Published at Trinity College, Durham, N. C., by the OFFICERS: ROBERT L. FLOWERS, President ALBERT M. WEBB, Vice-Pres. W. P. FEW WILLIAM H. GLASSON WILLIAM H. WANNAMAKER ROBERT L. FLOWERS This journal was founded in January, 1902, in order to afford better opportunity in the South for discussion of literary, historical, economic, and social questions. It knows no sectional jealousy and aims to offer a publishing medium in which respectful consideration will be accorded to all who have some worthy contribution to make in its chosen field. The QUARTERLY was originally established by the "9019," a society of young men of Trinity College, but it later passed into the control of the South Atlantic Publishing Company, Incorporated. It is under the joint editorship of Dr. W. K. Boyd and Dr. W. H. Wannamaker. For their journal the editors and publishers solicit the support of thinking people in all sections of the country and especially in the South. The subscription price is three dollars per year. Communi cations in regard to articles, book reviews, and editorial matters should be addressed to the Editors, SOUTH ATLANTIC QUARTERLY, Trinity College, Durham, N. C. If the return of manuscripts not accepted is desired, the required postage should be enclosed. Subscriptions and all communications relating to advertisements and business matters should be addressed to the Treasurer, SOUTH ATLANTIC QUARTERLY, Durham, N. C. Subscriptions payable in advance. Advertising accounts payable after first insertion of ad. Contents of the Last Two Numbers: APRIL, 1922 Administrative Problems in United States Internal Taxation. The Comedy of Stage Death.. The Americanism of Andrew Jackson. Dr. Johnson and the Occult... The Middle States and the Embargo of 1808. .Daniel C. Roper Thornton S. Graves .Frank J. Klingberg Joseph M. Beatty, Jr. Louis Martin Sears Pro-Slavery Propaganda in American Fiction of the Fifties-Jeannette Reid Tandy Book Reviews JULY, 1922 The Discovery of America.. Gandhi and the Hunger-Strike in India. The New Psychology Applied to the Adolescent Girl. The Electon of 1876 in South Carolina. Herbert Spencer: The Man and His Age. John G. De Brahm... The Art of a Minor Poet. Do We Need More Literature? Book Reviews Barkie Mellish W. Norman Brown Clarence C. Church Broadus Mitchell .Francis B. Simkins ..L. L. Bernard .A. J. Morrison Louis C. Zucker .H. Houston Peckham Volume XXI OCTOBER, 1922 Number 4 The South Atlantic Quarterly The South's Spiritual Grace MARISTAN CHAPMAN Jacksonville, Florida With her growing prosperity, her new cities, her vast natural resources that are only just being developed, and with her rapidly expanding commercial influence, it would seem that the South was never in better condition. Yet, with all this outward-seeming development, there is "something rotten in the state," which only those who are within the heart of the South can understand. Examined from a material standpoint she is sound; measured by every standard of commercial worth she is developing favorably; but are we not in danger of giving up our essential character in exchange for this commercial prosperity? Do we not find ourselves weighing and measuring values by the standards of commerce, and noting these values in such symbols as $ $ $ and % % %? It may be protested that an inward and spiritual grace is useless unless its presence is indicated by an outward and visible sign. To which we retort that the sign may so swell in popular estimation as to usurp the place of the grace entirely; and a grace unsuspected and not used is non-existent for practical purposes. Our material prosperity should advertise and demonstrate our character, not usurp its place. The first step in putting a wrong matter right is to realize that it is wrong; the next, to penetrate to the heart of the wrongness; the last to discover and apply the remedy. This article frankly does the first and will seek to point out some reasons for the wrong condition; the third step must be worked out in practice, for no amount of theorising and writing will put things straight. It is impossible to generalise on any subject without, as it were, drawing all fish into the net of "general conclusions" and without making use of such didactic statements of fact as to cause each fish to cry out in exception and declare that "it is not so at all," according to his unique experience. So I ask the reader to remember that when I use the term "the South" I am referring to that side of the South of which I treat at present, and not to marshall in opposition his host of contrary personal experiences. At the same time I have clung to certain truisms which nobody can dispute, deeming it best to use the truistic and the obvious whenever it helps the argument to do so. Our trouble lies chiefly in our having lost something of our past that has not been compensated for. This loss can be divided into four parts: The first is the lost art of self-criticism. We imagine that we do criticise ourselves and we say that "we know our faults"; but our criticism has much of vainglory about it-we boast of our faults very much as if they were superior to other people's virtues. True self-criticism is not mere comment nor passive awareness of defect. It is positive and active. It is an analytical study of one's make-up and an impartial drawing of comparisons between one's self and others, so that one finds out honestly how one stands in relation to the rest of the country. "One who stands alone, stands high." But we are not alone, in sober fact, and by imagining that we are, we "stand high" in our own estimation only and may be in danger of appearing as inconsequent pigmies to those around us. Our standard must be national as well as sectional, and we must practice self-criticism to better effect than we have done in the past. Our second loss is that of courtesy. It is not to be supposed that we can accommodate ourselves to the modern speed of living without compromising our old-fashioned leisurely courtesy, but that is no reason why the manners that we have still with us should be so abrupt. We speak now of "the aesthetic amenities of daily life" instead of "manners," but by whatever name we call them they are a part of daily living and cannot be dispensed with, whatever our rate of progress. Between members of a family they are largely re garded as unnecessary, and to this fact are to be traced all petty bickerings and quarrels. An utter disregard of the sugar coating for the pill of constant inter-communication with our neighbors is apt to be fraught with dire results. We can't take each other neat. Disregard of courtesy in the home means a row; disregard of courtesy between nations means war, and disregard of courtesy between business neighbors means a breaking up of solidarity of purpose,-cracks in the ice floe that foretell coming dissolution. Our third loss is that of romance. This cannot be more than touched upon here, as it is a subject on which no two persons agree as to definition. We will call it here, for the purpose of this essay, "a spiritual aliveness to the ideal in human existence, and to the perfectability of everyday affairs." It is the counter-balance to weigh against the evident sordidness of what we are pleased, from quaint choice, to call our "real" life. Romance need not be old-fashioned. We call up pictures of our great grandparents in their pioneering days and think how "romantic" it must have been to live in those days. It was not romantic to them. It was just life,-and hard, dry life, too. The romance must have been there, but they could not see it. The romance of our lives is here, if we will use it. Think how "romantic" our age will seem a few generations hence, with its great men, great war, and great inventions. Let us penetrate to the ideal in our everyday business, in whatever we are trying to accomplish, and bend our energies to its attainment. To give only a small instance of the romance of machinery, let me cite the near approach to the ideal ball-bearing that makes possible hundreds of machines that were impracticable before, the automobile, for instance. Our fourth loss is that of leisure. Lost leisure has brought in its wake so much misery and disaster that it sometimes makes us doubt the blessing of that "increased production" and "phenomenal growth of industry" that we hear so much about. Our tyrant machinery, causing a few of us to endure heavy drudgery that the rest of us may go free, is a melancholy substitute for the less "advanced" state of civilization when we all had to do a certain amount of bodily work for our own preservation. The class distinction of master and |