University of Virginia Library

HISTORIAN! you who celebrate bygones!
You have explored the outward, the surface of the
     races—the life that has exhibited itself,
You have treated man as the creature of politics,
     aggregates, rulers, and priests;
But now I also, arriving, contribute something:
I, an habituè of the Alleghanies, treat man as he is in
     the influences of Nature, in himself, in his own
     inalienable rights,
Advancing, to give the spirit and the traits of new
     Democratic ages, myself, personally,
(Let the future behold them all in me—Me, so
     puzzling and contradictory—Me, a Manhattan-
     ese, the most loving and arrogant of men;)
I do not tell the usual facts, proved by records and
     documents,
What I tell, (talking to every born American,)
     requires no further proof than he or she who
     will hear me, will furnish, by silently meditating
     alone;
I press the pulse of the life that has hitherto seldom
     exhibited itself, but has generally sought con-
     cealment, (the great pride of man, in himself,)
I illuminate feelings, faults, yearnings, hopes—I
     have come at last, no more ashamed nor afraid;
Chanter of Personality, outlining a history yet to be,
I project the ideal man, the American of the future.