Of the Meaning of Progress — Vocabulary
W. E. B. DuBois
(Auto-generated)

I trembled when I heard the patter of little feet down the dusty road, and saw the growing row of dark solemn faces and bright eager eyes facing me.†1 more

The gaunt farmer made me welcome, and Josie, hearing my errand, told me anxiously that they wanted a school over the hill; that but once since the war had a teacher been there; that she herself longed to learn,—and thus she ran on, talking fast and loud, with much earnestness and energy.†1 more

The father was a quiet, simple soul, calmly ignorant, with no touch of vulgarity.†1 more

The gaunt farmer made me welcome, and Josie, hearing my errand, told me anxiously that they wanted a school over the hill; that but once since the war had a teacher been there; that she herself longed to learn,—and thus she ran on, talking fast and loud, with much earnestness and energy.†

I peeped through the window half reverently, and found things that were more familiar.†

The mass of those to whom slavery was a dim recollection of childhood found the world a puzzling thing: it asked little of them, and they answered with little, and yet it ridiculed their offering.†

Furniture was scarce.†

There were the Burkes,—two brown and yellow lads, and a tiny haughty-eyed girl.†

Such a paradox they could not understand, and therefore sank into listless indifference, or shiftlessness, or reckless bravado.†

Such a paradox they could not understand, and therefore sank into listless indifference, or shiftlessness, or reckless bravado.†

At first I used to be a little alarmed at the approach of bedtime in the one lone bedroom, but embarrassment was very deftly avoided.†

Such a paradox they could not understand, and therefore sank into listless indifference, or shiftlessness, or reckless bravado.†

I feel the deep weariness of heart and limb as ten, eight, six miles stretch relentlessly ahead;

The girls looked at the hill in wistful longing, and the boys fretted and haunted Alexandria.†

She had driven her husband away, and while I taught school a strange man lived there, big and jovial, and people talked.†1 more

The front room was full of great fat white beds, scrupulously neat; and there were bad chromos on the walls, and a tired centre-table.†

Such a paradox they could not understand, and therefore sank into listless indifference, or shiftlessness, or reckless bravado.†

The crazy foundation stones still marked the former site of my poor little cabin, and not far away, on six weary boulders, perched a jaunty board house, perhaps twenty by thirty feet, with three windows and a door that locked.†

And all this life and love and strife and failure—is it the twilight of nightfall or the flush of some faint-dawning day?

There was with them no affectation.†