We were able to detect him among the crowd of arrivals atthe hotel-counter by his correspondence with a descriptionof him which had been furnished us from a trustworthy source.
He was said to be undersized, red-haired, and somewhat freckled.
He was the only man in the party whose outside tallied with thisbill of particulars. He was said to be very shy. He is a shy man.
Of this there is no doubt. It may not show on the surface,but the shyness is there. After days of intimacy one wondersto see that it is still in about as strong force as ever.
There is a fine and beautiful nature hidden behind it, as all knowwho have read the Uncle Remus book; and a fine genius, too, as all knowby the same sign. I seem to be talking quite freely about this neighbor;but in talking to the public I am but talking to his personal friends,and these things are permissible among friends.
He deeply disappointed a number of children who had flockedeagerly to Mr. Cable's house to get a glimpse of the illustrioussage and oracle of the nation's nurseries. They said--'Why, he 's white! '
They were grieved about it. So, to console them, the book was brought,that they might hear Uncle Remus's Tar-Baby story from the lips of UncleRemus himself--or what, in their outraged eyes, was left of him.
But it turned out that he had never read aloud to people, and was too shyto venture the attempt now. Mr. Cable and I read from books of ours,to show him what an easy trick it was; but his immortal shyness wasproof against even this sagacious strategy, so we had to read aboutBrer Rabbit ourselves.
Mr. Harris ought to be able to read the negro dialect betterthan anybody else, for in the matter of writing it he is the onlymaster the country has produced. Mr. Cable is the only masterin the writing of French dialects that the country has produced;and he reads them in perfection. It was a great treat to hear himread about Jean-ah Poquelin, and about Innerarity and his famous'pigshoo' representing 'Louisihanna RIF-fusing to Hanter the union,'
along with passages of nicely-shaded German dialect from a novelwhich was still in manuscript.
It came out in conversation, that in two different instancesMr. Cable got into grotesque trouble by using, in his books,next-to-impossible French names which nevertheless happenedto be borne by living and sensitive citizens of New Orleans.
His names were either inventions or were borrowed fromthe ancient and obsolete past, I do not now remember which;but at any rate living bearers of them turned up, and werea good deal hurt at having attention directed to themselvesand their affairs in so excessively public a manner.
Mr. Warner and I had an experience of the same sort when we wrote the bookcalled 'The Gilded Age.' There is a character in it called 'Sellers.'
I do not remember what his first name was, in the beginning;but anyway, Mr. Warner did not like it, and wanted it improved.
He asked me if I was able to imagine a person named 'Eschol Sellers.'
Of course I said I could not, without stimulants. He said that awayout West, once, he had met, and contemplated, and actually shakenhands with a man bearing that impossible name--'Eschol Sellers.'
He added--'It was twenty years ago; his name has probably carried him offbefore this; and if it hasn't, he will never see the book anyhow.
We will confiscate his name. The name you are using is common,and therefore dangerous; there are probably a thousand Sellersesbearing it, and the whole horde will come after us; but EscholSellers is a safe name--it is a rock.'
So we borrowed that name; and when the book had been out about a week,one of the stateliest and handsomest and most aristocratic lookingwhite men that ever lived, called around, with the most formidablelibel suit in his pocket that ever--well, in brief, we got hispermission to suppress an edition of ten milliontaken from memory, and probably incorrect. Think it was more.]>
copies of the book and change that name to 'Mulberry Sellers'
in future editions.
Uncle Remus and Mr. Cable
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