the Veil, raising it that you may view faintly its deeper
recesses,--the meaning of its religion, the passion of its
human sorrow, and the struggle of its greater souls. All this I
have ended with a tale twice told but seldom written, and a
chapter of song.

Some of these thoughts of mine have seen the light before
in other guise. For kindly consenting to their republication
here, in altered and extended form, I must thank the publishers
of the Atlantic Monthly, The World's Work, the Dial, The
New World, and the Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science. Before each chapter, as now
printed, stands a bar of the Sorrow Songs,--some echo of
haunting melody from the only American music which welled
up from black souls in the dark past. And, finally, need I add
that I who speak here am bone of the bone and flesh of the
flesh of them that live within the Veil?

W.E.B Du B.
ATLANTA, GA., FEB. 1, 1903.



I

Of Our Spiritual Strivings

O water, voice of my heart, crying in the sand,
All night long crying with a mournful cry,
As I lie and listen, and cannot understand