I have been down into the entrails of earth—­down, down by straight and staring cliffs—­down by sounding waters and sun-strewn meadows; down by green pastures and still waters, by great, steep chasms—­down by the gnarled and twisted fists of God to the deep, sad moan of the yellow river that did this thing of wonder,—­a little winding river with death in its depth and a crown of glory in its flying hair.

I have seen what eye of man was never meant to see.  I have profaned the sanctuary.  I have looked upon the dread disrobing of the Night, and yet I live.  Ere I hid my head she was standing in her cavern halls, glowing coldly westward—­her feet were blackness:  her robes, empurpled, flowed mistily from shoulder down in formless folds of folds; her head, pine-crowned, was set with jeweled stars.  I turned away and dreamed—­the canon,—­the awful, its depths called; its heights shuddered.  Then suddenly I arose and looked.  Her robes were falling.  At dim-dawn they hung purplish-green and black.  Slowly she stripped them from her gaunt and shapely limbs—­her cold, gray garments shot with shadows stood revealed.  Down dropped the black-blue robes, gray-pearled and slipped, leaving a filmy, silken, misty thing, and underneath I glimpsed her limbs of utter light.

* * * * *

My God!  For what am I thankful this night?  For nothing.  For nothing but the most commonplace of commonplaces; a table of gentlewomen and gentlemen—­soft-spoken, sweet-tempered, full of human sympathy, who made me, a stranger, one of them.  Ours was a fellowship of common books, common knowledge, mighty aims.  We could laugh and joke and think as friends—­and the Thing—­the hateful, murderous, dirty Thing which in American we call “Nigger-hatred” was not only not there—­it could not even be understood.  It was a curious monstrosity at which civilized folk laughed or looked puzzled.  There was no elegant and elaborate condescension of—­“We once had a colored servant”—­“My father was an Abolitionist”—­“I’ve always been interested in your people”—­there was only the community of kindred souls, the delicate reverence for the Thought that led, the quick deference to the guest.  You left in quiet regret, knowing that they were not discussing you behind your back with lies and license.  God!  It was simply human decency and I had to be thankful for it because I am an American Negro, and white America, with saving exceptions, is cruel to everything that has black blood—­and this was Paris, in the years of salvation, 1919.  Fellow blacks, we must join the democracy of Europe.

* * * * *