being to get the breezes which are prevalently from the southwest
and the westward.

* * * * *

Charleston is very definitely two things: It is old, and it is a city.

There is the story of a young lady who asked a stranger if he did not
consider it a unique town.

He agreed that it was, and inquired whether she knew the derivation of
the word "unique."

When she replied negatively he informed her that the word came from the
Latin _unus_, meaning "one," and _equus_, meaning "a horse"; otherwise
"a one-horse town."

This tale, however, is a libel, for despite the general superstition of
chambers of commerce to the contrary, the estate of cityhood is not
necessarily a matter of population nor yet of commerce. That is one of
the things which, if we were unaware of it before, we may learn from
Charleston. Charleston is not great in population; it is not very great,
as seaports go, in trade. Were cities able to talk with one another as
men can, and as foolishly as men often do, I have no doubt that many a
hustling middle-western city would patronize Charleston, precisely as a
parvenue might patronize a professor of astronomy; nevertheless,
Charleston has a stronger, deeper-rooted city entity than all the cities
of the Middle West rolled into one. This is no exaggeration. Where
modern American cities strive to be like one another, Charleston strives
to be like nothing whatsoever. She does not have to strive to _be_
something. She _is_ something. She understands what most other American
cities do not understand, and what, in view of our almost unrestricted
immigration laws, it seems the National Government cannot be made to
understand: namely, that mere numbers do not count for everything; that
there is the matter of quality of population to be considered.
Therefore, though Charleston's white population is no greater than that
of many a place which would own itself frankly a small town, Charleston
knows that by reason of the character of its population it is a great
city. And that is precisely the case. Charleston people 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 rema