The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street,
And then before men were aware,
A city's crowded thoroughfare,
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis.
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.
Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed the zigzag calf about;
And o'er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way
And lost one hundred years a day;
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.
A moral lesson this might teach,
Were I ordained and called to preach.
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf-paths of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.
They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in and forth and back
And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the paths that others do.
But how the wise old wood-gods laugh
Who saw the first primeval calf!
Ah, many things this tale might teach--But
I am not ordained to preach.
PHILADELPHIA
I was fortunate in the city over which William Penn, in giant effigy,
keeps watch and ward, in having as guide, philosopher and friend Mr. A.
Edward Newton, the Johnsonian, and the author of one of the best
examples of "amateur" literature that I know--"The Amenities of Book-
Collecting.
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