marks of these things and their metes and bounds, the current and course of population, the monuments of the past, the changing fashion of each decade and the desire of the present, these are all written in this moving tide of houses which has flooded all the wood-*grown fields of two centuries ago. Generation by generation has seen a wider comfort, a higher level of life, an improving education and more abundant resource for the Many for whom this city has always existed. Dull, sordid, narrow, much of this life has been. From its dawn, it has had its seasons of stagnant corruption, and Penn but wrote the despair of all who have served it since, yet no man has labored and lived in it but has come to know its charm, to feel its life, to trust to the sure tides of its being, welling always towards a more complete comfort, and to love this vast amorphous city which broods over its children with a perpetual home nurture.
 | An image should appear at this position in the text. To use the entire page scan as a placeholder, edit this page and replace "{{missing image}}" with "{{raw image|Historic towns of the middle states (IA historictownsofm02powe).pdf/375}}". Otherwise, if you are able to provide the image then please do so. For guidance, see Wikisource:Image guidelines and Help:Adding images. |  |
