THE OLD SOUTH AND THE NEW 49 



miles ; in this circuit everywhere in the older States of the South 

 was to be found a social life reflecting a high degree of culture, 

 refinement, and intelligence. The direct effect of the plantation 

 life was to foster all the influences giving strength and per- 

 manence to the family. The love of home was increased, not 

 only by long personal association with the spot, but also by tra- 

 ditions running back many generations into the past. Around it 

 gathered the memories of a family life as old, in many cases, as 

 the first settlement of the country. The house in which the 

 planter resided had been erected perhaps a hundred or more 

 years before, and was hallowed by innumerable events in the 

 family history. 



The ties of family were strengthened, not only by long trans- 

 mitted influences of this character, but also by the fact that, 

 under that system, sons, as a rule, settled on lands which had 

 been given them by their fathers in the neighborhood of the 

 paternal estates. In time, there sprang up a community united 

 by the bonds of closest kinship ; and a the years passed, and 

 brothers and sisters had children of their own, these bonds were 

 knit more closely together still by the intermarriage of cousins. 

 A whole countryside was frequently descended from the same 

 ancestors, and the most skillful genealogist often found it im- 

 possible to follow the ramifications of the common strain. It 

 needed but the law of primogeniture to make the state of 

 Southern society precisely similar in spirit to the society of 

 England in the previous century. 



That society was even more given to hospitality than English 

 society in the country. There was practically an unlimited 

 supply of servants ; the abundance of provisions of all kinds was 

 inexhaustible; and there was no effort at display imposing ex- 

 pense and inconvenience. The seclusion of the planter's life 

 threw around the visitor an unusual degree of interest ; hospi- 

 tality, at first a pleasure, took on very shortly a sacred character 

 it became a duty which it was always delightful to perform. 

 The guest, as often a stranger as a kinsman, was rarely absent 

 from the plantation residence. 



Below the highest class of planters there was practically only 

 one great class among the whites, a class which the gencml 

 changes following the war have brought into the greatest promi- 



