A century ago, Henry James was seduced by Charleston's "idle, easy loveliness," as well as by a particularly delectable Lady Baltimore cake. Today, Nik Cohn discovers a revitalized city whose hedonistic streak burns as bright as ever—and learns that a high-rise biscuit with country ham and gravy is the very best way to start the day

At the end of Gone With the Wind, Rhett Butler tells Scarlett O'Hara that he's leaving her and going back to Charleston, "where there's a little bit of grace and charm left in the world." As history, this is bunk: In the years after the Civil War, the city was mostly rubble and ashes, and Rhett, more likely than not, was going home to a burned-out building—but the phrase nails the essence of Charleston's allure.

Today, when grace and charm are so hard to come by, the city's spell is more powerful than ever. In the last few years, Charleston has become a magnet for thousands of escapees from the world's stridor and stress. Most washed up here casually, with no intention of putting down roots, but found themselves sucked in by the easy pace, the relatively low cost of living, the climate, the beauty of the surrounding Lowcountry, and something deeper: a feeling that here, as in few other cities, it is still possible to live the Good Life.

The influx has brought new energy. Fifteen years ago, when I visited Charleston for the first time, I found it lovely but stagnant: a dowager in aspic. The hushed streets, with their eighteenth-century mansions and manicured gardens, felt like a period movie set, long out of use. There was no sense of righteous disorder—no children racketing, no raised voices. As for passion, that seemed reserved for ancestor worship. One evening over cocktails, I found myself harangued by a desiccated gent in a linen suit, who informed me snootily that no outsider could hope to understand Charleston's culture or the nobility of its heritage. By heritage, he made it clear that he meant white supremacy.

These days, the mood is very different. Old prejudices no doubt survive, if you know where to look, but African-Americans are prominent in city politics and social life, and Charleston as a whole comes across as open-minded and welcoming. Its population is small—just over a hundred thousand—and dauntingly young, with a median age of thirty-three. Downtown feels like an overgrown village consecrated to pleasure.

A friend recommends Henry James's The American Scene as a vade mecum. Touring his native country after twenty years in Europe, James reached Charleston in early 1905 and spent some weeks in search of what he called "the Old South." Dutifully, I plow through fifteen thousand words of exquisite fussbudgetry, only to realize at the end that he passed his time here doing virtually nothing. In this respect, if no other, I follow in the Master's footsteps.

My indolence is not for lack of good intentions. Early each morning, I haul myself out of bed and take to the streets, architectural guidebook in hand. For the first few blocks, I follow a prepared route, noting this and checking that. Then the city's languor takes hold, lulling me into passivity, and soon I'm drifting at random.

The city's heart is a narrow snout of a peninsula, its profile on the map distinctively doglike, with the Ashley River as the top of its skull, the Cooper as its chin and throat, and islands scattered along the coast. My hotel is close to Waterfront Park, a swathe of palmettos and flowering shrubs that skirts the Cooper. At first light, I have it to myself, apart from a few joggers and the occasional egret loitering in the marsh beside the park. It's March—the onset of spring, when the dawns are still damp and chill, the air heavy with the sweetness of yellow jasmine. A silvery haze masks the water, lifting slowly to reveal the outlying islands, some fishing boats, the white sail of a yacht. As I follow the river's curve to South Battery, at the tip of the peninsula, I glimpse Fort Sumter on the horizon. At least I think I do: At this distance, the stronghold's silhouette is so faint that it might be a mirage.