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! 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 habitué 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 Manhattanese,
 * 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 concealment,
 * (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.

Rh