For the first time she seemed to realize that she was alone in the world with a stranger, with something more than a stranger,--with a man alien in blood and culture--unknown, perhaps unknowable.
This quote reflects the profound sense of isolation and cultural alienation experienced by individuals in a racially divided society.
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I had thereafter no desire to tear down that veil, to creep through; I held all beyond it in common contempt, and lived above it in a region of blue sky and great wandering shadows.
Years have passed away since then,—ten, twenty, forty; forty years of national life, forty years of renewal and development, and yet the swarthy spectre sits in its accustomed seat at the Nation’s feast.