Ben Hecht

“ After I had talked to him awhile in his cell I realized that he owed his impending death to his sideburns and his van dyke. They had crystalized the fatal illusion of his greatness.
A nigger about to be hanged is as a rule less interesting than a white man in a similar predicament. Mystery and terror seem not to denude the black of his character, but merely to accentuate it. Under their influence he grows mystical and tuneful. Emotion does not twist his face into dramatic awkwardness. Awaiting death he becomes like a child, graceful, poignant and expectant. ”

“ It watched men become respectful to this thing. It noted how there was a voice and a manner, a miraculous collection of words and ideas which the world deferentially greeted as Dr. Samuel Williams.
Nothing would have happened had it not been for this naive face peering out of the dark. But when Dr. Williams attired himself in a frock coat and a stiff white shirt and patent leather shoes, and when he turned his keen eyes and aristocratic beard to the mirror, the naive one in a transport of adulation began to whisper. ”

“ Yet to label illusion insanity is a wholesale evasion. The man had been educated in American schools. He had started out to be a physician. His soul had not kept pace with his intellect. In a curious way he had become awed of himself, of his learning and of the sideburns and van dyke that decorated his black face.
Gradually a duality had developed. He had begun referring to himself in the third person. He felt fearful and puzzled of this thing that was in his head—thought. His soul was like a naive face peering out of a dark and familiar wilderness. ”