Congress. They had never faltered; they had vouchsafed no
hint of concession; while, on the other hand, Southerners had shamed him
by their craven spirit. It grieved, it mortified him, to see such a man
as Crittenden on his knees to the North, begging, actually with tears,
for what he ought to demand as a right, with head erect and hands
clenched. He departed with a mysterious allusion to some secret of his
for taking Fort Sumter,--some disagreeably odorous chemical
preparation, I guessed, by the scientific terms in which he beclouded
himself,--something which he expected would soon be called for by the
Governor. May he never smell anything worse, even in the other world,
than his own compounds! Unionist, and perhaps Consolidationist, as I
am, I could not look upon his honest, persuaded face, and judge him a
traitor, at least not to any sentiment of right that was in his own
soul.

Our hotel was full of legislators and volunteer officers, mostly
planters or sons of planters, and almost without exception men of
standing and property. South Carolina is an oligarchy in spirit, and
allows no plebeians in high places. Two centuries of plenteous feeding
and favorable climate showed their natural results in the _physique_ of
these people. I do not think that I exaggerate, when I say that they
averaged six feet or nearly in height, and one hundred and seventy
pounds or thereabouts in weight. One or two would have brought in money,
if enterprisingly heralded as Swiss or Belgian giants. The general
physiognomy was good, mostly high-featured, often commanding, sometimes
remarkable for massive beauty of the Jovian type, and almost invariably
distinguished by a fearless, open-eyed frankness, in some instances
running into arrogance and pugnacity. I remember one or two elderly
men, in particular, whose faces would help an artist to idealize a
Lacedaemonian general, or a baron of the Middle Ages. In dress somewhat
careless, and wearing usually the last fashion but one, they struck me
as less tidy than the same class when I saw it four years ago; and I
made a similar remark concerning the citizens of Charleston,--not only
men, but women,--from whom dandified suits and superb silks seem to have
departed during the present martial time. Indeed, I heard that economy
was the order of the day; that the fashionables of Charleston bought
nothing new, partly because of the money pressure, and partly because
the guns of Major Anderson might any