Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/13

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INTRODUCTION

The publishers of these "Travels" have asked me to write an introduction to this little volume: it needs no introduction, but I gladly comply, for I am happy to link my name with that of the author.

Occasionally, on red letter days, for two years past these papers have been appearing in the Evening Ledger, and many of us have turned to the editorial page on which they were printed to quiet our nerves preparatory to a glance at the stock market column to discover what has happened to our investments. And reassured on this point, it may be, or discouraged, we have turned back to re-read slowly these little essays which, with a humor all their own and a strong local flavor, have a quality which we supposed had disappeared with the essayists who were writing in London, just a century ago. Finally, the "Travels" became so popular that I have seen men carefully cut them out with their penknives and place them in their wallets to pass on to some appreciative friend later, with the remark, "Have you seen that last thing of Morley's? I cut it out for you."

And so it is that these seeming ephemera have been thought worthy of being collected in a volume, and rightly too, for they have a charm which we shall seek for in vain elsewhere. Which we shall seek for in vain in Philadelphia, perhaps I should have written, for with the publication of

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