--We extract the following from a letter written by
Willis to the
Home Journal, about the beginning of the secession movement.
It contains more of truth than the majority of his writings:
‘
Polities, trade, and sectional differences quite out of the question, (and the
News knows the branches of the question are sufficiently discussed in the other papers,) we are sustaining a great social loss in the estrangement of the
South.
In all the larger and more refined circles of our American society--at
Saratoga and
Newport, in our gaieties of the cities, and on our routes of fashionable travel and resort, the Southerners are unquestionably the class most sought and admired as "the nicest people. "--It would be hard to find a cultivated "society man." probably, anywhere at the
North, who does not number many of his most valued friends and pleasantest acquaintances in this class.
Explain it by what social alchemy you please, too, the
Southern amalgam in any alembic of politeness at the
North, exceedingly improves the metal — partly, no doubt, from the corrective given by the more generous and graceful qualities of the
South.
The American travelers who shine most at foreign courts and in foreign society are from the
South.
They are, in fact, our country's natural patricians.
And — abused though they are at a distance, by some of the
Northern newspapers, as an offensive oligarchy — the tribute of preference and admiration is paid to them by these very Northerners, at this very time, whenever they come personally in contact.
And so, with all the momentous issues of secession left to more gregarious discussion, may we now fairly own that, individually.
Northern men are regretting exceedingly the social estrangement of the
South.
’
