I WAS looking a long while for a clue to the history of the past for <br /> myself, and for these chants--and now I have found it; <br /> It is not in those paged fables in the libraries, (them I neither <br /> accept nor reject;) <br /> It is no more in the legends than in all else; <br /> It is in the present--it is this earth to-day; <br /> It is in Democracy--(the purport and aim of all the past;) <br /> It is the life of one man or one woman to-day--the average man of <br /> to-day; <br /> It is in languages, social customs, literatures, arts; <br /> It is in the broad show of artificial things, ships, machinery, <br /> politics, creeds, modern improvements, and the interchange of <br /> nations, <br /> All for the average man of to-day.<br /><br />Walt Whitman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-was-looking-a-long-while/
