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!