which enabled him to u