"I know histhry isn't thrue, Hinnessy, because it ain't like what
I see ivry day in Halsted Sthreet. If any wan comes along with a
histhry iv Greece or Rome that'll show me th' people fightin',
gettin' dhrunk, makin' love, gettin' married, owin' th' grocery
man an' bein' without hard-coal, I'll believe they was a Greece
or Rome, but not befure. Historyans is like doctors. They are
always lookin' f'r symptoms. Those iv them that writes about their
own times examines th' tongue an' feels th' pulse an' makes a wrong
dygnosis. Th' other kind iv histhry is a post-mortem examination.
It tells ye what a counthry died iv. But I'd like to know what
it lived iv."