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He’s so doggone narrow-minded he could look through a keyhole with both eyes.

“The real problem,” Eberly burst out, “is that these regulations were written by people who live in a world that must be tightly controlled. They all share the same basic, underlying view that society must be hierarchical and controlled from the top.”

Wilmot felt pleased that the discussion was moving into his field of interest. “Aren’t all societies controlled from the top? Even so-called democracies are ruled by a small elite group; the only difference is that a democracy can shift its elite without bloodshed and give the general populace the illusion that they have made a telling change.”

And yet this very singleness of vision and thorough oneness with his age is a mark of the successful man. It is as though Nature needs must make men narrow in order to give them force.

After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world, — a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness, — an American, a Negro; two warring souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, — this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self.

It is, then, the strife of all honorable men and women of the twentieth century to see that in the future competition of the races the survival of the fittest shall mean the triumph of the good, the beautiful, and the true; that we may be able to preserve for future civilization all that is really fine and noble and strong, and not continue to put a premium on greed and imprudence and cruelty.

A book, a woman, and a flask of wine:

The three make heaven for me; it may be thine

Is some sour place of singing cold and bare —

But then, I never said thy heaven was mine.

Would but some wing'ed Angel ere too late

Arrest the yet unfolded Roll of Fate,

And make the stern Recorder otherwise

Enregister, or quite obliterate!

What! from his helpless Creature be repaid

Pure Gold for what he lent him dross-allay'd —

Sue for a Debt he never did contract,

And cannot answer — Oh, the sorry trade!

And when Thyself with shining Foot shall pass

Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on The Grass,

And in Thy joyous Errand reach the Spot

Where I made one — turn down an empty Glass!

Yon rising Moon that looks for us again —

How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;

How oft hereafter rising look for us

Through this same Garden — and for one in vain!

But here are wine and beautiful young girls,

Be wise and hide your Sorrows in their curls,

Dive as you will in life's mysterious sea,

You shall not bring us any better pearls.

Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide,

And wash the Body whence the Life has died,

And lay me, shrouded in the living Leaf,

By some not unfrequented Garden-side.