one other animals joined the adventurous aggregation, until the whole animal kingdom was at last gathered under the spacious canvas; but each animal was made to furnish entertainment in his own characteristic way, without sacrificing his native peculiarities or instincts. Old and young were delighted with the new order of chivalry which Uncle Remus had founded; and on billowy waves of laughter Mr. Harris began to ride the high seas of literature.

These stories which he dashed off at random in the midst of his serious editorial work became his hostages to fortune: the inspirational fragments which he exchanged for the laurel leaves of fame. At the expiration of the first year Mr. Harris had spun enough yarn from the mouth of Uncle Remus to put into the folds of an octavo volume entitled "Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings"; and this volume became the first spicebearer of his opulent and splendid caravan.

Perhaps no writer has ever cloistered himself more securely within the hermitage of his pen or touched the current life of the world more gingerly with the contact of his personality than Mr. Harris; and there are hundreds of people within hailing distance of his home who have not even the slightest visual acquaintance with this charming recluse. Some are actually disposed to regard him as a myth but I happen to know from intimate association with him in the sphere of things material that he is really a man of flesh and blood whose friendship is something to be prized above rubies, and whose clever bonhommie is absolutely unrivaled except by his own genial wares.

Having editorialized just across the hall from him and next to where Stanton wooed the muses, I can speak of him from the sanctuary of the inner circle. In the free abandon of social converse with old friends and associates there was no one whose companionship could be more engaging; but in all the North Georgia mountains I never knew a lass who could shrink from strangers with fewer syllables or redder blushes; and, by the way, it may be observed just here that when Mr. Harris betrayed the pink sign of modesty his hair which was highly inflammable spread the glow so completely around his head that it was almost impossible to tell where blush ended and hair commenced. An unfamiliar face had usually the same effect upon the playful moods of Mr. Harris that the schoolmaster's spectacles have on the pranks of an urchin bent upon mischief; but, such restraints eliminated, Mr. Harris could distance any schoolboy I ever met either in literature or in life. For more than twenty-five years he kept up the treadmill grind of editorial work on the paper; but he finally retired from the staff and began to devote himself exclusively to the more congenial lines which had made his reputation. But long before severing his connection with the paper it was his habit to do most of his work at home and he merely came to the office for the purpose of getting editorial suggestions and newspaper exchanges. At the present writing Mr. Harris is about to undertake the publication of Uncle Remus's Magazine," for which an immense capital has been provided and an up-to-date plant is now being built; and the success of the enterprise is abundantly assured. Besides negro dialect stories, Mr. Harris has written books descriptive of other phases of Southern life. He seldom

projects an outline in advance of composition but proceeds at once to unfold his narrative; and he says that he is often surprised at what his characters say and do. He finds the labor of authorship perennially refreshing: and he writes with great ease, seldom revising what he has once written. He lives at West End, on the outskirts of Georgia's capital city, where his beautiful suburban home unfolds the delicious charm of country life and exhales the pure and unadulterated essence of Southern hospitality. His wife, who was Miss La Rose, of Canada, still shares his happy lot; while his children who live around him have completely filled the measure of parental solicitude and expectation. Born in Putnam county, Georgia, in 1848, he has not yet entered upon the patriarchal estate. The cool evening shadows are still some distance off. So there is no occasion to think of him as growing old. But in some respects he can not grow old. He will still be young in feeling even when the snows upon the hilltops are white and thick. He now seems much younger than he really is because in purity of heart as well as in playfulness of spirit he has always kept close to the realm of childhood. The frost is not needed to mellow his heart; nor the sunset to make his life more golden than it is. The invalid world needs just such wholesome tonics to send the blood pulsing to the finger-tips. And Uncle Remus in flesh as well as in fame would be one of the immortals of the earth if Childhood's laughter could only ripple the crimson current or if Fame could but insure the vital centers with something of the immortality which he has given upon the printed page to Nature's child of song: the ante-bellum negro.

CHAPTER XLVIII

Chief Justice Logan E. Bleckley's "Letter to Posterity."

T

HE traditions of the Georgia bench for wit have been most notably maintained within the memory

of the present generation and in the highest judicial forum of the State by former Chief Justice Logan E. Bleckley, whose wit is second only to his keen discriminating faculty in observing subtle distinctions of law. It may be observed in this connection that Judge Bleckley and Judge Nisbet are the most widely quoted of all the Supreme Court judges of Georgia beyond the State limits, being the only occupants of the supreme bench whose opinions are recorded in "Great Decisions by Great Judges." Among the various deliverances which have come from the pen of Judge Bleckley there is hardly one which is not bathed in the smirk of an irrepressible witticism. He meted out equal and exact justice to all litigants without fear or favor; but he ever bent over the scales with an unclouded brow.

Asked on one occasion how he managed under the pressure of so much official business to word his decisions with such delicate regard for lights and shadows, the answer which he promptly gave well illustrates his judicial habits as well as his readiness of retort. Said he: "I first revise and then I scrutinize. After I have done these two

things I then revise the scrutiny; and, finally, to be fectly sure, I scrutinize the revision."

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In the case of a defendant who undertook to evade the law against retailing alcoholic intoxicants, without a license, by having his cook sell them in the kitchen, the judge rendered this opinion: "There is little doubt that the defendant was the deity of this rude shrine and that Mary was only the ministering priestess. But, if she was the divinity and he the attendant spirit to warn thirsty devotees where to drink and at whose feet to lay tribute, he is still amenable to the State as the promoter of forbidden libations. Whether in these usurped rights he was serving Mary or Mary him may make some difference with the gods but it makes none with men."

Dissenting from the opinion rendered by his colleagues in the case of Dodd versus Middleton he demurred in the following fashion. Said he: "If I could be reinforced by the votes as I am by the opinions of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts and the Court of Appeals of New York, I could easily put my brethren in the minority; but, as it is, they are two against one and I have no option but to yield to the force of numbers-in other words to the tyranny of majorities. Though twice beaten I am still strong in the true faith and am ready to suffer for it-moderately-on all proper occasions.”

One more illustration will suffice. In discussing the instinct of justice which often makes for the goal even when the avenue of approach is not distinctly apparent, he couched his views in these terms which he rounded with an apt poetic citation. Said he: "It not infrequently happens that a judgment is affirmed upon a theory of the case which did not occur to the court that rendered it, or that