Chapter VII: Part 7

Literature should be not only history but prophecy, not only the record of our striving but also the mirror of our hopes and dreams. Let us have the forward as well as the backward look. In England we speak of the Liberalism of Lloyd George as distinct from the old Liberalism of Gladstone. Some such distinction needs to be made in our own country. The disfranchisement of any number or group of citizens, real or attempted, in the United States of America in the third decade of the twentieth century, is an anachronism. We may try to turn back the clock, but the hands of Time move inexorably forward. Let us be worthy of the new day.

The Negro himself as the irony of American civilization is the supreme challenge to American literature. Like Banquo’s ghost he will not down. All faith and hope, all love and longing, all rapture and despair, look out from the eyes of this man who is ever with us and whom we never understand. Gentle as a child, he has also the strength of Hercules. The more we think we know him the more unfathomable he is. No wonder a well known senator who maligned the Negro felt that he was paralyzed because the race prayed that God might afflict him. No wonder is it that, submerged and enthralled, the Negro still rises from the depths to cast by his magic an irresistible spell over the American mind.

Transcriber’s Notes

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.
Surrounding characters have been used to indicate _italics_
or +small caps+
Variant spellings of “column” have been retained
p. xiii removed period following “_H. L. Mencken_”
p. xiv added comma in “Peabody, Josephine”
p. xiv changed “Santayanna’s” to “Santayana’s”
p. 35 changed “I’lle” to “L’Ile”
p. 35 added apostrophe to “Island Nights’ Entertainments”
p. 40 changed “idefinite” to “indefinite”
p. 43 changed “Thackery” to “Thackeray”
p. 50 changed “pefectly” to “perfectly”
p. 60 added accent to “My Ántonia”
p. 74 hyphenated “Belle-Ile”
p. 82 added colon following “character”
p. 90 changed “Dicken’s” to “Dickens’s”
p. 90 corrected quotation marks in the block quote
p. 106 changed “or” to “of” in “I thought no more of”
p. 113 titles of books by Mr. Maurice have been left as-is.
p. 115 changed “Neuve-Sainte Genevieve” to “Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve”
in “in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve”
p. 128 added apostrophe to “Apostles’ Creed”
p. 174 changed “function” to “functions” in “its old functions”
p. 179 added apostrophe to “St. Mark’s”
p. 189 added accent to “Lemaître”
p. 212 changed “guaranted” to “guaranteed”
p. 215 added “a” in “It is a humiliating admission”
p. 248 “_á_” changed to “_à_”