are city people par excellence.  They have the virtues of city people, the vices of city people, and the civilization and sophistication of those who reside in the most aristocratic capitals.  For that is another thing that Charleston is; it is unqualifiedly the aristocratic capital of the United States; the last stronghold of a unified American upper class; the last remaining American city in which Madeira and Port and noblesse oblige are fully and widely understood, and are employed according to the best traditions.

I have been told of a lady who remarked that Charleston was “the biggest little place” she ever saw.  I say the same.  The littleness of the place, it is sometimes pointed out, is expressed by the “vast cousinship” which constitutes Charleston society, but it is to my mind expressed much better in the way bicyclists leave their machines leaning against the curb at the busiest parts of main shopping streets.  Its bigness, upon the other hand, is expressed by the homes from which some of those bicyclists come, by the cultivation which exists in those homes, and has existed there for generations, by the amenities of life as they are comprehended and observed, by the wealth of the city’s tradition and the richness of its background.  Nor is that background a mere arras of recollection.  It exists everywhere in the wood and brick and stone of ancient and beautiful buildings, in iron grilles and balconies absolutely unrivaled in any other American city, and equaled only in European cities most famous for their artistry in wrought iron.  It exists also in venerable institutions—­the first orphanage established in the United States; the William Enston Home; the Public Library, one of the first and now one of the best libraries in the country; the art museum, the St. Cecilia Society, and various old clubs.  More intimately it exists within innumerable old homes, which are treasure-houses of fine old English and early American furniture and of portraits—­portraits by Sir Joshua, by Stuart, Copley, Trumbull, and most of the other portrait painters who painted from the time the Colonies began to become civilized to the time of the Civil War—­among them S.F.B.  Morse, who, I believe it is not generally known, made a considerable reputation as a portrait painter, in Charleston, before he made himself a world figure by inventing the telegraph.

Even without seeing these private treasures the visitor to Charleston will see enough to convince him that Charleston is indeed “unique”—­though not in the sense implied in the story—­that it is the most intimately beautiful city upon the American continent.