I seem to see before me the smiling faces of thousands of children some young and fresh and some wearing the friendly marks of age. But all children at heart and not an unfriendly face among them. And while I'm trying hard to speak the right word, I seem to hear a voice lifted above the rest saying you have made some of us happy. And so I feel my heart fluttering and my lips trembling, and I have to bow silently and turn away and hurry back into the obscurity that fits me best.

Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings (1895), Preface.