Work and wealth are the mighty levers to lift this old new land; thrift and toil and saving are the highways to new hopes and new possibilities; and yet the warning is needed lest the wily Hippomenes tempt Atalanta to thinking that golden apples are the goal of racing, and not mere incidents by the way.
Du Bois acknowledges the importance of economic progress while cautioning against the pursuit of wealth as an end in itself.
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But they should not keep these prizes, I said; some, all, I would wrest from them.
He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world.
This, then, is the end of his striving: to be a co-worker in the kingdom of culture, to escape both death and isolation, to husband and use his best powers and his latent genius.