d nor cringed--in frankness and
heartiness and wholesome comradeship--in the reverence paid to
womanhood and the inviolable respect in which woman's name was
held--the civilization of the old slave _regime_ in the South has not
been surpassed, and perhaps will not be equalled, among men.

And as the fidelity of the slave during the war bespoke the kindness
of the master before the war, so the unquestioning reverence with
which the young men of the South accepted, in 1865, their heritage of
poverty and defeat, proved the strength and excellence of the
civilization from which that heritage had come. In cheerfulness they
bestirred themselves amid the ashes and the wrecks, and, holding the
inspiration of their past to be better than their rich acres and
garnered wealth, went out to rebuild their fallen fortunes, with never
a word of complaint, nor the thought of criticism!

FOOTNOTE:

[45] By permission of "New York Ledger," Robert Bonner's Sons, N. Y.

THOMAS NELSON PAGE.

~1853=----.~

THOMAS NELSON PAGE was born at "Oakland," Hanover County, Virginia, of
distinguished ancestry. He was educated at Washington and Lee
University, studied law, and settled in Richmond. His first writings
were poems and stories in the Virginia negro dialect, some of them in
connection with Armistead Churchill Gordon. He is now (1894) editor of
"The Drawer" in Harper's Monthly, and stands high as one of the
younger writers of our country.

WORKS.

In Ole Virginia, [stories in negro dialect].
Two Little Confederates.
Elsket, and other Stories.
Essays on the South, its literature, the Negro question, &c., in
magazines.
Befo' de Wa', (with A. C. Gordon).
On New Found River.
Pastime Stories, [written for "The Drawer"].
Among the Camps, [stories].

[Illustration: ~Agricultural and Mechanical College of Mississippi.~]

Mr. Page delineates finely the old Virginia darkey and his dialect,
as Mr. Harris does the darkey of the Carolinas and Georgia. There is a
marked difference between them.

"The naturalness of his style, the skill with which he uses seemingly
indifferent incidents and sayings to trick out and light up his
pictures, the apparently unintentional and therefore most effective
touches of pathos, are uncommon."

MARSE CHAN'S LAST BATTLE.

(_From Marse Chan: In Ole Virginia._[46])

"Well, jes' den dey blowed boots an' saddles, an' we mounted: an' de
orders come to rid