I am only one of many whose fate it has been to live a page of modern history.

We are the strands of the cable that binds the Old World to the New.

As the ships that brought us link the shores of Europe and America, so our lives span the bitter sea of racial differences and misunderstandings.

Before we came, the New World knew not the Old; but since we have begun to come, the Young World has taken the Old by the hand, and the two are learning to march side by side, seeking a common destiny.
Perhaps I have taken needless trouble to furnish an excuse for my autobiography.

My age alone, my true age, would be reason enough for my writing.