There are a great many colored people who are ashamed of the cake-walk, but I think they ought to be proud of it.  It is my opinion that the colored people of this country have done four things which refute the oft-advanced theory that they are an absolutely inferior race, which demonstrate that they have originality and artistic conception, and, what is more, the power of creating that which can influence and appeal universally.  The first two of these are the Uncle Remus stories, collected by Joel Chandler Harris, and the Jubilee songs, to which the Fisk singers made the public and the skilled musicians of both America and Europe listen.  The other two are ragtime music and the cake-walk.  No one who has traveled can question the world-conquering influence of ragtime, and I do not think it would be an exaggeration to say that in Europe the United States is popularly known better by ragtime than by anything else it has produced in a generation.  In Paris they call it American music.  The newspapers have already told how the practice of intricate cake-walk steps has taken up the time of European royalty and nobility.  These are lower forms of art, but they give evidence of a power that will some day be applied to the higher forms.  In this measure, at least, and aside from the number of prominent individuals the colored people of the United States have produced, the race has been a world influence; and all of the Indians between Alaska and Patagonia haven’t done as much.

Just when I was beginning to look upon Jacksonville as my permanent home and was beginning to plan about marrying the young school teacher, raising a family, and working in a cigar factory the rest of my life, for some reason, which I do not now remember, the factory at which I worked was indefinitely shut down.  Some of the men got work in other factories in town; some decided to go to Key West and Tampa, others made up their minds to go to New York for work.  All at once a desire like a fever seized me to see the North again and I cast my lot with those bound for New York.

VI

We steamed up into New York Harbor late one afternoon in spring.  The last efforts of the sun were being put forth in turning the waters of the bay to glistening gold; the green islands on either side, in spite of their warlike mountings, looked calm and peaceful; the buildings of the town shone out in a reflected light which gave the city an air of enchantment; and, truly, it is an enchanted spot.  New York City is the most fatally fascinating thing in America.  She sits like a great witch at the gate of the country, showing her alluring white face and hiding her crooked hands and feet under the folds of her wide garments—­constantly enticing thousands from far within, and tempting those who come from across the seas to go no farther.  And all these become the victims of her caprice.  Some she at once crushes beneath her cruel feet; others she condemns to a fate like that of galley slaves; a few she favors and fondles, riding them high on the bubbles of fortune; then with a sudden breath she blows the bubbles out and laughs mockingly as she watches them fall.