Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil

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DARKWATER

Voices from within the Veil

W.E.B. DU BOIS




Originally published in 1920 by Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York.




AD NINAM

May 12, 1896




POSTSCRIPT


These are the things of which men think, who live: of their own selves
and the dwelling place of their fathers; of their neighbors; of work and
service; of rule and reason and women and children; of Beauty and Death
and War. To this thinking I have only to add a point of view: I have
been in the world, but not of it. I have seen the human drama from a
veiled corner, where all the outer tragedy and comedy have reproduced
themselves in microcosm within. From this inner torment of souls the
human scene without has interpreted itself to me in unusual and even
illuminating ways. For this reason, and this alone, I venture to write
again on themes on which great souls have already said greater words, in
the hope that I may strike here and there a half-tone, newer even if
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 that on earth do
dwell. I believe that all men, black and brown and white, are brothers,
varying through time and opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but
differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and the
possibility of infinite development.

Especially do I believe in the Negro Race: in the beauty of its genius,
the sweetness of its soul, and its strength in that meekness which shall
yet inherit this turbulent earth.

I believe in Pride of race and lineage and self: in pride of self so
deep as to scorn injustice to other selves; in pride of lineage so great
as to despise no man's father; in pride of race so chivalrous as neither
to offer bastardy to the weak nor beg wedlock of the strong, knowing
that men may be brothers in Christ, even though they be not
brothers-in-law.

I believe in Service--humble, reverent service, from the blackening of
boots to the whitening of souls; for Work is Heaven, Idleness Hell, and
Wage is the "Well done!" of the Master, who summoned all them that labor
and are heavy laden, making no distinction between the black, sweating
cotton hands of Georgia and the first families of Virginia, since all
distinction not based on deed is devilish and not divine.

I believe in the Devil and his angels, who wantonly work to narrow the
opportunity of struggling human beings, especially if they be black; who
spit in the faces of the fallen, strike them that cannot strike again,
believe the worst and work to prove it, hating the image which their
Maker stamped on a brother's soul.

I believe in the Prince of Peace. I believe that War is Murder. I
believe that armies and navies are at bottom the tinsel and braggadocio
of oppression and wrong, and I believe that the wicked conquest of
weaker and darker nations by nations whiter and stronger but foreshadows
the death of that strength.