...best characterized by William Gilmore Simms' oft-quoted statement to a Northern traveller in 1866: "South Carolina, sir, was the flower of modern civilization....not say of America, sir, but of any country on the globe."25 As previously mentioned, Page was the first post-bellum Southern writer to give full expression...

...shattered, a northern visitor in the South heard him proclaim in ringing phrases: "Charleston, sir ... was the finest city in the world; not a large city,...of America, sir, but of any country on the globe."" Simms's mixed and complicated attitude toward Charleston lies behind his portraits of city life in...