I was looking a long while for Intentions,

For a clew to 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--(the purport and aim of all the past,)

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

It is in languages, social customs, literatures, arts,

It is in the broad show of artificial things, ships, machinery,

politics, creeds, modern improvements, and the interchange of nations,

All for the modern--all for the average man of to-day.