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19.

I WAS looking a long while for the history of the          past for myself, and for these Chants—and now          I have found it,

It is not in those paged fables in the libraries, (them          I neither accept nor reject,)

It is no more in the legends than in all else,

It is in the present—it is this earth to-day,

It is in Democracy—in this America—the old world          also,

It is the life of one man or one woman to-day, the          average man of to-day;

It is languages, social customs, literatures, arts,

It is the broad show of artificial things, ships, ma-          chinery, politics, creeds, modern improvements,          and the interchanges of nations,

All for the average man of to-day.

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