2
f slighter, up from the heart of my problem and the problems of my people.
Between the sterner flights of logic, I have sought to set some little alightings of what may be poetry. They are tributes to Beauty, unworthy to stand alone; yet perversely, in my mind, now at the end, I know not whether I mean the Thought for the Fancy--or the Fancy for the Thought, or why the book trails off to playing, rather than standing strong on unanswering fact. But this is alway--is it not?--the Riddle of Life.
Many of my words appear here transformed from other publications and I thank the _Atlantic_, the _Independent_, the _Crisis_, and the _Journal of Race Development_ for letting me use them again.
W.E. BURGHARDT DU BOIS.
New York, 1919.
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
POSTSCRIPT ix _Credo_ 1 I. THE SHADOW OF YEARS 3 _A Litany at Atlanta_ 14 II. THE SOULS OF WHITE FOLK 17 _The Riddle of the Sphinx_ 30 III. THE HANDS OF ETHIOPIA 32
_The Princess of the Hither Isles_ 43
IV. OF WORK AND WEALTH 47 _The Second Coming_ 60 V. "THE SERVANT IN THE HOUSE" 63 _Jesus Christ in Texas_ 70 VI. OF THE RULING OF MEN 78 _The Call_ 93 VII. THE DAMNATION OF WOMEN 95 _Children of the Moon_ 109 VIII. THE IMMORTAL CHILD 114 _Almighty Death_ 128 IX. OF BEAUTY AND DEATH 130 _The Prayers of God_ 145 X. THE COMET 149 _A Hymn to the Peoples_ 161
_Credo_
I believe in God, who made of one blood all nations t