In those sombre forests of his striving his own soul rose before him, and he saw himself,—darkly as through a veil; and yet he saw in himself some faint revelation of his power, of his mission.
From his seminal work, this passage describes a moment of profound introspection and self-discovery, where an individual glimpses their inherent power and purpose amidst their struggles.
Share
More from W.E.B. Du Bois
Let the ears of a guilty people tingle with truth, and seventy millions sigh for the righteousness which exalteth nations, in this drear day when human brotherhood is mockery and a snare.
But whichever it is, the meaning is always clear: that sometime, somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not by their skins.
The silently growing assumption of this age is that the probation of races is past, and that the backward races of to-day are of proven inefficiency and not worth the saving.
Hear my cry, O God the Reader; vouchsafe that this my book fall not still-born into the world wilderness.