I know histhry isn’t thrue, Hinnissy, because it aint 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 the people fightin’, gettin’ dhrunk, makin’ love, gettin’ married, owin’ the groceryman 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 av thim that writes about their own times examines th’ tongue an’ feels th’ pulse an’ makes a wrong diagnosis. 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.

—Finley Peter Dunne’s “Mr. Dooley”