The Souls of Black Folk
which be darker,—no, not I. But this I know: in yonder Vale of the
Humble stand to-day a million swarthy men, who willingly would
“. . . bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,”—
all this and more would they bear did they but know that this were
sacrifice and not a meaner thing. So surged the thought within that
lone black breast. The Bishop cleared his throat suggestively; then,
recollecting that there was really nothing to say, considerately said
nothing, only sat tapping his foot impatiently. But Alexander Crummell
said, slowly and heavily: “I will never enter your diocese on such
terms.” And saying this, he turned and passed into the Valley of the
Shadow of Death. You might have noted only the physical dying, the
shattered frame and hacking cough; but in that soul lay deeper death
than that. He found a chapel in New York,—the church of his father; he
labored for it in poverty and starvation, scorned by his fellow
priests. Half in despair, he wandered across the sea, a beggar with
outstretched hands. Englishmen clasped them,—Wilberforce and Stanley,
Thirwell and Ingles, and even Froude and Macaulay; Sir Benjamin Brodie
bade him rest awhile at Queen’s College in Cambridge, and there he
lingered, struggling for health of body and mind, until he took his
degree in ’53. Restless still, and unsatisfied, he turned toward
Africa, and for long years, amid the spawn of the slave-smugglers,
sought a new heaven and a new earth.
So the man groped for light; all this was not Life,—it was the
world-wandering of a soul in search of itself, the striving of one who
vainly sought his place in the world, ever haunted by the shadow of a
death that is more than death,—the passing of a soul that has missed
its duty. Twenty years he wandered,—twenty years and more; and yet the
hard rasping question kept gnawing within him, “What, in God’s name, am
I on earth for?” In the narrow New York parish his soul seemed cramped
and smothered. In the fine old air of the English University he heard
the millions wailing over the sea. In the wild fever-cursed swamps of
West Africa he stood helpless and alone.
You will not wonder at his weird pilgrimage,—you who in the swift whirl
of living, amid its cold paradox and marvellous vision, have fronted
life and asked its riddle face to face. And if you find that riddle
hard to read, remember that yonder black boy finds it just a little
harder; if it is difficult for you to find and face your duty, it is a
shade more difficult for him; if your heart sickens in the blood and
dust of battle, remember that to him the dust is thicker and the battle
fiercer. No wonder the wanderers fall! No wonder we point to thief and
murderer, and haunting prostitute, and the never-ending throng of
unhearsed dead! The Valley of the Shadow of Death gives few of its
pilgrims back to the world.
But Alexander Crummell it gave back. Out of the temptation of Hate, and
burned by the fire of Despair, triumphant over Doubt, and steeled by
Sacrifice against Humiliation, he turned at last home across the
waters, humble and strong, gentle and determined. He bent to all the
gibes and prejudices, to all hatred and discrimination, with that rare
courtesy which is the armor of pure souls. He fought among his own, the
low, the grasping, and the wicked, with that unbending righteousness
which is the sword of the just. He never faltered, he seldom
complained; he simply worked, inspiring the young, rebuking the old,
helping the weak, guiding the strong.
So he grew, and brought within his wide influence all that was best of
those who walk within the Veil. They who live without knew not nor
dreamed of that full power within, that mighty inspiration which the
dull gauze of caste decreed that most men should not know. And now that
he is gone, I sweep the Veil away and cry, Lo! the soul to whose dear
memory I bring this little tribute. I can see his face still, dark and
heavy-lined beneath his snowy hair; lighting and shading, now with
inspiration for the future, now in innocent pain at some human
wickedness, now with sorrow at some hard memory from the past. The more
I met Alexander Crummell, the more I felt how much that world was
losing which knew so little of him. In another age he might have sat
among the elders of the land in purple-bordered toga; in another
country mothers might have sung him to the cradles.
He did his work,—he did it nobly and well; and yet I sorrow that here
he worked alone, with so little human sympathy. His name to-day, in
this broad land, means little, and comes to fifty million ears laden
with no incense of memory or emulation. And herein lies the tragedy of
the age: not that men are poor,—all men know something of poverty; not
that men are wicked,—who is good? not that men are ignorant,—what is
Truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men.
He sat one morning gazing toward the sea. He smiled and said, “The gate
is rusty on the hinges.” That night at star-rise a wind came moaning
out of the west to blow the gate ajar, and then the soul I loved fled
like a flame across the Seas, and in its seat sat Death.
I wonder where he is to-day? I wonder if in that dim world beyond, as
he came gliding in, there rose on some wan throne a King,—a dark and
pierced Jew, who knows the writhings of the earthly damned, saying, as
he laid those heart-wrung talents down, “Well done!” while round about
the morning stars sat singing.
XIII.
Of the Coming of John
What bring they ’neath the midnight,
Beside the River-sea?
They bring the human heart wherein
No nightly calm can be;
That droppeth never with the wind,
Nor drieth with the dew;
O calm it, God; thy calm is broad
To cover spirits too.
The river floweth on.
MRS. BROWNING.
Carlisle Street runs westward from the centre of Johnstown, across a
great black bridge, down a hill and up again, by little shops and
meat-markets, past single-storied homes, until suddenly it stops
against a wide green lawn. It is a broad, restful place, with two large
buildings outlined against the west. When at evening the winds come
swelling from the east, and the great pall of the city’s smoke hangs
wearily above the valley, then the red west glows like a dreamland down
Carlisle Street, and, at the tolling of the supper-bell, throws the
passing forms of students in dark silhouette against the sky. Tall and
black, they move slowly by, and seem in the sinister light to flit
before the city like dim warning ghosts. Perhaps they are; for this is
Wells Institute, and these black students have few dealings with the
white city below.
And if you will notice, night after night, there is one dark form that
ever hurries last and late toward the twinkling lights of Swain
Hall,—for Jones is never on time. A long, straggling fellow he is,
brown and hard-haired, who seems to be growing straight out of his
clothes, and walks with a half-apologetic roll. He used perpetually to
set the quiet dining-room into waves of merriment, as he stole to his
place after the bell had tapped for prayers; he seemed so perfectly
awkward. And yet one glance at his face made one forgive him much,—that
broad, good-natured smile in which lay no bit of art or artifice, but
seemed just bubbling good-nature and genuine satisfaction with the
world.
He came to us from Altamaha, away down there beneath the gnarled oaks
of Southeastern Georgia, where the sea croons to the sands and the
sands listen till they sink half drowned beneath the waters, rising
only here and there in long, low islands. The white folk of Altamaha
voted John a good boy,—fine plough-hand, good in the rice-fields, handy
everywhere, and always good-natured and respectful. But they shook
their heads when his mother wanted to send him off to school. “It’ll
spoil him,—ruin him,” they said; and they talked as though they knew.
But full half the black folk followed him proudly to the station, and
carried his queer little trunk and many bundles. And there they shook
and shook hands, and the girls kissed him shyly and the boys clapped
him on the back. So the train came, and he pinched his little sister
lovingly, and put his great arms about his mother’s neck, and then was
away with a puff and a roar into the great yellow world that flamed and
flared about the doubtful pilgrim. Up the coast they hurried, past the
squares and palmettos of Savannah, through the cotton-fields and
through the weary night, to Millville, and came with the morning to the
noise and bustle of Johnstown.
And they that stood behind, that morning in Altamaha, and watched the
train as it noisily bore playmate and brother and son away to the
world, had thereafter one ever-recurring word,—“When John comes.” Then
what parties were to be, and what speakings in the churches; what new
furniture in the front room,—perhaps even a new front room; and there
would be a new schoolhouse, with John as teacher; and then perhaps a
big wedding; all this and more—when John comes. But the white people
shook their heads.
At first he was coming at Christmas-time,—but the vacation proved too
short; and then, the next summer,—but times were hard and schooling
costly, and so, instead, he worked in Johnstown. And so it drifted to
the next summer, and the next,—till playmates scattered, and mother
grew gray, and sister went up to the Judge’s kitchen to work. And still
the legend lingered,—“When John comes.”
Up at the Judge’s they rather liked this refrain; for they too had a
John—a fair-haired, smooth-faced boy, who had played many a long
summer’s day to its close with his darker namesake. “Yes, sir! John is
at Princeton, sir,” said the broad-shouldered gray-haired Judge every
morning as he marched down to the post-office. “Showing the Yankees
what a Southern gentleman can do,” he added; and strode home again with
his letters and papers. Up at the great pillared house they lingered
long over the Princeton letter,—the Judge and his frail wife, his
sister and growing daughters. “It’ll make a man of him,” said the
Judge, “college is the place.” And then he asked the shy little
waitress, “Well, Jennie, how’s your John?” and added reflectively, “Too
bad, too bad your mother sent him off—it will spoil him.” And the
waitress wondered.
Thus in the far-away Southern village the world lay waiting, half
consciously, the coming of two young men, and dreamed in an
inarticulate way of new things that would be done and new thoughts that
all would think. And yet it was singular that few thought of two
Johns,—for the black folk thought of one John, and he was black; and
the white folk thought of another John, and he was white. And neither
world thought the other world’s thought, save with a vague unrest.
Up in Johnstown, at the Institute, we were long puzzled at the case of
John Jones. For a long time the clay seemed unfit for any sort of
moulding. He was loud and boisterous, always laughing and singing, and
never able to work consecutively at anything. He did not know how to
study; he had no idea of thoroughness; and with his tardiness,
carelessness, and appalling good-humor, we were sore perplexed. One
night we sat in faculty-meeting, worried and serious; for Jones was in
trouble again. This last escapade was too much, and so we solemnly
voted “that Jones, on account of repeated disorder and inattention to
work, be suspended for the rest of the term.”
It seemed to us that the first time life ever struck Jones as a really
serious thing was when the Dean told him he must leave school. He
stared at the gray-haired man blankly, with great eyes. “Why,—why,” he