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$Unique_ID{bob01407}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Life On The Mississippi
Chapter XLVII}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{name
book
read
sellers
uncle
}
$Date{1917}
$Log{}
Title: Life On The Mississippi
Author: Twain, Mark
Date: 1917
Chapter XLVII
"Uncle Remus" And Mr. Cable
Mr. Joel Chandler Harris ("Uncle Remus") was to arrive from Atlanta at
seven o'clock Sunday morning; so we got up and received him. We were able to
detect him among the crowd of arrivals at the hotel counter by his
correspondence with a description of 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 this
bill 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 wonders to see that it is still in about as strong
force as ever. There is a fine and beautiful nature hidden behind it, as all
know who have read the "Uncle Remus" book; and a fine genius, too, as all know
by 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 flocked eagerly to
Mr. Cable's house to get a glimpse of the illustrious sage 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 Uncle Remus
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 shy to 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 was proof against even this sagacious
strategy; so we had to read about Brer Rabbit ourselves.
Mr. Harris ought to be able to read the negro dialect better than anybody
else, for in the matter of writing it he is the only master the country has
produced. Mr. Cable is the only master in the writing of French dialects that
the country has produced; and he reads them in perfection. It was a great
treat to hear him read 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 novel which was
still in manuscript.
It came out in conversation that in two different instances Mr. Cable got
into grotesque trouble by using, in his books, next-to- impossible French
names which nevertheless happened to be borne by living and sensitive citizens
of New Orleans. His names were either inventions or were borrowed from the
ancient and obsolete past, I do not now remember which; but at any rate living
bearers of them turned up, and were a good deal hurt at having attention
directed to themselves and their affairs in so excessively public a manner.
Mr. Warner and I had an experience of the same sort when we wrote the
book called 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 away out West, once, he had met, and contemplated,
and actually shaken hands with a man bearing that impossible name - "Eschol
Sellers." He added:
"It was twenty years ago; his name has probably carried him off before
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 Sellerses bearing it, and the whole horde will come
after us; but Eschol Sellers 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-looking white men
that ever lived, called around, with the most formidable libel suit in his
pocket that ever - well, in brief, we got his permission to suppress an
edition of ten million ^1 copies of the book and change that name to "Beriah
Sellers" in future editions.
[Footnote 1: Figures taken from memory, and probably incorrect. Think it was
more.]