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nydus/The Quest of the Silver FleecePublic

In the post-Reconstruction era, a young Black man and woman from the deep South struggle to overcome the economic and political fleecing of their community.

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Table of Contents

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her out of the swamp of life, and always, when in senseless anger he had half forgotten and deserted her, this vision of elder brotherhood had still remained. Now this attitude was being revolutionized. She was proposing to him a plan of wide scope‚ÅÝ‚Äîa bold regeneration of the land. It was a plan carefully studied out, long thought of and read about. He was asked to be co-worker‚ÅÝ‚Äînay, in a sense to be a follower, for he was ignorant of much.

He hesitated. Then all at once a sense of his utter unworthiness overwhelmed him. Who was he to stand and judge this unselfish woman? Who was he to falter when she called? A sense of his smallness and narrowness, of his priggish blindness, rose like a mockery in his soul. One thing alone held him back: he was not unwilling to be simply human, a learner and a follower; but would he as such ever command the love and respect of this new and inexplicable woman? Would not comradeship on the basis of the new friendship which she insisted on, be the death of love and thoughts of love?

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