te literature. "We cannot publish stories of colored folks of that
type." It's the only type I know.

This is my life. It makes me idiotic. It gives me artificial problems. I
hesitate, I rush, I waver. In fine,--I am sensitive!

My pale friend looks at me with disbelief and curling tongue.

"Do you mean to sit there and tell me that this is what happens to you
each day?"

Certainly not, I answer low.

"Then you only fear it will happen?"

I fear!

"Well, haven't you the courage to rise above a--almost a craven fear?"

Quite--quite craven is my fear, I admit; but the terrible thing
is--these things do happen!

"But you just said--"

They do happen. Not all each day,--surely not. But now and then--now
seldom, now, sudden; now after a week, now in a chain of awful minutes;
not everywhere, but anywhere--in Boston, in Atlanta. That's the hell of
it. Imagine spending your life looking for insults or for hiding places
from them--shrinking (instinctively and despite desperate bolsterings of
courage) from blows that are not always but ever; not each day, but each
week, each month, each year. Just, perhaps, as you have choked back the
craven fear and cried, "I am and will be the master of my--"

"No more tickets downstairs; here's one to the smoking gallery."

You hesitate. You beat back your suspicions. After all, a cigarette with
Charlie Chaplin--then a white man pushes by--

"Three in the orchestra."

"Yes, sir." And in he goes.

Suddenly your heart chills. You turn yourself away toward the golden
twinkle of the purple night and hesitate again. What's the use? Why not
always yield--always take what's offered,--always bow to force, whether
of cannon or dislike? Then the great fear surges in your soul, the real
fear--the fear beside which other fears are vain imaginings; the fear
lest right there and then you are losing your own soul; that you are
losing your own soul and the soul of a people; that millions of unborn
children, black and gold and mauve, are being there and then despoiled
by you because you are a coward and dare not fight!

Suddenly that silly orchestra seat and the cavorting of a comedian with
funny feet become matters of life, death, and immortality; you grasp the
pillars of the universe and strain as you sway back to that befrilled
ticket girl. You grip your soul for riot and murder. You choke and
sputter, and she seeing that you are about to make a "fuss" obeys her
orders and throws the tic