Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/15

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
INTRODUCTION
ix

Morley sees everything not red—but rosy—which is a very different matter.

It is a thousand pities that Morley agreed to go to New York just at the arrival of our new Mayor, who has promised that our streets shall be swept and garnished,—and I, for one, believe that he will keep his word,—but perhaps he is leaving Philadelphia on this very account, for I remember that neatness never had any charm for him. Have we not, all of us, read of the condition of his roll-top desk?

Be this as it may. We are to lose him, and I, for one, am desolate. Students and men of the world we have, but of "saunterers," in these days of big business, of "snappers-up of unconsidered trifles," we have too few. We have all kinds of cusses but Autolycusses. We can ill spare Morley to New York. But wherever he goes, our good wishes go with him, and he may yet, when he has had his fling in the "metrolopus," as Francis Wilson used to call the great city, rid himself of his motley and, assuming a collegiate gown, return to his Alma Mater, Haverford, there to carry on the splendid tradition of his and my old friend Gummere; for beneath his assumption of the vagabond, Morley has the learning as well as the tastes and traditions of the scholar, as will be evident to the reader of these pages.

A. Edward Newton

Daylesford, Pa.,
January 20, 1920