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.