Shakespeare and
his associates, and those yet older companions who have come down to
us from ancient Biblical times. Some of his intimates were chosen from
later writers. Among poets, he told me that Tom Moore was his most
cherished companion, the one to whom he fled for consolation in
moments of life's insufficiencies.

Mr. Harris had no objection to talking in sociable manner of other
writers, but if his visitor did not wish to see him close up like a
clam and vanish to the seclusion of an upper room it was better not to
mention Uncle Remus. Neither had he any fancy for the kind of talk
that prevails at "pink teas" and high functions of society in general.
Anything that would be appropriate to the topics introduced in such
places would never occur to him, and the vapory nothingness was so
filled with mysterious terrors for him that he fled before them in
unspeakable alarm.

[Illustration: SNAP-BEAN FARM, ATLANTA, GEORGIA
The residence of Joel Chandler Harris]

"Snap-Bean Farm" was all the world that he cared for, and here he
lived and wove his enchantments, not in his well-appointed study, as a
thoroughly balanced mind would have done, but all over the house, just
where he happened to be, preferably beside the fire after the little
ones had gone to bed, leaving memories of their youthful brightness to
make yet more glowing the flames, and waves of their warmth of soul to
linger in enchantment about the hearth.

It was a sunny, happy day when I visited "Snap-Bean Farm." A
violet-bordered walk led me to the pretty frame cottage, built upon a
terrace quite a distance from the street--a shady, woodsy, leafy,
flowery, fragrant distance--a distance that suggested infinite beauty
and melody, infinite fascination. When the home was established there,
the rumbling and clang of the trolley never broke the stillness of the
peaceful spot. A horse-car crept slowly and softly to a near-by
terminus and stopped, as if, having reached Uncle Remus and his woodsy
home, there could be nothing beyond worth the effort. There were wide
reaches of pine-woods, holding illimitable possibilities of romance,
of legend, of wildwood and wild-folk tradition. It was a country home
in the beginning, and it remained a country home, regardless of the
outstretching of the city's influences. Joel Chandler Harris had a
country soul, and if he had been set down in the heart of a metropolis
his home would have stretched out into mystic distances of gre