neducated Negro tell those
inimitable animal stories, brought to literary existence in "Uncle Remus,"
with such quaint humor, delicious conceit and masterly delineation of
plot, character and incident that nothing but the conventional rating of
Aesop's Fables could put them in the same class. Then, there are more
Negro inventors than the world supposes. This faculty is impossible
without a well-ordered imagination held in leash by a good memory and
large perception.

_He is affectionate and without vindictiveness._ He does not nurse even
great wrongs. Mercurial as he is, often furiously angry and frequently in
murderous mood, he comes nearer not letting the sun go down upon his anger
than any other man I know. Like Brutus, he may be compared to the flint
which,

"Much enforced, shows a hasty spark,
And straight is cold again."

His affection is not less towards the Caucasian than to his own race. It
is not saying too much to remark that the soul of the Negro yearns for the
white man's good will and respect; and the old ties of love that subsisted
in so many instances in the days of slavery still survive where the
ex-slave still lives. The touching case of a Negro Bishop who returned to
the State in which he had been a slave, and rode twenty miles to see and
alleviate the financial distress of his former master is an exception to
numerous other similar cases only in the prominence of the Negro
concerned. I know of another case of a man whose tongue seems dipped in
hyssop when he begins to tell of the wrongs of his race, and who will not
allow anyone to say in his presence that any good came out of slavery,
even incidentally; yet he supports the widowed and aged wife of his
former master. And, surely, if these two instances are not sufficient to
establish the general proposition, none will gainsay the patience,
vigilance, loyalty and helpfulness of the Negro slave during the Civil
War, and of his good old wife who nursed white children at her breast at a
time when all ties save those of affection were ruptured, and when no
protection but devoted hearts watched over the "great house," whose head
and master was at the front, fighting to perpetuate slavery. Was it
stupidity on the Negro's part? Not at all. He was well informed as to the
occurrences of the times. A freemasonry kept him posted as well as the
whites were themselves on the course of the war and the issue of each
battle. Was it fear that kept him at th