This was the same Dr.
Gilman who wrote "Fair Harvard."
* * * * *
In only one instance did the letters of introduction we sent out produce
a response of the kind one would not be surprised at receiving in some
rushing city of the North: a telephone call. A lady, not a native
Charlestonian, but one who has lived actively about the world, rang us
up, bade us welcome, and invited us to dinner.
But she was a very modern sort of lady, as witness not only her use of
the telephone--an instrument which seems in Charleston almost an
anachronism; as, for that matter, the automobile does, too--but her
dinner hour, which was eight o'clock. Very few Charleston families dine
at night. Dinner invitations are usually for three, or perhaps half-past
three or four, in the afternoon, and there is a light supper in the
evening. I judge that this custom holds also in some other cities of the
region, for I remember calling at the office of a large investment
company in Wilmington, North Carolina, to find it wearing, at three in
the afternoon, the deserted look of a New York office between twelve and
one o'clock. Every one had gone home to dinner. Mr. W.D. Howells, in his
charming essay on Charleston, makes mention of this matter:
"The place," he says, "has its own laws and usages, and does not trouble
itself to conform to those of other aristocracies.
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