An equally distinguishing characteristic of Southern society was the position universally accorded to woman. Southern chivalry has frequently been made a target for ridicule, as a “survival” from the Dark Ages; but the elevating and refining influence it exercised upon the public tone was assuredly a most salutary one. And although, in the light of later developments, it must be conceded that the old Southern idea of woman’s helplessness and absolute dependence upon man for support and protection, savored somewhat of Quixotism, the spirit of knight-errantry fostered thereby was a wholesome one, in that it acted both as an incentive to exertion and as an antidote to selfishness. Even the “code of the duello,” while of course indefensible in principle, had something to be urged in its favor for, beyond doubt, it exerted a restraining influence over a hot-blooded people and made for order in the land. I have said that as a political entity the South consisted of two classes—the governing and the governed. In its social structure, however, it was far more complex. Tier above tier rose the social pyramid, ever narrowing as it neared the apex, on which delectable elevation rested those favored mortals “born in the purple,” placidly secure in their social preeminence. Society, that inevitable product of civilization, is, all the world over, composed of orders and degrees, but whereas at the North these several gradations merged almost imperceptibly one into another, at the South they were divided by very sharply drawn lines of demarcation. The tradesman, the artisan, the mechanic stood quite apart from the professional classes and the landed-proprietors. In every age and in every clime talent will assert itself and rise to the top; and to this rule the South was no exception. But comparatively speaking, south of Mason and Dixon’s line there were to be found few “self-made” men, and those few were almost without exception, men intellectually gifted, who had climbed the social ladder by the rounds of fame rather than of fortune. This, however, is a digression; our present purpose being, not to uncover, fold by fold, the inner intricacies of Southern society, but to present a broad and inclusive view of that society as a whole, and as contrasted with the society of other sections. Perhaps this may best be done by treating the subject somewhat in detail.