The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and Selected Essays

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Charles Waddell Chesnutt. The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and Selected Essays

INTRODUCTION

The Wife of His Youth

Her Virginia Mammy

The Sheriffs Children

A Matter of Principle

Cicely's Dream

The Passing of Grandison

Uncle Wellington's Wives

The Bouquet

The Web of Circumstance

APPENDIX

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Mr. Ryder was going to give a ball. There were several reasons why this was an opportune time for such an event.

Mr. Ryder might aptly be called the dean of the Blue Veins. The original Blue Veins were a little society of colored persons organized in a certain Northern city shortly after the war. Its purpose was to establish and maintain correct social standards among a people whose social condition presented almost unlimited room for improvement. By accident, combined perhaps with some natural affinity, the society consisted of individuals who were, generally speaking, more white than black. Some envious outsider made the suggestion that no one was eligible for membership who was not white enough to show blue veins. The suggestion was readily adopted by those who were not of the favored few, and since that time the society, though possessing a longer and more pretentious name, had been known far and wide as the "Blue Vein Society," and its members as the "Blue Veins."

.....

"But sometimes, you know, there are circumstances which prevent them."

"Ah yes," murmured the other reflectively, and looking at the girl with deeper interest, "circumstances which prevent them. I have known of such a case."

.....