than mediocre tragedians; every amateur actor is a tragedian.  However, this very fact constitutes the opportunity of the future Negro novelist and poet to give the country something new and unknown, in depicting the life, the ambitions, the struggles, and the passions of those of their race who are striving to break the narrow limits of traditions.  A beginning has already been made in that remarkable book by Dr. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk.

Much, too, that I saw while on this trip, in spite of my enthusiasm, was disheartening.  Often I thought of what my millionaire had said to me, and wished myself back in Europe.  The houses in which I had to stay were generally uncomfortable, sometimes worse.  I often had to sleep in a division or compartment with several other people.  Once or twice I was not so fortunate as to find divisions; everybody slept on pallets on the floor.  Frequently I was able to lie down and contemplate the stars which were in their zenith.  The food was at times so distasteful and poorly cooked that I could not eat it.  I remember that once I lived for a week or more on buttermilk, on account of not being able to stomach the fat bacon, the rank turnip-tops, and the heavy damp mixture of meal, salt, and water which was called corn bread.  It was only my ambition to do the work which I had planned that kept me steadfast to my purpose.  Occasionally I would meet with some signs of progress and uplift in even one of these back-wood settlements—­houses built of boards, with windows, and divided into rooms; decent food, and a fair standard of living.  This condition was due to the fact that there was in the community some exceptionally capable Negro farmer whose thrift served as an example.  As I went about among these dull, simple people—­the great majority of them hard working, in their relations with the whites submissive, faithful, and often affectionate, negatively content with their lot—­and contrasted them with those of the race who had been quickened by the forces of thought, I could not but appreciate the logic of the position held by those Southern leaders who have been bold enough to proclaim against the education of the Negro.  They are consistent in their public speech with Southern sentiment and desires.  Those public men of the South who have not been daring or heedless enough to defy the ideals of twentieth-century civilization and of modern humanitarianism and philanthropy, find themselves in the embarrassing situation of preaching one thing and praying for another.  They are in the position of the fashionable woman who is compelled by the laws of polite society to say to her dearest enemy:  “How happy I am to see you!”