Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/194

 world. Will this wonderful strip of river-bank be allowed to pass into slime and smoke as the lower Schuylkill has done?

The stream lap-laps against a narrow shelf of sandy beach, where there are a number of logs for comfortable sitting. A water rat ran quietly up the bank as I slid down it. A steamer passed up the river, her windows aflame with the last of the sunlight. Birds were merry in the scrub willows, and big dragon-flies flittering about. The light grew softer and grayer, while a concave moon swung high over the water. Motorboats chugged gently by, while a big dredge further upstream continued to clang and grind. By and by the river was empty. It had been a very hot day, and a great idea occurred to me. In the good old brownish water of the Delaware I had what my friend Mifflin McGill used to call a "surreptious" swim.

 

magic moves in the air of Valley Forge. There is the same subtle plucking at heart and nerves that one feels when, coming home from abroad, passing up some salty harbor on a ship, he sees his own flag rippling from a home staff. It is a sudden inner vision of the meaning of America. It is a realization of the continuity of history, a sense of the imperishable quality of human virtue. And today, when this nation stands on the sill of a new era, ready to surrender for the sake of