The old South

UNCLE JEFF SHIELDS, LEXINGTON, VA.
A Monograph
H. M. HAMILL, D.D.
Smith & Lamar, Agents, Publishing House of the · · · Methodist Episcopal Church, South · · · Dallas, Texas · · · Nashville, Tennessee
The subject-matter of this little book first took form in an address before the students of Emory College, Oxford, Ga., in June, 1904. If apology be needed for putting it in type, the writer finds it in the request of an old woman, now eighty-six years of age, a true daughter of the Old South, whose lightest wish has been the law of his life for more than fifty years.
THE OLD SOUTH.
My theme is “The Old South.” I have no apology for those who may deem it time-worn or obsolete. I am handicapped in beginning by memories of other writers and speakers who have dealt more worthily than I can hope to do with my subject. The Old South has not been wanting in men to speak and write upon it. Friend and foe alike have exploited it. It has been the burden of poetry not always inspired, and of oratory not always inspiring. Not a few have been its critics who knew it only by hearsay. Indeed, much of current literature upon the Old South is from those who were born after it had passed away. I have no fault to find with any who have thus written or spoken, however worthily or unworthily, if only it was done in kindness. If over the dust of the Old South, while discoursing upon its virtues or its vices, any one has dealt generously with the one and fairly with the other, I am content, though praise or blame may not always have been wisely bestowed.
I was born in and of the Old South. At sixteen, after a year under General Lee, I received my parole at Appomattox, and went home to look upon the ruin of the Old South. Whatever is good or evil in me I owe chiefly to that Old South. Habit, motive, ideal, ambition, passion and prejudice, love and hatred, were formed in it and by it. My life work as a man has been wrought under what is called the New South, but inspiration and aspiration to it came out of the Old South. The spell it cast upon my boyhood is strong upon me after more than a generation has gone. It is not the spell of enchantment. It has not blinded me to bad or good qualities, and after the lapse of a half century and despite the tenderness for it that grows with the passing years, I think I can see and judge the Old South and give account of it more impartially than one who received it at second-hand.