with selfishness. Was it
more a desire to help those I considered my people, or more a desire
to distinguish myself, which was leading me back to the United States?
That is a question I have never definitely answered.

For several weeks longer I was in a troubled state of mind. Added to
the fact that I was loath to leave my good friend was the weight of
the question he had aroused in my mind, whether I was not making a
fatal mistake. I suffered more than one sleepless night during that
time. Finally, I settled the question on purely selfish grounds, in
accordance with my millionaire's philosophy. I argued that music
offered me a better future than anything else I had any knowledge of,
and, in opposition to my friend's opinion, that I should have greater
chances of attracting attention as a colored composer than as a white
one. But I must own that I also felt stirred by an unselfish desire
to voice all the joys and sorrows, the hopes and ambitions, of the
American Negro, in classic musical form.

When my mind was fully made up, I told my friend. He asked me when I
intended to start. I replied that I would do so at once. He then asked
me how much money I had. I told him that I had saved several hundred
dollars out of sums he had given me. He gave me a check for five
hundred dollars, told me to write to him in care of his Paris bankers
if I ever needed his help, wished me good luck, and bade me good-by.
All this he did almost coldly; and I often wondered whether he was in
a hurry to get rid of what he considered a fool, or whether he was
striving to hide deeper feelings.

And so I separated from the man who was, all in all, the best friend I
ever had, except my mother, the man who exerted the greatest influence
ever brought into my life, except that exerted by my mother. My
affection for him was so strong, my recollections of him are so
distinct, he was such a peculiar and striking character, that I could
easily fill several chapters with reminiscences of him; but for fear
of tiring the reader I shall go on with my narration.

I decided to go to Liverpool and take ship for Boston. I still had an
uneasy feeling about returning to New York; and in a few days I found
myself aboard ship headed for home.

X

Among the first of my fellow-passengers of whom I took any particular
notice was a tall, broad-shouldered, almost gigantic, colored man.
His dark-brown face was clean-shaven; he was well-dressed and bore a
d