in fact, Nature has taken great pains to conceal the fact, and the popular error of which he complains is practically inevitable. Principal Booker T. Washington is a negro in every lineament, and not, one would say, of the most refined type. His skin is neither black nor copper-coloured, but rather of a sort of cloudy yellow, 46to which the other shades are, perhaps, æsthetically preferable. His hair, his ears, his nose, his jaw, all place his race beyond dispute; only his grave, candid, forceful eyes announce a leader of men. He is above middle height, and heavily built; seated, he is apt to sprawl. He has a curious trick of drawing back the corners of his mouth, so as to reveal almost the whole of his range of teeth. At first I took this for a slow smile, heralding some humorous remark; but humour is not Mr. Washington’s strong point. His grin is a nervous habit, and scarcely a pretty one.[17] Altogether, in talking with him, you have no difficulty in remembering the race of your interlocutor, and if you make an untactful remark—if you let the irrepressible instinct of race-superiority slip out—you have all the more reason to be ashamed. 46 With Mr. Du Bois the case is totally different. His own demonstration notwithstanding, I cannot believe that there is more of the negro in him than in (say) Alexandre Dumas fils. Meeting this quiet, cultivated, French-looking gentleman, with his pointed beard, olive complexion, and dark melancholy eyes, it is hard to believe that he is born, as he himself phrases it, “within the Veil.” In appearance he reminded me a good deal of Gabriele d’Annunzio, only that D’Annunzio 47happens to be fair, while Mr. Du Bois has something more like the average Italian complexion. In speaking to this man of fine academic culture—this typical college don, one would have said—the difficulty was to feel any difference of race and traditions, and not to assume, tactlessly, an identical standpoint. 47 These two men are unquestionably the leaders of their race to-day; but their ideals and their policy are as different as their physique. Mr. Washington leads from within; Mr. Du Bois from without. Should he read this phrase he will probably resent it; but it may be none the less true. Mr. Washington could never have been anything else than a negro; he represents all that is best in the race, but nothing that is not in the race. Mr. Du Bois is a negro only from outside pressure. I do not mean, of course, that there are no negro traits in his character, but that it is outside pressure—the tyranny of the white man—that has made him fiercely,
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