The Personality of American CitiesHungerford, Edward
History
The Personality of American Cities
Hungerford, Edward
Cities and towns -- United States; United States -- Description and travel; United States -- Social life and customs -- 1865-1918
You remember hearing of a Miss Virginia Tredegar of Roanoke, and you
slip out that fact. But this is Miss Virginia Tredegar of Weldon and a
cousin of Miss Virginia Tredegar of Roanoke. Miss Virginia Tredegar of
Weldon--now Mrs. Richard Henry Rhett, of course, is a delightful girl.
The young lady who has you in the corner assures you that--and she,
herself, is not lacking in charms. Mrs. Rhett was a sponsor for the
state for several years, and you vaguely wonder just what that may mean
as you have visions of large floats lumbering along in street parades,
with really lovely girls in white standing upon them. And you also have
visions of the Miss Virginia Tredegar, of Weldon, sitting in the other
days upon the door-steps of an old red and white Colonial house, which
faces a hot little open square, visions of her accomplishments and her
beauty; of her ability to ride the roughest horse in the county, to
dance seven hours without seeming fatigue, of the jealous beaux who come
flocking to her feet. You find yourself idly speaking of these visions
to your companion. She laughs.
"I've just the right girl for you," she says, "and she is here in this
ball-room. She is all these things--and some more; the rightest,
smartest girl in all our state--Miss Virginia Bauregard, daughter of Mr.
Calhoun Bauregard, of Belle Manor in King and Queen county."
Apparently they are all named Virginia in Richmond, seemingly
three-quarters of these girls who live in the nicer parts of the town
are thus to bespeak through their lives the affectionate loyalty of
their parents to the Old Dominion.
All these folk come quite easily to the transformation that has come
over the South within the decade, since she ceased to grieve over a past
that could never be brought back and overcome. The young boys and the
young girls turn readily from fine horses to fine motor cars, the coming
of imported customs causes few shocks, it is even rumored that the
newest of the new dances have invaded the sober drawing-rooms of the
place. But the New South is kind to Richmond. She does not seek to
eliminate the Old South. And so the old customs and the old traditions
run side by side with the new. And even the old families seem to soften
and many times to welcome the new.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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