vibrate in unison with these pure over-tones, that is, not one in ten thousand will respond. Our range rises little above the harsher octaves, therefore Uncle Joe's finer harmonies never reached our ears. To us he To us he was an ignorant, silly, amusing clown, denied by Nature breath to appreciate his own low talent. The feminine estimate, quite out-spoken for that period, amused us; it also irritated. Beyond a doubt a lady who visited with him higher, and to us The Lords of Monson, toneless regions were better able to write a more sympathetic, a juster character-sketch than is possible for me. Each sex saw opposite hemispheres of this great man, for I cannot now doubt his greatness, which could they be brought together and joined at the bases would give us the more nearly perfect whole.

I wish I were able to transcribe a few of Uncle Joe's stories but I can I fear lay hand on only one or two, the others having sunk in the dead sea of a treacherous memory. I believe he adapted his stories to the credulity, or at least the capacity of his audience, and that they embodied a moral we were too dull to read.

Had my sense of humor been developed perhaps these stories might have made a sharper, more lasting impression, but even I smiled whenever “Uncle Joe's arm" was lifted from its box for exhibition to a new and eager victim. I will illustrate with a single instance, which perhaps I enjoyed the best.

There sojourned with us one summer a literary lion from Boston. His fame had long preceded him, and his name was a friend to everyone in Monson who was not hopelessly submerged in the bog ignorance. We felt a tacit acquaintance already, which an opportunity to make personal made sure we were "the darlings of the gods" and for once we were moved to add the plural letter to our one, and only true God, for such favor intoxicated us esthetically, and our spiritual vision saw multiplied images in the heavens, and such a lending from the Firma

ment of Culture seemed greater favor than Deity, Itself, dare grant unauthorized by equal, or nearly equal. authority. A loan discussed and sanctioned by a multiplicity of Rulers, and probably in opposition to furious protests from the heavenly harems, flattered us more than an act of Divine Providence originating, possibly, in Its mercy rather than our merit.

We fell at the feet of our king in windrows, and the reason he escaped suffocation in the mass was due to the fewness of our numbers, and the fact that those nearer beat back as far as strength permitted approach to The Presence, and unanimity of purpose urged each unit of the twenty per cent into a wild fight for intimacy of falling and wounds were given which knew no healing, much to the merriment of the uncircumcised. I think we rather bored him. He was accustomed to worship in larger spheres by daintier beings, and regarded the approach of common earth an implication of baser clay in himself. No incense offered quite reached the perfection of fragrance desired, no devotee breathed quite deeply enough the dust his feet had trodden. Himself went beyond. his coterie in estimate, and rated his stock many points above market quotations.

His modesty did not forbid his making known he was in the "backwoods" in search of rest; incidentally stray material for a future book, if any might be found, and if we were duly submissive, Monson might be written. in the least important chapter of his book.

Monson's twenty per cent neck was stiff from chronic self-exaltation; its knees creaked in the unaccustomed genuflection; it could not long submit to subordination to less than God, and that submission was outward; inwardly, God was nearly its equal, for its prayers were loaded with information and advice which, addressed to a Superior Being, has been impertinence: Monson missed the humor of her prayers. Her patronage of God was unsuspected by herself.

With us doubting was acting! We measured our lion's ears on a yardstick, we groomed him with a common curry-comb! We dubbed him an ass, and walking into the saddle chirped sarcastically to Jupiter for a king worthy of his subjects: he sent us the Stork, but let us forget that. We prepared a feast for our beast: Uncle Joe's Arm with variations. We planned a punishment fitted to our dethroned king's crime of assumed mental over-lordship. We declared Uncle Joe a vete an of the Mexican war. That in the battle of Buena Vista he made Gen. Taylor's 5,000 men more terrible than Santa Anna's reputed 20,000. That in the wavering balance he turned the scale Americaward by capturing unaided a Mexican battery, bayonetting the gunners, after he had lost his arm in the charge, and wheeling the guns, served them himself and poured round after round of grape shot into the thinning Mexican ranks until they broke and fled like rabbits; that had history been divorced from "Influence" Taylor's famous order had read, "A little more grape, Goodcider, a little more grape!" We told him his captain had found him mounted on the only gun cool enough for a seat, his eyes blazing fire, and shaking his fist and the stump of an arm in the direction of the retreating foe, now hopelessly out of range, a little faint from loss of blood but unconscious of the amputation until his comrades, pointing to his mutilation, rushed to his aid, but he waved them away, went back and found the arm, fainted with it hugged close to his breast by its uninjured mate. When offered promotion he refused, saying, "A man who cannot command his own language is not fit to command men." At no time previous had we prepared such a fantastic tale. deserved contemptuous silence in a self-respecting man but our victim. listened delightedly, he rewarded us by questionings, by an eager interest in Uncle Joe's personality, by a request for an introduction we were not slow in granting.

It

"Goodcider," he began, "I have been informed of your heroism, and of your gallant service for your country, and the heroic loss of your arm at Buena Vista. Now what I want is for you to go ahead and tell the story in your own simple, broken, ungrammatical language. Don't be abashed by my presence more than you are by your simple-minded country neighbors.

"It is my privilege to dive in the depths and bring up pearls and give them the suitable setting to gain the world's admiration. The oyster is not abashed by the pearl-diver. Just consider yourself an oyster, for the time being, containing a great pearl, and I but a pearl-diver, come to bring your treasure to the world's attention. Now if you can imagine a thing like that it will help put you at your ease, and relieve the natural embarrassment you feel in my presence. It is natural I may say proper, that my fame should inspire a feeling akin to awe in you and your good neighbors, but if you allow this to overcome you it will make you dumb, and I will lose the fullness of your story. Now, my good man, go ahead without fear and I will take your narrative and polish it, and in some places put in your exact language, to add piquancy, and some morning you will wake up famous as Lord Byron has said, and your little village instead of being known to only a few adventurous travelers as a stage-station between Bangor and Moosehead Lake, an obscure little hamlet, this little un heard-of Monson, through my book and your story, will become known to the outside world, the length and breadth of this great land, and by the translations of my book into foreign languages your name and the name of little Monson will become household words to the uttermost part of the earth. Speak up, Goodcider, and tell me where you first heard the roar of the big guns?"

"At Fourth July celebrations and camp-meetin's."

"Oh I don't mean when you were a boy, but after you were a grown man,

when did you first hear the cannon roar?"

"Right away after they went off, if I was close up."

"No! No! Not that, but at Buena Vista. Tell me how the cannon sounded?"

"It sounded mostly like a noise to me."

"Did the sound break suddenly on your ear?"

"No! My ear wouldn't have stood it. I don't think it broke at all anywhere near. It seemed to roll off up inter the mountains and break inter little pieces up there, and go to playing ten-pins fer a while."

"Never mind about the noise then, but tell us how it feels to stand before a great gun when it is fired?"

"I don't stand before one when it goes off. When I seen they are goin' to fire I've got sense enough to Oit to one side or a good piece back".

"We are not progressing! Tell us about your great charge?"

"I never generally make big charges. If it's above fifty dollars I take a note. It saves hard feelings, fer then they can see what it was themselves."

"Goodcider! You must not trifle with serious subjects of interest."

"Oh, Goodcider, are you an idiot?" "I dunno Are you?"

"Now that's a good man, tell us all about the battle of Buena Vista?"

"I can't do that. I ain't no good. in history, but if you've never read about it there's a book in the 'cademy what will tell you all about it a lot better'n I could."

"You try my patience."

"I 'spose you mean, Doctor, fer me to try your medicine. I'll be glad to if it'll help my rheumatiz. How much does it cost a bottle?"

"Are you trying to make a fool of me?"

"No I ain't, that's God's work, and I take it He knows His business without me pokin m'y nose in."

The author took rapid notes of Uncle Joe's countenance. The expression of blank stupidity satisfied him. He cheerfully resumed:

"My dear Goodcider, try and understand me; let us get down to the heart in your arm loss."

"I can't understand what you try to git at; there ain't no heart in an arm. My heart's inside of me."

HE state of Georgia, stung to

T the quick by outside criticism

of her conduct in the Frank case, and in popular resentment of the general impeachment thus insinuated against her courts, has elected to the governorship the man principally responsible, under the law, for the Frank conviction. The feeling is easily understood and indeed, not difficult to meet with some degree of sympathy. Georgia has unquestionably been grossly maligned in this affair. Those journals which have included the state in one sweeping denunciation have not spoken in the common good. It is not at all to be wondered at that it was found possible to make a local political issue of the repudiation of this outside criticism.

Nevertheless, Georgia has made a sad mistake. Her proper course in proving to the nation that she can govern herself and manage her own courts of justice without prejudice, was to show that such an incident could not be made a political issue within her borders.

There is a pole-to-pole difference between public sentiment and public opinion.

Public opinion is that residuum of common sense and justice to which appeal can be made against frenzied waves of public sentiment. There

is no

more grave indictment of a state than that it is governed by sentiment, and not by opinion.

It is true that the word "sentiment" is often used in the sense of "opinion,"

but in this place we are referring to the natural meaning of the word, as a name for those ideas which are produced emotionally, and particularly by waves of popular feeling.

The weakness of the politician who depends on popular sentiment for his support, is that he is building on a very fickle and changeable foundation. He is indeed fortunate if the wave lasts long enough to give him even a temporary victory.

There is certain to be a reaction in Georgia. The state will revenge itself on those who have betrayed it into error more severely even than it rose to the temporary excitement in resentment of criticism.

It is a situation in which those who are defeated may congratulate themselves, for it is to them that the state will turn for its true and permanent leadership.

The NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE has steadily, and does still sympathize with the people of Georgia. Much of the criticism of the state was more prejudiced than the action criticized. It is a great pity that the Georgia courts did not themselves insist on a settlement of the original case in the United States courts. There are many ways in which that could have been done. But all of that is passed. The problem now is for the state to recover from a pathological condition, mentally, and to come to itself as quickly as possible.

There is no state in our great Union before which the future holds more alluring prospects of true greatness.