Darkwater

to die for that which our souls called sufficient. Like all true beauty this thing of dying was so simple, so matter-of-fact. The boy clothed in h

; we paused from our hurrying hither and thither and walking up and down, and asked in half-whisper:

sitive, said to me yesterday,

too sen

inge or am bumptious or immobile. I am intelle

p all this?" she r

ll not

, again. You

answer

s to work. The women in the street car withdraw their skirts or prefer to stand. The policeman is truculent. The elevator man hates to serve Negroes. My job is insecure because the white union w

ng places di

ll I know which

get angry. I go to a mass-meeting. They star

eek new work. "Our employees would not w

elp in soc

e will wr

. Every laboratory door is closed

mistress, Art; the

ish stories of colored folks of tha

gives me artificial problems. I hesitate,

at me with disbelie

nd tell me that this is wha

not, I a

ly fear it w

fe

courage to rise above a

, I admit; but the terrible t

ou jus

nta. That's the hell of it. Imagine spending your life looking for insults or for hiding places from them-shrinking (instinctively and despite desperate bolsterings of courage) from blow

stairs; here's one to

cions. After all, a cigarette with Cha

n the or

." And in

hether of cannon or dislike? Then the great fear surges in your soul, the real fear-the fear beside which other fears are vain imaginings; the fear lest right there and then you are losing your own soul;

soul for riot and murder. You choke and sputter, and she seeing that you are about to make a "fuss" obeys her orders and throws the tickets at you in contempt. Then you slink to your seat and crouch in the darkness before the film, with eve

ecessarily be subtle and involved. No pert and easy word of encouragement, no merely dark despair, can lay hold of the roots of these things. And first and before all, we cannot forget that this world is beau

ough to sing this, the revelation of reality here is too sacred and the fancy too untrue. Of one world-beauty alone ma

pare the least of the world's beauty with the least of its ugliness-not murder, starvation, and rapine, with love and friendship and creation-but the glory of sea and sky a

lamed and sparkled. The sun had gone, but above the crooked back of cumulus clouds, dark and pink with radiance, and on the other sky aloft to the eastward piled the gorgeous-curtained mists of evening. The radiance faded and a shadowy velvet veiled the mountains, a humid depth of gloom behind which lurked all

n Frenchman's Bay it looms above the town in withering vastness, as if to call all that little world petty save itself. Beneath the cool, wide stare of that great mounta

p here and renew their spirit. This I have done and turning I go to work again. As we go, ever the mountains of Mount Desert rise and

-hulled and smoking, light gray and shining. All the colors of the sea lie about us-gray and yellowing greens and doubtful blues, blacks not quite black, tinted silvers and golds and dreaming whites. Long tongues of dark and golden land lick far out into the tossing waters, and the white gulls sail and scream above them. It is a mighty coast-ground out and pounde

ep up the hills. We are sailing due westward and the sun, yet two hours high, is blazoning a fiery glory on the sea that spreads and gleams like s

tting in a Southern home. Outside the spring of a Georgia February was luring gold to the bushes and languor to the soft air. Around me sat color in human flesh-brown that crimsone

would like to travel

t of a journey see

mmer; with undisturbed loafers and train hands and broken, disreputable settees; to buy a ticket is torture; you stand and stand and wait and wai

want? Wha

persons the wrong change, compels some to purchase their tickets on the train at a high

seats at the end of the car and importunes you to the point of rage to buy cheap candy, Coco-Cola, and worthless, if not vulgar, books. He yells and swaggers, while a continued stream of white men saunters back and forth from the smoker to buy and hear. The white train crew from the baggage car uses the "Jim-Crow" to lounge in and perform their toilet. The conductor appropriates two seats for himself and his papers and yells gruffly for your tickets before the train has scarcely started. It is best not to ask him for information even in the gentlest tones. His informati

looked like an ivory cameo and her dress flowe

re is not in the world a more disgraceful denial of human brotherhood than the "Jim-Crow" car of the southern United States; but, too, just as true, there is nothing mor

rpled banners flame afar, and the low thunder of marching hosts thrills with the thunder of the sea. Athwart his own path, screening a face of fire, he throws cloud masses,

s and stretch their fan-like fingers, lifting themselves p

Ghost rains sweep down, smearing his rugged sides, yet on he writhes, undulant with pine and palm, gleaming until his low

ong, thin thumb, mist-mighty, points shadowy to the Spanish Main, while through the fingers foam the Seven Seas

ego Bay at the beginning of the World War. The cry for service as high as heaven, as wide as human feeling, seemed filling the earth. What were petty slights, silly insults, paltry problems, beside this cal

ished. While the nation was combing the country for volunteers for the regular army, it would not let the Americ

r?" asked many. "Why should

his ilk to except Negroes. We protested to Washington in various ways, and while we were insisting th

trained in "separate" units; and, secondly, it somewh

nited States has a portion of the citizens been so openly and crassly discriminated against by action of the general government. It was disheartening, and on top of it came the celebrated "German plots." It was alleged in various parts of the country with singular unani

read of disloyalty and resentment among the black masses, as they were forced to choose apparently between forced labor or a "Jim-Crow" draft. Manifestly when a minority group is t

pposition arose among colored people themselves. They said we were going too far. "We will obey the law, but to ask for voluntary segregation is to insult ourselves." But strong, sober second thought came to our rescue. We said to our protesting brothers: "We face

sented its final argument, "We have no place for such a camp," the trustees of Howard University said: "Take

ss of colored men. They rapidly became popular with all classes and many encomiums were passed upon their conduct. Thei

rmy has been almost merciless in the requirements which it has put upon this splendid officer. He came through all with flying colors. In Haiti, in Liberia, in western camps, in the Sequoia Forests of California, and finally with Pershing in Mexico,-in every case he triumphed. Just at the time we were looking to the United States government to call him to head the colored officers' training at Des Moines, he was

egro contingents, but in the North with solitary Negroes drafted here and there we had some extraordinary developments. Regiments appeared with one Negro where the Negro had to be separated like a pest and put into a house or even a village by himself while th

did service in the Indian Wars and in the Philippines. It was the first regiment mobilized in the Spanish-American War and it was the regiment th

d proud at the way the soldiers have conducted themselves while in Mexico, and I, General Pershing, can s

f he gets a chance, but rather that they assume with curious unanimity that he has reason to strike, that any other persons in his circumstances or treated as he is would rebel. Instead of seeking to reli

At East St. Louis white strikers on war work killed and mobbed Negro workingmen, and as a result 19 colored soldiers were hanged and 51 imprisoned for life for kil

of Seattle to the somber whirl of Kansas City. Three days I flew from the brute might of Chicago to the air of the Angels in California, scented with golden flowers, where the homes of men crouch low and loving on the good, broad eart

twisted in the hole, leaving its edges livid, scarred, jagged, and pulsing over the white, and red, and purple of its mi

-twirled, disbodied and inverted, stand on their peaks and throw their bowels to the sky. Their earth is air;

l a hedge of black or is it the rampart between heaven and hell? I see greens,-is it moss or giant pines? I see specks that may be boulders. Ever the winds sigh and drop into those sun-swept silences. Ever the gorge lies motionless, unmoved, unti

ere, inert, unfeeling, brute fact-its grandeur is too serene-its beauty too divine! It is not red, and blue, and green, but, ah! the shadows and the sh

ng thought and sin, while hither rose the mountains of the sun, golden, blazing, ensanguined. It was a dream. This blu

down by green pastures and still waters, by great, steep chasms-down by the gnarled and twisted fists of God to the deep, sad moan of

mistily from shoulder down in formless folds of folds; her head, pine-crowned, was set with jeweled stars. I turned away and dreamed-the ca?on,-the awful, its depths called; its heights shuddered. Then suddenly I arose and looked. Her robes were falling. At dim-dawn they hung purplis

call "Nigger-hatred" was not only not there-it could not even be understood. It was a curious monstrosity at which civilized folk laughed or looked puzzled. There was no elegant and elaborate condescension of-"We once had a colored servant"-"My father was an Abolitionist"-"I've always been interested in your people"-there was only the community of kindred souls, the delicate reverence for the Thought that led, the quic

The city was dispossessed. Through its streets-its narrow, winding streets, old and low and dark, carven and quaint,-poured thousands upon thousands of strange feet of khaki-clad foreigners, and the echoes threw back awkward syllables that were never French. Here was

the cold air above the blue Moselle. Soldiers-soldiers everywhere-black soldiers, boys of Washington, Alabama, Philadelphia, Mississippi. Wild and sweet and wooing leapt the strains upon the air. F

ast morning when the thunders of hell called the Ninety-second to its last drive. Memories of bitter humiliations, determined triumphs, great victories, and bugle-calls that sounded from earth to heaven. Like memories framed in the breath of God, my audienc

cavernous wardrobe, a great fireplace invaded by a new and jaunty iron stove. Vast, thick piles of bedding rose in yonder corner. Without was the crowded kitchen and up a half-stair was our bedroom that gave upon a tiny court with arched stone staircase and one green tree. We were a touching family party held together by

crowded, nervous, hurried; full of uniforms and mourning bands, with cafés closed at 9:30-no sugar, scarce bread, and tears so interwined with joy that there is scant difference. Paris has been dreaming a nig

and twin, a giant inkwell daintily stoppered, an ancient pyramid enthroned; beneath, low ramparts wide and mighty; while above, faint-limned

eep the argosies from all earth's ends. We move to this swift home on dun

he towers and the moon. One hears the hiss of lightnings, the deep thunder of human things, and a fevered breathing as of some attendant and invincible Powers.

luxury. Egypt and Abyssinia, Paris and Damascus, London and India caress you by the way; churches stand aloof while the shops swell to emporiums. But all this is nothing. Everything is mankind. Humanity stands and flies and walks and rolls about-the poor, the priceless, the

ohn's above and earth and the sweet green and gold of the Park beneath. Beyond lie all the blue mists and mysteries of distance; beneath, the city rushes and crawls. Behin

where black eyes, black and brown, and frizzled hair curled and sleek, and skins that riot with luscious color and deep, burning blood. Humanity is packed dense in high piles of close-knit homes that lie in layers above gray shops of food and clothes and drink, with here

e. Surely it is a thought-thing, tenuous, intangible; yet just as surely is it true and terrible and not in our little day may you and I lift it. We may feverishly unravel its edges and even climb slow with giant shears to where its ringed and gilded top nestles close to the throne of God. But as we work and climb we shall see through streaming eyes and hear with aching ears, lynching and

whether it be a field of poppies or a great life,-it must end, and the End is part and triumph of the Beauty. I know there are those who envisage a beauty etern

xpected; it is the old evil stretching out and ever seeking the end it cannot find; it may coil and writhe and recur in endless battle to days without end, but it is the same human ill and bitter hurt. But Bea

ion and illogic; they will always be here-perhaps, God send, with lessened volume and force, but here and eternal, while beauty triumphs in its great completion-Death. We cannot conjure the end of all ugliness in eternal beauty, for beauty by its very being an

irds sing and see how the rain rises and blushes and burns and pales and dies in beauty. We would see spring, summer, and the red riot of autumn, and then in winter, beneath the soft white snow,

ayers

f God'

rder r

ll is

d autu

devils, barb

h on hill

somed, cri

ittest

r Alm

arth i

our cunni

n, ou

ies reel

empty

e long

reat Tem

ith the

ur s

ou art

nder of Thy T

ng Thy L

and

rk dam

s hell

e pulp of he

e childre

la

oh

God o

h is

living; deep-

e earth'

e eyes of geni

rs, sun-glows a

ictured

ed phan

ning hea

s drea

shriek and

ng ghos

Thou a

e m

pon us, mise

th, unvei

own th

es above T

s devil's dan

e

ea

st's Gr

he

ve me

thunder I

the sile

he

d, a litt

range to ta

on

s g

ook

t Th

I did n

it wet w

my broth

his hands

for Thee

t so; n

, and over bla

brown,

y Chosen B

urde

d Thy K

r wives and

eir souls

killed these

lized th

bber, diamond

o, once, and

hed a

ed and

rd hi

life-light

rackle ther

ed him

h

h

ched

e, God!

t awful word

d riven thing

sp-was

in-is i

ese bullets p

e wars of a

time, drawn b

lies and thef

hy Crucif

t funny, li

egar and

kingdom here

nd stucco dr

e

at low and

cr

we

sob that ren

God

pr

ong prayer

winds on d

God

ou, Lord,

neede

neede

neede

wounde

ever dreame

age,

co