"Anatomy of Melancholy." He arose and shook hands punctiliously with
each member of the committee. If you were familiar with _The Rose of
Dixie_ you will remember the colonel's portrait, which appeared in it
from time to time. You could not forget the long, carefully brushed
white hair; the hooked, high-bridged nose, slightly twisted to the
left; the keen eyes under the still black eyebrows; the classic mouth
beneath the drooping white mustache, slightly frazzled at the ends.

The committee solicitously offered him the position of managing editor,
humbly presenting an outline of the field that the publication was
designed to cover and mentioning a comfortable salary. The colonel's
lands were growing poorer each year and were much cut up by red
gullies. Besides, the honor was not one to be refused.

In a forty-minute speech of acceptance, Colonel Telfair gave an
outline of English literature from Chaucer to Macaulay, re-fought the
battle of Chancellorsville, and said that, God helping him, he would
so conduct _The Rose of Dixie_ that its fragrance and beauty would
permeate the entire world, hurling back into the teeth of the Northern
minions their belief that no genius or good could exist in the brains
and hearts of the people whose property they had destroyed and whose
rights they had curtailed.

Offices for the magazine were partitioned off and furnished in the
second floor of the First National Bank building; and it was for the
colonel to cause _The Rose of Dixie_ to blossom and flourish or to
wilt in the balmy air of the land of flowers.

The staff of assistants and contributors that Editor-Colonel Telfair
drew about him was a peach. It was a whole crate of Georgia peaches.