It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.

You, don’t be afraid.  I said that it was intended that you should perish in the ghetto, perish by never being allowed to go behind the white man’s definitions, by never being allowed to spell your proper name.  You have, and many of us have, defeated this intention; and, by a terrible law, a terrible paradox, those innocents who believed that your imprisonment made them safe are losing their grasp of reality.   But these men are your brothers—your lost, younger brothers. 

  You think             It’s a happy beat?   Listen to it closely: Ain’t you heard something underneath like a—               What did I say?

I have as much right As the other fellow has             To stand On my two feet And own the land.

By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light He did a lazy sway. . . . He did a lazy sway. . . . To the tune o’ those Weary Blues. With his ebony hands on each ivory key He made that poor piano moan with melody.

Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina8Quando fiam ceu chelidon9—O swallow swallowLe Prince d’Aquitaine a la tour abolie10

She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,2 5 5 And puts a record on the gramophone. “This music crept by me upon the waters”2And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street

Good night ... night

the ideal of fostering and developing the traits and talents of the Negro, not in opposition to or contempt for other races, but rather in large conformity to the greater ideals of the American Republic, in order that some day on American soil two world-races may give each to each those characteristics both so sadly lack

the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land. Whatever of good may have come in these years of change, the shadow of a deep disappointment rests upon the Negro people,—a disappointment all the more bitter because the unattained ideal was unbounded save by the simple ignorance of a lowly people.

Throughout history, the powers of single black men flash here and there like falling stars, and die sometimes before the world has rightly gauged their brightness.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;        Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,— The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;       And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

We ar e not pleading merely forcourage and sincerity; we are suggesting that the properstuff of fiction is a little other than custom would haveus believe it

which is one word materialists, we mean by it that theywrite of unimportant things; that they spend immenseskill and immense industry making the trivial and thetransitory appear the true and the enduring

We do not come to write better; all that we

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it    Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   

All art is quite useless.

“For there is no friend like a sister In calm or stormy weather; To cheer one on the tedious way, To fetch one if one goes astray, To lift one if one totters down, To strengthen whilst one stands.”

Hugg’d Lizzie but not twice or thrice; Her gleaming locks show’d not one thread of grey, Her breath was sweet as May And light danced in her eyes.

But visibly demurring, Grunting and snarling. One call’d her proud, Cross-grain’d, uncivil;

The yoke and stir Poor Laura could not hear; Long’d to buy fruit to comfort her, But fear’d to pay too dear. She thought of Jeanie in her grave, Who should have been a bride;

When the first cock crow’d his warning, Neat like bees, as sweet and busy, Laura rose with Lizzie: Fetch’d in honey, milk’d the cows, Air’d and set to rights the house, Kneaded cakes of whitest wheat, Cakes for dainty mouths to eat, Next churn’d butter, whipp’d up cream, Fed their poultry, sat and sew’d; Talk’d as modest maidens should: Lizzie with an open heart, Laura in an absent dream, One content, one sick in part; One warbling for the mere bright day’s delight, One longing for the night.

And sugar-sweet their sap.”

She pined and pined away; Sought them by night and day, Found them no more, but dwindled and grew grey; Then fell with the first snow, While to this day no grass will grow Where she lies low: I planted daisies there a year ago That never blow.

How should it cloy with length of use? She suck’d and suck’d and suck’d the more Fruits which that unknown orchard bore; She suck’d until her lips were sore;

“You have much gold upon your head,” They answer’d all together: “Buy from us with a golden curl.”

Laura stretch’d her gleaming neck Like a rush-imbedded swan, Like a lily from the beck, Like a moonlit poplar branch, Like a vessel at the launch When its last restraint is gone.

One lugs a golden dish Of many pounds weight. How fair the vine must grow Whose grapes are so luscious; How warm the wind must blow Through those fruit bushes.”

Our grapes fresh from the vine, Pomegranates full and fine, Dates and sharp bullaces, Rare pears and greengages, Damsons and bilberries, Taste them and try: Currants and gooseberries, Bright-fire-like barberries, Figs to fill your mouth, Citrons from the South, Sweet to tongue and sound to eye; Come buy, come buy.”

For others, though, it was a breathtakingly radical call to cast off the heavy weight of Victorian moralism and Christian doctrine in the name of art.

Themes of perverse sexuality or cruelty and violence shockingly dismantled what many Victorians felt were necessary or even natural lines drawn between aesthetic beauty and repellent or ‘ugly’ morality.

A great deal: you are good to those who are good to you. It is all I ever desire to be. If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way: they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should—so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again.”

and seeing before me a terrible red glare, crossed with thick black bars. I heard voices, too, speaking with a hollow sound, and as if muffled by a rush of wind or water: agitation, uncertainty, and an all-predominating sense of terror confused my faculties. Ere long, I became aware that some one was handling me; lifting me up and supporting me in a sitting posture, and that more tenderly than I had ever been raised or upheld before.

Mrs. Reed herself, at far intervals, visited it to review the contents of a certain secret drawer in the wardrobe, where were stored divers parchments, her jewel-casket, and a miniature of her deceased husband

“Take her away to the red-room, and lock her in there.” Four hands were immediately laid upon me, and I was borne upstairs.

“You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mama says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen’s children like us, and eat the same meals we do, and wear clothes at our mama’s expense. Now, I’ll teach you to rummage my bookshelves: for they are mine; all the house belongs to me, or will do in a few years. Go and stand by the door, out of the way of the mirror and the windows.”

“Say, ‘What do you want, Master Reed?’” was the answer. “I want you to come here;” and seating himself in an arm-chair, he intimated by a gesture that I was to approach and stand before him.

They manifest themselves therefore as commodities, or have the form of commodities, only in so far as they have two forms, a physical or natural form, and a value form.

Diamonds are of very rare occurrence on the earth’s surface, and hence their discovery costs, on an average, a great deal of labour time. Consequently much labour is represented in a small compass.

As use values, commodities are, above all, of different qualities, but as exchange values they are merely different quantities, and consequently do not contain an atom of use value.

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

I might in process of time (although I now found it impossible) renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption.

But this discovery was so great and overwhelming that all the steps by which I had been progressively led to it were obliterated, and I beheld only the result

She died calmly, and her countenance expressed affection even in death. I need not describe the feelings of those whose dearest ties are rent by that most irreparable evil, the void that presents itself to the soul, and the despair that is exhibited on the countenance. It is so long before the mind can persuade itself that she whom we saw every day and whose very existence appeared a part of our own can have departed for ever—that the brightness of a beloved eye can have been extinguished and the sound of a voice so familiar and dear to the ear can be hushed, never more to be heard.

guardian angel of my life

Having paid his debts, therefore, in the most honourable manner

Were we among the tamer scenes of nature I might fear to encounter your unbelief, perhaps your ridicule; but many things will appear possible in these wild and mysterious regions which would provoke the laughter of those unacquainted with the ever-varied powers of nature;

You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been

From this time a new spirit of life animated the decaying frame of the stranger

“I have, doubtless, excited your curiosity, as well as that of these good people; but you are too considerate to make inquiries.” “Certainly; it would indeed be very impertinent and inhuman in me to trouble you with any inquisitiveness of mine.” “And yet you rescued me from a strange and perilous situation; you have benevolently restored me to life.”

animation

“Before I come on board your vessel,” said he, “will you have the kindness to inform me whither you are bound?”

Last Monday (July 31st) we were nearly surrounded by ice, which closed in the ship on all sides, scarcely leaving her the sea-room in which she floated. Our situation was somewhat dangerous, especially as we were compassed round by a very thick fog. We accordingly lay to, hoping that some change would take place in the atmosphere and weather. About two o’clock the mist cleared away, and we beheld, stretched out in every direction, vast and irregular plains of ice, which seemed to have no end. Some of my comrades groaned, and my own mind began to grow watchful with anxious thoughts, when a strange sight suddenly attracted our attention and diverted our solicitude from our own situation. We perceived a low carriage, fixed on a sledge and drawn by dogs, pass on towards the north, at the distance of half a mile; a being which had the shape of a man, but apparently of gigantic stature, sat in the sledge and guided the dogs. We watched the rapid progress of the traveller with our telescopes until he was lost among the distant inequalities of the ice.

but then he is wholly uneducated: he is as silent as a Turk, and a kind of ignorant carelessness attends him, which, while it renders his conduct the more astonishing, detracts from the interest and sympathy which otherwise he would command.

I heard of him first in rather a romantic manner, from a lady who owes to him the happiness of her life. This, briefly, is his story.

keeping; and I greatly need a friend who would have sense enough not to despise me as romantic, and affection enough for me to endeavour to regulate my mind.

when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy; if I am assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavour to sustain me in dejection. I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling. I desire the company of a man who could sympathise with me, whose eyes would reply to mine

I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never before visited, and may tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man.

I strove with all my strength to get her away from him; for she was all black and blue with bruises. He had beat her with his fist, and almost killed her. The people gave me credit for getting her away. He turned round and began to lick me.

My father, who lived at Crow-Lane, over the salt-water channel, at last heard of my being hid up in the cavern, and he came and took me back to my master.

and gradually rose to fifty-seven,*

, and I never thought we should be separated or sold away from her.

I grew so fond of my nursling that it was my greatest delight to walk out with him by the sea-shore,

Mrs. Williams comforted me by saying that I should still be near the home I was about to quit, and might come over and see her and my kindred whenever I could obtain leave of absence from Mrs. Pruden.

I was bought along with my mother by old Captain Darrel, and given to his grandchild, little Miss Betsey Williams.

'The sight of the rooms below and of the gratings above filled me both with melancholy and horror. I found soon afterwards a fire of indignation kindling within me…'

He had been kidnapped in what is now Nigeria at the age of 11, sold to a Virginia planter, then bought by a British naval officer, Captain Pascal, and later sold on to a Quaker merchant.

'loved England for its freedom and for the many blessings he enjoyed', but 'the grand object of English navigators, indeed of all Christian navigators is money - money - money…'

Haitian Revolution was a complex series of conflicts and alliances between different classes, populations, and political interests.

Toussaint and other black leaders of Saint-Domingue helped to lead the only Atlantic slave society which successfully defeated its oppressors

sympathetic connections between nature’s organic growth and human creativity,

 That will forget thee; thou hast great allies; Thy friends are exultations, agonies,   And love, and man’s unconquerable mind.

Whether the whistling Rustic tend his plough   Within thy hearing, or thy head be now Pillowed in some deep dungeon’s earless den;—

sea;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;— Little we see in Nature that is ours;

Oh! raise us up, return to us again;And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart:Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,

In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heartThe lowliest duties on herself did lay.

Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

ould frame thy fearful symmetry?

What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain?

What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

hat the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain?