To attain a high degree of social culture and refinement is not unlike learning a trade, or one of the fine arts. It _is_ an art, if not the art of arts, which requires study and practice; as much so as to become a first-class tradesman or artist of any kind. One has to pass the trying ordeal of social gymnastics. The beauty of social elegance is like the "beauty of holiness." It attracts the admiration of most, excites the envy of many, the jealousy and hate of the mean, and is a ruling power in every department of Church and State, and of society. This was the strong secret agency in the hands of the South--the "_suaviter in modo_" that gave them leading sway so long in Congress, and with the Government.
There is this difference, however, in the comparison between the "beauty of holiness" and that of social perfection--the one _must_ be real, the other may have but the semblance of reality, being so much of an art, while the other is the very essence of character. In order to great social refinement one needs ample time or leisure to cultivate the art. And who in America have been so much favored in the past with leisure as the people of the South?
In elegance and ease of personal manners perhaps no man in America excelled Henry Clay. His very style of taking snuff, and handling his snuff-box, is said to have been so elegant that, though inimitable, yet his friends and admirers, in and out of Congress, who indulged the nasal habit attempted to copy him.
The late Rt. Rev. General Polk, of the Confederate Army, and Bishop of the Episcopal Church, is said to have been scarcely equaled in pleasant manners. He made it a specialty of his personal improvement until he had become something wonderful in social power. He it was that, after having occupied Columbus, Kentucky, with his troops, went on board a Federal gun-boat at Island Number Ten, by invitation of the commander, to talk over some war question, and during the interview was invited to a social glass of wine. The Federal officer led off in a toast: "To the name of George Washington, the Father of his Country." General Polk gracefully acknowledged the compliment, and then holding up his glass said: "George Washington, the first rebel." Perhaps no finer retort can be found in the history of the late war, or in the English language, as to that matter; so elegant, so devoid of grossness, or of anything that could give possible offense to a genteel mind.