---
title: Postscript
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/library/dubois-darkwater-1920/01-postscript/
description: 'Postscript, from Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil by W. E. B. Du Bois.'
section: FRAME
---

![Illustration: an interwar radio-and-newsreel intelligence collage with a 1930s map of Europe and propaganda poster proofs.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-interwar.jpg)

[Library](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/dubois-darkwater-1920/) · Book · [Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/dubois-darkwater-1920/)

# Postscript

This text

- **Work:** [Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/dubois-darkwater-1920/)
- **Author:** W. E. B. Du Bois
- **Published:** 1920

Full details

- **Rights:** Published in the United States in 1920, so in the public domain in the United States; Project Gutenberg marks it "Public domain in the USA". Du Bois died in 1963, so in countries that use life plus 70 years the work stays protected until the end of 2033.

Chapters

1. [Postscript](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/dubois-darkwater-1920/01-postscript/)
2. [Credo](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/dubois-darkwater-1920/02-credo/)
3. [1. The Shadow of Years](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/dubois-darkwater-1920/03-the-shadow-of-years/)
4. [2. The Souls of White Folk](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/dubois-darkwater-1920/04-the-souls-of-white-folk/)
5. [3. The Hands of Ethiopia](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/dubois-darkwater-1920/05-the-hands-of-ethiopia/)
6. [4. Of Work and Wealth](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/dubois-darkwater-1920/06-of-work-and-wealth/)
7. [5. "The Servant in the House"](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/dubois-darkwater-1920/07-the-servant-in-the-house/)
8. [6. Of the Ruling of Men](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/dubois-darkwater-1920/08-of-the-ruling-of-men/)
9. [7. The Damnation of Women](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/dubois-darkwater-1920/09-the-damnation-of-women/)
10. [8. The Immortal Child](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/dubois-darkwater-1920/10-the-immortal-child/)
11. [9. Of Beauty and Death](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/dubois-darkwater-1920/11-of-beauty-and-death/)
12. [10. The Comet](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/dubois-darkwater-1920/12-the-comet/)

[← About this text](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/dubois-darkwater-1920/) [Credo →](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/dubois-darkwater-1920/02-credo/)

**Content note:** An American book of 1920 that uses the racial terms of its day, describes lynching, colonial violence and war, and includes a story of a child's death. Shown as printed. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

These are the things of which men think, who live: of their own selves and the dwelling place of their fathers; of their neighbors; of work and service; of rule and reason and women and children; of Beauty and Death and War. To this thinking I have only to add a point of view: I have been in the world, but not of it. I have seen the human drama from a veiled corner, where all the outer tragedy and comedy have reproduced themselves in microcosm within. From this inner torment of souls the human scene without has interpreted itself to me in unusual and even illuminating ways. For this reason, and this alone, I venture to write again on themes on which great souls have already said greater words, in the hope that I may strike here and there a half-tone, newer even if slighter, up from the heart of my problem and the problems of my people.

Between the sterner flights of logic, I have sought to set some little alightings of what may be poetry. They are tributes to Beauty, unworthy to stand alone; yet perversely, in my mind, now at the end, I know not whether I mean the Thought for the Fancy--or the Fancy for the Thought, or why the book trails off to playing, rather than standing strong on unanswering fact. But this is alway--is it not?--the Riddle of Life.

Many of my words appear here transformed from other publications and I thank the *Atlantic*, the *Independent*, the *Crisis*, and the *Journal of Race Development* for letting me use them again.

W.E. BURGHARDT DU BOIS. New York, 1919.

[← About this text](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/dubois-darkwater-1920/) [Credo →](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/dubois-darkwater-1920/02-credo/)

Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil, W. E. B. Du Bois. Published in the United States in 1920, so in the public domain in the United States; Project Gutenberg marks it "Public domain in the USA". Du Bois died in 1963, so in countries that use life plus 70 years the work stays protected until the end of 2033. [Provenance and rights](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/dubois-darkwater-1920/).