"
"All right," said Mr. North, bowing very politely to his wife.
"Nowhere," said I, "do we see this more conspicuously than in Southern
society. Chivalry there seems to blend with the genial influences of
Christianity, and together they give a tone and manner to Southern life
which is peculiar.
"I am often struck with a Southern gentleman's reverence, here at the
North, for the female sex. He is displeased at seeing daughters serving
at table in boarding-houses kept by their worthy parents or widowed
mothers. We, indeed, respect a young woman who serves us in this manner,
(if we reflect at all,) and we resent rudeness or an unfeeling mode of
addressing those who are in such situations. But the Southern gentleman
goes further. He has, perhaps, not been accustomed to see the daughter
of a white family serve. When a respectable young woman, therefore, at a
boarding-house, brings him his tea, he feels impelled to rise and ask
her to be seated, and to wait upon her. I have been an eye-witness to
scenes of this kind, and have been much pleased and not a little amused
at some exhibitions of the feeling. If our sentiments toward the sex,
and their position in social life, mark the degree of civilization and
cultivation in a community, I am compelled to accord a high degree of it
to Southern society, in its best estate.
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