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diff --git a/38076.txt b/38076.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..47dcf1c --- /dev/null +++ b/38076.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10619 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Our Philadelphia, by Elizabeth Robins Pennell + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Our Philadelphia + +Author: Elizabeth Robins Pennell + +Illustrator: Joseph Pennell + +Release Date: November 21, 2011 [EBook #38076] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUR PHILADELPHIA *** + + + + +Produced by Judith Wirawan, Suzanne Shell, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +----------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Notes: | + | | + | Words surrounded by _ are italicized. | + | | + | A number of obvious errors have been corrected in this text. | + | For a complete list, please see the bottom of this document. | + | | + +----------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + +OUR PHILADELPHIA + + + + +[Illustration: LOOKING UP BROAD STREET FROM SPRUCE STREET] + + + + +OUR PHILADELPHIA + +DESCRIBED BY ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL +ILLUSTRATED WITH ONE HUNDRED & FIVE +LITHOGRAPHS BY JOSEPH PENNELL + +PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON +J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY +MCMXIV + +COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY + +PUBLISHED OCTOBER, 1914 + +PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY +AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS +PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A. + + + + +PREFACE + + +To-day, when it is the American born in the Ghetto, or Syria, or some +other remote part of the earth, whose recollections are prized, it may +seem as if the following pages called for an apology. I have none to +make. They were written simply for the pleasure of gathering together my +old memories of a town that, as my native place, is dear to me and my +new impressions of it after an absence of a quarter of a century. But +now I have finished I add to this pleasure in my book the pleasant +belief that it will have its value for others, if only for two reasons. +In the first place, J.'s drawings which illustrate it are his record of +the old Philadelphia that has passed and the new Philadelphia that is +passing--a record that in a few years it will be impossible for anybody +to make, so continually is Philadelphia changing. In the second, my +story of Philadelphia, perfect or imperfect, may in as short a time be +equally impossible for anybody to repeat, since I am one of those +old-fashioned Americans, American by birth with many generations of +American fore-fathers, who are rapidly becoming rare creatures among the +hordes of new-fashioned Americans who were anything and everything else +no longer than a year or a week or an hour ago. + +ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL 3 ADELPHI TERRACE HOUSE, LONDON May, 1914 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I. AN EXPLANATION 1 + + II. A CHILD IN PHILADELPHIA 24 + + III. A CHILD IN PHILADELPHIA (Continued) 48 + + IV. AT THE CONVENT 72 + + V. TRANSITIONAL 104 + + VI. THE SOCIAL ADVENTURE 130 + + VII. THE SOCIAL ADVENTURE: THE ASSEMBLY 154 + + VIII. A QUESTION OF CREED 175 + + IX. THE FIRST AWAKENING 205 + + X. THE MIRACLE OF WORK 233 + + XI. THE ROMANCE OF WORK 268 + + XII. PHILADELPHIA AND LITERATURE 304 + + XIII. PHILADELPHIA AND LITERATURE (Continued) 332 + + XIV. PHILADELPHIA AND ART 368 + + XV. PHILADELPHIA AND ART (Continued) 390 + + XVI. PHILADELPHIA AT TABLE 413 + + XVII. PHILADELPHIA AT TABLE (Continued) 433 + + XVIII. PHILADELPHIA AFTER A QUARTER OF A CENTURY 451 + + XIX. PHILADELPHIA AFTER A QUARTER OF A CENTURY (Continued) 477 + + XX. PHILADELPHIA AFTER A QUARTER OF A CENTURY (Continued) 509 + + INDEX 543 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + PAGE + +LOOKING UP BROAD STREET FROM SPRUCE STREET _Frontispiece_ + +DELANCEY PLACE 3 + +"PORTICO ROW," SPRUCE STREET 7 + +ARCH STREET MEETING HOUSE 13 + +THE SCHUYLKILL SOUTH FROM CALLOWHILL STREET 17 + +FRIENDS' GRAVEYARD, GERMANTOWN 21 + +IN RITTENHOUSE SQUARE 25 + +THE PENNSYLVANIA HOSPITAL FROM THE GROUNDS 29 + +"ELEVENTH AND SPRUCE" 33 + +DRAWING ROOM AT CLIVEDEN 37 + +BACK-YARDS, ST. PETER'S SPIRE IN THE DISTANCE 45 + +INDEPENDENCE SQUARE AND THE STATE HOUSE 51 + +CHRIST CHURCH INTERIOR 57 + +CLASSIC FAIRMOUNT 65 + +DOWN PINE STREET 69 + +LOUDOUN, MAIN STREET, GERMANTOWN 75 + +ENTRANCE TO FAIRMOUNT AND THE WASHINGTON STATUE 83 + +MAIN STREET, GERMANTOWN 89 + +ARCH STREET MEETING 95 + +THE TRAIN SHED, BROAD STREET STATION 99 + +ST. PETER'S, INTERIOR 105 + +THE PENNSYLVANIA HOSPITAL FROM PINE STREET 109 + +SECOND STREET MARKET 115 + +FOURTH AND ARCH STREETS MEETING HOUSE 121 + +JOHNSON HOUSE, GERMANTOWN 127 + +THE CUSTOMS HOUSE 131 + +UNDER BROAD STREET STATION AT FIFTEENTH STREET 135 + +THE PHILADELPHIA CLUB, THIRTEENTH AND WALNUT STREETS 141 + +THE NEW RITZ-CARLTON; THE FINISHING TOUCHES; THE WALNUT STREET + ADDITION HAS SINCE BEEN MADE 149 + +THE HALL, STENTON 155 + +"PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND INTO ALL THE INHABITANTS + THEREOF" 159 + +BED ROOM, STENTON, THE HOME OF JAMES LOGAN 163 + +THE TUNNEL IN THE PARK 167 + +THE BOAT HOUSES ON THE SCHUYLKILL 171 + +THE PULPIT, ST. PETER'S 179 + +THE CATHEDRAL, LOGAN SQUARE 185 + +CHRIST CHURCH, FROM SECOND STREET 189 + +FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, SEVENTH STREET AND WASHINGTON SQUARE 195 + +OLD SWEDES' CHURCH 201 + +INDEPENDENCE HALL: THE ORIGINAL DESK ON WHICH THE DECLARATION + OF INDEPENDENCE WAS SIGNED AND THE CHAIR USED BY THE PRESIDENT + OF CONGRESS, JOHN HANCOCK, IN 1776 207 + +PHILADELPHIA FROM BELMONT 211 + +THE DINING ROOM, STENTON 217 + +DOWN THE AISLE AT CHRIST CHURCH 223 + +THE BRIDGE ACROSS MARKET STREET FROM BROAD STREET STATION 229 + +STATE HOUSE YARD 235 + +THE PENITENTIARY 247 + +ON THE READING, AT SIXTEENTH STREET 251 + +LOCUST STREET EAST FROM BROAD STREET 255 + +BROAD STREET, LOOKING SOUTH FROM ABOVE ARCH STREET 261 + +CLINTON STREET, WITH THE PENNSYLVANIA HOSPITAL AT ITS END 265 + +THE CHERRY STREET STAIRS NEAR THE RIVER 269 + +THE MORRIS HOUSE ON EIGHTH STREET 273 + +THE OLD COACHING-INN YARD 279 + +FRANKLIN'S GRAVE 285 + +ARCH STREET MEETING 291 + +CLIVEDEN, THE CHEW HOUSE 295 + +BARTRAM'S 301 + +CARPENTER'S HALL, INTERIOR 305 + +MAIN STREET, GERMANTOWN 311 + +ARCH STREET MEETING--INTERIOR 317 + +FRONT AND CALLOWHILL 321 + +THE ELEVATED AT MARKET STREET WHARF 327 + +DR. FURNESS'S HOUSE, WEST WASHINGTON SQUARE, JUST BEFORE IT WAS + PULLED DOWN 333 + +THE GERMANTOWN ACADEMY 339 + +THE STATE HOUSE FROM INDEPENDENCE SQUARE 345 + +"THE LITTLE STREET OF CLUBS," CAMAC STREET ABOVE SPRUCE STREET 349 + +DOWN SANSOM STREET FROM EIGHTH STREET. THE LOW HOUSES AT + SEVENTH STREET HAVE SINCE BEEN TORN DOWN AND THE WESTERN + END OF THE CURTIS BUILDING NOW OCCUPIES THEIR PLACE 353 + +THE DOUBLE STAIRWAY IN THE PENNSYLVANIA HOSPITAL 359 + +CARPENTER'S HALL, BUILT 1771 365 + +INDEPENDENCE HALL--LENGTHWISE VIEW 369 + +GIRARD COLLEGE 377 + +UPSALA, GERMANTOWN 383 + +THE HALL AT CLIVEDEN, THE CHEW HOUSE 387 + +THE OLD WATER-WORKS, FAIRMOUNT PARK 391 + +THE STAIRWAY, STATE HOUSE 397 + +UPPER ROOM, STENTON 403 + +WYCK--THE DOORWAY FROM WITHIN 409 + +THE PHILADELPHIA DISPENSARY FROM INDEPENDENCE SQUARE 415 + +MORRIS HOUSE, GERMANTOWN 419 + +THE STATE HOUSE COLONNADE 425 + +THE SMITH MEMORIAL, WEST FAIRMOUNT PARK 431 + +THE BASIN, OLD WATER-WORKS 435 + +GIRARD STREET 441 + +THE UNION LEAGUE, FROM BROAD AND CHESTNUT STREETS 415 + +BROAD STREET STATION 453 + +WANAMAKER'S 457 + +ST. PETER'S CHURCHYARD 461 + +CITY HALL FROM THE SCHUYLKILL 465 + +CHESTNUT STREET BRIDGE 469 + +THE NARROW STREET 475 + +THE MARKET STREET ELEVATED AT THE DELAWARE END 479 + +THE RAILROAD BRIDGES AT FALLS OF SCHUYLKILL 483 + +THE PARKWAY PERGOLAS 487 + +MARKET STREET WEST OF THE SCHUYLKILL 491 + +MANHEIM CRICKET GROUND 497 + +DOCK STREET AND THE EXCHANGE 501 + +THE LOCOMOTIVE YARD, WEST PHILADELPHIA 507 + +THE GIRARD TRUST COMPANY 511 + +TWELFTH STREET MEETING HOUSE 515 + +WYCK 519 + +THE MASSED SKY-SCRAPERS ABOVE THE HOUSETOPS 523 + +SUNSET. PHILADELPHIA FROM ACROSS THE DELAWARE 527 + +THE UNION LEAGUE BETWEEN THE SKY-SCRAPERS 531 + +UP BROAD STREET FROM LEAGUE ISLAND 535 + +FROM GRAY'S FERRY 539 + + + + +OUR PHILADELPHIA + + + + +CHAPTER I: AN EXPLANATION + + +I + +I think I have a right to call myself a Philadelphian, though I am not +sure if Philadelphia is of the same opinion. I was born in Philadelphia, +as my Father was before me, but my ancestors, having had the sense to +emigrate to America in time to make me as American as an American can +be, were then so inconsiderate as to waste a couple of centuries in +Virginia and Maryland, and my Grandfather was the first of the family to +settle in a town where it is important, if you belong at all, to have +belonged from the beginning. However, J.'s ancestors, with greater +wisdom, became at the earliest available moment not only Philadelphians, +but Philadelphia Friends, and how very much more that means +Philadelphians know without my telling them. And so, as he does belong +from the beginning and as I would have belonged had I had my choice, for +I would rather be a Philadelphian than any other sort of American. I do +not see why I cannot call myself one despite the blunder of my +forefathers in so long calling themselves something else. + +I might hope that my affection alone for Philadelphia would give me the +right, were I not Philadelphian enough to know that Philadelphia is, as +it always was and always will be, cheerfully indifferent to whatever +love its citizens may have to offer it. I can hardly suppose my claim +for gratitude greater than that of its Founder or the long succession of +Philadelphians between his time and mine who have loved it and been +snubbed or bullied in return. Indeed, in the face of this Philadelphia +indifference, my affection seems so superfluous that I often wonder why +it should be so strong. But wise or foolish, there it is, strengthening +with the years whether I will or no,--a deeper rooted sentiment than I +thought I was capable of for the town with which the happiest memories +of my childhood are associated, where the first irresponsible days of my +youth were spent, which never ceased to be home to me during the more +than a quarter of a century I lived away from it. + +[Illustration: DELANCEY PLACE] + +Besides, Philadelphia attracts me apart from what it may stand for in +memory or from the charm sentiment may lend to it. I love its +beauty--the beauty of tranquil streets, of red brick houses with white +marble steps, of pleasant green shade, of that peaceful look of the past +Philadelphians cross the ocean to rave over in the little old dead towns +of England and Holland--a beauty that is now fast disappearing. I love +its character--the calm, the dignity, the reticence with which it has +kept up through the centuries with the American pace, the airs of a +demure country village with which it has done the work and earned the +money of a big bustling town, the cloistered seclusion with which it +enjoys its luxury and hides its palaces behind its plain brick fronts--a +character that also is fast going. I love its history, though I am no +historian, for the little I know colours its beauty and accounts for its +character. + + +II + +It is not for nothing that I begin with this flourish of my birth +certificate and public confession of love. I want to establish my right, +first, to call myself a Philadelphian, and then, to talk about +Philadelphia as freely as we only can talk about the places and the +people and the things we belong to and care for. I would not dare to +take such a liberty with Philadelphia if my references were not in +order, for, as a Philadelphian, I appreciate the risk. Not that I have +any idea of writing the history of Philadelphia. I hope I have the +horror, said to be peculiar to all generous minds, of what are commonly +called facts, and also the intelligence not to attempt what I know I +cannot do. Another good reason is that the history has already been +written more than once. Philadelphians, almost from their cave-dwelling +period, have seemed conscious of the eye of posterity upon them. They +had hardly landed on the banks of the Delaware before they began to +write alarmingly long letters which they preserved, and elaborate +diaries which they kept with equal care. And the letter-writing, +diary-keeping fever was so in the air that strangers in the town caught +it: from Richard Castleman to John Adams, from John Adams to Charles +Dickens, from Charles Dickens to Henry James, every visitor, with +writing for profession or amusement, has had more or less to say about +it--usually more. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania has gathered +the old material together; our indispensable antiquary, John Watson, has +gleaned the odds and ends left by the way; and no end of modern writers +in Philadelphia have ransacked their stores of information: Dr. Weir +Mitchell making novels out of them, Mr. Sydney Fisher and Miss Agnes +Repplier, history; Mr. Hampton Carson using them as the basis of further +research; Miss Anne Hollingsworth Wharton resurrecting Colonial life and +society and fashions from them, Mr. Eberlein and Mr. Lippincott, the +genealogy of Colonial houses; other patriotic citizens helping +themselves in one way or another; until, among them all, they have +filled a large library and prepared a sufficiently formidable task for +the historian of Philadelphia in generations to come without my adding +to his burden. + + +III + +It is an amusing library, as Philadelphians may believe now they are +getting over the bad habit into which they had fallen of belittling +their town, much in their town's fashion of belittling them. I am +afraid it was partly their fault if the rest of America fell into the +same habit. As I recall my old feelings and attitude, it seems to me +that in my day we must have been brought up to look down upon +Philadelphia. The town surely cut a poor figure in my school books, and +the purplest patches in Colonial history must have been there reserved +for New England or New York, Virginia or the Carolinas, for any and +every colony rather than the Province of Pennsylvania, or I would not +have left school better posted in the legends of Powhatan and Pocahontas +than in the life of William Penn, and more edified by the burning of +witches and the tracking of Indians than by the struggles of Friends to +give every man the liberty to go to Heaven his own way. The amiable +contempt in which Philadelphians held William Penn revealed itself in +their free-and-easy way of speaking of him, if they spoke of him at all, +as Billy Penn, though Penn would have been the last to invite the +familiarity. Probably few outside the Society of Friends could have said +just what he had done for their town, or just what they owed to him. If +I am not mistaken, the prevailing idea was that his chief greatness +consisted in the cleverness with which he fooled the land out of the +Indians for a handful of beads. + +[Illustration: "PORTICO ROW" SPRUCE STREET] + +The present generation could not be so ignorant if it wanted to. The +statue of Penn, in full-skirted coat and broad-brimmed hat, dominating +Philadelphia from the ugly tower of the Public Buildings, though it may +not be a thing of beauty, at least suggests to Philadelphians that it +would not have been put up there, the most conspicuous landmark from the +streets and the surrounding country, if Penn had not been somebody, or +done something, of some consequence. As for the rest of America, I doubt +if it often comes so near to Philadelphia that it can see the statue. +The last time I went to New York from London I met on the steamer a man +from Michigan who had obviously been but a short time before a man from +Cork, and who was so keen to stop in Philadelphia on his way West that I +might have been astonished had I not heard so much of the miraculously +rapid Americanization of the modern emigrant. Most people do not want to +stop in Philadelphia unless they have business there, and he had none, +and naturally I could not imagine any other motive except the desire to +see the town which is of the greatest historic importance in the United +States and which still possesses proofs of it. But the man from Michigan +gave me to understand, and pretty quick too, that he did not know +Philadelphia had a history and old buildings to prove it, and what was +more, he did not care if it had. He guessed history wasn't in his line. +What he wanted was to take the next train to Atlantic City; folks he +knew had been there and said it was great. And I rather think this is +the way most Americans, from America or from Cork, feel about +Philadelphia. + + +IV + +It is not my affair to enlighten them or anybody else. I have a more +personal object in view. Philadelphia may mean to other people nothing +at all--that is their loss; I am concerned entirely with what it means +to me. In those wonderful Eighteen-Nineties, now written about with awe +by the younger generation as if no less prehistoric than the period of +the Renaissance, until it makes me feel a new Methusaleh to own that I +lived and worked through them, we were always being told that art should +be the artist's record of nature seen through a temperament, criticism +the critic's story of his adventures among the world's masterpieces, and +though I am neither artist nor critic, though I am not sure what a +temperament is, much less if I have one, still I fancy this expresses in +a way the end I have set myself in writing about Philadelphia. For I +should like, if I can, to record my personal impressions of the town I +love and to give my adventures among the beautiful things, the humorous +things, the tragic things it contains in more than ample measure. My +interest is in my personal experiences, but these have been coloured by +the history of Philadelphia since I have dabbled in it, and have become +richer and more amusing. I have learned, with age and reading and +travelling, that Philadelphia as it is cannot really be known without +some knowledge of Philadelphia as it was: also that Philadelphia, both +as it is and as it was, is worth knowing. Americans will wander to the +ends of the earth to study the psychology--as they call it of people +they never could understand however hard they tried; they will shut +themselves up in a remote town of Italy or Spain to master the secrets +of its prehistoric past; they will squander months in the Bibliotheque +Nationale or the British Museum to get at the true atmosphere of Paris +or London; when, had they only stopped their journey at Broad Street +Station in Philadelphia or, if they were Philadelphians, never taken the +train out of it, they could have had all the psychology and secrets and +atmosphere they could ask for, with much less trouble and expense. + +I have never been to any town anywhere, and I have been to many in my +time, that has more decided character than Philadelphia, or to any where +this character is more difficult to understand if the clue is not got +from the past. For instance, people talk about Philadelphia as if its +one talent was for sleep, while the truth is, taking the sum of its +achievements, no other American town has done so much hard work, no +other has accomplished so much for the country. Impressed as we are by +the fact, it would be impossible to account for the reputation if it +were not known that the people who made Philadelphia presented the same +puzzling contradiction in their own lives--the only people who ever +understood how to be in the world and not of it. + +[Illustration: ARCH STREET MEETING HOUSE] + +The usual alternative to not being of the world is to be in a cloister +or to live like a hermit, to accept a role in common or to renounce +social intercourse. But the Friends did not have to shut themselves up +to conquer worldliness, they did not have to renounce the world's work +and its rewards. For "affluence of the world's goods," Isaac Norris, +writing from Philadelphia, could felicitate Jonathan Dickinson, "knowing +both thyself and dear wife have hearts and souls fit to use them." That +was better than shirking temptation in a monk's cell or a philosopher's +tub. If George Fox wore a leather suit, it was because he found it +convenient, but William Penn, for whom it would have been highly +inconvenient, had no scruple in dressing like other men of his position +and wearing the blue ribbon of office. Nor because religion was freed +from all unessential ornament, was the house stripped of comfort and +luxury. I write about Friends with hesitation. I have been married to +one now for many years and can realize the better therefore that none +save Friends can write of themselves with authority. But I hope I am +right in thinking, as I always have thought since I read Thomas Elwood's +_Memoirs_, that their attitude is excellently explained in his account +of his first visit to the Penningtons "after they were become Quakers" +when, though he was astonished at the new gravity of their look and +behaviour, he found Guli Springett amusing herself in the garden and the +dinner "handsome." For the world's goods never being the end they were +to the World's People, Friends were as undisturbed by their possession +as by their absence and, as a consequence, could meet and accept life, +whether its gifts were wealth and power or poverty and obscurity, with +the serenity few other men have found outside the cloister. Moreover, +they could speak the truth, calling a spade a spade, or their enemy the +scabbed sheep, or smooth silly man, or vile fellow, or inhuman monster, +or villain infecting the air with a hellish stench, he no doubt was, and +never for a moment lose their tempers. This serenity--this "still +strength"--is as the poles apart from the phlegmatic, constitutional +slowness of the Dutch in New York or, on the other hand, from the +tranquillity Henry James traces in progressive descent from taste, +tradition, and history, even from the philosopher's calm of achieved +indifference, and Friends, having carried it to perfection in their own +conduct, left it as a legacy to their town. + +[Illustration: THE SCHUYLKILL SOUTH FROM CALLOWHILL STREET] + +The usual American town, when it hustles, lets nobody overlook the fact +that it is hustling. But Philadelphia has done its work as calmly as the +Friends have done theirs, never boasting of its prosperity, never +shouting its success and riches from the house-top, and its dignified +serenity has been mistaken for sleep. Whistler used to say that if the +General does not tell the world he has won the battle, the world will +never hear of it. The trouble with Philadelphia is that it has kept its +triumph to itself. But we have got so far from the old Friends that no +harm can be done if Philadelphians begin to interpret their town's +serenity to a world capable of confusing it with drowsiness. If America +is ready to forget, if for long Philadelphians were as ready, it is high +time we should remember ourselves and remind America of the services +Philadelphia has rendered to the country, and its good taste in +rendering them with so little fuss that all the country has done in +return is to laugh at Philadelphia as a back number. + + +V + +Philadelphians have grown accustomed to the laugh. We have heard it +since we were in our cradles. We are used to have other Americans come +to our town and,--in the face of our factory chimneys smoking along the +Schuylkill and our ship-building yards in full swing on the Delaware, +and our locomotives pouring out over the world by I do not know how many +thousands from the works in Broad Street, and our mills going at full +pressure in the "Little England" of Kensington, in Frankford and +Germantown,--in the face of our busy schools and hospitals and +academies,--in the face of our stores and banks and charities,--that is, +in the face of our industry, our learning, and our philanthropy that +have given tips to the whole country,--see only our sleep-laden eyes and +hear only our sluggish snores. We know the foolish stories they tell. We +have heard many more times than we can count of the Bostonian who +retires to Philadelphia for complete intellectual rest, and the New +Yorker who when he has a day off comes to spend a week in Philadelphia, +and the Philadelphian who goes to New York to eat the snails he cannot +catch in his own back-yard. We have heard until we have it by heart +that Philadelphia is a cemetery, and the road to it, the Road to +Yesterday. We are so familiar with the venerable _cliche_ that we can +but wonder at its gift of eternal youth. Never was there a jest that +wore so well with those who make it. The comic column is rarely complete +without it, and it is forever cropping up where least expected. In the +last American novel I opened Philadelphia was described as hanging on to +the last strap of the last car to the sound of Gabriel's horn on +Judgment Day; in the last American magazine story I read the +Philadelphia heroine by her Philadelphia calm conquered the cowboys of +the west, as Friends of old disarmed their judges in court. In the +general Americanization of London, even the London papers have seized +upon the slowness of Philadelphia as a joke for Londoners to roar at. Li +Hung Chang couldn't visit Philadelphia without dozing through the +ceremonies in his honour and noting the appropriateness of it in his +diary. And so it goes on, the witticism to-day apparently as fresh as it +was in the Stone Age from which it has come down to us. + +[Illustration: FRIENDS' GRAVEYARD, GERMANTOWN] + +If Philadelphians laugh, that is another matter--every man has the right +to laugh at himself. But we have outlived our old affectation of +indifference to our town, I am not sure that we are not pushing our +profession of pride in it too far to the other extreme. I remember the +last time I was home I went to a public meeting called to talk about the +world's waterways, and no Philadelphian present, from the Mayor down, +could talk of anything but Philadelphia and its greatness. But whatever +may be our pose now, or next year, or the year after, there is always +beneath it a substantial layer of affection, for we cannot help knowing, +if nobody else does, what Philadelphia is and what Philadelphia has +done. Certainly, it is because I know that I, for one, would so much +rather be the Philadelphian I am, and my ancestors were not, than any +other sort of American, that, as I have grown older, my love for my town +has surprised me by its depth, and makes my confession of it now seem +half pleasure, half duty. + + + + +CHAPTER II: A CHILD IN PHILADELPHIA + + +I + +If I made my first friendships from my perambulator, or trundling my +hoop and skipping my rope, in Rittenhouse Square, as every Philadelphian +should, they were interrupted and broken so soon that I have no memory +of them. + +[Illustration: IN RITTENHOUSE SQUARE] + +It was my fate to be sent to boarding-school before I had time to lay in +a store of the associations that are the common property of happier +Philadelphians of my generation. I do not know if I was ever taken, as +J. and other privileged children were, to the Pennsylvania Hospital on +summer evenings to see William Penn step down from his pedestal when he +heard the clock strike six, or to the Philadelphia Library to wait until +Benjamin Franklin, hearing the same summons, left his high niche for a +neighbouring saloon. I cannot recall the firemen's fights and the cries +of negroes selling pop-corn and ice-cream through the streets that fill +some Philadelphia reminiscences I have read. I cannot say if I ever went +anywhere by the omnibus sleigh in winter, or to West Philadelphia by the +stage at any time of the year. I never coasted down the hills of +Germantown, I never skated on the Schuylkill. When my contemporaries +compare notes of these and many more delightful things in the amazing, +romantic, incredible Philadelphia they grew up in, it annoys me to find +myself out of it all, sharing none of their recollections, save one and +that the most trivial. For, from the vagueness of the remote past, no +event emerges so clearly as the periodical visit of "Crazy Norah," a +poor, harmless, half-witted wanderer, who wore a man's hat and top +boots, with bits of ribbon scattered over her dress, and who, on her +aimless rounds, drifted into all the Philadelphia kitchens to the +fearful joy of the children; and my memory may be less of her personally +than of much talk of her helped by her resemblance, or so I fancied, to +a picture of Meg Merrilies in a collection of engravings of Walter +Scott's heroines owned by an Uncle, and almost the first book I can +remember. + + +II + +But great as was my loss, I fancy my memories of old Philadelphia gain +in vividness for being so few. One of the most vivid is of the +interminable drive in the slow horse-car which was the longest part of +the journey to and from my Convent school,--which is the longest part of +any journey I ever made, not to be endured at the time but for the +chanting over and over to myself of all the odds and ends of verse I had +got by heart, from the dramas of _Little Miss Muffett_ and _Little Jack +Horner_ to Poe's _Bells_ and Tennyson's _Lady of Shalott_--but in memory +a drive to be rejoiced in, for nothing could have been more +characteristic of Philadelphia as it was then. The Convent was in +Torresdale on the Pennsylvania Railroad, and the Pennsylvania +Depot--Philadelphia had as yet no Stations and Terminals--was in the +distant, unknown quarter of Frankford. I believe it is used as a freight +station now and I have sometimes thought that, for sentiment's sake, I +should like to make a pilgrimage to it over the once well-travelled +road. But the modern trolley has deserted the straight course of the +unadventurous horse-car of my day and I doubt if ever again I could find +my way back. The old horse-car went, without turn or twist, along Third +Street. I started from the corner of Spruce, having got as far as that +by the slower, more infrequent Spruce Street car, and after I had passed +the fine old houses where Philadelphians--not aliens--lived, a good part +of the route lay through a busy business section. But there has stayed +with me as my chief impression of the endless street a sense of eternal +calm. No matter how much solid work was being done, no matter how many +fortunes were being made and unmade, it was always placid on the +surface, uneventful and unruffled. The car, jingling along in leisurely +fashion, was the one sign of animation. + +[Illustration: THE PENNSYLVANIA HOSPITAL FROM THE GROUNDS] + +Or often, in spring and summer, I went by boat, from--so false is +memory--I cannot say what wharf, up the Delaware. This was a pleasanter +journey and every bit as leisurely and as characteristic in its way of +Philadelphia life. For though I might catch the early afternoon boat, it +was sure to be full of business men returning from their offices to +their houses on the river. Philadelphians did not wait for the Main Line +to be invented to settle in the suburbs. They have always had a fancy +for the near country ever since Penn lived in state at Pennsbury, and +Logan at Stenton; ever since Bartram planted his garden on the banks of +the Schuylkill, and Arnold brought Peggy Shippen as his bride to Mount +Pleasant; ever since all the Colonial country houses we are so proud of +were built. I have the haziest memory of the places where the boat +stopped between Philadelphia and Torresdale and of the people who got +out there. But I cannot help remembering Torresdale for it was as +prominent a stopping-place in my journey through youth as it is in the +journey up the Delaware. The Convent was my home for years, and I had +many friends in the houses down by the riverside and scattered over the +near country. Their names are among the most familiar in my youthful +recollections: the Macalisters, the Grants--one of my brothers named +after the father--the Hopkins--another of my brothers marrying in the +family--the Fishers, Keatings, Steadmans, Kings, Bories, Whelans. It was +not often I could go or come without meeting somebody I knew on board. I +am a cockney myself, I love the town, but I can understand that +Philadelphians whose homes were in the country, especially if that +country lay along the shores of the Delaware, liked to get back early +enough to profit by it; that, busy and full of affairs as they might be, +they not only liked but managed to, shows how far hustling was from the +old Philadelphia scheme of things. Nowadays the motor brings the country +into town and town into the country. But the miles between town and +country were then lengthened into leagues by the leisurely boat and the +leisurely horse-car which, as I look back, seem to set the pace of life +in Philadelphia when I was young. + + +III + +At first my holidays were spent mostly at the Convent. My Father, with +the young widower's embarrassment when confronted by his motherless +children, solved the problem the existence of my Sister and myself was +to him by putting us where he knew we were safe and well out of his way. +I do not blame him. What is a man to do when he finds himself with two +little girls on his clumsy masculine hands? But the result was he had no +house of his own to bring us to when the other girls hurried joyfully +home at Christmas and Easter and for the long summer holiday. It hurt as +I used to watch them walking briskly down the long path on the way to +the station. And yet, I scored in the end, for Philadelphia was the more +marvellous to me, visiting it rarely, than it could have been to +children to whom it was an everyday affair. + +[Illustration: "ELEVENTH AND SPRUCE"] + +For years my Grandfather's house was the scene of the occasional visit. +He lived in Spruce Street above Eleventh--the typical Philadelphia +Street, straight and narrow, on either side rows of red brick houses, +each with white marble steps, white shutters below and green shutters +above, and along the red brick pavement rows of trees which made +Philadelphia the green country town of Penn's desire, but the +Philadelphian's life a burden in the springtime before the coming of the +sparrows. Philadelphia, as I think of it in the old days at the season +when the leaves were growing green, is always heavy with the odour of +the evil-smelling ailantus and full of measuring worms falling upon me +from every tree. My fear of "Crazy Norah" is hardly less clear in my +early memories than the terror these worms were to the dear fragile +little Aunt who had cared for me in my first motherless years, and who +still, during my holidays, kept a watchful eye on me to see that I put +my "gums" on if I went out in the rain and that I had the money in my +pocket to stop at Dexter's for a plate of ice-cream. I can recall as if +it were yesterday, her shrieks one Easter Sunday when she came home from +church and found a green horror on her new spring bonnet and another on +her petticoat, and her miserable certainty all through the early Sunday +dinner that many more were crawling over her somewhere. But, indeed, the +Philadelphians of to-day can never know from what loathsome creatures +the sparrows have delivered them. + +My Grandfather's house was as typical as the street--one of the quite +modest four-story brick houses that were thought unseemly sky-scrapers +and fire-traps when they were first built in Philadelphia. I can never +go by the old house of many memories--for sale, alas! the last time I +passed and still for sale according to the last news to reach me even as +I correct my proofs--without seeing myself as I used to be, arriving +from the Convent, small, plain, unbecomingly dressed and conscious of +it, with my pretty, always-becomingly-dressed because nothing was +unbecoming to her, not-in-the-least-shy Sister, both standing in the +vestibule between the inevitable Philadelphia two front doors, the outer +one as inevitably open all day long. And I see myself, when, in answer +to our ring, the servant had opened the inner one as well, entering in a +fresh access of shyness the wide lofty hall, with the front and back +parlours to the right; Philadelphians had no drawing-rooms then but were +content with parlours, as Penn had been who knew them by no other name. +Compared to the rich Philadelphian's house to-day, my Grandfather's +looks very unpretending, but when houses like it, with two big parlours +separated by folding doors, first became the fashion in Philadelphia, +they passed for palaces with Philadelphians who disapproved of display, +and the "tradesmen" living soberly in them were rebuked for aspiring to +the luxury of princes. I cannot imagine why, for the old Colonial houses +are, many of them, as lofty and more spacious, though it was the simple +spaciousness of my Grandfather's and the loftiness of its ceilings that +gave it charm. + +[Illustration: DRAWING ROOM AT CLIVEDEN] + +My Grandfather's two parlours, big as they were, would strike nobody +to-day as palatial. It needs the glamour time throws over them for me to +discover princely luxury in the rosewood and reps masterpieces of a +deplorable period with which they were furnished, or in their decoration +of beaded cushions and worsted-work mats and tidies, the lavish gifts of +a devoted family. But I cannot remember the parlours and forget the +respect with which they once inspired me. I own to a lingering affection +for their crowning touch of ugliness, an ottoman with a top of the +fashionable Berlin work of the day--a white arum lily, done by the +superior talent of the fancy store, on a red ground filled in by the +industrious giver. It stood between the two front windows, so that we +might have the additional rapture of seeing it a second time in the +mirror which hung behind it. Opposite, between the two windows of the +back parlour, was a "Rogers Group" on a blue stand; and a replica, with +variations, of both the ottoman and the "Rogers Group" could have been +found in every other Philadelphia front and back parlour. I recall also +the three or four family portraits which I held in tremendous awe, +however I may feel about them now; and the immensely high vases, unique +creations that could not possibly have been designed for any purpose +save to ornament the Philadelphia mantelpiece; and the transparent +lamp-shade, decorated with pictures of cats and children and landscapes, +that at night, when the gas was lit, helped to keep me awake until I +could escape to bed; and the lustre chandeliers hanging from the +ceiling--what joy when one of the long prisms came loose and I could +capture it and, looking through it, walk across the parlours and up the +stairs straight into the splendid dangers of Rainbow Land! + +I had no time for these splendours on my arrival, nor, fortunately for +me, was I left long to the tortures of my shyness. At the end of the +hall, facing me, was the wide flight of stairs leading to the upper +stories, and on the first landing, at their turning just where a few +more steps led beyond into the back-building dining-room, my +Grandmother, in her white cap and purple ribbons, stood waiting. In my +memory she and that landing are inseparable. Whenever the door bell +rang, she was out there at the first sound, ready to say "Come right up, +my dear!" to whichever one of her innumerable progeny it might he. To +her right, filling an ample space in the windings of the back stairs, +was the inexhaustible pantry which I knew, as well as she, we should +presently visit together. Though there could not have been in +Philadelphia or anywhere quite such another Grandmother, even if most +Philadelphians feel precisely the same way about theirs, she was typical +too, like the house and the street. She belonged to the generation of +Philadelphia women who took to old age almost as soon as they were +mothers, put on caps and large easy shoes, invented an elderly dress +from which they never deviated for the rest of their lives, except to +exchange cashmere for silk, the everyday cap for one of fine lace and +wider ribbons, on occasions of ceremony, and who as promptly forgot the +world outside of their household and their family. I do not believe my +Grandmother had an interest in anybody except her children, or in +anything except their affairs; though this did not mean that she gave up +society when it was to their advantage that she should not. In her stiff +silks and costly caps, she presided at every dinner, reception, and +party given at home, as conscientiously as, in her sables and demure +velvet bonnet, she made and returned calls in the season. + +My other memories are of comfortable, spacious rooms, good, solid, +old-fashioned furniture, a few more old and some better-forgotten new +family portraits on the walls, the engraving of Gilbert Stuart's +Washington over the dining-room mantelpiece, the sofa or couch in almost +every room for the Philadelphia nap before dinner, the two cheerful +kitchens where, if the servants were amiable, I sometimes played, and, +above all, the most enchanting back-yard that ever was or could be--we +were not so elegant in those days as to call it a garden. + + +IV + +Since it has been the fashion to revive everything old in Philadelphia, +most Philadelphians are not happy until they have their garden, as their +forefathers had, and very charming they often make it in the suburbs. +But in town my admiration has been asked for gardens that would have +been lost in my Grandfather's back-yard, and for a few meagre plants +springing up about a cold paved square that would have been condemned +as weeds in his luxuriant flower beds. + +The kindly magnifying glasses of memory cannot convert the Spruce Street +yard into a rival of Edward Shippen's garden in Second Street where the +old chronicles say there were orchards and a herd of deer, or of +Bartram's with its trees and plants collected from far and wide, or of +any of the old Philadelphia gardens in the days when in Philadelphia no +house, no public building, almost no church, could exist without a green +space and great trees and many flowers about it, and when Philadelphians +loved their gardens so well, and hated so to leave them, that there is +the story of one at least who came back after death to haunt the shady +walks and fragrant lawns that were fairer to her than the fairest +Elysian Fields in the land beyond the grave. Much of the old beauty had +gone before I was born, much was going as I grew from childhood to +youth. My Uncle, Charles Godfrey Leland, has described the Philadelphia +garden of his early years, "with vines twined over arbours, where the +magnolia, honeysuckle and rose spread rich perfume of summer nights, and +where the humming bird rested, and scarlet tanager, or oriole, with the +yellow and blue bird flitted in sunshine or in shade." Though I go back +to days before the sparrows had driven away not only the worms but all +others of their own race, I recall no orioles and scarlet tanagers, no +yellow and blue birds. Philadelphia's one magnolia tree stood in front +of the old Dundas house at Broad and Walnut. + +All the same, my Grandfather's was a back-yard of enchantment. A narrow +brick-paved path led past the kitchens; on one side, close to the wall +dividing my Grandfather's yard from the next door neighbour's, was a +border of roses and Johnny-jump-ups and shrubs--the shrubs my +Grandmother used to pick for me, crush a little in her fingers, and tie +up in a corner of my handkerchief, which was the Philadelphia way--the +most effective way that ever was--to make them give out their sweetness. +Beyond the kitchens, where the yard broadened into a large open space, +the path enclosed, with a wider border of roses, two big grass plots +which were shaded by fruit trees, all pink and white in the springtime. +Wistaria hung in purple showers over the high walls. I am sure lilacs +bloomed at the kitchen door, and a vine of Isabella grapes--the very +name has an old Philadelphia flavour and fragrance--covered the verandah +that ran across the entire second story of the back-building. If +sometimes this delectable back-yard was cold and bare, in my memory +it is more apt to be sweet and gay with roses, shrubs and +Johnny-jump-ups,--summer and its pleasures oftener waiting on me there: +probably because my visits to my Grandfather's were more frequent in the +summer time. But I have vague memories of winter days, when the rose +bushes were done up in straw, and wooden steps covered the marble in +front, and ashes were strewn over the icy pavement, and snow was piled +waist-high in the gutter. + + +V + +From the verandah there was a pleasant vista, up and down, of the same +back-yards and the same back buildings, just as from the front windows +there was a pleasant vista, up and down, of the same red-brick fronts, +the same white marble steps, the same white and green shutters,--only +one house daring upon originality, and this was Bennett's, the +ready-made clothes man, whose unusually large garden filled the opposite +corner of Eleventh and Spruce with big country-like trees over to which +I looked from my bedroom window. As a child, instinctively I got to know +that inside every house, within sight and beyond, I would find the same +front and back parlours, the same back-building dining-room, the same +number of bedrooms, the same engraving of George Washington over the +dining-room mantelpiece, the same big red cedar chest in the third story +hall and, in summer, the same parlours turned into cool grey cellars +with the same matting on the floor, the same linen covers on the chairs, +the same curtainless windows and carefully closed shutters, the same +white gauze over mirrors and chandeliers--to light upon an item for +gauze "to cover pictures and glass" in Washington's household accounts +while he lived in Philadelphia is one of the things it is worth +searching the old archives for. + +[Illustration: BACK-YARDS, ST. PETER'S SPIRE IN THE DISTANCE] + +Instinctively, I got to know too that, in every one of these +well-regulated interiors where there was a little girl, she must, like +me, be striving to be neither seen nor heard all the long morning, and +sitting primly at the front window all the long afternoon, and that, if +she ever played at home it was, like me, with measured steps and +modulated voice: at all times cultivating the calm of manner expected of +her when she, in her turn, would have just such a red brick house and +just such a delectable back-yard of her own. Thus, while the long months +at the Convent kept me busy cultivating every spiritual grace, during +the occasional holiday at Eleventh and Spruce I was well drilled in the +Philadelphia virtues. + + + + +CHAPTER III: A CHILD IN PHILADELPHIA--CONTINUED + + +I + +Naturally, I could not live in Spruce Street and not believe, as every +Philadelphian should and once did, that no other kind of a house except +the Spruce Street house was fit for a Philadelphian to live in. The +Philadelphian, from infancy, was convinced by his surroundings and +bringing-up that there was but one way of doing things decently and +respectably and that was the Philadelphia way, nor can my prolonged +exile relieve me from the sense of crime at times when I catch myself +doing things not just as Philadelphians used to do them. + +I was safe from any such crime in my Grandfather's house. All +Philadelphia might have been let in without fear. Had skeletons been +concealed in the capacious cupboards, they would have been of the +approved Philadelphia pattern. My Grandfather was not at all of +Montaigne's opinion that order in the management of life is sottish, but +looked upon it rather as "Heaven's first law." His day's programme was +the same as in every red brick house with white marble steps and a +back-yard full of roses and shrubs and Johnny-jump-ups. Everything at +Eleventh and Spruce was done according to the same Philadelphia rules +at the same hour, from the washing of the family linen on Monday, when +Sunday's beef was eaten cold for dinner, to the washing of the front on +Saturday morning, when Philadelphia streets from end to end were all +mops and maids, rivers and lakes. + +When my Grandfather, with his family on their knees around him, began +the day by reading morning prayers in the back-building dining-room, he +could have had the satisfaction of knowing that every other Philadelphia +head of a family was engaged in the same edifying duty, but I hope, for +every other Philadelphia family's sake, with a trifle less awe-inspiring +solemnity. After being present once at my Grandfather's prayers, nobody +needed to be assured that life was earnest. + +He did not shed his solemnity when he rose from his knees, nor when he +had finished his breakfast of scrapple and buckwheat cakes and left the +breakfast table. He was as solemn in his progress through the streets to +the Philadelphia Bank, at Fourth and Chestnut, of which he was +President, and having said so much perhaps I might as well add his name, +Thomas Robins, for in his day he was widely known and it is a +satisfaction to remember, as widely appreciated both in and out of +Philadelphia. His clothes were always of the most admirable cut and fit +and of a fashion becoming to his years, he carried a substantial cane +with a gold top, his stock was never laid aside for a frivolous modern +cravat, his silk hat was as indispensable, and his slow walk had a +dignity royalty might have envied. He was a handsome old man and a +noticeable figure even in Philadelphia streets at the hour when John +Welsh from the corner, and Biddles and Cadwalladers and Whartons and +Peppers and Lewises and a host of other handsome old Philadelphians with +good Philadelphia names from the near neighborhood, were starting +downtown in clothes as irreproachable and with a gait no less dignified. +The foreigner's idea of the American is of a slouchy, free-and-easy man +for ever cracking jokes. But slouchiness and jokes had no place in the +dictionary or the deportment of my Grandfather and his contemporaries, +at a period when Philadelphia supplied men like John Welsh for its +country to send as representatives abroad and there carry on the +traditions of Franklin and John Adams and Jefferson. My Father--Edward +Robins--inherited more than his share of this old-fashioned Philadelphia +manner, making a ceremony of the morning walk to his office and the +Sunday walk to church. But it has been lost by younger generations, +more's the pity. In memory I would not have my Grandfather a shade less +solemn, though at the time his solemnity put me on anything but easy +terms with him. + + +II + +The respectful bang of the front door upon my Grandfather's dignified +back after breakfast was the signal for the family to relax. The cloth +was at once cleared, my Grandmother and my Aunts--like all Philadelphia +mothers and daughters--brought their work-baskets into the dining-room +and sat and gossiped there until it was time for my Grandmother to go +and see the butcher and the provision dealer, or for my Aunts to make +those formal calls for which the morning then was the unpardonable hour. + +[Illustration: INDEPENDENCE SQUARE AND THE STATE HOUSE] + +It seems to me, in looking back, as if my Grandmother could never have +gone out of the house except on an errand to the provision man, such an +important part did it play in her daily round of duties. She never went +to market. That was not the Philadelphia woman's business, it was the +Philadelphia man's. My Grandfather, at the time of which I write, must +have grown too old for the task, which was no light one, for it meant +getting up at unholy hours every Wednesday and every Saturday, leaving +the rest of the family in their comfortable beds, and being back again +in time for prayers and eight o'clock breakfast. I cannot say how this +division of daily labour was brought about. The century before, a short +time as things go in Philadelphia, it was the other way round and the +young Philadelphia woman at her marketing was one of the sights +strangers in the town were taken to see. But in my time it was so much +the man's right that as a child I believed there was something +essentially masculine in going to market, just as there was in making +the mayonnaise for the salad at dinner. A Philadelphia man valued his +salad too highly to trust its preparation to a woman. It was almost a +shock to me when my Father allowed my motherly little Aunt to relieve +him of the responsibility in the Spruce Street house. And later on, when +he re-married and again lived in a house of his own, and my Step-Mother +made a mayonnaise quite equal to his or to any mere man's, not even to +her would he shift the early marketing,--his presence in the Twelfth +Street Market as essential on Wednesday and Saturday mornings as in the +Stock Exchange every day--and his conscientiousness was the more +astonishing as his genius was by no means for domesticity. Philadelphia +women respected man's duties and rights in domestic, as in all, matters. +I remember an elderly Philadelphian, who was stopping at Blossom's Hotel +in Chester, where all Americans thirty years ago began their English +tour, telling me the many sauces on the side table had looked so good +she would have liked to try them and, on my asking her why in the world +she had not, saying they had not been offered to her and she thought +perhaps they were for the gentlemen. Only a Philadelphian among +Americans could have given that answer. + +Towards three o'clock in the Spruce Street house, my Grandmother would +be found, her cap carefully removed, stretched full-length upon the sofa +in the dining-room. The picture would not be complete if I left out my +Father's rage because the dining-room was used for her before-dinner nap +as for almost every purpose of domestic life by the women of the family. +I have often wondered where he got such an un-Philadelphia idea. In +every house where there was a Grandmother, she was taking her nap at +the same hour on the same sofa in the same dining-room. I could never +see the harm. It was the most comfortable room in the house, without the +isolation of the bedroom or the formality of the parlours. + +At four, my Grandfather returned from his day's work, the family +re-assembled, holding him in sufficient awe never to be late, and dinner +was served. The hour was part of the leisurely life of Philadelphia as +ordered in Spruce Street. Philadelphians had dined at four during a +hundred years and more, and my Grandfather, who rarely condescended to +the frivolity of change, continued to dine at four, as he continued to +wear a stock, until the end of his life. It was no doubt because of the +contrast with Convent fare that the dinner in my recollection remains +the most wonderful and elaborate I have ever eaten, though I rack my +brains in vain to recall any of its special features except the figs and +prunes on the high dessert dishes, altogether the most luscious figs and +prunes ever grown and dried, and the decanter at my Grandfather's place +from which he dropped into his glass the few drops of brandy he drank +with his water while everybody else drank their water undiluted. When +friends came to dinner, I recall also the Philadelphia decanter of +Madeira, though otherwise no greater ceremony. Dinner was always as +solemn an affair in my Grandfather's house as morning prayers or any act +of daily life over which he presided, the whole house, at all times when +he left it, relapsing into dressing-gown and slippered ease after the +full-dress decorum his presence required of it. + +The eight o'clock tea is a more definite function in my memory, perhaps +because the hours of waiting for it crept by so slowly. After dinner, +the Aunts, my Father, the one Uncle who lived at home, vanished I never +knew where, though no doubt Philadelphia supplied some amusement or +occupation for the forlorn wreck four o'clock dinner made of the +afternoon. But the interval was spent by my Grandfather and Grandmother +at one of the front parlour windows, the old-fashioned Philadelphia +afghan over their knees, their hands folded, while I, alone, my Sister +having had the independence to vanish with the grown-ups, sat at the +other, not daring to break the silence in which they looked out into the +drowsy street for the people who seldom came and the events that never +happened; nothing disturbing the calm of Spruce Street save the Sunday +afternoon invasion of the colored people in their Sunday clothes from +every near alley. It gives me a pang now to pass and see the window +empty that once was always filled, in the hour before twilight, by those +two dear grey heads. + + +III + +As I grew a little older, I had the courage to bring a book to the +window. It was there I read _The Lamplighter_ which I confuse now with +the memory of our own lamplighter making his rounds; and _The Initials_ +with a haughty Hilda for heroine--she must have been haughty for all +real heroines then were; and _Queechy_ and _The Wide, Wide World_ and +_Faith Gartney's Girlhood_, against whose sentiment I am glad to say I +revolted. And mixed up with these were Mrs. Southworth's _Lost Heiress_ +and the anonymous _Routledge_, light books for whose presence I cannot +account in my Grandfather's serious house. Does anybody read _Routledge_ +now? Has anybody now ever heard of it? What trash it was, but, after the +improving romances with a religious moral of the Convent Library, after +Wiseman's edifying _Fabiola_ and Newman's scholarly--beyond my +years--_Callista_, how I revelled in it, with what a choking throat I +galloped through the lovesick chapters! I could recite pages of it to +myself to relieve the dreariness of those long drives in the Third +Street car, or the long waiting in the dreary station. To this day I +remember the last sentence--"with his arm around my waist and my face +hidden on his shoulder, I told him of the love, folly and pride that had +so long kept me from him." Could _Queechy_, could _Faith Gartney's +Girlhood_ have been more sentimental than that? I dare not look up the +old books to see, lest their charm as well as their sentiment should +fade in the light of a more critical age. Then Scott and Dickens, Miss +Edgeworth, more often _Holiday House_, filled the hours before tea. +After all, the old division of the day, the young generation would be +ashamed to go back to, had its uses. + +[Illustration: CHRIST CHURCH INTERIOR] + + +IV + +The tea, when announced, was worth waiting, or putting down the most +entrancing book, for. Had I my way I would make Philadelphia dine again +at four o'clock for the sake of the tea--of the frizzled beef that only +Philadelphia ever frizzled to a turn, the smoked salmon that only +Philadelphia ever smoked as an art, the Maryland biscuits that ought to +be called Philadelphia biscuits for they were never half so good in +their native land, the home-made preserves put up in that sunshiny +kitchen where lilacs bloomed at the door. After all this long quarter of +a century, the smell of beef frizzling would take me back to Eleventh +and Spruce on a winter evening as straight as the fragrance of the +flowering bean carries me to Pompeii in the early springtime, or of +garlic to the little sunlit towns of Provence at any season of the year. +The tea was a triumph of simplicity, but when there were guests it +became a feast. As a rule, it was the meal to which the children and +grandchildren who did not live in the Spruce Street house were invited, +and loved best to be invited. For on these occasions my Grandmother +could be relied upon to provide stewed oysters, the masterpiece of +Margaret, her old grey-haired cook; and oyster croquettes from +Augustine's--my Grandfather would as soon have begun the day without +prayers as my Grandmother have given a feast without the help of +Augustine, that caterer of colour who was for years supreme in +Philadelphia; brandy peaches that, like the preserves, had been put up +at home, the brandy poured in with unexpected lavishness for so +temperate a household; and little round cakes with white icing on +top--what dear little ghosts from out a far past they seemed when, after +a quarter of a century in a land where people know nothing of the +delights of little round cakes with white icing on top, I ate them again +at Philadelphia feasts. If the solemn, dignified Grandfather at one end +of the table kept our enjoyment within the bounds of ceremony, we felt +no restraint with the little old Grandmother who beamed upon us from the +other, as she poured out the tea and coffee with hands trembling so +that, in her later years, the man servant,--usually coloured and not to +Philadelphia as yet known as butler or footman,--always stood close by +to catch the tea or coffee pot when it fell, which it never did. + + +V + +I recall more formal family reunions, above all the Golden Wedding, as +impressive as a court function, the two old people enthroned at the far +end of the front parlour, the sons and daughters and grandchildren +approaching in a solemn line--an embarrassed line when it came to the +youngest, always shy in the awful presence of the Grandfather--and +offering, each in turn, their gifts. We were by no means a remarkable +family, to the unprejudiced we may have seemed a commonplace one, my +forefathers evidently having decided that leaving England for America +was a feat remarkable enough to satisfy the ambitions of any one family +and having then proceeded to rest comfortably on their respectable +laurels, but we took each other with great seriousness. The oldest Aunt, +who was married and lived in New York, received on her annual visit to +Spruce Street the homage due to a Princess Royal, and no King or Emperor +could have caused more of a flutter than my Grandfather when he honoured +one of his children with a visit. Family anniversaries were scrupulously +observed, the legend of family affection was kept up as conscientiously, +whatever it cost us in discomfort, and there were times when we paid +heavily. I would have run many miles to escape one Uncle who, when he +met me in the street, would stop to ask how I was, and how we all were +at home, and then would stand twisting his moustache in visible agony, +trying to think what the affectionate intimacy between us that did not +exist required him to say, while I thanked my stars that we were in the +street and not in a house where he would have felt constrained to kiss +me. We were horribly exact in this matter of kissing. There was a family +legend of another Uncle from New York who once, when he came over for +some family meeting, was so eager to do his duty by his nieces that he +kissed not only all of them--no light task--but two or three neighbours' +little girls into the bargain. I think, however, that every Philadelphia +family took itself as seriously and that our scruples were not a +monopoly brought with us from Virginia and Maryland. In a town where +family names are handed down from generation to generation, so that a +family often will boast, as ours did, not only a "Jr." but a "3d," and +lose no opportunity to let the world know it, family feeling is not +likely to be allowed to wilt and die. + +Every public holiday also was a family affair to be observed with the +rigours of the family feast. Christmas for me, when I did not celebrate +it at the Convent with Midnight Mass and a _Creche_ in the chapel and +kind nuns trying to make me forget I had not gone home like other little +girls, took me to the Spruce Street house in time to look on at the +succession of Uncles and Aunts who dropped in on Christmas Eve and went +away laden with bundles, and carrying in some safe pocket a collection +of envelopes with a crisp new greenback in each, the sum varying from +one hundred dollars to five according to the age of the child or +grandchild whose name was on the envelope--my Grandfather gave with the +fine patriarchal air he maintained in all family relations. The family +appropriation of Thanksgiving Day and Washington's Birthday I did not +grasp until after I left school, for while I was at the Convent they +were both spent there, where they dwindled into insignificance compared +to Reverend Mother's feast and its glories. As a rule, I must have been +at the Convent as well for the Fourth of July, though I retain one +jubilant vision of myself and a bag of torpedoes in the back-yard, +solemnizing a little celebration among the roses. And I have larger +visions of military parades in broiling sunshine and of the City Troop +filling the quiet streets with their gorgeousness which awed me long +before the knowledge of their historic origin and uniform inspired me +with reverence. + + +VI + +Other duties and pleasures and observances that for most Philadelphia +children were scattered through the interminable year, were crowded into +my short holiday: visits to the dentist, to Dr. Hopkins, Dr. White's +assistant, it being a test of Philadelphia respectability to have one's +teeth seen to by Dr. White or one of his assistants or students, and the +regular appointment was as much of obligation for me as Mass on Sunday; +visits to the Academy of Fine Arts in the old Chestnut Street building, +as I remember set back at the end of a court that made of it a place +apart, a consecrated place which I entered with as little anticipation +of amusement as St. Joseph's Church hidden in Willing's Alley, and was +the more surprised therefore to be entertained, as I must have been, by +Benjamin West, for of no other painter there have I the faintest +recollection; visits to the Academy of Natural Sciences, where I liked +the rows upon rows of stuffed birds, and the strange things in bottles, +and the colossal skeletons that filled me with the same delicious +shivers as the stories of afreets and genii in _The Arabian Nights_; +visits to Fairmount Park, leagues away, houses left behind before it +was reached, where the mysterious machinery of the Waterworks was as +terrifying as the skeletons, and I thought it much pleasanter outside +under the blue sky; visits to the theatre--the most wonderful visits of +all, for they took me out into the night that I knew only from stolen +vigils in the Convent dormitory, or glimpses from the Spruce Street +windows. Romance was in the dimly-lit streets, in the stars above, in +the town after dark, which I was warned I was never to brave alone until +I can laugh now to think how terrified I was the first time I came home +late by myself, in my terror jumping into a street-car and claiming the +protection of a contemptuous young woman whom work had not allowed to +draw a conventional line between day and night. + +[Illustration: CLASSIC FAIRMOUNT] + +I have never got rid of that suggestion of romance, not so much in the +theatre itself as in the going to it, and, to this day, a matinee in +broad daylight will bring back a little of the old thrill. But nothing +can bring back to any theatre the glitter, the brilliancy, the splendour +of the old Chestnut, the old Walnut, the old Arch, then already dingy +with age I have no doubt, but transfigured by my childhood's ecstasies +in them. Nothing can persuade me that any plays have been, or could be, +written to surpass in beauty, pathos and humour, _Solon Shingle_, and +_Arrah-na-Pogue_, and _Our American Cousin_, and _The Black Crook_, and +_Ours_, though I have forgotten all but their names; that in opera Clara +Louise Kellogg ever had a rival; that in gaiety and wit _La Grande +Duchesse_ and _La Belle Helene_ could be eclipsed; or that any actors +could compete with Sothern and Booth and Mrs. Drew and the Davenports, +and Charlotte Cushman as _Meg Merrilies_--there was a bit of good old +melodramatic acting to make a small Convent girl's flesh creep! +Shakespeare was redeemed by Booth from the dulness of the Convent +reading-book and entered gloriously into my Convent life. For one happy +winter, it was not I who led the long procession down to the refectory, +though nobody could have suspected it, but the Ghost of Hamlet's Father, +with, close behind me, in gloom absorbed, the Prince of Denmark, +mistaken by the unknowing for the little girl, my friend, whose father, +with more than the usual father's amiable endurance, had taken me with +her and her sister to see the play of _Hamlet_ during the Christmas +holidays. + +[Illustration: DOWN PINE STREET] + +The theatre has become part of the modern school course. If an actor +like Forbes-Robertson gives a farewell performance of _Hamlet_, or a +manager like Beerbohm Tree produces a patriotic melodrama, or the +company from the Theatre Francais perform one of the rare classics that +the young person may be taken to, I have seen a London theatre filled +with school girls and boys. From what I hear I might imagine the theatre +and the opera to be the most serious studies of every Philadelphia +school. At the Convent I should have envied the modern students could I +have foreseen their liberty, but they have more reason to envy me. The +gilt has been rubbed too soon off their gingerbread, too soon has the +tinsel of their theatre been tarnished. My Spartan training gave me a +theatre that can never cease to be a Wonderland, just as it endowed me +with a Philadelphia that will endure, until this world knows me no more, +as a beautiful, peaceful town where roses bloom in the sunny back-yards, +and people live with dignity behind the plain red brick fronts of its +long, straight streets. + + + + +CHAPTER IV: AT THE CONVENT + + +I + +As the theatre, in my memory, still gives the crowning glory to my +holiday in Philadelphia, so, in looking back, the brief holiday seems +the spectacle, the romance, the supreme moment, of my early years. The +scene of my every-day life was that Convent of the Sacred Heart at +Torresdale which was the end of the interminable ride in the Third +Street horse-car and the shorter ride in the Pennsylvania Railroad +train. + +The Philadelphian who did not live in the Convent would have seen it the +other way round, for the Convent was unlike enough to Philadelphia to +suggest the romance of the unusual. Only in one or two respects did it +provide me with facts that every proper Philadelphian was brought up to +know, and let me say again that because I had to find out the +others--the more characteristically Philadelphia facts--for myself, I +think they probably made a stronger impression upon me than upon the +Philadelphian guiltless of ever straying, or of ever having been allowed +to stray, from the approved Philadelphia path. + + +II + +When the Ladies of the Sacred Heart decided to open a Convent in +Philadelphia, an uncertain enterprise if it is considered how +un-Catholic Philadelphia was, they began in a fairly modest way by +taking a large house at Torresdale, with lawns and gardens and woods and +a great old-fashioned barn, the country seat of a Philadelphian whose +name I have forgotten. It stood to the west of the railroad, at a +discreet distance from the little cluster of houses by the riverside +that alone meant Torresdale to the Philadelphians who lived in them. + +The house, I can now see, was typical as I first knew it, the sort the +Philadelphian built for himself in the suburbs at a period too removed +from Colonial days for it to have the beauty of detail and historic +interest of the Colonial house, and yet near enough to them for dignity +of proportion and spaciousness to be desirable, if not essential to a +Philadelphian's comfort. A wide, lofty hall ran from the front door to +the back, on either side were two large airy rooms with space between +for the broad main stairway, a noble structure, and the carefully +concealed back stairway--half-way up which in my time was the little +infirmary window where, at half past ten every morning, Sister Odille +dispensed pills and powders to those in need of them. Along the entire +front of the house was a broad porch,--the indispensable Philadelphia +piazza--its roof supported by a row of substantial columns over which +roses and honeysuckle clambered fragrantly and luxuriantly in the June +sunshine. The house was painted a cheerful yellow that went well with +the white of the woodwork about the windows and the porch: not a very +beautiful type of house, but pleasant, substantial, luxurious, and +making as little outward show of its luxury as the plain red brick town +house of the wealthy Philadelphian. + +How comfortable a type of house it was to live in, I know from +experience of another, not a school, within sight, a ten minutes' walk +across the fields, and like it in design and arrangement and even +colour, in everything except size,--which my Father took one summer: to +me a most memorable summer as it was the first I spent outside the +Convent limits from the beginning to the end of the long holiday. The +jerry-builder had had no part in putting up the solid, well-constructed +walls which stood firm against winter storms and winds, and were no less +a protection from the torrid heat of a Philadelphia summer. But fashion +can leave architecture no more alone than dress. Already, the newer +group of houses down by the Delaware were built of the brown stone +which, to my mind, dates the beginning of the Philadelphian's fall from +architectural grace, the beginning of his distrust in William Penn's +plans for his well-being and of his foolish hankering after the +fleshpots of New York. + +[Illustration: LOUDOUN, MAIN STREET GERMANTOWN] + +The Convent, before I came to it, had been a victim to the brown stone +fashion. With success, the pleasant old country house had grown too +small for the school into which it had been converted, and a southern +wing had been added: a long, low building with the Chapel at the far +end, all built in brown stone and in a style that passed for Gothic and +that a thousand times I could have wished based upon any other model. +For the upper room in the wing, ambitiously christened by somebody +Gothic Hall, had a high pointed roof that made it an ice-house in winter +and, for our sins, it was used as the Dormitory of the Sacred Heart +where I slept. I can recall mornings when the water was frozen in our +pitchers while the big stove, in the middle of the high-pitched room, +burned red hot as if to mock at us as, with numbed fingers, we struggled +to make our beds and wash ourselves and button and hook on our clothes. +And the builders had so contrived that summer turned our fine Gothic +Dormitory into a fiery furnace. How many June nights, contrary to all +the rules, have I hung out of the little, horribly Gothic window at the +head of my alcove, gasping in the warm darkness that was so sweet and +stifling with the fragrance of the flowers in Madame Huguet's garden +just below. + +I had not been long at the Convent before another brown stone wing +extended to the north and two stories were added to the main building +which, for the sake of harmony, was now painted brown from top to +bottom. In a niche on this new facade, a statue of the Sacred Heart was +set, and all semblance to the old country house was gone, except for the +broad porch without and the well-proportioned rooms within. But these, +and later improvements, additions and alterations cannot make me forget +the Convent as it was when I first came to it, growing up about the +simple, solidly-built, spacious yellow house that was once the +Philadelphian's ideal of suburban comfort and so like the house where I +spent my most memorable summer, so like, save for the size and the +colour, my Great-Grandfather Ambrose White's old house on the Turnpike +at Chestnut Hill, so like innumerable other country houses of the same +date where I visited. + + +III + +The Convent rule and discipline could not alter the changing of the +seasons as Philadelphia ordered them. They might appear to us mainly +regulated by feasts and fasts--All Saints and All Souls, the milestones +on the road to Christmas; Lent and the month of St. Joseph heralding the +approach of spring; the month of Mary and the month of the Sacred Heart, +Ascension and Corpus-Christi, as ardent and splendid as the spring and +summer days they graced. But, all the same, each season came laden with +the pleasures held in common by all fortunate Philadelphia children who +had the freedom of the country or the countrified suburbs. + +The school year began with the fall, when any night might bring the +first frost and the first tingle in the air--champagne to quicken the +blood in a school girl's veins, and make the sitting still through the +long study and class hours a torture. The woods shone with gold; the +Virginia creeper flamed on the front porch; sickel pears fell, ripe and +luscious, from the tree close to the Chapel where it was against the law +to go and pick them up but where no law in the world could have barred +the way; chestnuts and hickory nuts and the walnuts that stained my +fingers black to open offered a substantial dessert after as substantial +a dinner as ever children were served with. But those were the joyful +years when hunger never could be satisfied and digestion was equal to +any surfeit of raw chestnuts--or raw turnips for that matter, if the +season supplied no lighter dainties, or of next to anything that could +be picked up and eaten. I know I drew the line only at the huge, white, +oversweet mulberries strewing the grass by the swings in Mulberry Lane, +that favourite scene of the war to the knife we waged under the name of +Old Man and Bands, primitive games not to be outdone by the Tennis and +Hockey of the more sophisticated modern school girl. + +The minute the Refectory was left for the noonday hour of recreation on +a brisk autumn day, there was a wild scamper to the woods where, just +beyond the gate that led into them, the hoary old chestnut trees spread +their shade and dropped their fruit on either side the hill between the +Poisonous Valley, a thrill in its deadly name, and the graveyard, few +crosses then in the green enclosure which now, alas! is too well filled. +The shadow of death lay so lightly upon us that I recall to-day only the +delicious rustle of eager feet through the fallen leaves, and the +banging of stone upon stone as hickory nuts cracked between them, I feel +only the delicious pricking of the chestnut burrs in the happy, hardened +fingers of the school girl. And these, anyway, are memories I share with +every Philadelphian who, as a child, wandered in the suburbs or the +near country when the woods were gold and scarlet, and the way through +them was carpeted with leaves hiding rich stores of nuts for the seeker +after treasure. + +But no Philadelphia child in the shelter of her own house could know the +meaning of the Philadelphia winter as I knew it in the Convent, half +frozen in that airy dormitory of the Sacred Heart, shivering in shawl +and hood through early Mass in the icy Chapel, still huddled in my shawl +at my desk or scurrying as fast as discipline would wink at through the +windy passages. The heating arrangements, somehow, never succeeded in +coping with the extreme cold of a severe winter in the large rooms and +halls of the new wings, and I must confess that we were often most +miserably uncomfortable. I cannot but wonder what the pampered school +girls of the present generation in the same Convent would say to such +discomfort. But it did us no harm. Indeed, though I shiver at the +memory, I am sure it did us good. We came out the healthier and hardier +for it, much as the Englishman does from his cold house, the coldest in +the world. The old conditions of a hardier life, that either killed or +cured, did far more to make a vigorous people than all the new-fangled +eugenics ever can. + +If I had little of the comfort of the Philadelphia child in the +Philadelphia house, I shared with him the outdoor pleasures which winter +provided by way of compensation--the country white under snow for weeks +and weeks, snowballs to be made and snow houses built, sliding to be +had on the frozen lake, and coasting down the long hill just beyond the +gate into the woods, when there were sleds to coast on. And what +excitement in the marvellous snow-storms that have vanished with other +marvels of my youth--the storms that put the new blizzard to shame, when +the snow drifts were mountains high, and it took all the men on the +farm, with Big John at their head, to clear a way through the near paths +and roads. I recall one storm in particular when my Father, who had been +making his periodical visit to my Sister and myself, left the Convent at +six, was snowed up in his train, and never reached the dingy Depot in +Frankford until three the next morning, and when for days we got out of +the house only for a solemn ten minutes' walk each noon on the wide +front porch, where it was a shocking breach of discipline to be seen at +all other times except on Thursday and Sunday, the Convent visiting +days. Of the inspiriting rigours of a Philadelphia winter I was never in +ignorance. + +In the snow drifts and storms of winter Big John and his men were not +more helpless than in the floods and slush that began with the first +soft breath of the Philadelphia spring. Wearing our big shapeless +overshoes, we waded through the puddles and jumped over the streams in +the Convent paths and roads as, in town, Philadelphia children, with +their "gums" on, jumped over the streams and waded through the puddles +in the abominably paved streets. But then hope too began when the first +spaces of green were uncovered by the melting snow. The first +spring-beauty in the sunny spaces of the woods, the first flowery frost +in the orchard, the first blooming of the tulip trees, were among the +great events of the year. And what joy now in the new hunt!--what +treasure of spring-beauties everywhere in the woods as the sun grew +warmer, of shyer, retired hepaticas, of white violets running wild in +the swampy fields beyond the lake, of sweet trailing arbutus, of +Jacks-in-the-pulpit flourishing best in the damp thickets of the +Poisonous Valley into which I never wandered without a tremor not merely +because it was a forbidden adventure, but because, though I passed +through it unscathed, I had seen so often the horrible and unsightly red +rash one whiff from over its bushes and trees could bring out on the +faces and hands of my schoolmates with a skin more sensitive than mine. +Games lost their charm in the spring sunshine and our one pleasure was +in the hunt, no longer for chestnuts and walnuts and hickory nuts, but +solely for flowers, bringing back great bunches wilting in our hot +little hands, to place before the shrine that aroused the warmest +fervours of our devotion or was tended by the nun of our special +adoration. + +[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO FAIRMOUNT AND THE WASHINGTON STATUE] + +And before we knew it, the spring-beauties and hepaticas and white +violets and Jacks-in-the-pulpit disappeared from the woods, and the +flowery frost from the orchard, and the great blossoms from the tulip +trees, and summer was upon us--blazing summer when we lay perspiring on +our little beds up there in Gothic Hall where a few months before we +shivered and shook, perspiration streamed from our faces on our school +books at the study hour, more a burden than ever as we drooped and +drowsed in the heat;--blazing summer when the fragrance of the roses +hung heavy over Madame Huguet's garden and mingled with the too sweet +fragrance of the honeysuckle about the columns of the porch and over +every door;--blazing summer when all day long meadows and gardens and +lawns swooned under the pitiless sunshine and we, who had braved the +winter cold undismayed, never put as much as our noses out of doors +until the hour of sunset;--blazing summer when for many years I saw the +other girls going home, the gaiety of sea and mountain and change +awaiting them, while my Sister and I stayed on, desolate at heart +despite the efforts of the nuns to help us forget, feeling forlornly +forsaken as we watched the green burnt up into brown and the summer +flowers wilt and die, and the drought turn the roads to dust, and all +Nature parched as we parched with it. The holiday dragged terribly and, +reversing the usual order of things, I counted the days until school +would begin again. However, at least I can say that I saw the +Philadelphia summer in its full terrors as every Philadelphia child ever +born, for whom wealth or chance opens no gate of escape, must see it and +did see it of old. + +And so for me in the Convent the seasons were the same as for the child +in Philadelphia and its suburbs. And I learnt how cold Philadelphia can +be, and how hot--if Penn, safe in England, was grateful for the greater +nearness of his town to the sun, not a Philadelphian on the spot, +sweltering through its midsummer heat, has ever yet shared his +gratitude. And I learnt how beautiful Philadelphia is as it grows mild +again after winter has done its worst, or as it cools off in the +friendlier autumn sun. And not to know these facts is not to know +Philadelphia. + + +IV + +In the Convent regulation of daily life lay the unconquerable +difference. Philadelphia has its laws and traditions that guide the +Philadelphian through every hour and duty of the day, and the +Philadelphian, who from the cradle does not obey these traditions and +laws, can never be quite as other Philadelphians. The Sacred Heart is a +French order, and the nuns imported their laws and traditions from +France, qualified, modified, perhaps, on the way, but still with an +unmistakable foreign flavour and tendency that could not pass +unquestioned in a town where the first article of faith is that +everybody should do precisely what everybody else does. + +I remember when the Rhodes scholars were first sent from America to +Oxford a friend of mine professed serious concern for the future of the +University should they introduce buckwheat cakes on Oxford breakfast +tables. And, really, he was not as funny as he thought. A man is a good +deal what his food makes him. The macaroni-fed Italian is not as the +sausage-and-sauerkraut-fed German, nor the Hindu who thrives on rice as +the Irishman bred upon potatoes. Never was a town more concerned with +the Question of Food than Philadelphia and I now see quite plainly that +I, beginning my day at the Convent on coffee and rolls, could not have +been as the correct Philadelphia child beginning the day in Philadelphia +or the suburbs on scrapple and buckwheat cakes and maple syrup. Thus, +the line of separation was drawn while I was still in short skirts with +my hair cropped close. + +The Convent day continued, as it began, with differences. I sat down at +noon to the substantial French breakfast which at the Convent, as a +partial concession to American ideals, became dinner. At half past +three, like a little French girl, I had my _gouter_, for which even the +French name was retained--how well I remember the big, napkin-lined +basket, full of hunks of good gingerbread, or big crackers, or sweet +rolls, passed round by Sister Duffy, probably the most generous of all +generous Irishwomen, who would have slipped an extra piece into every +little hand if she could, but who was so shockingly cross-eyed that we +got an idea of her as a disagreeable old thing, an ogress, always +watching to see if we took more than our appointed share. Quite recently +I argued it all out again with the few old Sisters left to greet me on +my first and only visit to the Convent during thirty years and, purely +for the sake of the sentiment of other days. I refused to believe them +when they insisted that Sister Duffy, who now lies at peace in the +little graveyard on the hillside in the woods, wasn't cross at all, but +as tender as any Sister who ever waited on hungry little girls! I would +have given a great deal could she have come back, cross-eyes and all, +with her big basket of gingerbread to make me feel at home again, as I +could not in the Visitors' dining-room where my _gouter_ was set out on +a neatly spread table, even though on one side of me was "Marie" of _Our +Convent Days_, my friend who had been Prince of Denmark in our +Booth-stricken period, and on the other Miss Repplier, the chronicler of +our childish adventures. It was the first time we three had sat there +together since more years than I am willing to count, and I think we +were too conscious that youth now was no longer of the company not to +feel the sadness as keenly as the pleasure of the reunion in our old +home. + +_Gouter_, with its associations, has sent me wandering far from the +daily routine which ended, in the matter of meals, with a supper of meat +and potatoes and I hardly know what, at half past six, when little +Philadelphia girls were probably just finishing their cambric tea and +bread-and-butter, and even the buns from Dexter's when these had been +added as a special treat or reward. How could we, upon so much heavier +fare, have seen things, how could we have looked upon life, just as +those other little girls did? + + +V + +We did not play, any more than we ate, like the child in Philadelphia or +its suburbs. One memory of our playtime I have common to all +Philadelphia children of my generation: the memory of Signor Blitz, on +a more than usually blissful Reverend Mother's Feast, taking rabbits out +of our hats and bowls of gold-fish out of his sleeve, and holding a long +conversation with the immortal Bobby, the most prodigious puppet that +ever conversed with any professional ventriloquist. But this was a rare +ecstasy never repeated. + +[Illustration: MAIN STREET, GERMANTOWN] + +What games the children in Rittenhouse Square and the Lanes of +Germantown had, I cannot record, but of one thing I am sure: they did +not go to the tune and the words of "_Sur le pont d'Avignon_," or "_Qu' +est-ce qui passe ici si tard_," or "_Il etait un avocat_." Nor, I fancy, +were "_Malbrough s'en va-t'en guerre_" and "_Au clair de la lune, mon +ami Pierrot_," the songs heard in the Philadelphia nursery. Nor is it +likely that "_C'est le mois de Marie_," which we sang as lustily all +through May as the devout in France sing it in every church and every +cathedral from one end of their land to the other, was the canticle of +pious little Catholic children celebrating the month of Mary at St. +Joseph's or St. Patrick's. Nor outside the Convent could the Bishop on +his pastoral rounds have been welcomed with the "_Vive! Vive! Vive! +Monseigneur au Sacre Coeur, Quel Bonheur!_" which, the title +appropriately changed, was our form of welcome to every distinguished +visitor. And, singing these songs and canticles, how could the +associations and memories we were laying up for ourselves be the same as +those of Philadelphia children whose ears and voices were trained on +"Juanita" and "Listen to the Mocking Bird," or, it may be, "Marching +through Georgia" and "Way down upon the Swanee River"? These things may +make subtle distinctions, but they are distinctions that can never be +overcome or outgrown. + +In study hours, as in playtime and at meals, we were seldom long out of +this French atmosphere. French class was only shorter than English. If +we were permitted to talk at breakfast, it was not at all that we might +amuse ourselves, but that we might practise our French which did not +amuse us in the least. Many of the nuns were French, often, it is true, +French from Louisiana or Canada, but their English was not one bit more +fluent on that account. Altogether, there was less of Philadelphia than +of France in the discipline, the devotions, and the relaxations of the +Convent. + + +VI + +But, of all the differences, the most fundamental, I think, came from +the fact that the Convent was a Convent and taught us to accept the +conventual, the monastic interpretation of life. We were there in, not +only a French, but a cloistered atmosphere--the atmosphere that +Philadelphia least of all towns could understand. The Friends had +attained to peace and unworldliness by staying in their own homes and +fulfilling their duty as fathers and mothers of families, as men and +women of business. But the nuns saw no way to achieve this end except +by shutting themselves out of the world and avoiding its temptations. +The Ladies of the Sacred Heart are cloistered. They leave the Convent +grounds only to journey from one of their houses to another, for care is +taken that they do not, by staying over long in one school, form too +strong an attachment to place or person. Where would be the use of being +a nun if you were not made to understand the value of sacrifice? Their +pupils are, for the time, as strictly cloistered. Not for us were the +walks abroad by which most girls at boarding school keep up with the +times--or get ahead of them. We were as closely confined to the Convent +grounds as the nuns, except during the holidays or when a friend or +relation begged for us a special outing. It was not a confinement +depending on high stone walls and big gates with clanging iron chains +and bars. But the wood fences running with the board walk above the +railroad and about the woods and the fields and the gardens made us no +less prisoners--willing and happy prisoners as we might be, and were. +This gave us, or gave me at any rate, a curious idea of the Convent as a +place entirely apart, a place that had nothing to do with the near town +or the suburb in which it stood--a blessed oasis in the sad wilderness +of the world. + +There is no question that, as a result, I felt myself in anticipation a +stranger in the wilderness into which I knew I must one day go from the +oasis, and in which I used to imagine I should be as much of an exile +as the Children of Israel in the desert. Of course I was not quite that +when the time came, but that for an interval I was convinced I must be +explains how unlike in atmosphere the Convent was to Eleventh and +Spruce. + +In all sorts of little ways I was confirmed in this belief by life and +its duties at the Convent. For all that concerned me nearly, for all +that was essential to existence here below, Philadelphia seemed to me as +remote as Timbuctoo. I got insensibly to think of myself first not as a +Philadelphian, not as an American, but as a "Child of the Sacred +Heart,"--the first question under all circumstances was what I should +do, not as a Philadelphian, but as a Child of the Sacred Heart. + +[Illustration: ARCH STREET MEETING] + +I cannot say how much the mere name of the thing represented--the honour +and the privilege--and there was not a girl who had been for any time a +pupil who did not prize it as I did. And we were not given the chance to +forget or belittle it. We were impressed with the importance of showing +our appreciation of the distinction Providence had reserved for us--of +showing it not merely by our increased faith and devotion, but by our +bearing and conduct. We might be slack about our lessons. That was all +right at a period when slackness prevailed in girls' schools and it was +unfeminine, if not unladylike, to be too learned. But we were not let +off from the diligent cultivation of our manners. Our faith and devotion +were attended to in a daily half hour of religious instruction. But +Sunday was not too holy a day for the Politeness Class that was held +every week as surely as Sunday came round, in which we were taught all +the mysteries of a Deportment that might have given tips to the great +Turveydrop himself,--how to sit, how to walk, how to carry ourselves +under all circumstances, how to pick up a handkerchief a passer-by might +drop--an unspeakable martyrdom of a class when each unfortunate student, +in turn, went through her paces with the eyes of all the school upon her +and to the sound of the stifled giggles of the boldest. We never met one +of our mistresses in the corridors that we did not drop a laboured +curtsey--a shy, deplorably awkward curtsey when I met the Reverend +Mother, Mother Boudreau, a large, portly, dignified nun from Louisiana +and a model of deportment, who inspired me with a respectful fear I +never have had for any other mortal. We could not answer a plain "Yes" +or "No" to our mistresses, but the "Madam" must always politely follow. +"Remember" was a frequent warning, "remember that wherever, or with +whom, you may be, to behave like children of the Sacred Heart!" A Child +of the Sacred Heart, we were often told, should be known by her manners. +And so impressed were we with this precept that I remember a +half-witted, but harmless, elderly woman whom the nuns, in their +goodness, had kept on as a "parlour boarder" after her school days were +over, telling us solemnly that when she was in New York and went out +shopping with her sister, the young men behind the counter at Stewart's +would all look at her with admiring eyes and whisper to each other, "Is +it not easy to see that Miss C. is a Child of the Sacred Heart?" + +[Illustration: THE TRAIN SHED, BROAD STREET STATION] + +Seriously, the training did give something that nothing else could, and +an admirable training it was for which girls to-day might exchange more +than one brain-bewildering course at College and be none the worse for +it. In my own case, I admit, I should not mind having had more of the +other training, as it has turned out that my work in life is of the sort +where a quick intelligence counts for more than an elegant deportment. +But I can find no fault with the Convent for neglect. Girls then were +not educated to work. If you had asked any girl anywhere what was +woman's mission, she would have answered promptly--had she been +truthful--"to find a husband as soon as possible;" if she were a Convent +girl,--a Child of the Sacred Heart--she would have added, "or else to +become a nun." Her own struggles to fit herself for any other career the +inconsiderate Fates might drive her into, so far from doing her any +harm, were the healthiest and most bracing of tonics. Granted an average +mind, she could teach herself through necessity just the important +things school could not teach her through a routine she didn't see the +use of. She emerged from the ordeal not only heroically but +successfully, which was more to the point. A young graduate from Bryn +Mawr said to me some few days ago that when she looked at her mother and +the women of her mother's generation and realized all they had +accomplished without what is now called education, she wondered whether +the girls of her generation, who had the benefit of all the excess of +education going, would or could accomplish more, or as much. To tell the +truth, I wonder myself. But then it may be said that I, belonging to +that older generation, am naturally prejudiced. + + +VII + +There are moments when, reflecting on all I lost as a Philadelphian, I +am half tempted to regret my long years of seclusion, busy about my soul +and my manners, at the Convent. A year or so would not have much +mattered one way or the other. I led, however, no other life save the +Convent life until I was seventeen. I knew no other standpoint save the +Convent standpoint. + +But the temptation to regret flies as quickly as it comes. I loved the +life too well at the time, I love it too well in the retrospect, to have +wanted then, or to want now, to do without it. It was a happy life to +live, though I would not have been a school girl had I not, with the +school girl's joy in the morbid, liked nothing better than to pose as +the unhappiest of mortals--to be a school girl was to be misunderstood I +would have vowed, had I, in my safe oasis, ever heard the expression or +had the knowledge to guess at its meaning. I loved every stone in the +house, brown and ugly as every stone might be, I loved every tree in +the woods whether or no it dropped pleasant things to devour, I loved +every hour of the day whatever might be its task. I had a quick memory, +study was no great trouble to me, and I enjoyed every class and +recitation. I enjoyed getting into mischief--I wore once only the Ribbon +for Good Conduct--and I enjoyed being punished for it. In a word, I got +a good deal out of my life, if it was not exactly what a girl was sent +to school to get. And it is as happy a life to remember, with many +picturesque graces and absurdities, joys and sorrows, that an +uninterrupted existence at Eleventh and Spruce could not have given. + +I have no desire to talk sentimental nonsense about my school days +having been my happiest. That sort of talk is usually twaddle. It was +not as school that I loved the Convent, though as school it had its +unrivalled attractions; it was as home. When the time came to go from it +I suffered that sharp pang felt by most girls on leaving home for +school. I remember how I, who affected a sublime scorn for the cry-baby, +blubbered like one myself when I was faced with the immediate prospect +of life in Philadelphia. How well I recall my despair--how vividly I see +the foolish scene I made in the empty Refectory, shadowy in the dusk of +the June evening, where I was rehearsing the valedictory of the +Graduating Class which I had been chosen to recite, and where, after the +first few lines I broke down to my shame, and sniffled and gurgled and +sobbed in the lap of the beloved mistress who was doing her best to +comfort me, and also to keep me from disgracing her, as I should have +done by any such scene on the great day itself. + +If the Convent stands for so much in my memory, it would be ungrateful +to regret the years I spent in it. The sole reason would be my loss, not +as a student, but as a Philadelphian, for this loss was the price I +paid. But the older I grow, the better I realize that to the loss I owe +an immeasurable gain. For as a child I never got so accustomed to +Philadelphia as not to see it at all. The thing we know too well is +often the thing we see least clearly, or we should not need the +philosopher to remind us that that is best which nearest lieth. All +through my childhood and early youth I saw Philadelphia chiefly from the +outside, and so saw it with more awe and wonder and lasting delight than +those Philadelphians who, in childhood and early youth, saw it only from +the inside,--too near for it to come together into the picture that +tells. + + + + +CHAPTER V: TRANSITIONAL + + +I + +And so it was with a great fear in my heart that, in the course of time +and after I had learned as little as it was decent for Philadelphia +girls to learn in the days before Bryn Mawr, I left the Convent +altogether for Philadelphia. I can smile now in recalling the old fear, +but it was no smiling matter at seventeen: a weeping matter rather, and +many were the tears I shed in secret over the prospect before me. My +holidays had not revealed Philadelphia to me as a place of evil and many +dangers. But as I was to live there, it represented the world,--the +sinful world, worse, the unknown world, to battle with whose temptations +my life and training at the Convent had been the preparation. + +[Illustration: ST PETER'S, INTERIOR] + +It added to the danger that sin could wear so peaceful an aspect and +temptation keep so comfortably out of sight. During an interval, longer +than I cared to have it, for I did not "come out" at once as a +Philadelphia girl should and at the Convent I had made few Philadelphia +friends, my personal knowledge of Philadelphia did not go much deeper +than its house fronts. For the most part they bore the closest family +resemblance to those of Eleventh and Spruce, with the same suggestion of +order and repose in their well-washed marble steps and neatly-drawn +blinds. My Father had then moved to Third Street near Spruce, and there +rented a red brick house, one-half, or one-third, the size of my +Grandfather's, but very like it in every other way, to the roses in the +tiny back-yard and to the daily family routine except that, with a +courageous defiance of tradition I do not know how we came by, we dined +at the new dinner hour of six and said our prayers in the privacy of our +bedrooms. The Stock Exchange was only a minute away, and yet, at our +end, Third Street had not lost its character as a respectable +residential street. We had for neighbours old Miss Grelaud and the +Bullitts and, round the corner in Fourth Street, the Wisters and Bories +and Schaumbergs,--with what bated breath Philadelphia talked of the +beauty and talents of Miss Emily Schaumberg, as she still was!--and many +other Philadelphia families who had never lived anywhere else. Life went +on as silently and placidly and regularly as at the Convent. I seemed +merely to have exchanged one sort of monastic peace for another and the +loudest sound I ever heard, the jingling of my old friend the horse-car, +was not so loud as to disturb it. + +If I walked up Spruce Street, or as far as Pine and up Pine, silence and +peace enfolded me. Peace breathed, exuded from the red brick houses with +their white marble steps, their white shutters below and green above, +their pleasant line of trees shading the red brick pavement. The +occasional brown stone front broke the uniformity with such brutal +discord that I might have imagined the devil I knew was waiting for me +somewhere lurked behind it, and have seen in its pretentious aping of +New York fashion the sin in which Philadelphia, as the Sinful World, +must abound. I cannot say why it seemed to me, and still seems, so +odious, for there were other interruptions to the monotony I delighted +in--the beautiful open spaces and great trees about the Pennsylvania +Hospital and St. Peter's; the old Mint which, with its severe classical +facade, seemed to reproach the frivolity of the Chestnut Street store +windows on every side of it; General Paterson's square grey house with +long high-walled garden at Thirteenth and Locust; the big yellow Dundas +house at Broad and Walnut, with its green enclosure and the magnolia for +whose blossoming I learnt to watch with the coming of spring; that other +garden with wide-spreading trees opposite my Grandfather's at Eleventh +and Spruce: old friends these quickly grew to be, kindly landmarks on +the way when I took the walks that were so solitary in those early days, +through streets where it was seldom I met anybody I knew, for the +Convent had made me a good deal of a stranger in my native town,--where +it was seldom, indeed, I met anybody at all. + + +II + +When I went out, I usually turned in the direction of Spruce and Pine, +for to turn in the other, towards Walnut, was to be at once in the +business part of the town where Philadelphia women preferred not to be +seen, having no desire to bridge over the wide gulf of propriety that +then yawned between the sex and business. Except for the character of +the buildings and the signs at the doors, I might not have been +conscious of the embarrassing difference between this and my more +familiar haunts. Bankers' and stock-brokers' offices were on every side, +but the Third Street car did not jingle any louder as it passed, my way +was not more crowded, peace still enveloped me. I gathered from my +Father, who was a broker, that the Stock Exchange, when buying and +selling had to be done on the spot and not by telephone as in our +degenerate days, was now and then a scene of animation, and it might be +of noise and disorder, more especially at Christmas, when a brisker +business was done in penny whistles and trumpets than in stocks and +shares. But the animation overflowed into Third Street only at moments +of panic, to us welcome as moments of prosperity for they kept my Father +busy--we thrived on panics--and then, once or twice, I saw staid +Philadelphians come as near running as I ever knew them to in the open +street. + +[Illustration: THE PENNSYLVANIA HOSPITAL FROM PINE STREET] + +Now and then youth got the better of me and I sought adventure in the +unadventurous monotony of Walnut Street where the lawyers had their +offices, the courts not having as yet migrated up to Broad Street. It +was usually lost in heavy legal slumber and if my intrusion was bold, at +least nobody was about to resent it. Nor could there be a doubt of the +eminent respectability into which I intruded. The recommendation to +Philadelphia of its lawyers was not the high esteem in which they were +held throughout the country, but their social standing at home--family +gave distinction to the law, not the law to family. Approved +Philadelphia names adorned the signs at almost every office door and not +for some years was the evil day to dawn when the well-known Philadelphia +families who inherited the right of the law would be forced to fight for +it with the alien and the Jew. For me, I think I am at an age when I may +own that the irreproachable names on the signs were not the principal +attraction. Sometimes, from one of the somnolent offices, a friendly +figure would step into the somnolent street to lighten me on my way, and +it was pleasanter to walk up Walnut in company than alone. When I went +back the other day, after many years and many changes for Philadelphia +and myself, I found most of the familiar signs gone, but at one door I +was met by a welcome ghost--but, was it the ghost of that friendly +figure or of my lonely youth grasping at romance or its shadow? How many +years must pass, how many experiences be gone through, before a question +like that can be asked! + +If I followed Third Street beyond Walnut to Chestnut, I was in the +region of great banks and trust companies and newspaper offices and the +old State House and the courts. I had not had the experience, or the +training, to realize what architectural monstrosities most of the new, +big, heavy stone buildings were, nor the curiosity to investigate what +went on inside of them, but after the quiet red brick houses they +seemed to have business written all over them and the street, compared +to Spruce and Walnut, appeared to my unsophisticated eyes so thronged +that I did not have to be told it was no place for me. It was plain that +most women felt as I did, so careful were they to efface themselves. I +remember meeting but few on Chestnut Street below Eighth until Mr. +Childs began to devote his leisure moments and loose change to the +innocent amusement of presenting a cup and saucer to every woman who +would come to get it, and as most women in Philadelphia, or out of it, +are eager to grab anything they do not have to pay for, many visited him +in the _Ledger_ office at Sixth and Chestnut. + +[Illustration: SECOND STREET MARKET] + +As I shrank from doing what no other woman did, and, as the business end +of Chestnut Street did not offer me the same temptation as Walnut, I +never got to know it well,--in fact I got to know it so little that my +ignorance would seem extraordinary in anybody save a Philadelphian, and +it remained as strange to me as the street of a foreign town. I could +not have said just where my Grandfather's Bank was, not once during that +period did I set my foot across the threshold of the State House, +unwilling as I am to confess it. But perhaps I might as well make a full +confession while I am about it, for the truth will have to come out +sooner or later. Let me say then, disgraceful as I feel it to be, that +though I spent two years at least in the Third Street house, with so +much of the beauty of Philadelphia's beautiful past at my door, it was +not until some time afterwards, when we had gone to live up at +Thirteenth and Spruce, that I began to appreciate the beauty as well as +my folly in not having appreciated it sooner. St. Peter's Church and the +Pennsylvania Hospital I could not ignore, many of my walks leading me +past them. But I was several years older before I saw Christ Church, +inside or out. The existence of the old Second Street Market was unknown +to me; had I been asked I no doubt would have said that the Old Swedes +Church was miles off; I was unconscious that I was surrounded by houses +of Colonial date; I was blind to the meaning and dignity of great gables +turned to the street, and stately Eighteenth Century doorways, and +dormer windows, and old ironwork, and a patchwork of red and black +brick; I was indifferent to the interest these things might have given +to every step I took at a time when, too often, every step seemed +forlornly barren of interest or its possibility. Into the old +Philadelphia Library on Fifth Street I did penetrate once or twice, and +once or twice sat in its quiet secluded alcoves dipping into musty +volumes: a mere accident it must have been, my daily reading being +provided for at the easy-going, friendly, pleasantly dingy, much more +modern Mercantile Library in Tenth Street. But the memory of these +visits, few as they were, is one of the strongest my Third Street days +have left with me, and I think, or I hope, I must have felt the charm of +the old town if I may not have realized that I did, for I can never look +back to myself as I was then without seeing it as the background to all +my comings and goings--a background that lends colour to my colourless +life. + + +III + +I can understand my ignorance and blindness and indifference, if I +cannot forgive them. All my long eleven years at the Convent I had had +the virtue of obedience duly impressed upon me, and, though there custom +led me easily into the temptation of disobedience, when I returned to +Philadelphia I was at first too frightened and bewildered to defy +Philadelphia's laws written and especially unwritten, for in these I was +immediately concerned. I was the more bewildered because I had come away +from the Convent comfortably convinced of my own importance, and it was +disconcerting to discover that Philadelphia, so far from sharing the +conviction, dismissed me as a person of no importance whatever. I had +also my natural indolence and moral cowardice to reckon with. I have +never been given to taking the initiative when I can avoid it and it is +one of my great grievances that, good and thorough American as I am, I +should have been denied my rightful share of American go. Anyway, I did +not have to stay long in Philadelphia to learn for myself that the +Philadelphia law of laws obliged every Philadelphian to do as every +other Philadelphian did, and that every Philadelphian was too much +occupied in evading what was not the thing in the present to bother to +cultivate a sentiment for the past. Moreover, I had to contend against +what the Philadelphians love to call the Philadelphia inertia, while all +the time they talk about it they keep giving substantial proofs of how +little reason there is for the talk. The Philadelphia inertia only means +that it is not good form in Philadelphia to betray emotion on any +occasion or under any circumstance. The coolness, or indifference, of +Philadelphians at moments and crises of great passion and excitement has +always astonished the outsider. If you do not understand the +Philadelphia way, as I did not then, you take the Philadelphian's talk +literally and believe the beautiful Philadelphia calm to be more than +surface deep, as I did who had not the sense as yet to see that, even if +this inertia was real, it was my business to get the better of it and to +develop for myself the energy I imagined my town and its people to be +without. I have often thought that the Philadelphia calm is a little +like the London climate that either conquers you or leaves you the +stronger for having conquered it. + + +IV + +If one of Philadelphia's unwritten laws closed my eyes to what was most +worth looking at when I took my walks abroad, another, no less +stringent, limited those walks to a small section of the town. On the +map Philadelphia might stretch over a vast area with the possibility of +spreading indefinitely, but for social purposes it was shut in to the +East and the West by the Delaware and the Schuylkill, to the North and +the South by a single line of the old rhyming list of the streets: +"Chestnut, Walnut, Spruce and Pine." I have not the antiquarian +knowledge to say who drew that rigid line, or when what had been all +right for Washington and Provosts of the University and no end of +distinguished people became all wrong for ordinary mortals--I have heard +the line ridiculed, but never explained. No geographical boundary has +been, or could be, more arbitrary, but there it was, there it is, and +the Philadelphian who crosses it risks his good name. Nor can the +stranger, though unwarned, disregard it with impunity. I remember when I +met Mrs. Alexander Gilchrist, the first friend I made in London, and she +told me the number of the house away out North Twenty-second Street +where she lived for two years in Philadelphia, I had a moment of +Philadelphia uncertainty as to whether her literary distinction could +outbalance her social indiscretion. Philadelphia never had a doubt, but +was serenely unconscious of her presence during her two years there. And +yet she had then edited and published, with the help of the Rossettis, +her husband's _Life of Blake_ which had brought her fame in England, and +her up-town house must have been one of the most interesting to visit. +Walt Whitman was a daily guest and few American men of letters passed +through Philadelphia without finding their way to it. Philadelphia, +however, would scruple going to Heaven were Heaven north of Market +Street. + +It is an absurd prejudice, but I am not sure if I have got rid of it +now or if I ever shall get rid of it, and when I was too young to see +its absurdity I would as soon have questioned the infallibility of the +Pope. It was decreed that nobody should go north of Market or south of +Pine; therefore I must not go; the reason, probably, why I never went to +Christ Church--a pew had not been in my family for generations to excuse +my presence in North Second Street--why I never, even by accident, +passed the Old Swedes or the Second Street Market. It was bad enough to +cross the line when I could not help myself. I am amused now--though my +sensitive youth found no amusement in it--when I think of my annoyance +because my Great-Grandfather, on my Mother's side, old Ambrose White +whose summer home was in Chestnut Hill, lived not many blocks from the +Meeting House and the Christ Church Burial Ground where Franklin lies, +in one of those fine old Arch Street houses in which Friends had lived +for generations since there had been Arch Street houses to live in. +Besides, Mass and Vespers in the Cathedral led me to Logan Square, to my +dismay that religion should lead where it was as much as my reputation +was worth to be met. I have wondered since if it was as compromising for +the Philadelphian from north of Market Street to be found in Rittenhouse +Square. + +[Illustration: FOURTH AND ARCH STREETS MEETING HOUSE] + +Outwardly I could see no startling difference between the forbidden +Philadelphia and my Philadelphia--"there is not such great odds, Brother +Toby, betwixt good and evil as the world imagines," I might have said +with Mr. Shandy had I known that Mr. Shandy said it or that there was a +Mr. Shandy to say anything so wise. The Philadelphia rows of red brick +houses, white marble steps, white shutters below and green above, rows +of trees shading them, were much the same north of Market Street and +south of Pine, except that south of Pine the red brick houses shrank and +the white marble and white shutters grew shabby, and north of Market +their uniformity was more often broken by brown stone fronts which, +together with the greater width of many of the streets, gave a richer +and more prosperous air than we could boast down our way. But it was not +for Philadelphians, of all people, to question why, and it must have +been two or three years later, when I was less awed by Philadelphia, +that I went up town of my own free will and out of sheer defiance. I can +remember the time when an innocent visit to so harmless a place as +Girard College appeared to me in the light of outrageous daring. That is +the way in my generation we were taught and learned our duty in +Philadelphia. + +My excursions to the suburbs, except to Torresdale, were few, which was +my loss for no other town's suburbs are more beautiful, and they were +not on Philadelphia's Index. Time and the alien had not yet driven the +Philadelphian out to the Main Line as an alternative to "Chestnut, +Walnut, Spruce and Pine," but many had country houses there; Germantown +was popular, Chestnut Hill and Torresdale were beyond reproach. My +Father, however, who cultivated most of Philadelphia's prejudices, was +unexpectedly heterodox in this particular. He could not stand the +suburbs--poor man, he came to spending suburban summers in the end--and +of them all he held Germantown most sweepingly in disfavour. I cannot +remember that he gave a reason for his dislike. It may be that its +grey-stone houses offended him as an infidelity to Philadelphia's red +brick austerity. But he could never speak of it with patience and from +him I got the idea that it was the abyss of the undesirable. One of the +biggest surprises of my life was, when I came to look at it with my own +eyes, to find it as desirable a place as beauty and history can make. + + +V + +The shopping I had not the money to do would have kept me within a more +exclusive radius, for a shopping expedition restricted the Philadelphian +who had any respect for herself to Chestnut Street between Eighth and +Fifteenth. Probably I was almost the only Philadelphian who knew there +were plenty of cheap stores in Second Street, but that I bought the +first silk dress I ever possessed there was one of the little +indiscretions I had the sense to keep to myself. A bargain in Eighth +Street might be disclosed as a clever achievement, if not repeated too +often. The old Philadelphia name and the historic record of +Lippincott's, for generations among the most successful Philadelphia +publishers, would have permitted a periodical excursion into Market +Street, even if unlimited latitude, anyway, had not been granted to +wholesale houses in the choice of a street. The well-known reliability +of Strawbridge and Clothier might warrant certain purchases up-town and +a furniture dealer as reliable, whose name and address I regret have +escaped me, sanction the housekeeper's penetrating still further north. +But it was safer, everything considered, to keep to Chestnut Street, and +on Chestnut Street to stores approved by long patronage--you were +hall-marked "common" if you did not, and the wrong name on the inside of +your hat or under the flap of your envelope might be your social +undoing. The self-respecting Philadelphian would not have bought her +needles and cotton anywhere save at Mustin's, her ribbons anywhere save +at Allen's. She would have scorned the visiting card not engraved by +Dreka. She would have gone exclusively to Bailey's or Caldwell's for her +jewels and silver; to Darlington's or Homer and Colladay's for her +gloves and dresses; to Sheppard's for her linen; to Porter and Coates, +after Lippincott's, for her books; to Earle's for her pictures;--prints +were such an exotic taste that Gebbie and Barrie could afford to hide in +Walnut Street, and the collector of books such a rarity that Tenth, or +was it Ninth? was as good as any other street for the old book store +where I had so unpleasant an experience that I could not well forget it +though I have forgotten its proprietor's name. A sign in the window said +that old books were bought, and one day, my purse as usual empty but my +heart full of hope, I carried there two black-bound, gilt-edged French +books of the kind nobody dreams of reading that I had brought home +triumphantly as prizes from the Convent: but I and my poor treasures +were dismissed with such contempt and ridicule that my spirit was broken +and I could not summon up pluck to carry them to Leary's, in Ninth +Street, who were more liberal even than Charles Lamb in their +definition, and to whom anything printed and bound was a book to be +bought and sold. + +If hunger overtook the shopper, she would have eaten her oyster stew +only at Jones's on Eleventh Street or Burns's on Fifteenth; or if the +heat exhausted her, she would have cooled off on ice-cream only at +Sautter's or Dexter's, on soda-water only at Wyeth's or Hubbell's. The +hours for shopping were as circumscribed as the district. To be seen on +Chestnut Street late in the afternoon, if not unpardonable, was +certainly not quite the thing. + + +VI + +Shopping without money had no charm and could never help to dispose of +my interminable hours. The placid beauty of the shopless streets was of +a kind to appeal more to age than youth. I wonder to this day at the +time I allowed to pass before I shook off my respect for Philadelphia +conventions sufficiently to relieve the dulness of my life by straying +from the Philadelphia beaten track. The most daring break at first was a +stroll on Sunday afternoon over to West Philadelphia and to Woodland's. +Later, when, with a friend, I went on long tramps through the Park, by +the Wissahickon, to Chestnut Hill, it was looked upon as no less +unladylike on our part than the new generation's cigarette and demand +for the vote on theirs. But if I did my duty, I was sadly bored by it. +Often I turned homeward with that cruel aching of the heart the young +know so well, longing for something, anything, to happen on the way to +interrupt, to disorganize, to shatter to pieces the daily routine of +life. I still shrink from the sharp pain of those cool, splendid October +days when Philadelphia was aglow and quiveringly alive, and with every +breath of the brisk air came the desire to be up and away and doing--but +away where in Philadelphia?--doing what in Philadelphia? I still shrink +from the sharp pain of the first langourous days of spring when every +Philadelphia back-yard was full of perfume and every Philadelphia street +a golden green avenue leading direct to happiness could I have found the +way along its bewildering straightness. + +[Illustration: JOHNSON HOUSE, GERMANTOWN] + +If youth only knew! There was everywhere to go, everything to do, every +happiness to claim. Philadelphia waited, the Promised Land of action and +romance, had I not been hide-bound by Philadelphia conventions, absorbed +in Philadelphia ideals, disdaining all others with the intolerance of my +years. According to these conventions and ideals, there was but one +adventure for the Philadelphia girl who had finished her education and +arrived at the appointed age--the social adventure of coming out. + + + + +CHAPTER VI: THE SOCIAL ADVENTURE + + +I + +Let me say at once that I know no adventure is more important for the +Philadelphian, and that mine was scarcely worth the name as these things +go in Philadelphia. + +It is the one adventure that should be roses all the way, but for me it +was next to no roses at all. To begin with, I was poor. My Father had +lost his money in the years of upheaval following the Civil War and had +never got it back again. Nowadays this would not matter. A girl of +seventeen, when she comes home from school, can turn round, find +something to do, and support herself. She could in the old days too, if +she was thrown on her own resources. I had friends no older than myself +who taught, or were in the Mint--that harbour of refuge for the young or +old Philadelphia lady in reduced circumstances. But my trouble was that +I was not supposed to be thrown on my own resources. A Philadelphia +father would have felt the social structure totter had he permitted his +daughter to work as long as he was alive to work for her. When he had +many daughters and luck went against him, the advantage of this attitude +was less obvious to them than to him. Exemplary as was the theory, which +I applaud my Father for acting up to since it happened to be his, it +had its inconvenience when put into practice. To be guarded from the +hardship of labour by the devoted father did not always put money into +the daughter's pocket. + +[Illustration: THE CUSTOMS HOUSE] + +Had I been more at home in Philadelphia, my poverty might not have stood +so much in my light. A hundred years before Gouverneur Morris had +praised Philadelphia, which in its respect for "virtuous poverty" he +thought so much more generous than other capitals where social splendour +was indispensable, and in this the town had not changed. It was to +Philadelphia's credit that a girl's social success did not depend on the +length of her dressmaker's bill or the scale of her entertaining. More +than one as poor as I would have a different story to tell. But I +suffered from having had no social training or apprenticeship. The +Convent had been concerned in preparing me for society in the next +world, not in this, and I had stayed in the Convent too long to make the +many friendships that do more than most things to launch a girl on her +social career--too long, for that matter, to know what society meant. + +It was a good thing that I did not know, did not realize what was ahead +of me, that I allowed myself to be led like a Philadelphian to the +slaughter, for a little experience of society is good for everybody. +Unless men are to live like brutes--or like monks--they must establish +some sort of social relations, and if the social game is played at all, +it should be according to the rules. Nowhere are the rules so rigorous +as in Philadelphia, nowhere in America based upon more inexorable, as +well as dignified, traditions, and I do not doubt that because of the +stumbling blocks in my path, I learned more about them than the +Philadelphia girl whose path was rose-strewn. Were history my mission, +it would be amusing to trace these traditions to their source--first +through the social life of the Friends who, however, are so exclusive +that should this part of the story ever be told, whether as romance or +history, it must come from the inside; and then, through the gaieties of +the World's People who flatter themselves they are as exclusive, and who +have the name for it, and whose exclusiveness is wholesale license +compared to that of the Friends:--through the two distinct societies +that have lived and flourished side by side ever since Philadelphia was. +But my concern is solely with the gaieties as I, individually, shared in +them. Now that I have outlived the discomforts of the experience, I can +flatter myself that, in my small, insignificant fashion, I was helping +to carry on old and fine traditions. + + +II + +The most serious of these discomforts arose from the question of +clothes, a terrifying question under the existing conditions in the +Third Street house, involving more industrious dress-making upstairs in +the third story front bedroom than I cared about, and a waste of +energies that should have been directed into more profitable channels. I +sewed badly and was conscious of it. At the Convent, except for the +necessity of darning my stockings, I had been as free from this sort of +toiling as a lily of the field, and yet I too had gone arrayed, if +hardly with the same conspicuous success, and, in my awkward hands, the +white tarlatan--who wears tarlatan now?--and the cheap silk from Second +Street, which composed my coming out trousseau, were not growing into +such things of beauty as to reconcile me to my new task. + +[Illustration: UNDER BROAD STREET STATION AT FIFTEENTH STREET] + +As unpleasant were the preliminary lessons in dancing forced upon me by +my family when, in my pride of recent graduation with honours, it +offended me to be thought by anybody in need of learning anything. One +evening every week during a few months, two or three friends and cousins +joined me in the Third Street parlour to be drilled into dancing shape +for coming out by Madame Martin, the large, portly Frenchwoman who, in +the same crinoline and heelless, sidelaced shoes, taught generations of +Philadelphia children to dance. Even the Convent could not do without +her, though there, to avoid the sinfulness of "round dances," we had, +under her tuition, waltzed and polkaed hand in hand, a method which my +family feared, if not corrected, might lead to my disgrace. + +I seem rather a pathetic figure as I see myself obediently stitching and +practising my steps without an idea of the true meaning and magnitude of +the adventure I was getting ready for, or a chance of being set about it +in the right way. That right way would have been for somebody to give a +party or a dance or a reception especially for me to come out at. But +nobody among my friends and relations was obliging enough to accept the +responsibility, and at home my Father could not get so far as to think +of it. He would have needed too disastrous a panic in Third Street to +provide the money. Madame Martin's lessons were already an extravagance +and when, on top of them, he had gone so far as to pay for my +subscription to the Dancing Class, and, in a cabless town, for the +carriage, fortunately shared with friends, to go to it in, he had done +all his bank account allowed him to do to start me in life. + +It would be as useful to explain that the sun rises in the east and sets +in the west as to tell a Philadelphian that the Dancing Class to which I +refer was not of the variety presided over by Madame Martin, but one to +which Philadelphians went to make use of just such lessons as I had been +struggling with for weeks. The origin of its name I never knew, I never +asked, the Dancing Class being one of the Philadelphia institutions the +Philadelphian took for granted: then, as it always had been and still +is, I believe, a distinguished social function of the year. To belong to +it was indispensable to the Philadelphian with social pretensions. It +was held every other Monday, if I remember--to think I should have a +doubt on a subject of such importance!-and the first of the series was +given so early in the winter that with it the season may be said to have +opened. Perhaps this fact helped my family to decide that it was at the +Dancing Class I had best make my first appearance. + + +III + +Youth is brave out of sheer ignorance. When the moment came, it never +occurred to me to hesitate or to consider the manner of my introduction +to the world. I was content that my Brother should be my sole chaperon. +I rather liked myself in my home-made white tarlatan, feeling very much +dressed in my first low neck. I entertained no misgivings as to the fate +awaiting me, imagining it as inevitable for a girl who was "out" to +dance and have a good time as for a bird to fly once its wings were +spread. If there were men to dance with, what more was needed?--it never +having entered into my silly head that it was the girl's sad fate to +have to wait for the man to ask her, and that sometimes the brute +didn't. + +I had to go no further than the dressing-room at the Natatorium, where +the Dancing Class then met, to learn that society was not so simple as I +thought. I have since been to many strange lands among many strange +people, but never have I felt so much of a stranger as when I, a +Philadelphian born, doing conscientiously what Philadelphia expected of +me, was suddenly dropped down into the midst of a lot of Philadelphia +girls engaged in the same duty. There was a freemasonry among them I +could not help feeling right away--the freemasonry that went deeper than +the chance of birth and the companionship of duty--the freemasonry that +came from their all having grown up together since their perambulator +days in Rittenhouse Square, having learned to dance together, gone to +children's parties together, studied at Miss Irwin's school together, +spent the summer by the sea and in the mountains together, in a word, +from their having done everything together until they were united by +close bonds, the closer for being undefinable, that I, Convent bred, +with not an idea, not a habit, not a point of view, in common with them, +could not break through. I never have got quite over the feeling, though +time has modified it. There is no loneliness like the loneliness in a +crowd, doubly so if all the others in the crowd know each other. In the +dressing-room that first evening it was so overwhelming to discover +myself entirely out of it where I should have been entirely in, that, +without the stay and support of my friend, of old the Prince of Denmark +to my Ghost of Hamlet's Father, and her sister, who had come out under +more favourable conditions, I do not think I could have gone a step +further in the great social adventure. + +As it was, with my heart in my boots, my hand trembling on my Brother's +arm, to the music of Hassler's band, I entered the big bare hall of the +Natatorium, and was out with no more fuss and with nobody particularly +excited about it save myself. + +[Illustration: THE PHILADELPHIA CLUB, THIRTEENTH AND WALNUT STREETS] + +Things were a little better once away from the dressing-room. My Brother +was gay, had been out for two or three years, knew everybody. If he +could not introduce me to the women he could introduce the men to me, +and the freemasonry existing among them from their all having gone to +the Episcopal Academy and the University of Pennsylvania together, from +their all having played cricket and baseball and football, or gone +hunting together, from their all belonging to the same clubs, was not +the kind from which I need suffer. Besides, those were the days when it +was easy for the Philadelphia girl to get to know men, to make friends +of them, without the Philadelphia gossip pouncing upon her and the +Philadelphia father asking them their intentions--they could call upon +her as often as they liked and the Philadelphia father would retreat +from the front and back parlours, she could go out alone with them and +the Philadelphia father would not interfere, knowing they had been +brought up to see in themselves her protectors, especially appointed to +look out for her. Some signs of change I might have discerned had I been +observant. More than the five o'clock tea affectation was to come of the +new coquetting with English fashions. Enough had already come for me to +know that if my Brother now and then asked me to go to the theatre, it +was not for the pleasure of my company, but because a girl he wanted to +take would not accept if he did not provide a companion for the sake of +the proprieties. I am sure the old Philadelphia way was the most +sensible. Certainly it was the most helpful if you happened to be a girl +coming out with next to no friends among the women in what ought to have +been your own set, with no chaperon to see that you made them, and, at +the Dancing Class, with no hostess to keep a protecting eye on you but, +instead, patronesses too absorbed in their triumphs to notice the less +fortunate straggling far behind. + +Well, anyway, if honesty forbids me to call myself a success, it is a +satisfaction to remember that I did not have to play the wall-flower, +which I would have thought the most terrible disaster that could befall +me. To have to sit out the German alone would have been to sink to such +depths of shame that I never afterwards could have held up my head. It +was astonishing what mountains of despair we made of these social +molehills! I can still see the sad faces of the girls in a row against +the wall, with their air of announcing to all whom it might concern: +"Here we are, at your service, come and rescue us!" But there was +another dreadful custom that did give me away only too often. When a man +asked a girl beforehand to dance the German, Philadelphia expected him +to send her a bunch of roses: always the same roses--Boston buds, +weren't they called?--and from Pennock's on Chestnut Street if he knew +what was what. To take your place roseless was to proclaim that you had +not been asked until the eleventh hour. It was not pleasant. However, if +I went sometimes without the roses, I always had the partner. I had even +moments of triumph as when, one dizzy evening before the assembled +Dancing Class, I danced with Willie White. + +It is not indiscreet to mention so great a person by name and, in doing +so, not presuming to use it so familiarly--he was the Dancing Class, as +far as I know, he had no other occupation; and his name was _Willie_, +not _William_, not _Mr._ White. Willie, as Philadelphians said it, was +a title of honour, like the Coeur de Lion or the Petit Caporal bestowed +upon other great men--the measure of the estimate in which social +Philadelphia held him. Bean Nash in the Pump Room at Bath was no +mightier power than Willie White in the Dancing Class at the Natatorium. +He ruled it, and ruled it magnificently: an autocrat, a tyrant, under +whose yoke social Philadelphia was eager to thrust its neck. What he +said was law, whom he approved could enter, whom he objected to was +without redress, his recognition of the Philadelphian's claims to +admission was a social passport. He saw to everything, he led the +German, and I do not suppose there was a girl who, at her first Dancing +Class her first winter, did not, at her first chance, take him out in +the German as her solemn initiation. That is how I came to enjoy my +triumph, and I do not remember repeating it for he never condescended to +take me out in return. But still, I can say that once I danced with +Willie White at the Dancing Class--And did I once see Shelley plain? + + +IV + +There were other powers, as I was made quickly to understand--not only +the powers that all Biddles, Cadwalladers, Rushes, Ingersolls, Whartons, +in a word all members of approved Philadelphia families were by +Philadelphia right, but a few who had risen even higher than that +splendid throng and were accepted as their leaders. It was not one of +the most brilliant periods in the social history of Philadelphia. Mrs. +Rush had had no successor, no woman presided over what could have been +given the name of Salon as she had. Even the Wistar parties, exclusively +for men, discontinued during the upheaval of the Civil War, had not yet +been revived. But, notwithstanding the comparative quiet and depression, +there were a few shining social lights. + +Had I been asked in the year of my coming out who was the greatest woman +in the world, I should have answered, without hesitation, Mrs. Bowie. +She, too, may be mentioned by name without indiscretion for she, too, +has become historical. She was far from beautiful at the date to which I +refer, she was no longer in her first youth, was inclined to stoutness +and I fear had not learned how to fight it as women who would be in the +fashion must learn to-day. She was not rich and the fact is worth +recording, so characteristic is it of Philadelphia. The names of leaders +of society in near New York usually had millions attached to them, those +there allowed to lead paid a solid price for it in their entertaining. +But Mrs. Bowie's power depended upon her personal fascination--with +family of course to back it--which was said to be irresistible. And yet +not to know her was to be unknown. Intimacy with her was to have +arrived. At least a bowing acquaintance, an occasional invitation to her +house, was essential to success or its dawning. She entertained modestly +as far as I could gather from my experience,--as far as I can now +depend on my memory--gave no balls, no big dinners; if there were +select little dinners, I was too young and insignificant to hear of +them. I never got farther than the afternoon tea to which everybody was +invited once every winter, a comfortless crush in her small house, with +next to nothing to eat and drink as things to eat and drink go according +to the lavish Philadelphia standard. But that did not matter. Nothing +mattered except to be there, to be seen there. I was tremendously +pleased with myself the first time the distinction was mine, though of +my presence in her house Mrs. Bowie was no doubt amiably unconscious. I +never knew her to recognize me out of it, though I sometimes met her +when she came informally to see one of my Aunts who was her friend, or +to give me the smile at the Dancing Class that would have raised my +drooping spirits. The only notice she ever spared me there was to +express to my Brother--who naturally, brother-like, made me +uncomfortable by reporting it to me--her opinion of my poor, +unpretentious, home-made, Second Street silk as an example of the +absurdity of a long train to dance in, which shows how completely she +had forgotten who I was. + +Her chief rival, if so exalted a personage could have a rival, was Mrs. +Connor, from whom also a smile, a recognition, was equivalent to social +promotion. Her fascination did not have to be explained. She was an +unqualified beauty, though the vision I have retained is of beauty in +high-necked blue velvet and chinchilla, which I could not have enjoyed +at the Dancing Class or any evening party. I realise as I write that in +the details of Philadelphia's social history I would come out badly from +too rigid an examination. + + +V + +To Mrs. Connor's I was never asked with or without the crowd. But other +houses were opened to me, other invitations came, for, if I had not +friends, my family had. My white tarlatan and my Second Street silk had +grown shabby before the winter was half over. At many parties I got to +know what a delightful thing a Philadelphia party was, and if I had gone +to one instead of many I should have known as well. Philadelphia had a +standard for its parties as for everything, and to deviate from this +standard, to attempt originality, to invent the "freak" entertainments +of New York, would have been excessively bad form. The same card printed +by Dreka requested the pleasure of your company to the same Philadelphia +house--the Philadelphia hostess would not have stooped to invite you to +the Continental or the Girard, the LaPierre House or the Colonnade, +which were the Bellevue and the Ritz of my day--where you danced in the +same spacious front and back parlours, with the same crash on the floor, +to the same music by Hassler's band: where you ate the same Terrapin, +Croquettes, Chicken Salad, Oysters, Boned Turkey, Ice cream, little +round Cakes with white icing on top, and drank the same Fish-House Punch +provided by the same Augustine; where the same Cotillon began at the +same hour with the same figures and the same favours and the same +partners; where there was the same dressing-room in the second story +front and the same Philadelphia girls who froze me on my arrival and on +my departure. There was no getting away from the same people in +Philadelphia. That was the worst of it. The town was big enough for a +chance to meet different people in different houses every evening in the +week, but by that arbitrary boundary of "Chestnut, Walnut, Spruce and +Pine," it has made itself socially into a village with the pettiness and +limitations of village life. I have never wondered that Philadelphians +are as cordial to strangers as everybody who ever came to Philadelphia +knows them to be--that Philadelphia doors are as hospitable as Thackeray +once described them. Philadelphians have reason to rejoice and make the +most of it when occasionally they see a face they have not been seeing +regularly at every party they have been to, and hear talk they have not +listened to all their lives. + +[Illustration: THE NEW RITZ-CARLTON; THE FINISHING TOUCHES; THE WALNUT +STREET ADDITION HAS SINCE BEEN MADE] + +Sometimes it was to the afternoon reception the card engraved by Dreka +invited me, and then again it was to meet the same people and--in the +barbarous mode of the day--to eat the same Croquettes, Chicken Salad, +Terrapin, Boned Turkey, Ice-cream, and little round Cakes with white +icing on top, and to drink the same Punch from Augustine's at five +o'clock in the afternoon, and at least risk digestion in a good cause. +But rarely did the card engraved by Dreka invite me to dinner, and I +could not have been invited to anything I liked better. I have always +thought dinner the most civilized form of entertainment. It may have +been an entertainment Philadelphia preferred to reserve for my elders, +and, if I am not mistaken, the most formal dinners, or dinners with any +pretence to being public, were then usually men's affairs, just as the +Saturday Club, and the Wistar parties had been, and the Clover Club, and +the Fish-House Club were: from them women being as religiously excluded +as from the dinners of the City Companies in London, or from certain +monasteries in Italy and the East. Indeed, as I look back, it seems to +me that woman's social presence was correct only in private houses and +at private gatherings. Nothing took away my breath so completely on +going back to Philadelphia after my long absence as the Country Clubs +where men and women now meet and share their amusements, if it was not +the concession of a dining-room to women by a Club like the Union League +that, of old, was in my esteem as essentially masculine as the +Philadelphia Lady thought the sauces at Blossom's Hotel in Chester. + +But there were plenty of other things to do which I did with less rather +than more thoroughness. I paid midday visits, wondering why duty should +have set me so irksome a task. I received with friends on New Year's +Day--an amazing day when men paid off their social debts and made, at +some houses, their one call of the year, joining together by twos and +threes and fours to charter a carriage, or they would never have got +through their round, armed with all their courage either to refuse +positively or to accept everywhere the glass of Madeira or Punch and the +usual masterpiece from Augustine's. It was another barbarous custom, but +an old Philadelphia custom, and Philadelphia has lost so many old +customs that I could have wished this one spared. I went to the concerts +of the Orpheus Club. I went to the Opera and the Theatre when I was +asked, which was not often. I passed with the proper degree of +self-consciousness the Philadelphia Club at Thirteenth and Walnut, the +same row of faces always looking out over newspapers and magazines from +the same row of windows. And I did a great many things that were +pleasant and a great many more that were unpleasant, conscientiously +rejecting nothing social I was told to do when the opportunity to do it +came my way. But it all counted for nothing weighed in the balance with +the one thing I did not do--I never went to the Assembly. + + + + +CHAPTER VII: THE SOCIAL ADVENTURE: THE ASSEMBLY + + +I + +I am too good a Philadelphian to begin to talk about the Assembly in the +middle of a chapter. It holds a place apart in the social life of +Philadelphia of which annually it is the supreme moment, and in my +record of my experiences of this life, however imperfect, I can treat it +with no less consideration. It must have a chapter apart. + +To go to the Assembly was the one thing of all others I wanted to do, +not only on the general principle that the thing one wants most is the +thing one cannot have, but because to go to the Assembly was the thing +of all others I ought to have done. There could be no question of that. +You were not really out in Philadelphia if you did not go; only the +Friends could afford not to. And Americans from other towns felt much +the same way about it, they felt they were not anybody if they were not +invited, and they moved heaven and earth for an invitation, and prized +it, when received, as highly as a pedigree. A few honoured guests were +always at the Assembly. + +[Illustration: THE HALL, STENTON] + +Philadelphians who are not on the Assembly list may pretend to laugh at +it, to despise it, to sneer at the snobbishness of people who endeavour +to draw a social line in a country where everybody is as good as +everybody else and where those on the right side may look down but those +on the wrong will not be induced to look up. And not one among those who +laugh and sneer would not jump at the chance to get in, were it given +them, at the risk of being transformed into snobs themselves. For the +Assembly places the Philadelphian as nothing else can. It gives him what +the German gets from his quarterings or the Briton from an invitation to +Court. The Dancing Class had its high social standard, it required +grandfathers as credentials before admission could be granted, the +archives of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania supplied no more +authoritative assurance of Philadelphia respectability than its +subscription list, but the Dancing Class was lax in its standard +compared to the Assembly. I am not sure what was the number, what the +quality, of ancestors the Assembly exacted, but I know that it was as +inexorable in its exactions as the Council of Ten. It would have been +easier for troops of camels to pass through the eye of a needle than for +one Philadelphian north of Market Street to get through the Assembly +door. I am told that matters are worse to-day when Philadelphia society +has increased in numbers until new limits must be set to the Assembly +lest it perish of its own unwieldiness. The applicants must produce not +only forefathers but fathers and mothers on the list, and the +Philadelphian whose name was there more than a century and a half ago +cannot make good his rights if his parents neglected to establish +theirs. And to be refused is not merely humiliation, but humiliation +with Philadelphia for witness, and the misery and shame that are the +burden of the humiliated. + +It is foolish, I admit, society is too light a matter to suffer for; it +is cruel, for the social wound goes deep. But were it ten times more +foolish, ten times more cruel, I would not have it otherwise. +Philadelphians preserve their State House, their Colonial mansions and +churches; why should they not be as careful of their Assembly, since it +has as historic a background and as fine Colonial and Revolutionary +traditions? They are proud of having their names among those who signed +the Declaration of Independence; why should they not take equal--or +greater--pride in figuring among the McCalls and Willings and Shippens +and Sims and any number of others on the first Assembly lists, since +these are earlier in date? Besides, to such an extremity have the +changes of the last quarter of a century driven the Philadelphian that +he must make a good fight for survival in his own town. When I think of +how mere wealth is taking possession of "Chestnut, Walnut, Spruce and +Pine," how uptown is marrying into it, how the Jew and the alien are +forcing their way in, I see in loyalty to the traditions of the Assembly +of Philadelphian's strongest defence of the social rights which are his +by inheritance. Should he let go, what would there be for him to catch +on to again? + +[Illustration: "PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND UNTO ALL THE +INHABITANTS THEREOF"] + +It would be different if what Philadelphia was getting in exchange were +finer, or as fine. But it is not. The old exclusiveness, with its +follies, was better, more amusing, than the new tendency to do away with +everything that gave Philadelphia society its character. It was the +charm and the strength of Philadelphia society that it had a character +of its own and was not just like Boston or New York or Baltimore +society. Nobody, however remote was their mission from social matters, +could visit Philadelphia without being impressed by this difference, +whether it was to discover, with John Adams, that Philadelphians had +their particular way of being a happy, elegant, tranquil, polite people, +or, with so unlikely an observer as Matthew Arnold, that "the leading +families in Philadelphia were much thought of," and that Philadelphia +names saying nothing to an Englishman said everything to every American. +Who you were counted in Philadelphia, as what you knew in Boston, or +what you were worth in New York, and there was not an American of old +who did not accept the fact and respect it. Philadelphia society clung +to the Philadelphia surface of tranquillity, of untroubled repose +whatever might be going on beneath it, and in my time I would not like +to say how disturbing and agitating were the scandals and intrigues that +were said to be going on. They were rarely made public. It was not in +Philadelphia as in London where next to everybody you meet has been or +is about to be divorced, though it might be that next to everybody you +met was not making it a practice to keep to the straight and narrow +path, to be as innocent as everybody looked. Logan Square could have +told tales, if the Divorce Court could not. + +[Illustration: BED ROOM, STENTON, THE HOME OF JAMES LOGAN] + +But now Philadelphia has strayed from its characteristic exclusiveness; +gone far to get rid of even the air of tranquillity. With the modern +"Peggy Shippen" and "Sally Wister" alert to give away its affairs in the +columns of the daily paper, it could not keep its secrets to itself if +it wanted to. And it does not seem to want to--that is the saddest part +of the whole sad transformation. It rather likes the world outside to +know what it is doing and, worse, it takes that world as its model. Its +aim apparently is to show that it can be as like every other town as two +peas, so that, drinking tea to music at the Bellevue, dancing at the +Ritz, lunching and dining and playing golf and polo at the Country +Clubs, the visitor can comfortably forget he is not at home but in +Philadelphia. The youth of Philadelphia have become eager to desert the +Episcopal Academy and the University for Groton or St. Paul's, Harvard +or Yale, in order that they may be trained to be not Philadelphians but, +as they imagine, men of the world, forgetting the distinction there has +hitherto been in being plain Philadelphians. At the moment when in far +older towns of Europe people are striving to recover their character by +reviving local costumes, language, and customs, Philadelphians are +deliberately throwing theirs away with their old traditions. The +Assembly is one of their few rare possessions left, and strict as they +are with it in one way, in another they are playing fast and loose with +it, holding it, as if it were a mere modern dance, at a fashionable +hotel. + + +II + +If I now regret, as I do, never having gone to the Assembly, it is +because of all that it represents, all that makes it a classic. But at +the time, my regret, though as keen, was because of more personal +reasons. I could have borne the historic side of my loss with +equanimity, it was the social side of it that broke my heart. I have had +many bad quarters of an hour in my life, but few as poignant as that +which followed the appearance at our front door of the coloured man who +distributed the cards for the Assembly--far too precious to be trusted +to the post--and who came to leave one for my Brother. It was an +injustice that oppressed me with a sense of my wrongs as a woman and +might have set me window-smashing had window-smashing as a protest been +invented. Why should the Assembly be so much easier for men? My Brother +had but to put on the dress suit he had worn it did not matter how many +years, and as he was, like every other American young man, at work and +an independent person altogether--a millionaire I saw in him--the price +of the card in an annual subscription was his affair and nobody else's. +But, in my case the price was not my affair. I had not a cent to call my +own, I was not at work, I was denied the right to work, and, the +Assembly coming fairly late in the season, my white tarlatan and Second +Street silk showed wear and tear that unfitted them for the most +important social function of the winter. Philadelphia women dressed +simply, it is true; that used to be one of the ways the Quaker influence +showed itself; they boasted then that their restraint in dress +distinguished them from other American women. But simplicity does not +mean cheapness or indifference. The Friends took infinite pains with +their soft brown and silvery grey silks, with their delicate fichus and +Canton shawls. The well-dressed Philadelphia woman knows what she has to +pay for the elegance of her simplicity. And the Assembly has always +called for the finest she could achieve, from the day when Franklin was +made to feel the cost to him if his daughter was to have what she needed +to go out "in decency" with the Washingtons in Philadelphia. + +[Illustration: THE TUNNEL IN THE PARK] + +I had the common sense to understand my position and not to be misled by +the poverty-stricken, but irresistible Nancies and Dollies who were +enjoying a vogue in the novels of the day and who encircled empty bank +accounts and big families with the halo of romance. To read about the +struggles with poverty of the irresistible young heroine might be +amusing, but I had no special use for them as a personal experience. It +would have been preposterous for me to think for a moment that, without +a decent gown, I could go to the Assembly and, to do myself justice, I +did not think it. But by this time I knew what coming out and being out +meant and, therefore, I appreciated the social drawback it must be for +me not to be able to go. It explained, as nothing hitherto had, how far +I was from being caught up in the whirl, and it is only the whirl that +keeps one going in society--that makes society a delightful profession, +and I think I realized this truth better than the people so +extravagantly in the Philadelphia whirl as to have no time to think +about it. All that winter I never got to the point of being less +concerned as to where the next invitation was to come from than as to +how I was to accept all that did come. There is no use denying that I +was disappointed and suffered from the disappointment. One pays a +heavier price for the first foolish illusion lost than for all the +others put together, no matter how serious they are. + + +III + +When the season was over, I had as little hope of keeping up in other +essential ways. If society then adjourned from Philadelphia because the +heat made it impossible to stay at home, it was only to start a new +Philadelphia on the porch of Howland's Hotel at Long Branch or, as it +was just then beginning to do, at Bar Harbor and in the camps of the +Adirondacks, or, above all, at Narragansett. "It may be accepted as an +incontrovertible truth," Janvier says in one of his Philadelphia +stories, "that a Philadelphian of a certain class who missed coming to +the Pier for August would refuse to believe, for that year at least, in +the alternation of the four seasons; while an enforced absence from that +damply delightful watering-place for two successive summers very +probably would lead to a rejection of the entire Copernican system." If +Philadelphians went abroad, which was much more exceptional then than +now, it was to meet each other. I know hotels in London to-day where, if +you go in the afternoon, it is just like an afternoon reception in +Philadelphia, and hotels in Paris where at certain seasons you find +nobody but Philadelphians talking Philadelphia, though the Philadelphian +has not disappeared who does not want to travel because he finds +Philadelphia good enough for him. And it has always been like that. + +But I could not follow Philadelphia society in the summer time any more +than I could go with it to the Assembly in the winter. I had reason to +consider myself fortunate if I travelled as far as Mount Airy or +Chestnut Hill out of the red brick oven Philadelphia used to be--is now +and ever shall be!--from June to September. It was an event if I got off +with the crowd--the linen-dustered, wilting-collared crowds; surely we +are not so demoralized by the heat nowadays?--to Cape May or Atlantic +City, to enjoy the land breeze blowing, from over the Jersey swamps, +clouds of mosquitoes before it so that nobody could stir out of doors +without gloves and a veil. These, however, were not the summer joys +society demanded of me. The further I went into the social game, the +less I got from it, and I had decided that for the poor it was not +worth the candle at the end of the first year, or was it the second? +That I should be uncertain shows how little my heart was in the business +of going out. + +[Illustration: THE BOAT HOUSES ON THE SCHUYLKILL] + +I did not necessarily give up every amusement because I did not go out. +In fact, I cannot recall a dance that amused me as much as many a +boating party on the Schuylkill in the gold of the June afternoon, or +many a walking party through the Park in the starlit summer night. There +also remained, had I chosen, the staid entertainment of the women who, +for one reason or other, had retired from the gayer round, and whose +amusements consisted of more intimate receptions, teas, without number, +sewing societies. And it was the period when Philadelphia was waking up +to the charms of the higher education for women,--to the dissipations of +"culture." I had friends who filled their time by studying for the +examinations Harvard had at last condescended to allow them to pass, or +try to pass; others found their sober recreation by qualifying +themselves as teachers and teaching in a large society formed to impart +learning by correspondence: all these women keeping their occupation to +themselves as much as possible, not wishing to make a public scandal in +Philadelphia which had not accustomed itself to the spectacle of women +working unless compelled to;--all this quite outside of the University +set, which must have existed, if I did not know it, as the Bryn Mawr set +exists to-day, but which, as far as my experience went, was then never +heard of except by the fortunate and privileged few who belonged to it. + +But this new amusement required effort, and experience had not made me +in love with the amusement that had to be striven for, that had to be +paid for by exertion of any kind. There was an interval when +Philadelphia would have been searched in vain for another idler as +confirmed as I. Having found nothing to do, I proceeded to do it with +all my might. I stood in no need of the poet's command to lean and loaf +at my ease, though I am afraid I leaned and loafed so well as to neglect +the other half of his precept and to forget to invite my soul. To those +years I now look back as to so much good time lost in a working life all +too short at the best. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII: A QUESTION OF CREED + + +I + +I may not have understood at the time, but I must have been vaguely +conscious that if so often I felt myself a stranger in my native town, +it was not only because of the long years I had been shut up in +boarding-school, but because that boarding-school happened to be a +Convent. + +There were schools in Philadelphia and schools out of it as useful as +Rittenhouse Square in laying the foundation for profitable friendships. +Miss Irwin's furnished almost as good social credentials as a Colonial +Governor in the family. But a Philadelphia Convent did the other thing +as successfully. It was not the Convent as a Convent that was objected +to. In Paris, it could lend distinction: the fact that, at the mature +age of six, I spent a year at Conflans, might have served me as a social +asset. In Louisiana, or Maryland, a Philadelphia girl could see its door +close upon her, and not despair of social salvation. Everything depended +upon where the Convent was. In some places, it had a social standing, in +others it had none, and Philadelphia was one of the others. In France, +in Louisiana, in Maryland, to be a Catholic was to be at the top of the +social scale, approved by society; in Pennsylvania, it was to be at the +bottom, despised by society. + +This was another Philadelphia fact I accepted on faith. It was not until +I began to think about Philadelphia that I saw how consistent +Philadelphians were in their inconsistency. Their position in the matter +was what their past had made it, and the inconsistency is in their +greater liberality to-day. For Pennsylvania has never been Catholic, has +never had an aristocratic Catholic tradition like England: to the +Friends there, all the aristocracy of the traditional kind belongs. The +people--the World's People--who rushed to Pennsylvania to secure for +themselves the religious liberty William Penn offered indiscriminately +to everybody, found they could not enjoy it if Catholics were to profit +by it with them. They had not been there any time when, as one of the +early Friends had the wit to see and to say, they "were surfeited with +liberty," and the Friends, who refused to all sects alike the privilege +of expressing their religious fervour in wood piles for witches and +prison cells for heretics, could not succeed in depriving them of their +healthy religious prejudice which, they might not have been able to +explain why, concentrated itself upon the Catholic. Episcopalians +approved of a doctrine of freedom that meant they could build their own +churches where they would. Presbyterians and Baptists objected so little +to each other that, for a while, they could share the same pulpit. +Moravians put up their monasteries where it suited them best. Mennonites +took possession of Germantown. German mystics were allowed to search in +peace for the Woman in White and wait hopefully for the Millennium on +the banks of the Wissahickon. Later on Whitefield set the whole town of +Philadelphia to singing psalms, and Philadelphia refrained from +interfering with what must have been an intolerable nuisance. Even Jews +were welcome--their names are among early legislators and on early +Assembly lists. Catholics, alone, they all agreed, had no right to any +portion of Penn's gift, and popular opinion is often stronger than the +law. Whatever ill will they had to spare from the Catholics, they +reserved for the Friends to whom they owed everything--if Pennsylvania +was "a dear Pennsylvania" to Penn, a good part of the blame lay with the +"drunken crew of priests" and the "turbulent churchmen" whom he +denounced in one of those letters to Logan, which are among the saddest +ever written and published to the world. + +After religious passions had run their course, the religious prejudice +against the Catholic was handed down as social prejudice, which was all +it was in my day when Philadelphians, who would question the social +standing of a Catholic in Philadelphia simply because he was a Catholic, +could accept him without question in the Catholic town of Baltimore or +New Orleans simply because he was one. The Catholic continued to pay a +heavy price socially for his religion in Philadelphia where it was not +the thing to be a Catholic, where it never had been the thing, where it +got to be less the thing as successive Irish emigrations crowded the +Catholic churches. I fancy at the period of which I am writing +Philadelphians, if asked, would have said that Catholicism was for +Irish servants--for the illiterate. I remember a book called _Kate +Vincent_ I used to read at a Protestant Uncle's, where it may purposely +have been placed in my way. Does anybody else remember it?--a story of +school life with a heroine of a school girl who, in the serene +confidence of her sixteen or seventeen summers, refuted all the learned +Doctors of the Church by convicting a poor little Irish slavey of +ignorance for praying to the Blessed Virgin and the Saints. I think I +must have forgotten it with many foolish books for children read in my +childhood had not Kate Vincent been so like Philadelphians in her calm +superiority, though, fortunately, Philadelphians did not share her +proselytising fervour. They went to the other extreme of lofty +indifference and for them the Catholic churches in their town did not +exist any more than the streets of little two-story houses south of +Pine, a region into which they would not have thought of penetrating +except to look up somebody who worked for them. + + +II + +I might have learned as much during my holidays at my Grandfather's had +I been given to reflection during my early years. My Father was a +convert with the convert's proverbial ardour. He had been baptised in +the Convent chapel with my Sister and myself--I was eight years old at +the time--and many who were present declared it the most touching +ceremony they had ever seen. However, to the family, who had not seen +it, it was anything but touching. They were all good members of the +Episcopal Church and had been since they landed in Virginia; moreover, +one of my Father's brothers was an Episcopal clergyman and Head Master +of the Episcopal Academy, Philadelphia's bed-rock of religious +respectability. The baptism was only conditional, for the Catholic +Church baptizes conditionally those who have been baptized in any church +before, but even so it must have been trying to them as a precaution +insolently superfluous. I do not remember that anything was ever said, +or suggested, or hinted. But there was an undercurrent of disapproval +that, child as I was, I felt, though I could not have put it into words. +One thing plain was that when we children went off to our church with my +Father, we were going where nobody else in my Grandfather's house went, +except the servants, and that, for some incomprehensible reason, it was +rather an odd sort of thing for us to do, making us different from most +people we knew in Philadelphia. + +[Illustration: THE PULPIT, ST. PETER'S] + +Nor had I the chance to lose sight of this difference at the Convent. +The education I was getting there, when not devoted to launching my soul +into Paradise, was preparing me for the struggle against the temptations +of the world which, from all I heard about it, I pictured as a horrible +gulf of evil yawning at the Convent gate, ready to swallow me up the +minute that gate shut behind me. To face it was an ordeal so alarming in +anticipation that there was an interval when I convinced myself it would +be infinitely safer, by becoming a nun, not to face it at all. If I +stopped to give the world a name, it was bound to be Philadelphia, the +place in which I was destined to live upon leaving the Convent. I knew +that it was Protestant, as we often prayed for the conversion of its +people, I the harder because they included my relations who if not +converted could, my catechism taught me, be saved only so as by the +invincible ignorance with which I hardly felt it polite to credit them. +To what other conclusion could I come, arguing logically, than that +Philadelphia was the horrible gulf of evil yawning for me, and that in +this gulf Protestants swarmed, scattering temptation along the path of +the Catholic who walked alone among them?--an idea of Philadelphia that +probably would have surprised nobody more than the nuns who were +training me for my life of struggle in it. + +The gulf of the world did not seem so evil once it swallowed me up, but +that socially the Catholic walked in it alone, there could be no +mistake. When eventually I left school and began going out on my modest +scale, I could not fail to see that the people I met in church were not, +as a rule, the people I met at the Dancing Class, or at parties, or at +receptions, or on that abominable round of morning calls, and this was +the more surprising because Philadelphians of the "Chestnut, Walnut, +Spruce and Pine" set were accustomed to meeting each other wherever they +went. Except for the small group of those Philadelphia families of +French descent with French names who were not descendants of the +Huguenots, and here and there a convert like my Father, and an +occasional native Philadelphian who, unaccountably, had always been a +Catholic, the congregation, whether I went to the Cathedral or St. +John's, to St. Joseph's or St. Patrick's, was chiefly Irish, as also +were the priests when they were not Italians. + +Fashion sent the Philadelphian to the Episcopal Church. It could not +have been otherwise in a town as true to tradition as Philadelphia had +not ceased to be in my young days. No sooner had Episcopalians settled +in Philadelphia than, by their greater grandeur of dress and manner, +they showed the greater social aspirations they had brought with them +from the other side--the Englishman's confidence in the social +superiority of the Church of England to all religion outside of it. +Presbyterians are said to have had a pretty fancy in matters of wigs and +powdered and frizzled hair, which may also have been symbolic, for they +followed a close fashionable second. Baptists and Methodists, on the +contrary, affected to despise dress and, while I cannot say if the one +fact has anything to do with the other, I knew fewer Baptists and +Methodists than Catholics. By my time the belief that no one could be "a +gentleman" outside the Church of England, or its American offshoot, was +stronger than ever, and fashion required a pew at St. Mark's or Holy +Trinity or St. James's, if ancient lineage did not claim one at St. +Peter's or Christ Church; though old-fashioned people like my +Grandfather and Grandmother might cling blamelessly to St. Andrew's +which was highly respectable, if not fashionable, and new-fashioned +people might brave criticism with the Ritualists at St. Clement's. As +for Catholics, a pew down at St. Joseph's in Willing's Alley or, worse +still, up town at the Cathedral in Logan Square, put them out of the +reckoning, at a hopeless disadvantage socially, however better off they +might be for it spiritually. That the Cathedral was in Logan Square was +in itself a social offence of a kind that society could not tolerate. At +the correct churches every function, every meeting, every Sunday-school, +every pious re-union, as well as every service, became a fashionable +duty; and at the church door after service on Sunday, a man with whom +one had danced the night before might be picked up to walk on Walnut +Street with, which was a social observance only less indispensable than +attendance at the Assembly and the Dancing Class. + +[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL, LOGAN SQUARE] + +I recall the excitement of girls of my age, their feeling that they had +got to the top of everything, the first time they took this sacramental +walk, if not with a man which was the crowning glory, at least with a +woman who was prominent, or successful, in society. But I believe I +could count the times I joined in the Walnut Street procession on Sunday +morning. As long as I lived in Third Street, my usual choice of a church +lay between St. Joseph's, the Jesuit church in Willing's Alley with its +air of retirement, and St. Mary's on Fourth Street, where the orphans +used to come from Seventh and Spruce and sometimes sing an anthem that, +for any save musical reasons, I delighted in, and where we had a pew. +After we moved from Third Street, our pew was at the Cathedral, more +distinguished from the clerical standpoint, for there we sat under the +Bishop. No matter which our church, High Mass was long: I could not have +got to the appointed part of Walnut Street in time, had I found at the +door the companion to go there with me. There was nothing to do but to +walk home alone or sedately at my Father's side, and one's Father, +however correct he might be under other circumstances, was not the right +person for these occasions. On Sundays I could not conceal from myself +that I was socially at a discount. The reflection that this was where I, +as a Catholic, scored, should have consoled me, for if the Episcopalian +was performing a social duty when he went to church, I, as a Catholic, +was making a social sacrifice, and sacrifice of some sort is of the +essence of religion. + + +III + +If I could but have taken the trouble to be interested, it must also +have occurred to me to wonder why St. Joseph's, where I went so often, +was hidden in an obscure alley. In Philadelphia, the town of straight +streets crossing each other at right angles, it is not easy for a +building of the kind to keep out of sight. But not one man in a hundred, +not one in a thousand, who, passing along Third Street, looked up +Willing's Alley, dreamt for a minute that somewhere in that alley, +embedded in a network of brokers' and railroad offices, carefully +concealing every trace of itself, was a church with a large +congregation. Most churches in Philadelphia, as everywhere, like to +display themselves prominently with an elaborate facade, or a lofty +steeple, or a green enclosure, or a graveyard full of monuments. St. +Peter's, close by, fills a whole block. Christ Church stands flush with +the pavement. The simplest Meeting-House, by the beautiful trees that +overshadow it or the high walls that enclose it or the bit of green at +its door, will not let the passer-by forget it. But St. Joseph's, +evidently, did not want to be seen, did not want to be remembered; +evidently hesitated to show that its doors were wide and hospitably open +to all the world in the beautiful fashion of the Catholic Church. There +was something furtive about it, an air of mystery, it was almost as if +one were keeping a clandestine appointment with religion when one turned +from the street into the humble alley, and from the alley into the +silence of the sanctuary. + +[Illustration: CHRIST CHURCH, FROM SECOND STREET] + +Perhaps I thought less about this mysterious aloofness because, once in +the church, I felt so much at home. I do not mind owning now, though I +would not have owned it then for a good deal, that after my return from +the Convent, I had the uncomfortable feeling of being a stranger not +only in my town, but in my family. I had been in the Convent eleven +years and until this day when I look back to my childhood, it is the +Convent I remember as home. St. Joseph's seemed a part of the Convent, +therefore of home, that had strayed into the town by mistake. In some +ways it was not like the Convent, greatly to my discomfort. The chapel +there was dainty in detail, exquisitely kept, the altars fresh with +flowers from the Convent garden, and for congregation the nuns and the +girls modestly and demurely veiled. But nothing was dainty about St. +Joseph's,--men are as untidy in running a church as in keeping a +house--it was not well kept, the flowers were artificial and tawdry, and +the congregation was largely made up of shabby old Irishwomen. The +priests--Jesuits--were mostly Italian, with those unpleasant habits of +Italian priests that are a shock to the convent-bred American when she +first goes to Italy. They had, however, the virtue of old friends, their +faces were familiar, I had known them for years at the Convent which +they had frequently visited and where, by special grace, they had +refrained from some of the unpleasant habits that offended me at St. +Joseph's. + +There was Father de Maria, tall, thin, with a wonderful shock of white +hair, a fine ascetic face and a kindly smile, not adapted to shine in +children's society--too much of a scholar I fancied though I may have +been wrong--and with an effect of severity which I do not think he +meant, but which had kept me at a safe distance when he came to see us +at Torresdale. But he had come, I could not remember the time when I had +not known him, and that was in his favour. + +There was Father Ardea, a small, shrinking, dark man, from whom also it +was more comfortable to keep at a safe distance, so little had he to +say and such a trick of looking at you with an "Eh? Eh?" of expectation, +as if he relied upon you to supply the talk he had not at his own +command. But I could have forgiven him worse, so pleasant a duty did he +make of confession. His penances were light and his only comment was +"Eh? Eh? my child? But you didn't mean it! You didn't mean it!" until I +longed to accuse myself of the Seven Deadly Sins with the Unpardonable +Sin thrown in, just to see if he would still assure me that I didn't +mean it. + +There was Father Bobbelin--our corruption I fancy of Barbelin--a +Frenchman, short and fat, sandy-haired, with a round smiling face: the +most welcome of all. He was always very snuffy, and always ready to hand +round his snuff-box if talk languished when he went out to walk with us, +which I liked better than Father Ardea's embarrassing "Eh? Eh?" It was +to Father Bobbelin an inexhaustible joke, and the only other I knew him +to venture upon resulted in so unheard-of a breach of discipline that +ever after we saw less of him and his snuff-box. He was walking with us +down Mulberry Avenue one afternoon, the little girls clustered about him +as they were always sure to be, and the nun in charge a little behind +with the bigger, more sedate girls. When we got to the end of the +Avenue, the carriage gate leading straight out into the World was open +as it had never been before, as it never was again. Father Bobbelin's +fat shoulders shook with laughter. He opened the gate wider. "Now, +children," he said, "here's your chance. Run for it!" And we did, we ran +as if for our lives, though no children could have loved their school +better or wanted less to get away from it. One or two ran as far as the +railroad, the most adventurous crossed it, and were making full tilt for +the river before all were caught and brought back and sent to bed in +disgrace. After that Father Bobbelin visited us only in our class-room. + +And there were other priests whose names escape me, but not their +home-like faces. Now and then Jesuits who gave Missions and who had +conducted the retreats at the Convent, appeared at St. Joseph's,--Father +Smarius, the huge Dutchman, so enormous they used to tell us at the +Convent that he had never seen his feet for twenty years, who had +baptized my Father and his family in the Convent chapel; and Father +Boudreau, the silent, shy little Louisianian, whom I remember so well +coming with Father Smarius one June day to bless, and sprinkle Holy +Water over that big yellow and white house close to the Convent which my +Father had taken for the summer; and Father Glackmeyer, and Father +Coghlan, and with them others whose presence helped the more to fill St. +Joseph's with the intimate convent atmosphere. + + +IV + +These old friends and old associations took away from the uneasiness it +might otherwise have given me to find the church, for which I had +exchanged the Convent chapel, hidden up an alley as if its existence +were a sin. But overlook it as I might, this was the one important fact +about St. Joseph's which, otherwise, had no particular interest. It did +not count as architecture, it boasted of no beauty of decoration: an +inconspicuous, commonplace building from every point of view, of which I +consequently retain but the vaguest memory. As I write, I can see, as if +it were before me, the Convent chapel, its every nook and corner, almost +its every stone, this altar here, that picture there, the confessional +in the screened-off space where visitors sat, the dark step close to the +altar railing where I carried my wrongs and my sorrows. But try as I +may, I cannot see St. Joseph's as it was, cannot see any detail, nothing +save the general shabbiness and untidiness that shocked my convent-bred +eyes. Could it have appealed by its beauty, like the old Cathedrals of +Europe, or, for that matter, like the old churches of Philadelphia, no +doubt I should be able to recall it as vividly as the Convent chapel. +Because I cannot, because it impressed me so superficially, I regret the +more that I had not the sense to appreciate the interest it borrowed +from the romance of history and the beauty of suffering--the history of +the Catholic religion in Philadelphia which I might have read in this +careful hiding of its temple; the suffering of the scapegoat among +churches, obliged to keep out of sight, atoning for their intolerance in +a desert of secrecy, letting no man know where its prayers were said or +its services held. Catholics had to practise their religion like +criminals skulking from the law. Members of a Protestant church might +dispute among themselves to the point of blows, but they never thought +of interfering with the members of any other church, except the +Catholic, against which they could all cheerfully join. There were times +when the Friends, most tolerant of men, were influenced by this general +hostility, and I rather think the worst moment in Penn's life was when +he was forced to protest against the scandal of the Mass in his town of +Brotherly Love. + +[Illustration: FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, SEVENTH STREET AND WASHINGTON +SQUARE] + +The marvel is that Catholics ventured out of their hiding-places as soon +as they did. They had emerged so successfully by Revolutionary times +that the stranger in Philadelphia could find his way to "the Romish +chapel" and enjoy the luxury of knowing that he was not as these poor +wretches who fingered their beads and chanted Latin not a word of which +they understood. The Jesuits have the wisdom of their reputation. When +they built their church the Colonies had for some years been the United +States, and hatred was less outspoken, and persecution was more +intermittent, but they believed discretion to be the better part of +valour and the truest security in not challenging attack. That is why +they built St. Joseph's in Willing's Alley where the visitor with a +dramatic sense must be as thrilled by it as by the secret chapels and +underground passages in old Elizabethan mansions and Scott's novels. +Philadelphia gave the Jesuits a proof of their wisdom when, within a +quarter of a century, Young America, in a playful moment, burnt down as +much as it could of St. Michael's and St. Augustine's; churches which +had been built bravely and hopefully in open places. Young America +believed in a healthy reminder to Catholics, that, if they had not been +disturbed for some time, it was not because they did not deserve to be. + +Philadelphia had got beyond the exciting stage of intolerance before I +was born. There were no delicious tremors to be had when I heard Mass at +St. Joseph's or went to Vespers at St. Mary's. There was no ear alert +for a warning of the approach of the enemy, no eye strained for the +first wisp of smoke or burst of flame. With churches and convents +everywhere--convents intruding even upon Walnut Street and Rittenhouse +Square--with a big Cathedral in town and a big Seminary at Villanova, +Catholics were in a fair way to forget it had ever been as dangerous for +them as for the early Christians to venture from their catacombs. Their +religion had become a tame affair, holding out no prospect of the +martyr's crown. Only the social prejudice survived, but it was the more +bitter to fight because, whether the end was victory or defeat, it +appeared so inglorious a struggle to be engaged in. + +One good result there was of this social ostracism. I leave myself out +of the argument. Religion, I have often heard it said, is a matter of +temperament. As this story of my relations to Philadelphia seems to be +resolving itself into a general confession, I must at least confess my +certainty that I have not and never had the necessary temperament, +that, moreover, the necessary temperament is not to be had by any effort +of will power, depending rather upon "the influence of the unknown +powers." But I am not totally blind, nor was I in the old days when, +many as were the things I did not see, my eyes were still open to the +effect of social opposition on Catholics with the temperament. It made +them more devout, at times more defiant. I know churches that are in +themselves alone a reward for faith and fidelity--who would not be a +Catholic in the dim religious light of Chartres Cathedral, or in the +sombre splendours of Seville and Barcelona? But St. Joseph's and St. +Mary's, St. Patrick's and St. John's gave no such reward, nor did the +Cathedral in its far-away imitation of the Jesuit churches of Italy and +France. In these arid, unemotional interiors, emotion could not kindle +piety which, if not fed by more spiritual stuff, was bound to flicker +and go out. This is why the Philadelphian who, in those unattractive +churches and in spite of the social price paid, remained faithful, was +the most devout Catholic I have ever met at home or in my wanderings. + + +V + +For his spiritual welfare, it might have been better had the conditions +remained as I knew them. But even at that period, the signs of weakening +in the social barrier must have jumped to my eyes had I had eyes for the +fine shades. Catholics among themselves had begun to put up social +barriers, so much further had Philadelphia travelled on the road to +liberty. + +Religiously, one of their churches was as good as another, but not +socially. St. Mark's, from its superior Episcopal heights, might look +down equally upon St. Patrick's and St. John's, but the Catholic with a +pew at St. John's did not at all look upon the Catholic with a seat at +St. Patrick's as on the same social level as himself. St. Patrick's name +alone was sufficient to attract an Irish congregation, and the Irish who +then flocked to Philadelphia were not the flower of Ireland's +aristocracy. St. John's, by some unnamed right, claimed the Catholics of +social pretensions--the excellence of its music may have strengthened +its claim. I know that my Father, who was a religious man, did not +object to having the comfort of religion strengthened by the charms of +Gounod's Mass well sung, and, at the last, he drifted from the Cathedral +to St. John's. + +[Illustration: OLD SWEDES' CHURCH] + +The Cathedral necessarily was above such distinctions, as a Cathedral +should be, and it harboured an overflow from St. Patrick's and St. +John's both. But it was the Cathedral, rather than St. John's, that did +most to weaken the foundations of the social prejudice against the +Catholic. The Bishop there was Bishop Wood, and Bishop Wood, like my +Father a convert, was no Irish emigrant, no Italian missionary, but came +from the same old family of Philadelphia Friends as J. Some people +think that Quakerism and Catholicism are more in sympathy with each +other than with other creeds because neither recognizes any half way, +each going to a logical extreme. Whether Bishop Wood thought so, I am +far from sure, but he had himself gone from one extreme to the other +when he became a Catholic, and the religious step had its social +bearing. With his splendid presence and splendid voice, he must have +added dignity to every service at the Cathedral, but he did more than +that: in Philadelphia eyes he gave it the sanction of Philadelphia +respectability. The Catholic was no longer quite without Philadelphia's +social pale. + +I had no opportunity, because of my long absence, to watch the gradual +breakdown, but I saw that the barrier had fallen when I got back to +Philadelphia. Never again will Philadelphia children think they are +doing an odd thing when they go to Mass, never again need the +Philadelphia girl fresh from the Convent fancy herself alone in the +yawning gulf of evil that opens at the Convent gate. I should not be +surprised if an eligible man from the Dancing Class or Assembly list can +to-day be picked up at the door of more than one Catholic church for the +Sunday Walk on Walnut Street. St. John's has risen, new and resplendent, +if ugly, from its ashes; St. Patrick's has blossomed forth from its +architectural insignificance into an imposing Romanesque structure. The +Cathedral has been new swept and garnished--not so large perhaps as I +once saw it, for I have been to St. Paul's and St. Peter's and many a +Jesuit church in the meanwhile, but more ornate, with altars and +decorations that I knew not, and with Mr. Henry Thouron's design on one +wall as a promise of further beauty to come. The difference confronted +me at every step--and saddened me, though I could not deny that it meant +improvement. But the change, as change, displeased me in a Philadelphia +that ceases to be my Philadelphia when it ceases to preserve its old +standards and prejudices as jealously as its old monuments. For the sake +of the character I loved, I could wish Philadelphia as far as ever from +hope of salvation by anything save its own invincible ignorance. + + + + +CHAPTER IX: THE FIRST AWAKENING + + +I + +I had been out, I do not remember how long, but long enough to confirm +my belief in the Philadelphia way of doing things as the only way, when +I found that Philadelphia was involved in an enterprise for which its +history might give the reason but could furnish no precedent. To +Philadelphians who were older than I, or who had been in Philadelphia +while I was getting through the business of education at the Convent, +the Centennial Exposition probably did not come as so great a surprise. +Having since had experience of how these matters are ordered, I can +understand that there must have been some years of leading up to it. But +I seem to have heard of it first within no time of its opening, and just +as I had got used to the idea that Philadelphia must go on for ever +doing things as it always had done them, because to do them otherwise +would not be right or proper. + +The result was that, at the moment, I saw in the Centennial chiefly a +violent upheaval shaking the universe to the foundations, with +Philadelphia emerging, changed, transformed, unrecognizable, plunging +head-foremost into new-fangled amusements, adding new duties to the +Philadelphian's once all-sufficing duty of being a Philadelphian, +inventing new attractions to draw to its drowsy streets people from the +four quarters of the globe, and, more astounding, giving itself up to +these innovations with zest. + +[Illustration: INDEPENDENCE HALL: THE ORIGINAL DESK ON WHICH THE +DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE WAS SIGNED AND THE CHAIR USED BY THE +PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS, JOHN HANCOCK, IN 1776 (BOTH ON PLATFORM)] + +I looked on at the preparations,--as at most things, to my infinite +boredom,--from outside: a perspective from which they appeared to me +little more than a new form of social diversion. For they kept my gayer +friends, who were well on the inside, busy going to Centennial balls at +the Academy of Music in the Colonial dress which was as essential for +admission as a Colonial name or a Colonial family tree, while I stayed +at home and, seeing what lovely creatures powder and patches and paniers +made of Philadelphia girls with no more pretence to good looks than I, +felt a little as I did when the coloured dignitary rang at our front +door with the Assembly card that was not for me. And between the balls, +the same friends were immersed in Centennial Societies and Centennial +Committees and Centennial Meetings and Centennial Subscriptions and +Centennial Petitions, Philadelphia women for the first time admitted, +and pining for admission, into public affairs; while I was so far apart +from it all that I remember but one incident in connection with the +Centennial orgy of work, and this as trivial as could be. When we moved +into the Third Street house we had found in possession a cat who left us +in no doubt of her disapproval of our intrusion, but who tolerated us +because of the convenience of the ground floor windows from which to +watch for her enemies among the dogs of the neighbourhood, and for the +comfort of certain cupboards upstairs during the infancy of her +kittens. She kept us at a respectful distance and we never ventured upon +any liberties with her. Those of our friends who did, heedless of her +growls, were sure to regret it. Our family doctor carried the marks of +her teeth on his hand for many a day. It happened that once, when two +Centennial canvassers called, she was the first to greet them and was +unfavourably impressed by the voluminous furs in which they were +wrapped. When I came downstairs she was holding the hall, her eyes +flaming, her tail five times its natural size, and I understood the +prudence of non-interference. The canvassers had retreated to the +vestibule between the two front doors and, as I opened the inner door, +another glance at the flaming eyes and indignant tail completed their +defeat and they fled without explaining the object of their visit. I +must indeed have been removed from the Centennial delirium and turmoil +to have retained this absurd encounter as one of my most vivid memories. + + +II + +Upon the Centennial itself I looked at closer quarters. I was as removed +from it officially, but not quite so penniless less and friendless as +never to have the chance to visit it. Inexperienced and untravelled as I +was, it opened for me vistas hitherto undreamed of and stirred my +interest as nothing in Philadelphia had until then. As I recall it, that +long summer is, as it was at the time, a bewildering jumble of first +impressions and revelations--Philadelphia all chaos and confusion, +functions and formalities, spectacles and sensations--buildings +Philadelphia could not have conceived of in its sanity covering acres of +its beautiful Park, a whole shanty town of huge hotels and cheap +restaurants and side-shows sprung up on its outskirts--marvels in the +buildings, amazing, foreign, unbelievable marvels, the Arabian Nights +rolled into one--interminable drives in horribly crowded street-cars to +reach them--lunches of Vienna rolls and Vienna coffee in Vienna cafes, +as unlike Jones's on Eleventh Street or Burns's on Fifteenth as I could +imagine--dinners in French restaurants that, after Belmont and +Strawberry Mansion, struck me as typically Parisian though I do not +suppose they were Parisian in the least--the flaring and glaring of +millions of gas lamps under Philadelphia's tranquil skies--a delightful +feeling of triumph that Philadelphia was the first American town to do +what London had done, what Paris had done, and to do it so +splendidly--burning heat, Philadelphia apparently bent on proving to the +unhappy visitor what the native knew too well, that, when it has a mind +to, it can be the most intolerably hot place in the world--sweltering, +demoralized crowds--unexpected descents upon a household as quiet as +ours of friends not seen for years and relations never heard +of--brilliant autumn days--an atmosphere of activity, excitement and +exultation that made it good to be alive and in the midst of Centennial +celebrations without bothering to seek in them a more serious end than a +season's amusement. + +[Illustration: PHILADELPHIA FROM BELMONT] + + +III + +But, without bothering, I could not escape a dim perception that +Philadelphia had not turned itself topsy-turvy to amuse me and the +world. Things were in the air I could not get away from. The very words +Centennial and Colonial were too new in my vocabulary not to start me +thinking, little given as I was to thinking when I could save myself the +trouble. And however lightly I might be inclined to take the whole +affair, the rest of Philadelphia was so far from underestimating it that +probably the younger generation, used to big International Expositions +and having seen the wonders of the Centennial eclipsed in Paris and +Chicago and St. Louis and its pleasures rivalled in an ordinary summer +playground like Coney Island or Willow Grove, must wonder at the +innocence of Philadelphia in making such a fuss over such an everyday +affair. But in the Eighteen-Seventies the big International Exposition +was not an everyday affair. Europe had held only one or two, America had +held none, Philadelphia had to find out the way for itself, with the +whole country watching, ready to jeer at the sleepy old town if it went +wrong. As I look back, though I realize that the Centennial buildings +were not architectural masterpieces--how could I help realising it with +Memorial Hall still out there in the Park as reminder?--though I realise +that Philadelphia prosperity did not date from the Centennial, that +Philadelphians had not lived in a slough of inertia and ignorance until +the Centennial pulled them out of it: all the same, I can see how fine +an achievement it was, and how successful in jerking Philadelphians from +their comfortable rut of indifference to everything going on outside of +Philadelphia, or to whether there was an outside for things to go on in. + +I know that I was conscious of the jerk in my little corner of the rut. +The Centennial, for one thing, gave me my first object lesson in +patriotism. There was no special training for the patriot when I was +young--no school drilling, with flags, to national music. An American +was an American, not a Russian Jew, a Slovak, or a Pole, and patriotism +was supposed to follow as a matter of course. It did, but I fancy with +many, as with me, after a passive, unintelligent sort of fashion. I knew +about the Declaration of Independence, but had anybody asked for my +opinion of it, I doubtless should have dismissed it as a dull page in a +dull history book, a difficult passage to get by heart. But I could not +go on thinking of it in that way when so remote an occasion as its +hundredth birthday was sending Philadelphia off its head in this mad +carnival of excitement. In little, as in big, matters I was constantly +brought up against the fact that things did not exist simply because +they were, but because something had been. An old time-worn story that +amused the Philadelphian in its day is of the American from another +town, who, after listening to much Philadelphia talk, interrupted to +ask: "But what is a Biddle?" I am afraid I should have been puzzled to +answer. For a Biddle was a Biddle, just as Spruce Street was Spruce +Street, just as Philadelphia was Philadelphia. That had been enough in +all conscience for the Philadelphian, but the Centennial would not let +it be enough for me any longer. + +My first hint that Philadelphia and Spruce Street and a Biddle needed a +past to justify the esteem in which we held them, came from the +spectacle of Mrs. Gillespie towering supreme above Philadelphians with +far more familiar names than hers at every Centennial ball and in every +Centennial Society, the central figure in the Centennial preparations +and in the Centennial itself. I did not know her personally, but that +made no difference. There was no blotting out her powerful presence, she +pervaded the Centennial atmosphere. She remains in the foreground of my +Centennial memories, a tall, gaunt woman, not especially gracious, +apparently without a doubt of her right to her conspicuous position, +ready to resent the effrontery of the sceptic who challenged it had +there been a sceptic so daring, anything but popular, and yet her rule +accepted unquestioningly for no better reason than because she was the +descendant of Benjamin Franklin, and I could not help knowing that she +was his descendant, for nobody could mention her without dragging in his +name. It revolutionized my ideas of school and school books, no less +than of Philadelphia. I had learned the story of Benjamin Franklin and +the kite, just as I had learned the story of George Washington and the +cherry tree, and of General Marion and the sweet potatoes, and other +anecdotes of heroes invented to torment the young. And now here was +Franklin turning out to be not merely the hero of an anecdote that bored +every right-minded school-girl to death, but a person of such +consequence that his descendant in the third or fourth generation had +the right to lord it over Philadelphia. There was no getting away from +that any more than there was from Mrs. Gillespie herself and, +incidentally, it suggested a new reason for Biddles and Cadwalladers and +Whartons and Morrises and Norrises and Logans and Philadelphia families +with their names on the Assembly list. That they were the resplendent +creatures Philadelphia thought them was not so elementary a fact as the +shining of the sun in the heavens; they owed it to their ancestors just +as Mrs. Gillespie owed her splendour to Franklin; and an ancestor +immediately became the first necessity in Philadelphia. + +[Illustration: THE DINING ROOM, STENTON] + +The man who is preoccupied with his ancestors has a terrible faculty of +becoming a snob, and Philadelphians for a while concerned themselves +with little else. They devoted every hour of leisure to the study of +genealogy, they besieged the Historical Society in search of +inconsiderate ancestors who had neglected to make conspicuous figures of +themselves and so had to be hunted up, they left no stone unturned to +prove their Colonial descent. It must have been this period that my +Brother, Grant Robins, irritated with our forefathers for their mistake +in settling in Virginia half a century before there was a Philadelphia +to settle in and then making a half-way halt in Maryland, hurried down +to the Eastern Shore to get together what material he could to keep us +in countenance in the town of my Grandfather's adoption. It was soothing +to find more than one Robins among the earliest settlers of Virginia and +mixed up with Virginia affairs at an agreeably early date. But what +wouldn't I have given to see our name in a little square on one of the +early maps of the City of Philadelphia as I have since seen J.'s? And +the interest in ancestors spread, and no Englishman could ever have been +so eager to prove that he came over with the Conqueror as every American +was to show that he dated back to William Penn, or the first Virginia +Company, or the Dutch, or the Mayflower; no Order of Merit or Legion of +Honour could have conferred more glory on an American than a Colonial +Governor in the family; no aristocracy was more exclusive than the +American founded on the new societies of Colonial Dames and Sons and +Daughters of Pennsylvania and of every other State. + +It was preposterous, I grant, in a country whose first article of faith +is that all men are born equal, but Americans could have stood a more +severe attack of snobbishness in those days, the prevailing attitude of +Americans at home being not much less irreverent than that of the +Innocents Abroad. In Philadelphia it was not so much irreverence as +indifference. The habit of Philadelphians to depreciate their town and +themselves, inordinate as, actually, was their pride in both, had not +been thrown off. Why they ever got into the habit remains to me and to +every Philadelphian a problem. Some think it was because the rest of the +country depreciated them; some attribute it to Quaker influence, though +how and why they cannot say; and some see in it the result of the +Philadelphia exclusiveness that reduces the social life of Philadelphia +to one small group in one small section of the town so that it is as +small as village life, and has the village love of scandal, the village +preoccupation with petty gossip, the little things at the front door +blotting out the big things beyond. A more plausible reason is that +Philadelphians were so innately sure of themselves--so sure that +Philadelphia was _the_ town and Philadelphians _the_ aristocracy of the +world--that they could afford to be indifferent. But whatever the cause, +this indifference, this depreciation, was worse than a blunder, it was a +loss in a town with a past so well worth looking into and being proud of +and taking care of. + +A few Philadelphians had interested themselves in their past, otherwise +the Historical Society would not have existed, but they were +distressingly few. I can honestly say that up to the time of the +Centennial it had never entered into my mind that the past in +Philadelphia had a value for every Philadelphian and that it was every +Philadelphian's duty to help preserve any record that might survive of +it--that the State House, the old churches, the old streets where I took +my daily walks were a possession Philadelphia should do its best not to +part with--and I was such a mere re-echo of Philadelphia ideas and +prejudices that I know most Philadelphians were as ignorant and as +heedless. But almost the first effort of the new Dames and Sons and +Daughters was to protect the old architecture, the outward sign and +symbol of age and the aristocracy of age, and they made so much noise in +doing so that even I heard it, even I became conscious of a research as +keen for a past, or a genealogy in the familiar streets and the familiar +buildings as in the archives of Historical Societies. + +If the Centennial had done no more for Philadelphia than to put +Philadelphians to this work, it would have done enough. But it did do +more. The pride of family, dismissed by many as pure snobbishness, awoke +the sort of patriotism that Philadelphia, with all America, was most in +need of if the real American was not to be swept away before the hordes +of aliens beginning then to invade his country. In my opinion, the +Colonial Dames, for all their follies, are doing far more to keep up the +right American spirit than the flaunting of the stars and stripes in the +alien's face and the lavishing upon him of the Government's paternal +attention. The question is how long they can avoid the pitfall of +exaggeration. + + +IV + +If there was one thing in those days I knew less of than the past in +Philadelphia, it was the present outside of it. Of my own country my +knowledge was limited to an occasional trip to New York, an occasional +visit to Richmond and Annapolis, an occasional summer month in Cape May +and Atlantic City. Travelling is not for the poor. Rich Philadelphians +travelled more, but from no keen desire to see their native land. The +end of the journey was usually a social function in Washington or +Baltimore, in New York or Boston, upon which their presence conferred +distinction, though they would rather have dispensed with it than let it +interfere with the always more important social functions at home. Or +else the heat of summer drove them to those seashore and mountain +resorts where they could count upon being with other Philadelphians, and +the winter cold sent them in Lent to Florida, when it began to be +possible to carry all Philadelphia there with them. + +[Illustration: DOWN THE AISLE AT CHRIST CHURCH] + +My knowledge of the rest of the world was more limited. I had been in +France, but when I was such a child that I remembered little of it +except the nuns in the Convent at Paris where I went to school, and the +Garden of the Tuileries I looked across to from the Hotel Meurice. Nor +had going abroad as yet been made a habit in Philadelphia. There was +nothing against the Philadelphian going who chose to and who had the +money. It defied no social law. On the contrary, it was to his social +credit, though not indispensable as the Grand Tour was to the Englishman +in the Eighteenth Century. I remember when my Grandfather followed the +correct tourist route through England, France, and Switzerland, his +children considered it an event of sufficient importance to be +commemorated by printing, for family circulation, an elaborately got up +volume of the eminently commonplace letters he had written home--a +tribute, it is due to him to add, that met with his great astonishment +and complete disapproval. I can recall my admiration for those of my +friends who made the journey and my regret that I had made it when I was +too young to get any glory out of it; also, my delight in the trumpery +little alabaster figures from Naples and carved wood from Geneva and +filigree jewellery from the Rue de Rivoli they brought me back from +their journey: the wholesale distribution of presents on his return +being the heavy tax the traveller abroad paid for the distinction of +having crossed the Atlantic--a tax, I believe, that has sensibly been +done away with since the Philadelphian's discovery of the German Bath, +the London season, and the economy of Europe as reasons for going abroad +every summer. + +I was scarcely more familiar with the foreigner than with his country. +Philadelphia had Irish in plenty, as many Germans as beer saloons, or so +I gathered from the names over the saloon doors, and enough Italians to +sell it fruit and black its boots at street corners. But otherwise, +beyond a rare Chinaman with a pigtail and a rarer Englishman on tour, +the foreigner was seldom seen in Philadelphia streets or in Philadelphia +parlours. In early days Philadelphia had been the first place the +distinguished foreigner in the country made for. It was the most +important town and, for a time, the capital. But after Washington +claimed the diplomat and New York strode ahead in commerce and size and +shipping, Philadelphia was too near each for the traveller to stop on +his way between them, unless he was an actor, a lecturer, or somebody +who could make money out of Philadelphia. + +I feel sorry for the sophisticated young Philadelphian of to-day who +cannot know the emotion that was mine when, of a sudden, the Centennial +dumped down "abroad" right into Philadelphia, and the foreigner was +rampant. The modern youth saunters into a World's Fair as casually as +into a Market Street or Sixth Avenue Department Store, but never had the +monotony of my life been broken by an experience so extraordinary as +when the easy-going street-car carried me out of my world of red brick +into the heart of England, and France, and Germany, and Italy, and +Spain, and China, and Japan, where I rubbed elbows with yellow Orientals +in brilliant silks, and with soldiers in amazing uniforms--I who had +seen our sober United States soldiers only on parade--and with people +who, if they wore ordinary clothes, spoke all the languages under the +sun. It was extraordinary even to meet so many Americans who were not +Philadelphians, all talking American with to me a foreign accent, +extraordinary to see such familiar things as china, glass, silks, +stuffs, furniture, carpets, transformed into the unfamiliar, unlike +anything I had ever seen in Chestnut Street windows or on Chestnut +Street counters, so extraordinary that the most insignificant details +magnified themselves into miracles, to the mere froth on top of the cup +of Vienna coffee, to the fatuous song of a little Frenchman in a +side-show, so that to this day, if I could turn a tune, I could still +sing the "Ah! Ah! Nicolas!" of its foolish refrain. + + +V + +Travelling, I should have seen all the Centennial had to show and a +thousand times more, but slowly and by degrees, losing the sense of the +miraculous with each new marvel. The Centennial came as one +comprehensive revelation--overwhelming evidence that the Philadelphia +way was not the only way. And this I think was a good thing for me, just +as for Philadelphia it was a healthy stimulus. But the Centennial did +not give me a new belief in exchange for the old; it did nothing to +alter my life, nothing to turn my sluggish ambition into active +channels. And big as it was, it was not as big as Philadelphia thought. +I do believe that Philadelphians who had helped to make it the splendid +success it proved, looked upon it as no less epoch-making than the +Declaration of Independence which it commemorated. But epoch-making as +it unquestionably was, it was not so epoch-making as all that. For some +years Philadelphians had a way of saying "before" and "after" the +Centennial, much as Southerners used to talk of "before" and "after" the +War: with the difference that for Philadelphians all the good dated +from "after." But manufacturing and commerce had been heard of "before." +Cramp's shipyard did not wait for its first commission until the +Centennial, neither did Baldwin's Locomotive Works, nor the factories in +Kensington; Philadelphia was not so dead commercially that it was out of +mere compliment important railroads made it the chief centre on their +route. All large International Expositions are bound to do good by the +increased knowledge that comes with them of what the world is producing +and by the incentive this knowledge is to competition, and as the +Centennial was the first held in America it probably accomplished more +for the country than those that followed. But I do not have to be an +authority on manufacture and commerce to see that they flourished before +the Centennial; I have learned enough about art since to know that its +existence was not first revealed to Philadelphia by the Centennial. The +Exhibition had an influence on art which I am far from undervaluing. Its +galleries of paintings and prints, drawings and sculptures, were an aid +in innumerable ways to artists and students who previously had had no +facilities for seeing a representative collection. It threw light on the +arts of design for the manufacturer. But we knew a thing or two about +beauty down in Philadelphia before 1876, though beauty was a subject to +which we had ceased to pay much attention, and from the Centennial we +borrowed too many tastes and standards that did not belong to us. It +set Philadelphia talking an appalling lot of rubbish about art, and the +new affectation of interest was more deplorable than the old frank +indifference. + +[Illustration: THE BRIDGE ACROSS MARKET STREET FROM BROAD STREET +STATION] + +I was as ignorant of art as the child unborn, but not more ignorant than +the average Philadelphian. The old obligatory visits to the Academy had +made but a fleeting impression and I never repeated them when the +obligation rested solely with me. I had never met an artist, never been +in a studio. The result was that the Art Galleries at the Centennial +left me as blank and bewildered as the Hall of Machinery. Of all the +paintings, the one I remembered was Luke Fildes's picture of a milkmaid +which I could not forget because, in a glaring, plush-framed +chromo-lithograph, it reappeared promptly in Philadelphia dining-and +bedrooms, the most popular picture of the Centennial--a popularity in +which I can discern no signs of grace. Nor can I discern them in the +Eastlake craze, in the sacrifice of reps and rosewood to Morris and of +Berlin work to crewels, in the outbreak of spinning-wheels and +milking-stools and cat's tails and Japanese fans in the old simple, +dignified Philadelphia parlour; in the nightmare of wall-papers with +dadoes going half-way up the wall and friezes coming halfway down, and +every square inch crammed full of pattern; in the pretence and excess of +decoration that made the early Victorian ornament, we had all begun to +abuse, a delight to the eye in its innocent unpretentiousness. And if to +the Centennial we owe the multiplication of our art schools, how many +more artists have come out of them, how much more work that counts? + +However, the good done by the Centennial is not to be sought in the +solid profits and losses that can be weighed in a practical balance. It +went deeper. Philadelphia was the better for being impressed with the +reason of its own importance which it had taken on faith, and for being +reminded that the world outside of Philadelphia was not a howling +wilderness. I, individually, gained by the widening of my horizon and +the stirring of my interest. But the Centennial did not teach me how to +think about, or use, what I had learned from it. When it was at an end, +I returned placidly to my occupation of doing nothing. + + + + +CHAPTER X: THE MIRACLE OF WORK + + +I + +In the story of my life in Philadelphia, and my love for the town which +grew with my knowledge of it, my beginning to work was more than an +awakening: it was an important crisis. For work first made me know +Philadelphia as it is under the surface of calm and the beauty of age, +first made me realize how much it offers besides the social adventure. + +Personally, the Centennial had left me where it found me. It had amused +me vastly, but it had inspired me with no desire to make active use of +the information and hints of which it had been so prodigal. My interest +had been stimulated, awakened, but I did not know Philadelphia any the +better for it, I did not love Philadelphia any the better. I had got no +further than I was in my scheme of existence, into which work, or +research, or interest, on my part had not yet entered, but I had reached +a point where that aimless scheme was an insufferable bore. From the +moment I began to work, I began to see everything from the standpoint of +work, and it is wonderful what a fresh and invigorating standpoint it +is. I began to see that everything was not all of course and matter of +fact, that everything was worth thinking about. Work is sometimes said +to help people to put things out of their minds, but it helps them more +when it puts things into their minds, and this is what it did for me. +Through work I discovered Philadelphia and myself together. + + +II + +It strikes me as one of the little ironies of life that for the first +inducement to work, and therefore the first incentive to my knowledge +and love of Philadelphia, I should have been indebted to my Uncle, +Charles Godfrey Leland, who, in 1880, when the Centennial excitement was +subsiding, settled again in Philadelphia after ten years abroad, chiefly +in England. Philadelphia welcomed him with its usual serenity, betrayed +into no expression of emotion by the home-coming of one of its most +distinguished citizens who, in London, had been received with the open +arms London, in expansive moments, extends to the lion from America. The +contrast, no doubt, was annoying, and my Uncle, of whom patience could +not be said to be the predominating virtue, was accordingly annoyed and, +on his side, betrayed into anything but a serene expression of his +annoyance. Many smaller slights irritated him further until he worked +himself up into the belief that he detested Philadelphia, and he was apt +to be so outspoken in criticism that he succeeded in convincing me, +anyway, that he did. Later, when I read his _Memoirs_, I found in them +passages that suggest the charm of Philadelphia as it has not been +suggested by any other writer I know of, and that he could not have +written had he not felt for the town an affection strong enough to +withstand that town's easy indifference. But during the few years he +spent in Philadelphia after his return he was uncommonly successful in +hiding his affection, a fact which did not add to his popularity. + +[Illustration: STATE HOUSE YARD] + +From his talk, I might have been expected to borrow nothing save dislike +for Philadelphia. But his influence did not begin and end with his talk. +There never was a man--except J.--who had such a contempt for idleness +and such a talent for work. He could not endure people about him who did +not work and, as I was anxious to enjoy as much of his company as I +could, for I had found nobody in Philadelphia so entertaining, and as by +work I might earn the money to pay for the independence I wanted above +all things, I found myself working before I knew it. + +I had my doubts when he set me to drawing but, my time being wholly my +own and frequently hanging drearily on my hands, my ineffectual attempts +to make spirals and curves with a pencil on a piece of paper, attempts +that could not by the wildest stretch of imagination be supposed to have +either an artistic or a financial value, did not strike me as a +disproportionate price for the pleasure and stimulus of his +companionship. Besides, he held the comfortable belief that anybody who +willed to do it, could do anything--accomplishment, talent, genius +reduced by him to a question of will. His will and mine combined, +however, could not make a decorative artist of me, but he was so kind +as not to throw me over for ruthlessly shattering his favourite theory. +He insisted that I should write if I could not draw. + +I had my doubts about writing too. I have confessed that I was not given +to thinking and therefore I had nothing in particular to say, nor were +words to say it in at my ready disposal, for, there being one or two +masters of talk in the immediate home circle, I had cultivated to the +utmost my natural gift of silence. Nor could I forget two literary +ventures made immediately upon my leaving the Convent, before the +blatant conceit of the prize scholar had been knocked out of me--one, an +essay on Francois Villon, my choice of a maiden theme giving the measure +of my intelligence, the second a short story re-echoing the last love +tale I had read--both MSS., neatly tied with brown ribbon to vouch for a +masculine mind above feminine pinks and blues, confidently sent to +_Harper's_ and as confidently sent back with the Editor's thanks and no +delay. But my Uncle would not let me off. I must stick at my task of +writing or cease to be his companion, and so relapse into my old Desert +of Sahara, thrown back into the colourless life of a Philadelphia girl +who did not go out and who had waited to marry longer than her parents +thought considerate or correct. Of all my sins, of none was I more +guiltily conscious than my failure to oblige my family in this respect, +for of none was I more frequently and uncomfortably reminded by my +family. I scarcely ever went to see my Grandmother at this period that +from her favourite perch on the landing outside the dining-room, she did +not look at me anxiously and reproachfully and ask, "Any news for me, my +dear?" and she did not have to tell me there was but one piece of news +she cared to hear. + +Luckily, writing, my substitute for marriage, was an occupation I was +free to take up if I chose, as the work it involved met with no +objection from my Father. It was only when work took a girl where the +world could not help seeing her at it, that the Philadelphia father +objected. To write in the privacy of a third-story front bedroom, or of +a back parlour, seemed a ladylike way of wasting hours that might more +profitably have been spent in paying calls and going to receptions. If +this waste met with financial return, it could be hushed up and the +world be none the wiser. The way in which my friends used to greet me +after I was fairly launched is characteristic of the Philadelphia +attitude in the matter--"always scribbling away, I suppose?" they would +say with amiable condescension. + +I could not dismiss my scribbling so jauntily. The record of my +struggles day by day might help to keep out of the profession of +journalism and book-making many a young aspirant as ardent as I was, and +with as little to say and as few words to say it in. Experience has +taught me to feel, much as Gissing felt, about the "heavy-laden who sit +down to the cursed travail of the pen," but nobody could have made me +feel that way then, and I am not sure I should care to have missed my +struggles, exhausting and heart-rending as they were. During my +apprenticeship when nothing, not so much as a newspaper paragraph, came +from my mountain of labour, the Philadelphia surface of calm told +gloomily on my nerves. Ready to lay the blame anywhere save on my +sluggish brain, and moved by my Uncle's vehement denunciations, I vowed +to myself a hundred times that a sleepy place, a dead place, like +Philadelphia did not give anybody the chance to do anything. I changed +my point of view when at last my "scribbling away" got into print. + + +III + +My first appearance was with a chapter out of a larger work upon which I +had been engaged for months. My Uncle, whose ideas were big, had +insisted that I must begin straight off with a book, something +monumental, a _magnum opus_; no writer was known who had not written a +book; and to be known was half the battle. I was in the state of mind +when I would have agreed to publish a masterpiece in hieroglyphics had +he suggested it, and I arranged with him to set to work upon my book +then and there, though I was decidedly puzzled to know with what it was +to deal. I think he was too, my literary resources and tendencies not +being of the kind that revealed themselves at a glance. But he declared +that there was not a subject upon which a book could not be written if +one only went about it in the right way, and in a moment of +inspiration, seeking the particular subject suitable to my particular +needs, he suddenly, and to me to this day altogether incomprehensibly, +hit upon Mischief. There, now, was a subject to make one's reputation +on, none could be more original, no author had touched it--what did I +think of Mischief? + +What did I think? Had I been truthful, I should have said that I thought +Mischief was the special attribute of the naughty child who was spanked +well for it if he got his deserts. But I was not truthful. I said it was +the subject of subjects, as I inclined to believe it was before I was +done with it, by which time I had persuaded myself to see in it the one +force that made the world go round--the incentive to evolution, the root +of the philosophies of the ages, the clue to the mystery of life. + +My days were devoted to the study of Mischief and, for the purpose, more +carefully divided up and regulated than they ever had been at the +Convent. Hours were set aside for research--I see myself and my +sympathetic Uncle overhauling dusty dictionaries and encyclopaedias at +the long table in the balcony of the dusty Mercantile Library where +nobody dreamed of disturbing us; I see him at my side during shorter +visits to the Philadelphia Library where we were forever running up +against people we knew who did disturb us most unconscionably; I see him +tramping with me down South Broad Street to the Ridgway Library, that +fine mausoleum of the great collections of James Logan and Dr. Rush, +where our coming awoke the attendants and exposed their awkwardness in +waiting upon unexpected readers, and brought Mr. Lloyd Smith out of his +private room, excited and delighted actually to see somebody in the huge +and well-appointed building besides himself and his staff. Hours were +reserved for reading at home, for it turned out that I could not +possibly arrive at the definition of Mischief without a stupendous +amount of reading in a stupendous variety of books of any and all kinds +from Mother Goose to the Vedas and the Koran, from Darwin to Eliphas +Levi. Hours, and they were the longest, were consecrated to my +writing-table, putting the results of research and reading into words, +defining Mischief in its all-embracing, universe-covering aspect, hewing +the phrases from my unwilling brain as the blocks of marble are hewn out +of the quarry. As I write, my old MSS. rises before me like a ghost, a +disorderly ghost, erased, rewritten, pieces added in, pieces cut out, +every scratched and blotted line bearing testimony to the toil that +produced it. I can see now that I would have done better to begin with a +more obvious theme, coming more within my limited knowledge and +vocabulary. My task was too laborious for the fine frenzy, or the +inspired flights, reputed to be the reward of the literary life. It was +all downright hard labour, and so coloured my whole idea of the business +of writing, that I have never yet managed to sit down to my day's work +without the feeling which I imagine must be the navvy's as he starts out +for his day's digging in the streets. + +In the course of time order grew out of the chaos. A chapter of my +monumental work on Mischief was finished. It was made ready in a neat +copy with hardly an erasure and, having an air of completeness in +itself, was sent as a separate article to _Lippincott's Magazine_, for I +decided magnanimously that, as I was a Philadelphian, Philadelphia +should have the first chance. I had no doubts of it as a prophetic +utterance, as a world-convulsing message, but the Editor of +_Lippincott's_ had. He refused it. + +How it hurt, that prompt refusal! All my literary hopes came toppling +over and I saw myself condemned to the old idleness and dependence. But +our spirits when we are young go up as quickly as they go down. I +recalled stories I had heard of great men hawking about their MSS. from +publisher to publisher. Carlyle, I said to myself, had suffered and +almost every writer of note--it was a sign of genius to be refused. +Therefore,--the logic of it was clear and convincing--the refusal proved +me a genius! A more substantial reassurance was the publication of the +same article, done over and patched up and with the fine title of +_Mischief in the Middle Ages_, in the _Atlantic Monthly_ a very few +months later. And when, on top of this, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, the +Editor of the _Atlantic_, wrote and told me he would be pleased to have +further articles from me; when, in answer to a letter my Uncle had +insisted on my writing. Oliver Wendell Holmes promised me his interest +in Mischief as I proposed to define it. I saw the world at my feet +where, to my sorrow, I have never seen it since that first fine moment +of elation. + +The spectacle of myself in print set Philadelphia dancing before my eyes +and turned the world a bit unsteady. But it did not relieve the labour +of writing. Within the next year or two seven or eight chapters did get +done and were published as articles in the _Atlantic_, but the world is +still the poorer for the _magnum opus_ that was to bring me fame. The +fact was that in the making, it brought me mighty little money. My first +cheque only whetted my appetite, but, in fairness to myself I must +explain, through no more sordid motive than my desire to become my own +bread-winner. The newspapers offered a wider scope at less expense of +time and labour, and my Uncle not only relaxed so far as to allow me +intervals from the bigger undertaking for simpler tasks, but gave me the +benefit of his experience as a newspaper man. In the old days, before he +had gone to live in London, he had had the run of almost every newspaper +office in town, and he opened their doors for me. Thanks to his +introduction, Philadelphia, at this stage of my progress, conspired to +put work into my hands, and writing for Philadelphia papers taught me in +a winter more about Philadelphia than I had learned in all the years I +had already spent there. I marvelled that I could have thought it dead +when it was so alive. I seemed to feel it quiver under my feet at every +step, shaking me into speed, and filling me with pity for the sedate +pace at which my Father and the Philadelphians of his generation walked +through its pulsating streets. + + +IV + +My first newspaper commissions came from the _Press_ and adventure +accompanied them--the adventure of business letters in my morning's +mail, of proofs, of visits to the office--adventures that far too soon +became the commonplaces of my busy days as journalist. But my outlook +upon life in Philadelphia had, up till then, been bounded by the brick +walls of a Spruce Street house, and the editorial office, that holds no +surprise for me now, held nothing save surprise when I was first +summoned to it. I was bewildered by the disorder, stunned by the +noise--boys coming and going, letters and telegrams pouring in, piles of +proofs mounting up on the desk, baskets overflowing with MSS., floors +strewn with papers, machinery throbbing close by, a heavy smell of +tobacco over everything, and in the midst of the confusion--lounging, +working, answering questions, tearing open letters and telegrams, +correcting proof, and yet managing to talk with me,--Moses P. Handy, the +editor, a red man in my memory of him, red hair, red beard, red cheeks, +whose cordiality I could not flatter myself was due to his eagerness for +my contributions, so engrossed was he in talking of the Eastern Shore of +Maryland from which he came and in which my family had made their +prolonged stay on the way from Virginia to Philadelphia. The Eastern +Shore may be a good place to come away from, but the native never +forgets that he did come from it and he never fails to hail his fellow +exile as brother. + +My next commission I owed to the _Evening Telegraph_, for which I made a +remarkable journey to Atlantic City: a voyage of discovery, though the +report of it did not paralyse the Philadelphia public. I was deeply +impressed by my exercise of my faculty of observation thus tested on +familiar ground, but I am afraid it left the Editor indifferent, and, as +in his case the Eastern Shore was not a friendly link between us, he +expressed no desire for a second article or for a second visit. I have +regretted it since, the Editor being Clarke Davis, whom not to know was, +I believe, not to have arrived so far in Philadelphia journalism as I +liked to think I had. + +[Illustration: THE PENITENTIARY] + +A more remarkable journey followed to New York for I wish I could +remember what paper; or perhaps it is just as well I cannot, the +adventure adding to the reputation neither of the paper nor of myself. +The object was to attend the press view of an important exhibition of +paintings, and at that stage of my education I doubt if I could have +told a Rembrandt from a Rubens, much less a Kenyon Cox from a Church, a +Chase from a Blum, which was more immediately to the point. I had my +punishment on the spot, for my hours in the Gallery may be counted the +most humiliating of my life. My ignorance would not let me lose sight of +it for one little second. J. had gone with me--how I came to know him I +mean to tell further on--but he had no press ticket, a stern man at the +door refused to admit him without one, and I was alone in my +incompetency to wrestle with it as I could. Had he not returned with me +to Philadelphia in the afternoon and devoted the interval in the train +to throwing light upon my obscure and agonised notes, my copy could not +have been delivered that evening as agreed. I know now that the paper +would have come out all the same the next morning, but in my misery it +did not seem possible that it could, and besides I was from the first, +as through my many years of journalism, scrupulous to be on time with my +copy and to keep to my agreements. That was my first experience in art +criticism. I have tried to atone for it by years of conscientious work, +but few Philadelphia papers can say as much for themselves. In those I +see from time to time, the art criticism usually reads as if +Philadelphia editors had lost nothing of their old amiability in handing +it over to young ladies to get their journalistic training on. + +I was given also my chance in two newspaper ventures Philadelphia made +in the early Eighteen-Eighties. One was the _American_, a weekly on the +lines of the New York _Nation_. Mr. Howard Jenkins, the editor, sent me +books for review, and not the first baby, not the first baby's first +tooth, could be as extraordinary a phenomenon as the first book sent for +the purpose from the editorial office. Mine, as I have never forgotten, +as I never could forget, was Howard Pyle's _Robin Hood_, and when Mr. +Jenkins wrote me that "Mr. Pyle's folks" were pleased with what I had +written, I thought I had got to the very top of the tree of journalism. +That I had got no further than a step from the bottom, and upon that had +none too secure a foothold, I was reminded when the second book for +review lay open before me. + +The other venture was _Our Continent_, also a weekly, but illustrated, +edited by Judge Tourgee. Of my contributions, I remember chiefly an +article on Shop Windows, which suggests that I was busy with what I +might call a more pretentious kind of reporting. My subjects and my +manner of treating them may have been what they were,--of no special +value to anybody but myself. But to myself I cannot exaggerate their +value. I was learning from them all the time. + +[Illustration: ON THE READING AT SIXTEENTH STREET] + +It was an education just to learn what a newspaper was. Heretofore I had +accepted it as a thing that came of itself, arriving in the morning with +the milk and the rolls for breakfast. I knew as little of its origin as +the town boy knew of where the milk comes from in the _Punch_ story that +I do not doubt was old when _Punch_ was young. Milk he had always seen +poured from a can, our newspaper we had always had from the nearest +news-agent. It was very simple. A newspaper appeared on the +breakfast-table of a well-regulated Philadelphia house just as the water +ran when the tap was turned on in the bath-room, or the gas burned when +lit by a match. But after one article, after one visit to a newspaper +office, after one journey to Atlantic City or New York, the newspaper +did not seem so simple. I began to understand that it would not have +got as far as Spruce Street had it not been for an army of people +writing, printing, correcting proof, tearing from one end of the +town--of the world--to the other; without colossal machinery throbbing +night and day, without an immeasurable consumption of tobacco. I began +to understand the organization required to bring the army of people and +the colossal machines into such perfect harmony that the daily miracle +of the newspaper on the breakfast-table might be worked--to understand +too that the miracle-working organization had not been created in a day, +that behind the daily paper was not merely the toiling of its staff and +its machines but a long history of striving, experiment, development. + +I cannot say I went profoundly into the history, I was too engrossed in +contributing my delightful share to the newspaper as it was, but to go +superficially sufficed to show me in Philadelphia a spirit of enterprise +altogether new to me. I had discovered only shortly before Philadelphia +as the scene of the first Colonial Congress, and the Declaration of +Independence, and the first big International Exposition in America, and +now I added to these other discoveries the fact that Philadelphia had +been the first American town to publish a daily paper, the last +discovery bringing me face to face with Benjamin Franklin who, it +appeared, besides flying that tiresome kite and being the ancestor of +Mrs. Gillespie, was the first printer and publisher of the paper that +set an example for all America. Tranquil the Philadelphian was by +repute, but he rolled up his sleeves and pitched in when the moment +came. Philadelphia's famous calm was but skin deep over its seething +mass of workers, its energy, its toiling, its triumph. When I reflected +on what was going on at night in every newspaper office in town, it +seemed to me as unbelievable that, on the verge of this volcano of work, +Philadelphians could keep on dancing at parties, at the Dancing Class, +at the Assembly, as that men and women should have danced at Brussels on +the eve of Waterloo. And newspaper-making was one only of Philadelphia's +innumerable industries. That thought gave me the scale of the labour +that goes to keep the machinery of life running. + + +V + +Of some of the other industries I got to know a little. My Uncle who, as +I have said, was a man of ideas and who had his fair proportion of +Philadelphia energy, included among his many interests the subject of +education. He deplored existing systems and methods. My belief is that +the systems and methods might be of the best and education would still +be a mistake, vulgarizing the multitude to whom it does not belong and +encouraging in them a prejudice against honest work. My Uncle did not +think as I do,--that I do not think now as he did frightens me as a +disloyalty to his memory. But he could not overlook the distaste for +manual work that had grown out of too much attention to books and as he +never let his theories exhaust themselves in words, he lost no time in +persuading the Board of Education to put this particular one to a +practical test. Doubts of their methods had assailed the Board, but no +way out of the difficulty had been suggested until he came and said, +"Set your children, your boys and girls, who are forgetting how to use +their hands, to work at the Minor Arts." It struck them as a suggestion +that warranted the experiment anyway, especially as the cost would be +comparatively small. My Uncle had been back in Philadelphia not much +more than a year when classes were put in his charge and a +schoolroom--the school-house at Broad and Locust--at his disposal, and +he inaugurated the study of the Arts and Crafts in Philadelphia with the +Industrial Art School, as he had in London with the Home Arts. His sole +payment was the pleasure of the experiment, a pleasure which few +theorists succeed in securing. I, however, was paid by the City in solid +dollars and cents for the fine amateurish inefficiency with which I +helped him to manage the classes, recommended by him, whose +consideration was as practical for my pockets which the _Atlantic_, +backed by newspapers, had not filled to repletion. + +[Illustration: LOCUST STREET EAST FROM BROAD STREET] + +This is not the place for the history of his experiment. It is known. +The school has passed from the experimental stage into a permanent +institution, though in the passing my Uncle has been virtually +forgotten,--often the fate of the man who sets a ball of reform rolling. +Of all this I have elsewhere made the record. I am at present concerned +with the influence the school had upon me and the unexpected extent to +which it widened my knowledge of Philadelphia and Philadelphia +activities. + +How Philadelphia was educated was not a question that had kept me awake +at nights. The Philadelphia girl of my acquaintance, if a day scholar, +went naturally to Miss Irwin's or to Miss Annabel's in town; if a +boarder perhaps to Miss Chapman's at Holmesburg or Mrs. Comegys at +Chestnut Hill; unless her parents were converts or Catholics by birth +when she went instead to the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Torresdale +or in Walnut Street. The Philadelphia boy began with the Episcopal +Academy and finished with the University of Pennsylvania. Friends went +to the Friends' School in Germantown, and to Swarthmore and Haverford. +What others did, did not matter. I had heard there were public or free +schools where children could go for nothing, but nobody to my knowledge +went to them. With what insolence we each of us, in our own little +fraction of the world, think everybody outside of it nobody! But up in +the top story rooms of the school-house at Broad and Locust, where my +work took me two afternoons in the week, I found myself the centre of a +vast network of schools! High Schools, Grammar Schools, Primary Schools, +Scholarships, more divisions and subdivisions than I could count; with +teachers--for there was a class for teachers--and pupils coming from +every ward and suburb, every street and alley of the town; a School +Board keeping a watchful eye upon schools and teachers, not leaving me +out; and all about me a vast population without one idea or interest +except the education of Philadelphia. And this implied, like the +newspaper, a perfect organization of its own to keep the whole thing +going--an organization that never could have been born in a day. The +education of Philadelphia had absorbed a vast population since +Philadelphia was: the first Philadelphia children hardly escaping from +their cave dwellings before they were hurried into school to have their +poor little minds trained and disciplined. Really, in my first days of +work, life was a succession of startling discoveries about Philadelphia. + +I could not get paid for my afternoons at the school, which I ought to +have paid for considering the education they were to me, without making +another discovery. The pay came monthly from the City in the form of a +warrant, or so I believe it is called. As I have explained that I had +never been possessed of money of my own, some allowance will be made for +my stupidity in thinking it necessary to cash the warrant in person. It +never occurred to me to open a bank account or to ask my Father to +exchange the warrant for money. I went myself to the office in the big, +new, unfinished City Hall--how well I remember, when I was kept waiting +which was always, my conscientiousness in jotting down elaborate notes +of windows and doors and upholstery and decoration: Zola in France and +Howells at home having made Realism the literary fashion, and Realism, +I gathered, being achieved only by way of jotting down endless notes in +every situation in which I found myself; especially as J. had brought +back from Italy exemplary and inspiring tales of Vernon Lee (Violet +Paget) and Mary Robinson (Mme. Duclaux), with whom he had worked and +travelled, filling blank books with memoranda collected from the windows +of every train they took and every hotel in which they stayed. + +I am glad I was stupid, such a good thing for me was this going in +person, such a suggestive lesson in City Government which I learned was +as little of an automatic arrangement as education and the newspaper, +and not necessarily something that all decent people should be ashamed +of being mixed up with, the way my Father and the old-fashioned +Philadelphian of his type looked upon it and every other variety of +Government. It was just another huge, busy, striving, toiling +organization, so huge as to fit with difficulty into the enormous ugly +new buildings, then recently set down for it in Penn Square with +complete indifference to Penn's plan for his green country town, or to +get its work done in the maze of courts and passages and offices by the +hordes of big and little officials no less preoccupied in City +Government than journalists in their newspaper, or teachers in their +school, or--outrageous as it may sound--society in the Assembly and +Dancing Class and the things which I had been brought up to believe the +beginning and end of existence on this earth. + +[Illustration: BROAD STREET, LOOKING SOUTH FROM ABOVE ARCH STREET] + +My new knowledge of Philadelphia was widened in various other directions +as time went on. My Uncle's experiment, when it took practical shape, +attracted attention and he was asked to lecture on it in places like the +Franklin Institute--there was no keeping away very long from Benjamin +Franklin in Philadelphia once I got to know anything about +Philadelphia--and to visit institutions like Moyamensing Prison or +Kirkbride's Insane Asylum that he might consider the advisability of +introducing his scheme of manual work for the benefit of the insane and +the criminal. I usually accompanied him on these occasions, and before +he had got through his rounds I had seen a number of different phases of +Philadelphia activity and enterprise and power of organization. I had +been given some idea of the armies of doctors and nurses and scientists +who had made Kirkbride's a model throughout the land, while Dr. Albert +Smith had helped me to an additional insight into the hospitals that set +as excellent an example. I had been given an idea of the armies of +judges and juries and police and governors and warders and visiting +inspectors,--of whom my Father was one, with a special tenderness for +murderers whom he used to take his family to visit--at Moyamensing. And +from the combination of all my new experiences I had gained further +knowledge of the energies at work beyond the limits of "Chestnut, +Walnut, Spruce and Pine" to make Philadelphia what it was. + + +VI + +I ought to have needed no guide to the knowledge and appreciation of +these things, it may be said. I admit it. But the happy mortals who are +born observant do not picture to themselves the tortures gone through by +those who must have observation thrust upon them before they begin to +use their eyes. I had not been born to observe, I had not been trained +to observe, and to become observant I had to go through the sort of +practical course Mr. Squeers set to his boys. His method, denounce it as +you will, has its merits. The students of Dotheboys Hall could never +have forgotten what a window is or what it means to clean it. I had +grown up to accept life as a pageant for me to look on at, with no part +to play in it. After my initiation into work, I could never forget, in +the quietest, emptiest sections of the town, not even in placid little +backwaters like Clinton Street and De Lancey Place, the machinery +forever crashing and grinding and roaring to produce the pageant, to +weave for Philadelphia the beautiful serenity it wore like a garment. I +could never forget that, insignificant as my share in the machinery +might be, all the same I was contributing something to make it go. I +could never be sure that everybody I met, however calm in appearance, +might not be as mixed up in the great machine of work as I was beginning +to be. + +[Illustration: CLINTON STREET, WITH THE PENNSYLVANIA HOSPITAL AT ITS +END] + +I had to work to learn that Philadelphia had worked, and still worked, +and worked so well as to be the first to have given America much that +is best and most vital in the country--the first to show the right way +with its schools and hospitals and libraries and newspapers and +galleries and museums, the leader in the fight for liberty of +conscience, the scene of the first Colonial Congress and the signing of +the Declaration of Independence and the Centennial Exposition to +commemorate it, a pioneer in science and industry and manufacture--a +town upon which all the others in the land could not do better than +model themselves--while all the time it maintained its fine air of calm +that perplexes the stranger and misleads the native. But I had found it +out, found out its greatness, before age had dimmed my perceptions and +dulled my power of appreciation; and to find Philadelphia out is to love +it. + + + + +CHAPTER XI: THE ROMANCE OF WORK + + +I + +I was still in the stage of wonder and joy at seeing myself in print, +when work and Philadelphia joined in the most unlooked for manner to +help me tell my Grandmother that "something" she was so anxiously +waiting to hear. An article on Philadelphia which an intelligent Editor +asked me to write was my introduction to J. The town that we both love +first brought us together, as it now brings us back to it together after +the many years that have passed since it laid the foundation of our long +partnership. + +[Illustration: THE CHERRY STREET STAIRS NEAR THE RIVER] + +I would say nothing about the article at this late date had it not added +so materially to my life and to my knowledge of Philadelphia. I am not +proud of it as a piece of literary work. But it seems, as I recall the +days of my apprenticeship, to mark the turning of the ways, to point to +the new road I was destined to take. I got it out the other day, the +first time in over a quarter of a century, proposing to reprint it, +thinking the contrast between my impressions of Philadelphia thirty +years ago and my impressions of Philadelphia to-day might be amusing. In +memory, it had remained a brilliant performance, one any editor would be +pleased to jump at, and I was astonished to find it youthful and crude, +inarticulate, inadequate not only to the subject itself but to my +appreciation of the subject which at the time was unbounded. I do not +know whether to be more amazed at my failure in it to say what I wanted +to say, or at the Editor's amiability in publishing it. The article may +not have lost all its eloquence for me, since between the halting lines +I can read the story I did not know how to tell, but for others it would +prove a dull affair and it is best left where it is, forgotten in the +old files of a popular magazine. + +The story I read is one of a series of discoveries with a romance in +each. The way the article came about was that J. had made etchings of +Philadelphia, and the Editor, who had wisely arranged to use them, +thought they could not be published without accompanying text. When he +asked me, as a young Philadelphian just beginning to write, to supply +this text, he advised me to consult with J., whom I did not know and +whose studio address he gave me. + +I was thrilled by the prospect, never having been in a studio nor met an +artist, and when it turned out not half so simple as it looked on paper, +when the first catching my artist was attended with endless delays and +difficulties, it did not lessen the thrill or take away from the sense +of adventure. + +J.'s studio, which he shared with Mr. Harry Poore, was at the top of +what was then the Presbyterian Building on Chestnut Street above +Thirteenth, quite new and of tremendous height at a time when the +sky-scraper had not been invented nor the elevator become a necessity +of Philadelphia life. Day after day, varying the hour with each attempt, +now in the morning, now at noon, now toward evening, I toiled up those +long flights of stairs, marvelling at the strange, unaccountable +disclosures through half-opened studio doors, for it was a building of +studios; glad of the support of my Uncle who was seeing me through this, +as he saw me through all my earliest literary enterprises; arriving at +the top, breathless and panting, only to be informed by a notice, +written on paper and pinned on the tight-locked door, that J. was out +and would be back in half an hour. My Uncle and I were inclined to +interpret this literally, once or twice waiting trustingly on the dark +landing some little while beyond the appointed time. On one occasion I +believe the door was opened, when we knocked, by Mr. Poore who was not +sure of the length of a half hour as J. reckoned it, but had an idea it +might vary according to circumstances, especially now that J. was out of +town. I went away not annoyed as I should be to-day, but more stirred +than ever by the novelty of the adventure. + +[Illustration: THE MORRIS HOUSE ON EIGHTH STREET] + +At last I tied J. down by an appointment, as I should have done at the +start, and he, having returned to town, kept it to the minute. I think +from first to last of this astonishing business I had no greater shock +of astonishment than when I followed him into his studio. We were in the +Eighteen-Eighties then, when American magazines and newspapers were +making sensational copy out of the princely splendour of the London +studios, above all of Tadema's, Leighton's, Millais': palatial +interiors, hung with priceless tapestries, carpeted with rare Oriental +rugs, shining with old brass and pottery and armour, opening upon +Moorish courts, reached by golden stairs, fragrant with flowers, filled +with soft couches and luxurious cushions--flamboyant, exotic interiors +that would not have disgraced Ouida's godlike young Guardsmen but that +scarcely seemed to belong to men who made their living by the work of +their hands. Indeed, it was their splendour that misled so many +incompetent young men and women of the later Victorian age into the +belief that art was the easiest and most luxurious short cut to wealth. +But there was nothing splendid or princely about J.'s studio. It was +frankly a workshop, big and empty, a few unframed drawings and life +studies stuck up on the bare walls, the floors carpetless, for furniture +an easel or two and a few odd rickety chairs--a room nobody would have +dreamed of going into except for work. But then, my first impression of +J. was of a man who did not want to do anything except work. + +My experience had been that people--if I leave out my Uncle--worked, not +because they wanted to but because they had to and that, sceptical as +they might be on every other Scriptural point, they were not to be +shaken out of their belief in work as a curse inherited from Adam. J., +evidently, would have found the curse in not being allowed to work. And +as new to me was the enthusiasm with which, while he showed me his +prints and drawings, he began to talk about Philadelphia and its beauty. +It was unusual for Philadelphians to talk about their town at all; if +they did, it was more unusual for them to talk with enthusiasm; and the +interest in it forced upon them by the Centennial had been for every +quality rather than its beauty. Even my Uncle--though later, in his +_Memoirs_, he wrote charmingly of the charm of Philadelphia--at that +time affected to admire nothing in it except the unsightly arches of the +Pennsylvania Railroad, bridging the streets between the Schuylkill and +the Station, and if he made the exception in their favour, it was +because they reminded him of London. Thanks to the Centennial and the +stimulus of hard work, I was not as ignorant of Philadelphia as I had +been, but I was not rid of the old popular fallacy that the American in +search of beauty must cross the Atlantic and go to Europe. And here was +J., in five minutes telling me more about Philadelphia than I had +learned in a lifetime, revealing to me in his drawings the beauty of +streets and houses I had not had the wit to find out for myself, firing +me with sudden enthusiasm in my turn, convincing me that nothing in the +world counted but Philadelphia, opening my eyes to its unsuspected +resources, so that after this I could walk nowhere without visions of +romance where all before had been everyday commonplace, leaving me eager +and impatient to start on my next journey of discovery which was to be +in his company. + + +II + +To illustrate our article--for _ours_ it had become--J. passed over the +obvious picturesqueness of Philadelphia--the venerable Pennsylvania +Hospital, the beautiful State House, Christ Church, the Old Swedes, St. +Peter's--buildings for which Philadelphia, after years of indifference, +had at last been exalted by the Centennial into historic monuments, the +show places of the town, labelled and catalogued--buildings of which J. +had already made records, having begun his work by drawing them, his +plate of the State House among the first he ever etched. He now went in +preference to the obscure by-ways, to the unpretending survivals of the +past, so merged, so swallowed up in the present, that it needed keen +eyes to detect them: old buildings stamped with age, but too humble in +origin for the Centennial to have resurrected; busy docks, grimy river +banks, crazy old rookeries abandoned to the business and poverty that +claimed them: to the strange, neglected, never-visited corners of a +great town where beauty springs from the rich soil of labour and chance, +neglect and decay. + +How little I had known of Philadelphia up till then! One of the very +first places to which he took me was the old Second Street Market that, +when I lived within a stone's throw of it, I had never set my eyes +on--the old market that, south of Pine, forces Second Street to widen +and make space for it and that turns the gable of the little old Court +House directly north, breaking the long vista of the street as St. +Clement's and St. Mary's in London break the vista of the Strand--the +old market that I believe the city proposes to pull down, very likely +will have pulled down before these lines are in print, though there is +not a Philadelphian who would not go into ecstasies over as shabby and +down-at-the-heel Eighteenth Century building if stumbled upon in an +English country town. And as close to his old family home and mine J. +led me into inn yards that might have come straight from the Borough on +the Surrey side of the Thames, and in and out of dark mysterious courts +which he declared as "good" as the exploited French and Italian courts +every etcher has at one time or another made a plate of--curious nooks +and by-ways I had never stopped to look at during my Third Street days +and would have seen nothing in if I had. + +And I remember going with him along Front Street, where I should have +thought myself contaminated at a time when it might have varied the dull +round of my daily walks, so unlike was it to the spick and span streets +I knew,--glimpses at every crossing of the Delaware, Philadelphia's +river of commerce that Philadelphians never went near unless to take the +boat for Torresdale or, in summers of economy, the steamer for +Liverpool; for several blocks, groups of seafaring men mending sails on +the side-walk, Mariners' Boarding-Houses, a Mariners' Church, and +Philadelphia here the seaport town it is and always has been; and then, +successive odours of the barnyard, fish, spice, coffee, Philadelphia +smelling as strong of the romance of trade as any Eastern bazaar. + +[Illustration: THE OLD COACHING-INN YARD] + +And I remember J. and I crossing the forbidden line into "up town" to +find beauty, interest, picturesqueness in "Market, Arch, Race and +Vine"--old houses everywhere, the old Meeting-House, Betsy Ross' house, +Provost Smith's, the Christ Church Burial Ground at Fifth and Arch where +Franklin is buried, narrow rambling alleys, red and black brick, and +there, up on a house at the corner of Front, where it is to this day, a +sign going back to the years when Race was still Sassafras Street, and +so part of the original scheme of Philadelphia, to which, with +Philadelphia docility, I had all my life believed South of Market alone +could claim the right. + +And I remember our wandering to the Schuylkill, not by the neat and +well-kept roads and paths of the Park, but where tumbled-down houses +faced it near Callowhill Street Bridge and works of one kind or another +rose from its banks near Gray's Ferry, and Philadelphia was a town of +industry, of machines, of railroads connecting it with all parts of the +world,--for already to J. "the Wonder of Work" had made its irresistible +appeal. And I remember our wandering farther, north and south, east and +west--interest, beauty, picturesqueness never failing us--in the end +Philadelphia transformed into a vast Wonderland, where in one little +section people might spend their lives dancing, paying calls at noon, +eating chicken salad and croquettes from Augustine's, but where in every +other they were striving, struggling, toiling, to carry on Penn's +traditions and to give to his town the greatness, power and beauty he +planned for it. + +In these walks I had followed J. into streets and quarters of the town I +had not known. But I would be leaving out half the story if I did not +say how much he showed me in the streets and quarters I did know. It is +with a town, I suppose, as with life out of which, philosophers say, we +get just as much, or as little, as we bring to it. I had brought no +curiosity, no interest, no sympathy, to Philadelphia, and Philadelphia +therefore had given me nothing save a monotony of red brick and green +shade. But now I came keen with curiosity, full of interest, aflame with +sympathy, and Philadelphia overwhelmed me with its gifts. Oh, the +difference when, having eyes, one sees! I was as surprised to learn that +I had been living in the midst of beauty all my life as M. Jourdain was +to find he had been talking prose. + +Down in lower Spruce and all the neighbouring streets, where I had +walked in loneliness longing for something to happen, something happened +at every step--beautiful Colonial houses, stately doorways, decorative +ironwork, dormer windows, great gables facing each other at street +corners, harmonious proportions--not merely a bit here and a bit there, +but the old Colonial town almost intact, preserved by Philadelphia +through many generations only to be abandoned now to the Russian Jew and +the squalor and the dirt that the Russian Jew takes with him wherever +he goes. In not another American town had the old streets then changed +so little since Colonial days, in not another were they so well worth +keeping unchanged. I had not to dive into musty archives to unearth the +self-evident fact that the early Friends, when they left England, packed +up with their liberty of conscience the love of beauty in architecture +and, what was more practical, the money to pay for it; that, in a fine +period of English architecture, they got good English architects,--Wren +said to have been of the number--to design not merely their public +buildings, but their private houses; that, their Founder setting the +example, they carried over in their personal baggage panelling, +carvings, ironwork, red and black brick, furniture, and the various +details they were not likely to procure in Philadelphia until +Philadelphians had moved from their caves and the primeval forest had +been cut down; that when Philadelphia could contribute its share of the +work, they modified the design to suit climate, circumstances, and +material, and bequeathed to us a Philadelphia with so much local +character that it never could be mistaken for an English town. + +This used to strike the intelligent foreigner as long as Philadelphia +was content to have a character of its own and did not bother to be in +architectural or any other movements. "Not a distressingly new-looking +city, for the Queen Anne style in vogue when its prosperity began is in +the main adhered to with Quaker-like precision; good red brick; numerous +rather narrow windows with white outside shutters, a block cornice along +the top of the facades and the added American feature of marble steps +and entry,"--this, in a letter to William Michael Rossetti, was Mrs. +Gilchrist's description of Philadelphia in the late Eighteen-Seventies, +and it is an appreciative description though most authorities would +probably describe Philadelphia as Georgian rather than Queen Anne. +Philadelphia did more to let the old character go to rack and ruin +during the years I was away from it than during the two centuries +before, and is to-day repenting in miles upon miles of sham Colonial. +But repentance cannot wipe away the traces of sin--cannot bring back the +old Philadelphia I knew. + +[Illustration: FRANKLIN'S GRAVE] + +I do not want to attribute too much to my new and only partially +developed power of observing. Had the measuring worm not retreated +before the sparrow, I might perhaps have been less prepared during my +walks with J. to admit the beauty of the trees lining every street, as +well as of the houses they shaded. But what is the use of troubling +about the might-have-been? The important thing is that, with him I did +for the first time see how beautiful are our green, well-shaded streets. +With him too I first saw how beautiful is their symmetry as they run in +their long straight lines and cross each other at right angles. It was a +symmetry I had confused with monotony, with which most Philadelphians, +foolishly misled, still confuse it. They would rather, for the sake of +variety, that Penn had left the building and growth of Philadelphia to +chance as the founders of other American towns did--they would rather +boast with New York or Boston of the disorderly picturesqueness of +streets that follow old cow tracks made before the town was. But Penn +understood the value of order in architecture as in conduct. It is true +that Ruskin, the accepted prophet of my young days, did not include +order among his Seven Lamps, but there was a good deal Ruskin did not +know about architecture, and a town like Paris in its respect for +arrangement--for order--for a thought-out plan--will teach more at a +glance than all his rhapsodies. Philadelphia has not the noble +perspectives of the French capital nor the splendid buildings to +complete them, but its despised regularity gives it the repose, the +serenity, which is an essential of great art, whether the art of the +painter or the engraver, the sculptor or the architect. And it gives, +too, a suggestiveness, a mystery we are more apt to seek in +architectural disorder and caprice. I know nobody who has pointed out +this beauty in Penn's design except Mrs. Gilchrist in the description +from which I have already borrowed, and she merely hints at the truth, +not grasping it. Philadelphia to her was more picturesque and more +foreign-looking than she expected, and her explanation is in the "long +straight streets at right angles to each other, long enough and broad +enough to present that always pleasing effect of vista-converging lines +that stretch out indefinitely and look as if they must certainly lead +somewhere very pleasant," the streets that are to the town what "the +open road" is to the country,--the long, white, straight road beckoning +who can say where? + + +III + +It was without the slightest intention on my part that the +vista-converging lines of the streets led me direct to William Penn. But +I defy anybody to do a little thinking while walking through the streets +of Philadelphia and not be led to him, so for eternity has he stamped +them with his vivid personality--not William Penn, the shadowy prig of +the school history, but William Penn, the man with a level head, big +ideas, and the will to carry them out--three things that make for +genius. To the weakling of to-day the fight for liberty of conscience +would loom up so gigantic a task as to fill to overflowing his little +span here below. But in the fight as Penn fought it, the material +details could be overlooked as little as the spiritual, the comfort of +the bodies of his people no more neglected than the freedom of their +souls. He did not stop to preach about town-planning and garden cities, +and improved housing for the workman, like the would-be reformer of +to-day. With no sentimental pose as saviour of the people, no drivel +about reforming and elevating and sweetening the lives of humanity, no +aspiration towards "world-betterment," Penn made sure that Philadelphia +should be the green town he thought it ought to be and that men and +women, whatever their appointed task, should have decent houses to live +in. He had the common-sense to understand that his colonists would be +the sturdier and the better equipped for the work they had to do if they +lived like men and not like beasts, and that a town as far south as +Philadelphia called for many gardens and much green shade. The most +beautiful architecture is that which grows logically out of the needs of +the people. That is why Penn's city as he designed it was and is a +beautiful city, to which English and German town reformers should come +for the hints Philadelphians are so misguided as to seek from them. + +I could not meet Penn in his pleasant streets and miss the succession of +Friends who took over the responsibility of ensuring life and reality to +his design, not allowing it, like Wren's in London, to lapse into a +half-forgotten archaeological curiosity. Personally. I knew nothing of +the Friends and envied J. who did because he was one of them, as I never +could be, as nobody, not born to it, can. I had seen them, as alas! they +are seen no longer: quiet, dignified men in broad-brimmed hats, +sweet-faced women in delicate greys and browns, filling our streets in +the spring at the time of Yearly Meeting. Once or twice I had seen them +at home, the women in white caps and fichus, quiet and composed, sitting +peacefully in their old-time parlours simple and bare but filled with +priceless Sheraton or Chippendale. They looked, both in the open streets +and at their own firesides, so placid, so detached from the world's +cares, it had not occurred to me that they could be the makers of the +town's beauty and the sinews of its strength. But in my new mood I could +nowhere get far from them. + +Ghosts of the early Friends haunted the old streets and the old houses +and, mingling with them, were ghosts of the World's People who had lost +no time in coming to share their town and ungraciously abuse the +privilege. The air was thick with association. J. and I walked in an +atmosphere of the past, delightfully conscious of it but never troubling +to reduce it to dry facts. We could not have been as young as we were +and not scorn any approach to pedantry, not as lief do without ghosts as +to grub them up out of the Philadelphia Library or the Historical +Society. We left it to the antiquary to say just where the first Friends +landed and the corner-stone of their first building was laid, just in +which Third Street house Washington once danced, in which Front Street +house Bishop White once lived. It was for the belated Boswell, not for +us, to follow step by step the walks abroad of Penn, or Franklin, or any +of our town's great men. It was no more necessary to be historians in +order to feel the charm of the past than to be architects in order to +feel the charm of the houses, and for no amount of exact knowledge would +we have exchanged the romance which enveloped us. + +[Illustration: ARCH STREET MEETING] + +Could I have put into words some of the emotion I felt in gathering +together my material, what an article I would have made! But my words +came with difficulty, and indeed I have never had the "ready pen" of the +journalist, always I have been shy in expressing emotion of any kind. No +reader could have guessed from my article my enthusiasm as I wrote it. +But at least it did get written and my pleasure in it was not disturbed +by doubt. I was too enthralled by what I had to say to realize that I +had not managed to say it at all. + + +IV + +With the publication of the article our task was at an end, but not our +walks together. J. and I had got into the habit of them, it was a +pleasant habit, we saw no reason to give it up. + +Sometimes we walked with new work as an object. There were articles +about Philadelphia for _Our Continent_. We called it work--learning +Romany--when we both walked with my Uncle up Broad Street to Oakdale +Park, and through Camden and beyond to the Reservoir, where the Gypsies +camped, and made Camden in my eyes, not the refuge of all in doubt, +debt, or despair as its traditions have described it, but a rival in +romance of Bagdad or Samarcand. When we walked still further, taking the +train to help us out, to near country towns for the autumn fairs, never +missing a side show, we called this the search for local colour, and I +filled note-books with notes. Sometimes we walked for no more practical +purpose than pleasure in Philadelphia. And we could walk for days, we +could walk for miles, and exhaust neither the pleasure nor the town that +I once fancied I knew by heart if I walked from Market to Pine and from +the Delaware to the Schuylkill. + +I remember as a remarkable incident my discovery of the suburbs. With +the prejudice borrowed from my Father, I had cultivated for all +suburbs something of the large sweeping contempt which, in the +Eighteen-Nineties, Henley and the _National Observer_, carrying on the +tradition of Thackeray, made it the fashion to profess for the suburbs +of London. West Philadelphia and Germantown were no less terms of +opprobrium in my mouth than Clapham and Brixton in Henley's. But Henley, +though it was a mistake to insist upon Clapham with its beautiful Common +and old houses and dignified air, was expressing his splendid scorn of +the second-rate, the provincial, in art and in letters. I was only +expressing, parrot-like, a pose that did not belong to me, but to my +Father in whose outlook upon life and things there was a whimsical +touch, and who carried off' his prejudices with humour. + +[Illustration: CLIVEDEN, THE CHEW HOUSE] + +I was the more foolish in this because few towns, if any, have lovelier +suburbs than Philadelphia. Their loveliness is another part of our +inheritance from William Penn who set no limits to his dream of a green +country town, and from the old Friends who, in deference to his desire, +lined not only their streets but their roads with trees. This is only +as it should be, I thought when, reading the letters of John Adams, I +came upon his description of the road to Kensington and beyond, +"straight as the streets of Philadelphia, on each side ... beautiful +rows of trees, button-woods, oaks, walnuts, cherries, and willows." In +our time, scarcely a road out of Philadelphia is without the same +beautiful rows, if not the same variety in the trees, and while much of +the open country it ran through in John Adams' day has been built up +with town and suburban houses, the trees still line it on each side. +Everybody knows the beauty of the leafy roads of the Main Line, quite a +correct thing to know, the Main Line being the refuge of the +Philadelphian pushed out of "Chestnut, Walnut, Spruce and Pine" by +business and the Russian Jew combined. But the Main Line has not the +monopoly of suburban beauty, though it may of suburban fashion. The Main +Street in Germantown, with its peaceful old grey stone houses and great +overshadowing trees, has no rival at home or abroad, and I have seen as +commonplace a street as Walnut in West Philadelphia, its uninteresting +houses screened behind the two long lines of trees, become in the golden +light of a summer afternoon as stately an avenue as any at Versailles or +St. Germain. + +Not only the trees, but the past went with us to Germantown. Has any +other American suburb so many old houses to boast? Stenton, the Chew +House, the Johnson House, the Morris House, the Wistar House, Wyck--are +there any other Colonial houses with nobler interiors, statelier +furniture, sweeter gardens? I recall the pillared hall of Chew House, +the finely proportioned entrance and stairway of Stenton, the garden of +Wyck as I last saw it--rather overgrown, heavy with the perfume of roses +and syringa, the June sun low behind the tall trees that stand close to +the wall along Walnut Lane;--I recall the memories clustering about +those old historic homes, about every lane and road and path, and I +wonder that Germantown is not one of the show places of the world. But +the foreigner, to whom Philadelphia is a station between New York and +Washington or New York and Chicago, has never heard of it, nor has the +rest of America to whom Philadelphia is the junction for Atlantic City. +With the exception of Stenton, the old Germantown houses are for use, +not for show, still lived in by the families who have lived in them from +the beginning, and I love them too well to want to see them overtaken by +the fate of sights starred in Baedeker, even while I wonder why they +have escaped. + +At times J. and I walked in the green valley of the Wissahickon, along +the well-kept road past the old white taverns, with wide galleries and +suppers of cat-fish and waffles, which had not lost their pleasant +primitiveness to pass themselves off as rural Rumpelmeyers where ladies +stop for afternoon tea. Can the spring be fairer anywhere than in and +around Philadelphia when wistaria blossoms on every wall and the country +is white with dogwood? Often we wandered in the Wissahickon woods, by +narrow footpaths up the low hillsides, so often that, wherever I may +be, certain effects of brilliant sunshine filtering through the pale +green of early spring foliage will send me straight back to the +Wissahickon and to the days when I could not walk in Philadelphia or its +suburbs and not strike gold at every step. And the Wissahickon was but +one small section of the Park, of which the corrupt government +Philadelphia loves to rail at made the largest and fairest, at once the +wildest and most wisely laid-out playground, in America. Will a reform +Government, with all its boasting, do as much for Philadelphia? I had +skimmed the surface only on those boating parties up the river and those +walking parties in the starlit or moonlit shade. Wide undiscovered +stretches lay off the beaten track, and the mansions of the +Park--Strawberry, Belmont, Mount Pleasant--were well stocked, not only +with lemonade and cake and peanuts, with croquettes and chicken salad, +but with beauty and associations for those who knew how to give the +order. And, greater marvel, beauty--classic beauty--was to be had even +in the Fairmount Water Works that, after I left school, I had looked +down upon as a childish entertainment provided for the holidays, beneath +the consideration of my maturer years. + + +V + +Of all our walks, none was better than the walk to Bartram's on the +banks of the Schuylkill beyond Gray's Ferry. It seemed very far then, +before the trolley passed by its gate, and before the rows of little +two-story houses had begun to extend towards it like the greedy +tentacles of the great town. The City Government had not taken it over, +it was not so well looked after. The old grey stone house, with the +stone tablet on its walls bearing witness that his Lord was adored by +John Bartram, had not yet been turned into a museum. I am not sure +whether the trees around it--the trees collected from far and near--were +learnedly labelled as they are now. The garden had grown wild, the +thicket below was a wilderness. It is right that the place should be +cared for. The city could not afford to lose the beauty one of its most +famous citizens, who was one of the most famous botanists of his day, +built up, and his family preserved, for it, and when I returned I +welcomed the sign this new care gave of Philadelphia's interest, so long +in the awakening. But Bartram's was more beautiful in its neglect, as an +old church is more beautiful before the restorer pulls down the ivy and +scrapes and polishes the stone. Many were the Sunday afternoons J. and I +spent there, and many the hours we sat talking on the little bench at +the lower end of the wilderness, where we looked out on the river and +planned new articles. + +[Illustration: BARTRAM'S] + +When our walks together had become too strong a habit to be broken and +we decided to make the habit one for life, we went back again and again +to Bartram's and on that same little bench, looking out upon the river, +we planned work for the long years we hoped were ahead of us: perhaps +seeing the future in the more glowing colours for the contrast with the +past about us, the ashes of the life and beauty from which our phoenix +was to soar. The work then planned carried and kept us thousands of +miles away, but it belongs none the less to the old scenes, where it was +inspired, and I like to think that, though the chances of this work have +made us exiles for years, the memory of our life as we have lived it is +inseparable from the memory of Bartram's or, indeed, of Philadelphia +which, through work, I learned to see and to love. + + + + +CHAPTER XII: PHILADELPHIA AND LITERATURE + + +I + +On the principle that nothing interests a man--or a woman--so much as +shop, I had no sooner begun to write than I saw Philadelphia divided not +between the people who could and could not go to the Assembly and the +Dancing Class, but between the people who could and could not write; +and, after I began to write for illustration, between the people who +could and could not paint and draw. It had never before occurred to me +to look for art and literature in Philadelphia. + +[Illustration: CARPENTER'S HALL INTERIOR] + +At that time, you had, literally, to look for the literature to find it. +Philadelphia, with its usual reticence and conscientiousness in +preventing any Philadelphian from becoming a prophet in Philadelphia, +had hidden its literary, with its innumerable other, lights under a +bushel, content itself to know they were there, if nobody else did. As +towns, like men, are apt to be accepted at their own valuation, most +Americans would then have thought it about as useful to look for snakes +in Ireland as for literature in Philadelphia. I am not sure that the +Philadelphian did not agree with them. Recently, I have heard him, in +his new zeal for Philadelphia, talk as if it were the biggest literary +thing on earth, the headquarters of letters in the United States, a +boast which I am told Indianapolis also makes and, as far as I am +concerned, can keep on making undisputed, for I do not believe in +measuring literature like so much sheet iron or calico. But no matter +what we have come to in Philadelphia, in the old days the Philadelphian +seldom gave his lions a chance to roar at home or paid the least +attention to them if they tried to. I rather think he would have +affected to share the Western Congressman's opinion of "them literary +fellers" when the literary fellers came from his native town. + +But the Philadelphian must have done a great deal of reading to judge by +the number of public libraries in the town,--the Philadelphia Library, +the Ridgway, the Mercantile, the Free Public Library, the University +Library, the Bryn Mawr College Library, the Friends' Germantown Library, +the Library of the Historical Society, and no doubt dozens I know +nothing about--and there were always collectors from the days of Logan +and Dr. Rush to those of Mr. Widener, George C. Thomas and Governor +Pennypacker. But the Philadelphia reading man never talked books and the +Philadelphia collector never vaunted and advertised his treasures, as he +does now that collecting is correct. The average man kept his books out +of sight. I remember few in my Grandfather's house, and not a bookcase +from top to bottom--few in any other house except my Father's. But I +know that many people had books and a library set apart to read them in, +and I have been astonished since to see the large collections in houses +where of old I had never noticed or suspected their presence. The +Philadelphian was as reticent about his books and his pleasure in them +as about everything else, with the result that he got the credit for +neither, even at home. This had probably something to do with the fact +that though, as far back as I can remember, I had had a fancy for books +and for reading, I grew up with the idea that for literature, as for +beauty, the Atlantic had to be crossed, that it was not in the nature of +things for Philadelphia to have had a literary past, to claim a literary +present, or to hope for a literary future. But as I had discovered my +mistake about the beauty during those walks with J., so in my modest +stall in the literary shop, I learned how far out I had been about the +literature. It was the same story over again. I had only to get +interested, and there was everything in the world to interest me. + + +II + +There was the past, for Philadelphia had had a literary past, and not at +all an empty past, but one full of the romance of effort and pride of +achievement. Because Philadelphians did not begin to write the minute +they landed on the banks of the Delaware, some wise people argue that +Friends were then, as now, unliterary. But what of William Penn, whose +writings have become classics? What of Thomas Elwood, the friend of +Milton? What of George Fox who, if unlettered, was a born writer no less +than Bunyan? Friends did not write and publish books right off in +Philadelphia for the same excellent reason that other Colonists did not +in other Colonial towns. Living was an absorbing business that left them +no time for writing, and printing presses and publishers' offices and +book stores did not strike them as immediate necessities in the +wilderness. It was not out of consideration that the early Philadelphia +Friends bequeathed nothing to the now sadly overladen shelves of the +British Museum and the Library of Congress. + +When leisure came Philadelphians were readier to devote it to science. +According to Mr. Sydney Fisher, Pennsylvania has done more for science +than any other State: a subject upon which my profound ignorance bids me +be silent. But science did not keep them altogether from letters. No +people ever had a greater itch for writing. Look at the length of their +correspondence, the minuteness of their diaries. And they broke into +poetry on the slightest provocation. Authorities say that no real poem +appeared in America before 1800, but the blame lies not alone with +Philadelphia. It did what it could. Boston may boast of Anne Bradstreet +who was rhyming before most New Englanders had time for reading, but so +could Philadelphia brag of Deborah Logan--if Philadelphia ever bragged +of anything Philadelphian--and I am willing to believe there is no great +difference between the two poetesses without labouring through their +verses to prove myself wrong. And the Philadelphian was as prolific as +any other Colonial in horrible doggerel to his mistress's hoops and +bows, to her tears and canary birds. And as far as I know, only a +Philadelphian among Colonial poets is immortalized in the Dunciad, +though possibly Ralph, Franklin's friend to whom the honour fell, would +rather have been forgotten than remembered solely because his howls to +Cynthia made night hideous for Pope. And where else did the young men so +soon form themselves into little groups to discourse seriously upon +literature and kindred matters, as they walked sedately in the woods +along the Schuylkill? Where else was there so soon a society--a +junto--devoted to learning? + +In innumerable ways I could see, once I could see anything, how +Philadelphia was preparing itself all along for literary pursuits and +accomplishment. Let me brag a little, if Philadelphia won't. Wasn't it +in Germantown that the first paper mill of the Colonies was set up? +Wasn't it there that the New Testament was printed in German--and went +into seven editions--before any other Colony had the enterprise to print +it in English, so that Saur's Testament is now a treasure for the +collector? Isn't it maintained by some authorities, if others dispute +it, that the first Bible in English was published in Philadelphia by +Robert Aitken, at "Pope's Head above the Coffee House, in Market +Street"? And Philadelphia issued the first American daily paper, the +most important of the first American reviews, the most memorable Almanac +of Colonial days--can any other compete with Poor Richard's? And +Philadelphia opened the first Circulating Library--the Philadelphia +Library is no benevolent upstart of to-day. And Philadelphia publishers +were for years the most go-ahead and responsible--who did not know the +names of Cary, Lea, Blanchard, Griggs, Lippincott, knew nothing of the +publishing trade. And Philadelphia book stores, with Lippincott's +leading, were the best patronized. And Philadelphia had the monopoly of +the English book trade, with Thomas Wardle to direct it. And +Philadelphia held its own views on copyright and stuck to them in the +face of opposition for years--whether right or wrong does not matter, +the thing is that it cared enough to have views. There is a record for +you! Why the literary man had only to appear, and Philadelphia was all +swept and garnished for his comfort and convenience. + +[Illustration: MAIN STREET, GERMANTOWN] + +And the literary man did appear, with amazing promptness under the +circumstances. When the demand was for political writers, Philadelphia +supplied Franklin, Dickinson, and a whole host of others, until it is +all the Historical Society of Pennsylvania can do to cope with their +pamphlets. When the demand was for native fiction, Philadelphia produced +the first American novelist, Charles Brockden Brown, and if +Philadelphians do not read him in our day, Shelley did in his, which +ought to be as much fame as any pioneer could ask for. When the need was +for an American Cookery Book, Philadelphia presented Miss Leslie to the +public who received her with such appreciation that, in the First +Edition, she is harder to find than Mrs. Glasse. When, with the years, +the past rose in value, Philadelphia gave to America an antiquary, and +John Watson, with his Annals, set a fashion in Philadelphia that had to +wait a good half century for followers. And when the writer was +multiplied all over the country and the reader with him, Philadelphia +provided the periodical, the annual, the parlour-table book, that the +one wrote for and the other subscribed to--an endless succession of +them: _The Casket_, _The Gift_, _The Souvenir_, which I have no desire +to disturb on their obscure shelves; the _Philadelphia Saturday Museum_, +and _Burton's Gentleman's Magazine_, to me the emptiest of empty names; +_Sartain's Union Magazine_, which I might as well be honest and say I +have never seen; _Graham's_, in its prime, unrivalled, unapproached; +_Godey's Lady's Book_, offering its pages alike to the newest verse and +the latest mode, the popular magazine that every American saw at his +dentist's or his doctor's, edited by Mrs. Sarah Josepha Hale, for a +woman, then as always, could get where she chose, if she had the mind +to, without the help of arson and suicide; _Peterson's_, which I recall +only in its title; _Lippincott's_, in my time the literary test or +standard in Philadelphia and scrupulously taken in by the Philadelphia +householder. I can see it still, lying soberly on the centre table in +the back parlour of the Eleventh and Spruce Street house, never defaced +or thumbed, I fancy seldom opened, but like everything in the house, +like my Grandfather himself, a type, a symbol of Philadelphia +respectability. It was as much an obligation for the respectable +Philadelphia citizen to subscribe to _Lippincott's_ as to belong to the +Historical Society, to be a member of the Philadelphia Library, to buy +books for Christmas presents at Lippincott's or Porter and Coates'. The +Philadelphian, who had no particular use for a book as a book or, if he +had, kept the fact to himself, was content to parade it as an ornament, +and no parlour was without its assortment of pretty and expensive +parlour-table books, received as Christmas presents, and as purely +ornamental as the pictures on the wall and the vases on the mantelpiece. +I know one Philadelphian who carried this decorative use of books still +further and nailed them to the ceiling to explain that the room they +decorated was a library, which nobody would have suspected for a moment, +as they were the only volumes in it. + +For the man who had a living to make out of literature, Philadelphia was +a good place, not to come away from, but to go to, and a number of +American men of letters did go, though I need hardly add Philadelphia +made as little of the fact as possible. In Philadelphia Washington +Irving, sometimes called America's first literary man, published his +books, but truth compels me to admit that he fared better when he handed +them over to Putnam in New York; though of late years, the Lippincotts +have done much to atone for the old failure by their successful issues +of _The Alhambra_ and _The Traveller_. To Philadelphia magazines, N. P. +Willis, and there was no more popular American writer, pledged himself +for months ahead. To Philadelphia, Lowell came from Boston to get work. +Poe deserted Richmond and the South for Philadelphia, where he +contributed to Philadelphia magazines, edited them, planned new ones, +while Philadelphia waited until he was well out of the world to know +that he ever had lived there. Altogether, when I came upon the scene, +Philadelphia had had a highly creditable literary past, and was having a +highly creditable literary present, and, in pursuance of its invariable +policy, was making no fuss about it. + + +III + +As I look back, the three most conspicuous figures of this literary +present were Charles Godfrey Leland, George Boker and Walt Whitman. All +three were past middle age, they had done most of their important work, +they had gained an international reputation. But that of course made no +difference to Philadelphia. I doubt if it had heard of George Boker as a +man of letters, though it knew him politically and also socially, as he +had not lost his interest in society and the Philadelphia Club. My +Uncle, having no use for society in Philadelphia and saying so with his +accustomed vigour, and not having busied himself with politics for many +years, was ignored unreservedly. Walt Whitman, who probably would not +have been considered eligible for the Assembly and the Dancing Class +had he condescended to know of their existence, did not exist socially, +and it is a question if he would have collected round him his ardent +worshippers from Philadelphia had he not had the advantage of having +been born somewhere else. If I am not mistaken, this worship had not +begun in my time, when he was more apt to receive a visitor from London +or Boston than from Philadelphia. + +[Illustration: ARCH STREET MEETING--INTERIOR] + +The fact that it was my good fortune to know these three men contributed +considerably to my new and pleasant feeling of self-importance. When I +wrote the life of my Uncle a few years ago, I had much to say of him and +my relations with him at this period, and I do not want to repeat +myself. But I can no more leave him out of my recollections of literary +Philadelphia than out of my personal reminiscences. When he entered so +intimately into my life he was nearer sixty than fifty, but he had lost +nothing of his vigour nor of his physical beauty--tall, large, +long-bearded, a fine profile, the eyes of the seer. He was fastidious in +dress, with a leaning to light greys and browns, and a weakness for +canes which he preferred thin and elegant. I remember his favourite was +black and had an altogether unfashionable silver, ruby-eyed dragon for +handle. On occasions to which it was appropriate, he wore a silk hat; on +others, more informal, he exchanged it for a large soft felt--a modified +cowboy hat--which suited him better, though he would not have forgiven +me had I had the courage to say so to his face, his respect for the +conventions, always great, having been intensified during his long +residence in England. It seems superfluous to add that he could not pass +unnoticed in Philadelphia streets, which did not run to cowboy hats or +dragon-handled canes or any deviations from the approved Philadelphia +dress. Nor did his fancy for peering into shop windows make him less +conspicuous, and as his daily walk was hardly complete if it did not +lead to his buying something in the shop, were it only a five-cent bit +of modern blue-and-white Japanese china, this meant that before his +purchase was handed over to me, as it usually was, his pleasure being +not in the possession but in the buying, he had parcels to carry, a +shocking breach of good manners in Philadelphia. In his company +therefore I became a conspicuous figure myself, and I was often his +companion in the streets; but to this I had no objection, having been +inconspicuous far too long for my taste. + +[Illustration: FRONT AND CALLOWHILL] + +He had written his _Breitmann Ballads_ years before when the verse of no +other American of note--unless it was Longfellow's and Whittier's and +Lowell's in the _Biglow Papers_--had had so wide a circulation. He had +also published one or two of his Gypsy books, never surpassed except by +Borrow. And he was engaged in endless new tasks--more Gypsy papers, Art +in the Schools, Indian Legends, Comic Ballads, Essays on Education, and +I did not mind what since my excitement was in being admitted for the +first time into the companionship of a man who devoted himself to +writing, to whom writing was business, who sat down at his desk after +breakfast and wrote as my Father after breakfast went down to his office +and bought and sold stocks, who never stopped except for his daily walk, +who got back to work if there was a free hour before dinner and who, +after dinner, read until he went to bed. Moreover, he had brought with +him the aroma, as it were, of the literary life in London. He had met +many of the people who, because they had written books, were my heroes. +Here would have been literature enough to transfigure Philadelphia had I +known no other writers. + + +IV + +But, through him, I did know others. First of all, George Boker with +whom, however, I could not pretend to friendship or more than the barest +acquaintance. In the streets he was as noticeable a figure as my Uncle, +though given neither to cowboy hats and dragon-handled canes nor to +peering into shop windows and carrying parcels. Like my Uncle, he was +taller than the average man, and handsomer, his white hair and white +military moustache giving him a more distinguished air, I fancy, in his +old age than was his in his youth. His smile was of the kindliest, the +characteristic I remember best. He had returned from his appointments as +Minister to Russia and Turkey and had given up active political and +diplomatic life. He had written most of his poems, if not all, +including the _Francesca da Rimini_ which Lawrence Barrett was shortly +afterwards to put on the stage, and he impressed me as a man who had had +his fill of life and work and adventure and was content to settle down +to the comforts of Philadelphia. He and my Uncle, who had been friends +from boyhood or babyhood, spent every Sunday afternoon together. My +Uncle had large spacious rooms on the ground floor of a house in South +Broad Street where the Philadelphia Art Club now is, and there George +Boker came Sunday after Sunday and there, if I dropped in, I saw him. I +had the discretion never to stay long, for I realized that their +intimate free talk was valued too much by both for them to care to have +it interrupted. I can remember nothing he ever said--I have an idea he +was a man who did not talk a great deal, while my Uncle did; my memory +is of his kindly smile and my sense that here was one of the literary +friendships I had read of in books. So, I thought, might Dr. Johnson and +Goldsmith have met and talked, or Lamb and Coleridge, and Broad Street +seemed tinged with the romance that I took for granted coloured the +Temple in London and Gough Square. + + +V + +Through my Uncle I also met Walt Whitman, and he impressed me still more +with the romance of literature. He was so unexpected in Philadelphia, +for which I claim him in his last years, Camden being little more than a +suburb, whatever Camden itself may think. I could almost have imagined +that it was for the humour of the thing he came to settle where his very +appearance was an offence to the proprieties. George Boker was +scrupulously correct. My Uncle's hat and dragon-handled cane only seemed +to emphasize his inborn Philadelphia shrinking from eccentricity. But +Walt Whitman, from top to toe, proclaimed the man who did not bother to +think of the conventions, much less respect them. You saw it in his long +white hair and long white beard, in his loose light grey clothes, in the +soft white shirt unlaundered and open at the neck, in the tall, formless +grey hat like no hat ever worn in Philadelphia. To have been stopped by +him on Chestnut Street--a street he loved--would have filled me with +confusion and shame in the days before literature had become my shop. +But once literature blocked my horizon, to be stopped by him lifted me +up to the seventh heaven. If people turned to look, and Philadelphians +never grew quite accustomed to his presence, my pleasure was the +greater. I took it for a visible sign that I was known, recognized, and +accepted in the literary world. And what a triumph in streets where, of +old, life had appalled me by its emptiness of incident! + +In one way or another I saw a good deal of Walt Whitman, but most +frequently by the chance which increased the picturesqueness of the +meeting. I called on him in the Camden house described many times by +many people: in my memory, a little house, the room where I was received +simple and bare, the one ornament as unexpected there as Walt Whitman +himself in Philadelphia, for it was an old portrait, dark and dingy, of +an ancestor; and I wondered if an ancestor so ancient as to grow dark +and dingy in a frame did not make it easier to play the democrat and +call every man comrade--or _Camerado_, I should say, as Walt Whitman +said, with his curious fondness for foreign words and sounds. But though +I saw him at home, he is more associated in my memory with the +ferry-boat for Camden when my Uncle and I were on our way to the Gypsy's +camping place near the reservoir; and with the corner of Front and +Market and the bootblack's big chair by the Italian's candy and fruit +stand where he loved to sit, and where I loved to see him, though, +Philadelphian at heart, I trembled for his audacity; and with the Market +Street horse-car, where he was already settled in his corner before it +started and where the driver and the conductor, passing through, nodded +to him and called him "Walt," and where he was as happy as the modern +poet in his sixty-horse-power car. He was happiest when sitting out in +front with the driver, and I have rarely been as proud as the afternoon +he gave up that privileged seat to stay with my Uncle and myself inside. +His greeting was always charming. He would take a hand of each of us, +hold the two in his for a minute or so beaming upon us, never saying +very much. I remember his leading us once, with our hands still in his, +from the fruit-stand to the tobacconist's opposite to point out to my +Uncle the wooden figure of an Indian at the door, for which he professed +a great admiration as an example of the art of the people before they +were trained in the Minor Arts. + +[Illustration: THE ELEVATED AT MARKET STREET WHARF] + +These chance meetings were always the best, and he told us that he +thought them so, that he loved his accidental meetings with +friends--there were many he prized among his most valued reminiscences. +And I remember his story of Longfellow having gone over to Camden +purposely to call on him, and not finding him at home, and their running +into each other on the ferry-boat to Market Street, and Longfellow +saying that he had come from the house deeply disappointed, regretting +the long quiet talk he had hoped for, but deciding that perhaps the +strange chance of the meeting on the water was better. My Uncle, had he +been hurrying to catch a train, would still have managed to talk +philosophy and art education. But I remember Walt Whitman also saying +that the ferry and the corner of Market Street and the Market Street car +were hardly places for abstract discussion, though the few things said +there were the less easily forgotten for being snatched joyfully by the +way. + +It was one day in the Market Street car that he and my Uncle had the +talk which left with me the profoundest impression. As a rule I was too +engrossed in thinking what a great person I was, when in such company, +to shine as a reporter. But on this occasion the subject was the School +of Industrial Arts in which I was giving my Uncle the benefit of my +incompetent assistance. He asked Walt Whitman to come and see it, +telling him a little of its aims and methods. Whitman refused, amiably +but positively. I cannot recall his exact words, but I gathered from +them that he had no sympathy with schemes savouring of benevolence or +reform, that he believed in leaving people to work out their own +salvation, and this, coming as it did after I had seen for myself the +terms he was on with the driver and conductor, expressed more eloquently +than his verse his definition of democracy. I may be mistaken, but I +thought then and have ever since that his belief in the people carried +him to the point of thinking they knew better than the philanthropist +what they needed and did not need. My Uncle was not of accord with him +and I, who am neither democrat nor philanthropist, would not pretend to +decide between them. My Uncle did not like Walt Whitman's attitude and +refusal, convinced as he was of the good to the people that was to come +of the reform he was initiating, though he was constitutionally +incapable of meeting the people he was reforming on equal terms. The +twinkle in Walt Whitman's eye when he refused gave me the clue to the +large redeeming humour with which he looked upon a foolish world, seeing +each individual in the place appointed, right in it, fitting into it, +unfit for any other he did not make for himself of his own desire and +courage--the humour without which the human tragedy would not be +bearable. + +I wish I could have had more talk with Whitman, I wish I had been older +or more experienced, that I might have got nearer to him--or so I felt +in those old days. I have now an idea that his silence was more +effective than his speech, that if he had said more to any of his +devoted following he might have been less of a prophet. But his tranquil +presence was in itself sufficient to open a new outlook, and it +reconciled me to the scheme of the universe for good or for ill. His +personality impressed me far more than his poems. It seemed to me to +explain them, to interpret them, as nothing else could--his few words of +greeting worth pages of the critic's eloquent analysis. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII: PHILADELPHIA AND LITERATURE--CONTINUED + + +I + +I had glimpses into other literary vistas, but mostly from a respectful +and highly appreciative distance. How I wish I could recapture even as +much as the shadow of the old rapturous awe with which any man or woman +who had ever made a book inspired me! + +[Illustration: DR. FURNESS'S HOUSE, WEST WASHINGTON SQUARE, JUST BEFORE +IT WAS PULLED DOWN] + +There was reason for awe when the man was Dr. Horace Howard Furness, the +editor of Shakespeare, and if Philadelphia knew its duty better than to +draw attention to so scholarly a performance by a Philadelphian, +scholars out of Philadelphia, who were not hampered by Philadelphia +conventions, hailed it as the best edition of Shakespeare there could +be. I must always regret that in his case I succeeded in having no more +than the glimpse. Most of my literary introductions came through my +Uncle who, though he knew Dr. Furness, saw less and less of him as time +went on, partly I think because of one of those small misunderstandings +that are more unpardonable than the big offences--certainly they were to +my Uncle. Dr. Furness' father, old Dr. Furness the Unitarian Minister, +meeting him in the street one day, asked him gaily, but I have no doubt +with genuine interest, how his fad, the school, was getting on. My +Uncle, who could not stand having an enterprise so serious to him +treated lightly by others, retorted by asking Dr. Furness how his fad +the pulpit was getting on. The result was coolness. The chances are that +Dr. Furness never realized the enormity of which he had been guilty, but +my Uncle could neither forget his jest nor forgive him and his family +for it. And his heart was not softened until many years afterwards, when +in far Florence he heard that Dr. Furness wished for his return to +Philadelphia that he might vindicate his claim, in danger of being +overlooked, as the first to have introduced the study of the Minor Arts +into the Public Schools. + +Mrs. Wister was another Philadelphia literary celebrity whose work had +made her known to all America by name, the only way she was known to me. +It was my loss, for they say she was more charming than her work. But to +Philadelphia no charm of personality, no popularity of work, could shed +lustre upon her name, which was her chief glory: literature was honoured +when a Wister stooped to its practice. On her translations of German +novels, Philadelphians of my generation were brought up. After _Faith +Gartney's Girlhood_ and _Queechy_ and _The Wide, Wide World_, no tales +were considered so innocuous for the young, not yet provided with the +mild and exemplary adventures of the tedious Elsie. Would the _Old +Mam'selle's Secret_ survive re-reading, I wonder? The favourites of +yesterday have a way of turning into the bores of to-day. Not long ago I +tried re-reading Scott whom in my youth I adored, but his once +magnificent heroes had dwindled into puppets, their brilliant exploits +into the empty bombast of Drury Lane and Wardour Street. If Scott cannot +stand the test, what hope for the other old loves? I risk no more lost +illusions. + +From no less a distance I looked to Mrs. Rebecca Harding Davis who, with +Mrs. Wister, helped to supply the country with fiction, in her case +original, while her son, Richard Harding Davis, was on the sensational +brink of his career. And again from a distance I looked to Frank +Stockton, with no idea that he was a Philadelphia celebrity--very likely +every other Philadelphian was as ignorant, but that is no excuse for me. +I had not found him out as my fellow citizen when I saw much of him some +years later in London, nor did I find it out until recently when, +distrustful of my Philadelphia tendency to look the other way if +Philadelphians are distinguishing themselves, I consulted the +authorities to make sure how great or how small was my knowledge of +Philadelphia literature. From all this it will be seen that in those +remote days I was very much on the literary outside in Philadelphia, but +with the luck there to run up against some of the giants. + +Into the vista of the poets chance gave me one brief but more intimate +glimpse. In a Germantown house--I am puzzled at this day to say whose--I +was introduced one evening to Mrs. Florence Earle Coates and Dr. Francis +Howard Williams, both already laurel-crowned, at a small gathering over +which Walt Whitman presided. In his grey coat and soft shirt I remember +he struck me as more dressed than the guests in their evening clothes, +but I remember he also struck me as less at home in the worshipping +parlour than in the bootblack's corner. The eloquence of his presence +stands out in my memory vividly, though I have forgotten the name of the +host or hostess to whom I am indebted for enjoying it, and I think it +must have been then that I began to suspect there was more of a literary +life in Philadelphia than I had imagined. I had no opportunity to get +further than my suspicion, for it was very shortly after that J. and I +undertook to carry out the plans we had been making on the old bench by +the river in Bartram's Garden. Walt Whitman I never saw again, and of +the group assembled about him nothing for many years. + +[Illustration: THE GERMANTOWN ACADEMY] + +I came into closer contact with writers to whom literature and +journalism were not merely a method of expression, but a means of +livelihood. Philadelphia, with its magazines, as with so much else, had +shown the way and other towns had lost no time in following and getting +ahead. New York was in the magazine ascendant. _The Century_ and +_Harper's_ had replaced _Graham's_ and _Godey's Lady's Book_ and +_Peterson's_. But _Lippincott's_ remained, and though the Editor, after +his cruel letter of refusal, never deigned to notice me, it was some +satisfaction to have been in actual correspondence with an author as +distinguished as John Foster Kirk, the historian of Charles the Bold. +When _Our Continent_ was labouring to revive the old tradition of +Philadelphia as a centre of publishers and periodicals, I got as far as +the editorial office--very far indeed in my opinion--and there once or +twice I saw Judge Tourgee, who had abandoned his reconstructive mission +and judicial duties for an editorial post in Philadelphia, and who at +the moment was more talked about than any American author, his _Fool's +Errand_ having given him the sort of fame that _Looking Backward_ +brought to Bellamy: ephemeral, but colossal while it lasted. Curiously, +I recall nothing of the man himself--not his appearance, his manner, his +talk. I think it must have been because, for me, he was overshadowed by +his Art Editor, Miss Emily Sartain; my interest in him eclipsed by my +admiration for her and my envy of a woman, so young and so handsome, who +had attained to such an influential and responsible post. I thought if I +ever should reach half way up so stupendous a height, I could die +content. Louise Stockton, Frank Stockton's sister, and Helen Campbell +were on the staff, in my eyes amazing women with regular weekly tasks +and regular weekly salaries. I might argue for my comfort that there was +greater liberty in being a free lance, but how wonderful to do work that +an editor wanted every week, was willing to pay for every +week!--wonderful to me, anyway, who had just had my first taste of +earning an income, but not of earning it regularly and without fail. My +Uncle wrote more than once for Tourgee; J. and I contributed those +articles which were further excuses for our walks together: Judge +Tourgee, to his own loss, thinking it a recommendation for a contributor +to be a Philadelphian as he would not have thought had he known his +Philadelphia better. _Our Continent_ was too Philadelphian to be +approved in Philadelphia or to be in demand out of it. One symbol of +literary respectability the town had in _Lippincott's_, and one was as +much as it could then support. _Our Continent_ came to an end either +just before or just after J. and I set out on our travels. There were +other women in journalism who excited my envy. Mrs. Lucy Hooper's +letters to the _Evening Telegraph_ struck me as the last and finest word +in foreign correspondence. I never, even upon closer acquaintance, lost +my awe of Mrs. Sarah Hallowell who was intimately associated with the +_Ledger_, or of Miss Julia Ewing, though her association with the same +paper had nothing to do with its literary side. + + +II + +Now and then I was stirred to the depths by my glimpse of writers from +other parts of the world. It was only when a prophet was a home product +that Philadelphia kept its eyes tight shut; when the prophet came from +another town it opened them wide, and its arms wider than its eyes, and +showed him what a strenuous business it was to be the victim of +Philadelphia hospitality. It was rather pleased if the prophet happened +to be a lord, or had a handle of some kind to his name, but an author +would answer for want of something better, especially if he came from +abroad. No Englishman on a lecture tour was allowed to pass by +Philadelphia. + +Immediately on his arrival, the distinguished visitor was appropriated +by George W. Childs, who had undertaken to play in Philadelphia the part +of the Lord Mayor in the City of London and do the town's official +entertaining, and who was known far and wide for it--"he has entertained +all the English who come over here," Matthew Arnold wrote home of him, +and visitors of every other nationality could have written the same of +their own people passing through Philadelphia. You would meet him in the +late afternoon, fresh from the _Ledger_ office, strolling up Chestnut +Street of which he was another of the conspicuous figures--not because +of any personal beauty, but because he did not believe in the +Philadelphia practice of hiding one's light under a bushel, and had +managed to make himself known by sight to every other man and woman in +the street; just as old Richard Vaux was; or old "Aunt Ad" Thompson, +everybody's aunt, in her brilliant finery, growing ever more brilliant +with years; or that distinguished lawyer, Ben Brewster, "Burnt-faced +Brewster," whose genius for the law made every one forget the terrible +marks a fire in his childhood had left upon his face. Philadelphia would +not have been Philadelphia without these familiar figures. Childs seldom +appeared on Chestnut Street without Tony Drexel, straight from some big +operation on the Stock Exchange, the two representing all that was most +successful in the newspaper and banking world of Philadelphia: their +friendship now commemorated in that new combination of names as +familiar to the new and changing generation as Cadwallader-Biddle was to +the old and changeless. Between them it was the exception when there was +not an emperor, or a prince, or an author, or an actor, or some other +variety of a distinguished visitor being put through his paces and shown +life in Philadelphia, on the way to the house of one or the other and to +the feast prepared in his honour. At the feast, if there was speaking to +be done, it was invariably Wayne MacVeagh who did it. As I was not +greatly in demand at public functions, I heard him but once--a memorable +occasion which did not, however, impress me with the brilliance of his +oratory. + +Matthew Arnold, the latest distinguished visitor, was to lecture, and I +had been looking forward to the evening with an ardour for which alas! I +have lost the faculty. Literary celebrities were still novelties--more +than that, divinities--in my eyes. Among them, Matthew Arnold held +particularly high rank, one of the chief heroes of my worship, and many +of my contemporaries worshipped with me. Youth was then, as always, +acutely conscious of the burden of life, and we made our luxury of his +pessimism. I could spout whole passages of his poems, whole poems when +they were short, though now I could not probably get further than their +titles. There had been a dinner first--there always was a dinner first +in Philadelphia--and a Philadelphia dinner being no light matter, he +arrived late. The delay would have done no harm had not Wayne MacVeagh, +who presided, introduced him in a speech to which, once it was started, +there seemed no end. It went on and on, the audience growing restless, +with Matthew Arnold himself an object of pity, so obvious was his +embarrassment. Few lecturers could have saved the situation, and Matthew +Arnold would have been a dull one under the most favourable +circumstances. I went away disillusioned, reconciled to meeting my +heroes in their books. And I could understand when, years later, I read +the letters he wrote home, why the tulip trees seemed to have as much to +do as the people in making Philadelphia the most attractive city he had +seen in America. + +[Illustration: THE STATE HOUSE FROM INDEPENDENCE SQUARE] + +Another distinguished visitor who lectured about this period came off +more gaily:--Oscar Wilde, to whose lecture I had looked forward with no +particular excitement, for I was young enough to feel only impatience +with his pose. After listening to him, I had to admit that he was +amusing. His affected dress, his deliberate posturings, his flamboyant +phrases and slow lingering over them as if loth to let them go, made him +an exhilarating contrast to Matthew Arnold, shocked as I was by a writer +to whom literature was not always in dead earnest, nor to teach its +goal, even though it was part of his pose to ape the teacher, the voice +in the wilderness. And he was so refreshingly enthusiastic when off the +platform, as I saw him afterwards in my Uncle's rooms. He let himself go +without reserve as he recalled the impressions of his visit to Walt +Whitman in Camden and his meeting with the cowboy in the West. To him, +the cowboy was the most picturesque product of America from whom he +borrowed hat and cloak and appeared in them, an amazing spectacle. And I +find in some prim, priggish, distressingly useless little notes I made +at the time, that it was a perfect, a supreme moment when he talked to +Walt Whitman who had been to him the master, at whose feet he had sat +since he was a young lad, and who was as pure and earnest and noble and +grand as he had hoped. That to Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde seemed "a great +big splendid boy" is now matter of history. + +I know that Philadelphia entertained Wilde, and so I fancy him staying +with George W. Childs, dining with Tony Drexel, and being talked to +after dinner by Wayne MacVeagh, though I cannot be sure, as +Philadelphia, with singular lack of appreciation, included me in none of +the entertaining. I saw him only in Horticultural Hall, where he +lectured, and at my Uncle's. This was seeing him often enough to be +confirmed in my conviction that literature might be a stimulating and +emotional adventure. + +Many interesting people of many varieties were to be met in my Uncle's +rooms. I remember the George Lathrops who, like Lowell and Poe of old, +had come to Philadelphia for work: Lathrop rather embittered and +disappointed, I thought; Mrs. Lathrop--Rose Hawthorne--a marvellous +woman in my estimation, not because of her beautiful gold-red hair, nor +her work, which I do not believe was of special importance, but as the +daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne and therefore a link between me in my +insignificance and the great of Brook Farm and Concord. I remember +editors from New York, impressive creatures; and Members of Parliament, +hangers-on of the literary world of London; and actresses, its lions, +when in England:--Janauschek, heavily tragic off as on the stage, for +whom my Uncle's admiration was less limited than mine; and Miss +Genevieve Ward, playing in _Forget-Me-Not_, her one big success, for she +failed in the popularity to repeat it that comes so easily to many less +accomplished. How timidly I sat and listened, marvelling to find myself +there, feeling like the humble who shall be exalted in the Bible, +looking upon my Uncle's rooms as the literary threshold from which I was +graciously permitted to watch the glorious company within. + + +III + +I had gone no further than this first, tremulous ardent stage in my +career when my Uncle deserted his memorable rooms never to return, and +J. and I started on the journey that we thought might last a year--as +long as the money held out, we had said, to the discomfort of the family +who no doubt saw me promptly on their hands again--and that did not +bring me back to Philadelphia for over a quarter of a century. Of +literary events during my absence, somebody else must make the record. + +[Illustration: "THE LITTLE STREET OF CLUBS," CAMAC STREET ABOVE SPRUCE +STREET] + +When I did go back after all those years, I was conscious that there +must have been events for a record to be made of, or I could not have +accounted for the change. Literature was now in the air. Local prophets +were acknowledged, if not by all Philadelphia, by little groups of +satellites revolving round them. Literary lights had come from under the +bushel and were shining in high places. Societies had been industriously +multiplying for the encouragement of literature. All such encouragement +in my time had devolved upon the Penn Club that patronized literature, +among its other interests, and wrote about books in its monthly journal +and invited their authors to its meetings. During my absence, not only +had the Penn Club continued to flourish--to such good purpose that J. +and I were honoured by one of these invitations and felt that never +again could Fame and Fate bring us such a triumphant moment, except when +the Academy of Fine Arts paid us the same honour and so upset our old +belief that no Philadelphian could ever be a prophet in +Philadelphia!--but Philadelphia had broken out into a multitude of Clubs +and Societies, beginning with the Franklin Inn, for Franklin is not to +be got away from even in Clubland, and his Inn, I am assured, is the +most comprehensive literary centre to which every author, every artist, +every editor, every publisher who thinks himself something belongs to +the number of one hundred--that there should be the chance of one +hundred with the right to think themselves something in Philadelphia is +the wonder!--and in the house in Camac Street, which one Philadelphian I +know calls "The Little Street of Clubs," the members meet for light +lunch and much talk and, it may be, other rites of which I could speak +only from hearsay, my sex disqualifying me from getting my knowledge of +them at first hand. And there is a Business and Professional Club and a +Poor Richard, bringing one back to Franklin again, in the same Little +Street. And there are Browning Societies, and Shakespeare Societies, and +Drama-Reforming Societies, and Pegasus Societies, and Societies for +members to read their own works to each other; and more Societies than +the parent Society discoursing in the woods along the Schuylkill could +have dreamed of: with the Contemporary Club to assemble their variously +divided ends and objects under one head, and to entertain literature as +George W. Childs had entertained it, and, going further, to pay +literature for being entertained, if literature expresses itself in the +form of readings and lectures by those who practise it professionally. +The change disconcerted me more than ever when I, Philadelphia born, was +assured of a profitable welcome if I would speak to the Club on +anything. The invitation was tentative and unofficial, but the +Contemporary Club need be in no fear. It may make the invitation +official if it will, and never a penny the poorer will it be for my +presence: I am that now rare creature, a shy woman subject to stage +fright. And I cannot help thinking that, despite the amiability to the +native, the stranger, simply because he is a stranger, continues to have +the preference, so many are the Englishmen and Englishwomen invited to +deliver themselves before the Club who never could gather an audience at +home. + +[Illustration: DOWN SANSOM STREET FROM EIGHTH STREET. THE LOW HOUSES AT +SEVENTH STREET HAVE SINCE BEEN TORN DOWN AND THE WESTERN END OF THE +CURTIS BUILDING NOW OCCUPIES THEIR PLACE] + +And Philadelphia has recaptured the lead in the periodical publication +that pays, and I found the Curtis Building the biggest sky-scraper in +Philadelphia, towering above the quiet of Independence Square, a brick +and marble and pseudo-classical monument to the _Ladies' Home Journal_ +and the _Saturday Evening Post_, and if in the race literature lags +behind, what matter when merit is vouched for in solid dollars and +cents? What matter, when the winds of heaven conspire with bricks and +mortar to make the passer-by respect it? I am told that on a windy day +no man can pass the building without a fight for it, and no woman +without the help of stalwart policemen. In her own organ of fashion and +feminine sentiment, she has raised up a power against which, even with +the vote to back her, she could not prevail. + +And Philadelphia is not content to have produced the first daily +newspaper but is bent on making it as big as it can be made anywhere. If +I preserved my morning paper for two or three days in my hotel bedroom, +I fairly waded in newspapers. On Sundays if I carried upstairs only the +_Ledger_ and the _North American_, I was deep in a flood of Comic +Supplements, and Photograph Supplements, and Sport Supplements, and +every possible sort of Supplement that any other American newspaper in +any other American town can boast of--all the sad stuff that nobody has +time to look at but is what the newspaper editor is under the delusion +that the public wants--in Philadelphia, one genuine Philadelphia touch +added in the letters and gossip of "Peggy Shippen" and "Sally Wister," +names with the double recommendation to Philadelphia of venerable age +and unquestionable Philadelphia respectability. + +And I found that the Philadelphia writer has increased in numbers and in +popularity, whether for better or worse I will not say. I have not the +courage for the role of critic on my own hearth, knowing the penalty for +too much honesty at home. Nor is there any reason why I should hesitate +and bungle and make myself unpleasant enemies in doing indifferently +what Philadelphia, in its new incarnation, does with so much grace. I +have now but to name the Philadelphian's book in Philadelphia to be +informed that it is monumental--but to mention the Philadelphia writer +of verse to hear that he is a marvel--but to enquire for the +Philadelphia writer of prose to be assured that he is a genius. There is +not the weeest, most modest little Philadelphia goose that does not sail +along valiantly in the Philadelphia procession of swans. The new pose is +prettier than the old if scarcely more successful in preserving a sense +of proportion, and it saves me from committing myself. I can state the +facts that strike me, without prejudice, as the lawyers say. + + +IV + +One is that the last quarter of a century has interested the +Philadelphia writer in Philadelphia as he had not been since the days of +John Watson. Most Philadelphians owned a copy of Watson's _Annals_. I +have one on my desk before me that belonged to J.'s Father, one must +have been in my Grandfather's highly correct Philadelphia house, though +I cannot recall it there, for a Philadelphian's duty was to buy Watson +just as it was to take in _Lippincott's_, and Philadelphians never +shirked their obligations. They probably would not have been able to say +what was in Watson, or, if they could, would have shrugged their +shoulders and dismissed him for a crank. But they would have owned the +_Annals_, all the same. Then the Centennial shook them up and insisted +on the value of Philadelphia's history, and Philadelphians were no +longer in fashion if they did not feel, or affect, an interest in +Philadelphia and its past. After the Centennial the few who began to +write about it could rely upon the many to read about it. + +[Illustration: THE DOUBLE STAIRWAY IN THE PENNSYLVANIA HOSPITAL] + +Once, the Philadelphian who was not ashamed to write stories made them +out of the fashionable life of Philadelphia. Dr. Weir Mitchell +inaugurated the new era, or the revolt, or the secession, or whatever +name may be given it with the first historical novel of Philadelphia. It +is fortunate, when I come to _Hugh Wynne_, that I have renounced +criticism and all its pretences. As a Friend by marriage, if such a +thing is possible, I cannot underestimate the danger. Only a Friend born +a Friend is qualified to write the true Quaker novel, and I am told +by this kind of Friend that _Hugh Wynne_ is not free from +misrepresentations, misconceptions and misunderstandings. This may be +true--I breathe more freely for not being able to affirm or to deny +it--but, as Henley used to say, there it is--the first romantic gold out +of the mine Philadelphia history is for all who work it. Since these +lines were written the news has reached me that never again will Dr. +Mitchell work this or any other mine. I cannot imagine Philadelphia +without him. When I last saw him, it seemed to me that no Philadelphian +was more alive, more in love with life, better equipped to enjoy life in +the way Philadelphia has fashioned it--the Philadelphia life in which +his passing away must leave no less a gap than the disappearance of the +State House or the Pennsylvania Hospital would leave in the Philadelphia +streets. If Dr. Mitchell's digging brought up the romance of +Philadelphia, Mr. Sydney George Fisher's has unearthed the facts, for +Philadelphia was the root of the great growth of Pennsylvania which is +the avowed subject of his history. And the men who helped to make this +history have now their biographers at home, though hitherto the task of +their biography had been left chiefly to anybody anywhere else who would +accept the responsibility, and my Brother, Edward Robins, Secretary of +the University of Pennsylvania, has written the life of Benjamin +Franklin, without whom the University would not have been, at least +would not have been what it is. And in so many different directions has +the interest spread that my friend since _Our Convent Days_, Miss Agnes +Repplier, has taken time from her studies in literature and from +building a monument to her beloved Agrippina to write its story. When +she sent me her book, I opened it with grave apprehensions. In the +volumes she had published, humour was the chief charm, and how would +humour help her to see Philadelphia? I need not have been uneasy. There +is no true humour without tenderness. If she had her smile for the town +we all love, as we all have, it was a tender smile, and I think no +reader can close her book without wanting to know still more of +Philadelphia than it was her special business in that place to tell +them. And that no vein of the Philadelphia mine might be left unworked. +Miss Anne Hollingsworth Wharton has busied herself to gather up old +traditions and old reminiscences, dipping into old letters and diaries, +opening wide Colonial doorways, resurrecting Colonial Dames, reshaping +the old social and domestic life disdained by historians. The numerous +editions into which her books have gone explain that she has not worked +for her own edification alone, that Philadelphia, once it was willing to +hear any talk about itself, could not hear too much. And after Miss +Wharton have come Mr. Mather Lippincott and Mr. Eberlein to collect the +old Colonial houses and their memories, followed by Mr. Herbert C. Wise +and Mr. Beidleman to study their architecture: just in time if +Philadelphia perseveres in its crime of moving out of the houses for the +benefit of the Russian Jew and of mixing their memories with squalor. Of +all the ways in which Philadelphia has changed, none is to me more +remarkable than in this rekindling of interest out of which has sprung +the new group of writers in its praise. + +Nor were the Philadelphia poets idle during my absence. Dr. Mitchell had +not before sung so freely in public, nor had he ranked, as I am told he +did at the end, his verse higher than his medicine. Mrs. Coates' voice +had not carried so far. Dr. Francis Howard Williams had not rhymed for +Pageants in praise of Philadelphia. Mr. Harrison Morris had not joined +the Philadelphia choir. Mr. Harvey M. Watts had not been heard in the +land. I have it on good authority that yearly the Philadelphia poets +meet and read their verses to each other, a custom of which I cannot +speak from personal knowledge as I have no passport into the magic +circle, and perhaps it is just as well for my peace of mind that I have +not. Rumour declares that, on certain summer evenings, a suburban porch +here or there is made as sweet with their singing as with the perfume of +the roses and syringa in the garden, and I am content with the rumour +for there is always the chance the music might not be so sweet if I +heard it. I like to remember that the poets on their porch, whether +their voices be sweet or harsh, descend in a direct line from the young +men who wandered, discoursing of literature, along the Schuylkill. And +Philadelphia's love of poetry is to be assured not only by its own +singers but by its care, now as in the past, for the song of others. +Horace Howard Furness, Jr., has taken over his father's task and, in so +doing, will see that Philadelphia continues to be famous for the most +complete edition of Shakespeare. + +There had been equal activity during my absence among the story-tellers. +Since Brockden Brown, not one had written so ambitious a tale as _Hugh +Wynne_, not one had ever laughed so good-humouredly at Philadelphia as +Thomas A. Janvier in his short stories of the Hutchinson Ports and +Rittenhouse Smiths--what gaiety has gone out with his death! Not one had +ever seen character with such truth as Owen Wister,--if only he could +understand that as good material awaits him in Philadelphia as in +Virginia and Wyoming. And John Luther Long is another of the +story-tellers Philadelphia can claim though, like Mr. Wister, he shows a +greater fancy for far-away lands or to wander among strange people at +home. + +There is no branch of literature that Philadelphia has not taken under +its active protection. Who has contributed more learnedly to the records +of the Inquisition than Henry Charles Lea, or to the chronicles of the +law in the United States than Mr. Hampton L. Carson and Mr. Charles +Burr, duly conscious as Philadelphia lawyers should be of the +Philadelphian's legal responsibility? Who can compete in knowledge of +the evolution of the playing card with Mrs. John King Van Rensselaer or +rival her collection? Who ever thought of writing the history of +autobiography before Mrs. Anna Robeson Burr? The time had but to come +for an admirer to play the Boswell to Walt Whitman, and Mr. Traubel +appeared. When Columbia wanted a Professor of Journalism, Philadelphia +sent it Dr. Talcott Williams. When England seemed a comfortable shelter +for research there was no need to be in a hurry about, Mr. Logan +Pearsall Smith showed what could be done with an exhaustive study of Dr. +Donne, though why he was not showing instead what could be done with the +Loganian Library, where the chance to show it was his for the claiming, +he alone can say. When such recondite subjects as Egyptian and Assyrian +called for interpreters, Philadelphia was again on the spot with Mrs. +Cornelius Stevenson and Dr. Morris Jastrow. And for authorities on the +drama and history, it gives us Mr. Felix Schelling and Dr. +McMaster,--but perhaps for me to attempt to complete the list would only +be to make it incomplete. Here, too, I tread on dangerous ground. It may +be cowardly, but it is safe to give the tribute of my recognition to all +that is being accomplished by the University of Pennsylvania and its +scholars--by Bryn Mawr College and its students--by the Historical +Society of Pennsylvania--by other Colleges and learned bodies--by +innumerable individuals--and not invite exposure by venturing into +detail and upon comment. It is in these emergencies that the sense of my +limitations comes to my help. + +[Illustration: CARPENTER'S HALL, BUILT 1771] + +At least I am not afraid to say that, on my return, I fancied I found +this side of Philadelphia life less a side apart, less isolated, more +identified with the social side, and the social side, for its part, +accepting the identification. The University and Bryn Mawr could not +have played the same social part in the Philadelphia I remember. Perhaps +I shall express what I mean more exactly if I say that, returning with +fresh eyes, I saw Philadelphia ready and pleased, as I had not +remembered it, to acknowledge openly talents and activities it once made +believe to ignore or despise--to go further really and, having for the +first time squarely faced its accomplishments, for the first time to +blow its own trumpet. The new spirit is one I approve. I would not call +all the work that comes out of Philadelphia monumental, as some +Philadelphians do, or Philadelphia itself a modern Athens, or the hub of +the literary universe, or any other absurd name. But I do think that in +literature and learning it is now contributing, as it always has +contributed, its fair share to the country, and that if Philadelphia +does not say so, the rest of the country will not, for the rest of the +country is still under the delusion that Philadelphia knows how to do +nothing but sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV: PHILADELPHIA AND ART + + +I + +Ignorance of art and all relating to it could not have been greater than +mine when I paid that first eventful visit to J.'s studio on Chestnut +Street. + +I lay the blame only partly on my natural capacity for ignorance. It was +a good deal the fault of the sort of education I received and the +influences among which I lived--the fault of the place and the period in +which I grew up. Nominally, art was not neglected at the Convent. A +drawing-class was conducted by an old bear of a German, who also gave +music lessons, and who prospered so on his monopoly of the arts with us +that he was able to live in a delightful cottage down near the river. +Drawing was an "extra" of which I was never thought worthy, but I used +to see the class at the tables set out for the purpose in the long low +hall leading to the Chapel, the master grumbling and growling and +scolding, the pupils laboriously copying with crayon or chalk little +cubes and geometrical figures or, at a more advanced stage, the +old-fashioned copy-book landscape and building, rubbing in and rubbing +out, wrestling with the composition as if it were a problem in algebra. +The Convent could take neither credit, nor discredit, for the system; it +was the one then in vogue in every school, fashionable or otherwise, +and not so far removed, after all, from systems followed to this day in +certain Academies of Art. + +[Illustration: INDEPENDENCE HALL--LENGTHWISE VIEW] + +Another class was devoted to an art then considered very beautiful, +called Grecian Painting. It was not my privilege to study this either, +but I gathered from friends who did that it was of the simplest: on the +back of an engraving, preferably of a religious subject and prepared by +an ingenious process that made it transparent, the artist dabbed his +colours according to written instructions. The result, glazed and +framed, was supposed to resemble, beyond the detection of any save an +expert, a real oil painting and was held in high esteem. + +A third class was in the elegant art of making wax flowers and, goodness +knows why, my Father squandered an appreciable sum of his declining +fortunes on having me taught it. I am the more puzzled by his desire to +bestow upon me this accomplishment because none of the other girls' +fathers shared his ambition for their daughters and I was the only +member of the class. Alone, in a room at the top of the house--chosen no +doubt for the light, as if the deeds there done ought not to have been +shrouded in darkness--I worked many hours under the tuition of Mother +Alicia, cutting up little sheets of wax into leaves and petals, +colouring them, sticking them together, and producing in the end two +horrible masterpieces--one a water-lily placed on a mirror under a glass +shade, the other a basket of carnations and roses and camelias--both of +which masterpieces my poor family, to avoid hurting my feelings, had to +place in the parlour and keep there I blush to remember how long. It +must be admitted that this was scarcely an achievement to encourage an +interest in art. For the appreciation of art, as for its practice, it is +important to have nothing to unlearn from the beginning; mine was the +sort of training to reduce me to the necessity of unlearning everything; +and most of my contemporaries, on leaving school, were in the same +plight. + +My eyes were no better trained than my hands. Works of art at the +Convent consisted of the usual holy statues designed for our spiritual, +not aesthetic edification; the Stations of the Cross whose merit was no +less spiritual; two copies of Murillo and Rafael which my Father, in the +fervour of conversion, presented to the Mother Superior; and a picture +of St. Elizabeth of Hungary that adorned the Convent parlour, where we +all felt it belonged, such a marvel to us was its combination of +brilliantly-coloured needle-and-brush work. + +Illustrated books there must have been in the ill-assorted hodge-podge +of a collection in the Library from which we obtained our reading for +Thursday afternoons and Sundays. But though I doubt if there was a book +I had not sampled, even if I had not been able to read it straight +through, I can recall no illustrations except the designs by Rossetti, +Millais, and Holman Hunt, made for Moxon's Tennyson and reproduced by +the Harpers for a cheap American edition of the Poems, a copy of which +was given to me one year as a prize. Little barbarian as I was, I +disliked the drawings of the Pre-Raphaelites because they mystified +me--the Lady of Shalott, entangled in her wide floating web, the finest +drawing Holman Hunt ever made; the company of weeping queens in the Vale +of Avalon, in Rossetti's harmoniously crowded design--when I flattered +myself I understood everything that was to be understood, more +especially Tennyson's Poems, many of which I could recite glibly from +beginning to end--and did recite diligently to myself at hours when I +ought to have been busy with the facts and figures in the class books +before me. Most people, young or old, dislike anything which shows them +how much less they understand than they think they do. + +Of the history of art I was left in ignorance as abject, the next to +nothing I knew gleaned from a _Lives of the Artists_ adapted to +children, a favourite book in the Library, one providing me with the +theme for my sole serious effort in drama--a three-act play, Michael +Angelo its hero, which, with a success many dramatists might envy. I +wrote, produced, acted in, and found an audience of good-natured nuns +for, all at the ripe age of eleven. + + +II + +When I left the Convent for the holidays and eventually "for good," +little in my new surroundings was calculated to increase my knowledge of +art or to teach me the first important fact, as a step to knowledge, +that I knew absolutely nothing on the subject. In my Grandfather's +house, art was represented by the family portraits, the engraving after +Gilbert Stuart's Washington, the illustrated lamp shade, and the Rogers +Group. My Father, re-established in a house of his own, displayed an +unaccountably liberal taste, straying from the Philadelphia standard to +the extent of decorating his parlour walls with engravings of Napoleon +he had picked up in Paris--to one, printed in colour, attaching a value +which I doubt if the facts would justify, though, as I have never come +across it in any collection, Museum, or Gallery, it may be rarer and, +therefore, more valuable, than I think. Other fruits of his old journeys +to Paris were two engravings, perhaps after Guys, of two famous ladies +of that town, whose presence in our prim and proper and highly domestic +dining-room seems to me the most incongruous accident in an otherwise +correctly-appointed Philadelphia household. When I think of Napoleon +replacing Washington on our walls, I suspect my Father of having broken +loose from the Philadelphia traces in his youth, though by the time I +knew him the prints were the only signs of a momentary dash for freedom +on the part of so scrupulous a Philadelphian. + +It is curious that illustrations should have as small a place in my +memory of home life as of the Convent. The men of the Golden Age of the +Sixties had published their best work long before I had got through +school, and in my childhood books gave me my chief amusement. But I +remember nothing of their fine designs. The earlier Cruikshank drawings +for Dickens I knew well in the American edition which my Father owned, +and never so long as I live can I see the Dickens world except as it is +shown in the much over-rated Cruikshank interpretations. Other memories +are of the highly-finished, sentimental steel-engravings of Scott's +heroines, including Meg Merrilies, whom I still so absurdly associate +with Crazy Norah. Another series of portraits, steel-engravings, as +highly-finished and but slightly less insipid, illustrated my Father's +edition of Thiers' _French Revolution_ through which, one conscientious +winter, I considered it my duty to wade. And I recall also the large +volumes of photographs after Rafael and other masters that, in the +Eighteen-Seventies, came into fashion for Christmas presents and +parlour-table books, and that I think must have heralded the new +departure the Centennial is supposed to have inaugurated. + +If I try to picture to myself the interior of the houses where I used to +visit, art in them too seems best represented by family portraits no +more remarkable than my Grandfather's, by the engraving of Stuart's +Washington, or of Penn signing the Treaty with the Indians, or of the +American Army crossing the Delaware, all three part of the traditional +decoration of the Philadelphia hall and dining-room, and by a Rogers +Group and an illustrated lamp shade. The library in which a friend first +showed me a volume of Hogarth's engravings I remember as exceptional. +But I have an idea that had I possessed greater powers of appreciation +then, I should have a keener memory now of other houses full of +interesting pictures and prints and illustrated books, which I did not +see simply because my eyes had not been trained to see them. + +Certainly, there were Philadelphia collections of these things then, as +there always have been--only they were not heard of and talked about as +they are now, or, if they were, it was to dismiss their collecting as an +amiable fad. Mr. John S. Phillips had got together the engravings which +the Pennsylvania Academy is to-day happy to possess. People who were +interested did not have to be told that Mr. Claghorn's collection was +perhaps the finest in the country; J. was one of the wise minority, and +often on Sundays took advantage of Mr. Claghorn's generosity in letting +anybody with the intelligence to realize the privilege come to look at +his prints and study them; but I, who had not learned to be interested, +knew nothing of the collection until I knew J. Gebbie and Barrie's store +flourished in Walnut Street as it hardly could had there not been people +in Philadelphia, as Gebbie once wrote to Frederick Keppel, who collected +"these smoky, poky old prints." Gebbie and Barrie have gone, but Barrie +remains, a publisher of art books, and there are other dealers no less +important and perhaps more enterprising, who prosper, as one of them has +recently assured me they could not, if they depended for their chief +support upon Philadelphia. But Philadelphia gives, as it gave, solid +foundations of support, with the difference that to-day it takes good +care the world should know it. + +[Illustration: GIRARD COLLEGE] + +A few Philadelphians collected pictures. One of the show places, more +select and exclusive than the Mint and Girard College, for the rare +visitor to the town with a soul above dancing and dining, was Mr. +Gibson's gallery in Walnut Street, open on stated days to anybody +properly introduced, or it may be that only a visiting card with a +proper address was necessary for admission. The less I say about the +Gallery the better, for I never went to Mr. Gibson's myself, though I +knew the house as I passed it for one apart in Philadelphia--one where +so un-Philadelphia-like a possession as a picture gallery was allowed to +disturb the Philadelphian's first-story arrangement of front and back +parlours. The collection can now be visited, without any preliminary +formalities, at the Academy of Fine Arts. Mrs. Bloomfield Moore was +still living in Philadelphia and she must have begun collecting though, +well as I knew the inside of her house in my young days, I hesitate to +assert it as a fact--which shows my unpardonable blindness to most +things in life worth while. I never, as far as I remember, went anywhere +for the express purpose of looking at paintings. I had not even the +curiosity which is the next best thing to knowledge and understanding. I +have said how meagre are my impressions of the old Academy on Chestnut +Street. It is a question to me whether I had ever seen more than the +outside of the new Academy at Broad and Cherry Streets before I met J. +To go to the exhibitions there had not as yet come within the list of +things Philadelphians who were not artists made a point of doing. +Altogether, judging from my own recollections, Philadelphians did not +bother about art, and did not stop to ask whether there was any to +bother about in Philadelphia, or not. + + +III + +Their indifference was their loss. The art, with a highly respectable +pedigree, was there for Philadelphia to enjoy and be proud of, if +Philadelphia had not been as reticent about it as about all its other +accomplishments and possessions. I have a decided suspicion that I have +come to a subject about which I might do well to observe the same +reticence, not only as a Philadelphian, but as the wife of an artist. +For if, as the wife of a Friend, I have learned that only Friends are +qualified to write of themselves, as the wife of an artist I have reason +to believe it more discreet to leave all talk of art to artists, though +discretion in this regard has not been one of the virtues of my working +life. But just now, I am talking not so much of art as of my attitude +towards art which must have been the attitude of the outsider in +Philadelphia, or else it would not have been mine. As for the genealogy +of Philadelphia art, it is, like the genealogy of Philadelphia families, +in the records of the town for all who will to read. + +In the very beginning of things Philadelphia may have had no more +pressing need for the artist's studio than for the writer's study. But +it was surprising how soon its needs expanded in this direction. English +and other European critics deplore the absence of an original--or +aboriginal--school of art in America, as if they thought the American +artist should unconsciously have lost, on his way across the Atlantic, +that inheritance from centuries of civilization and tradition which the +modern artist who calls himself Post-Impressionist is deliberately +endeavoring to get rid of, and on his arrival have started all over +again like a child with a clean slate. Only an American art based on the +hieroglyphics and war paint of the Indians would satisfy the critic with +this preconceived idea. But the first American artists were not savages, +they were not primitives. They did not paint pictures like Indians any +more than the first American architects built wigwams like Indians, or +the first American Colonials dressed themselves in beads and feathers +like Indians. Colonials had come from countries where art was highly +developed, and they could no more forget the masters at home than they +could forget the literature upon which they and their fathers had been +nourished. If years passed before a Philadelphian began to paint +pictures, it was because Philadelphians had not time to paint as they +had not time to write. The wonder really is that they began so +soon--that so soon the artist got to work, and so soon there was a +public to care enough for his work to enable him to do it. + +In a thousand ways the interest of Philadelphians in art expressed +itself. It is written large in the beauty of their houses and in their +readiness to introduce ornament where ornament belonged. The vine and +cluster of grapes carved on William Penn's front door; the panelling and +woodwork in Colonial houses; the decoration of a public building like +the State House; the furniture, the silver, the china, we pay small +fortunes for when we can find them and have not inherited them; the +single finely-proportioned mirror or decorative silhouette on a white +wall; the Colonial rooms that have come down to us untouched, perfect in +their simplicity, not an ornament too many;--all show which way the wind +of art blew. + +There was hardly one of the great men from any American town, makers of +first the Revolution and then the Union, who did not appreciate the +meaning and importance of art and did not leave a written record, if +only in a letter, of his appreciation. Few things have struck me more in +reading the Correspondence and Memoirs and Diaries of the day. But these +men were not only patriots, they were men of intelligence, and they knew +the folly of expecting to find in Philadelphia or New York or Boston the +same beautiful things that in Paris or London or Italy filled them with +delight and admiration, or of seeing in this fact a reason to lower +their standard. The critics who are shocked because we have no +aboriginal school might do worse than read some of these old documents. +I recommend in particular a passage in a letter John Adams wrote to his +wife from Paris. It impressed me so when I came upon it, it seemed to me +such an admirable explanation of a situation perplexing to critics, that +I copied it in my notebook, and I cannot resist quoting it now. + +[Illustration: UPSALA, GERMANTOWN] + +"It is not indeed the fine arts which our country requires," he writes, +"the useful, the mechanic arts are those which we have occasion for in a +young country as yet simple and not far advanced in luxury, although +much too far for her age and character.... The science of government it +is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of +legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take place of, +indeed to exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics +and war, that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and +philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, +geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce +and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study +painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and +porcelain." + +John Adams and his contemporaries may not have had American grandfathers +with the leisure to earn for them the right to study art, but they did +not ignore it. All the time they felt its appeal and responded to the +appeal as well as busy men, absorbed in the development of a new +country, could. They got themselves painted whenever they happened to +combine the leisure to sit and a painter to sit to. When a statesman +like Jefferson, who confessed himself "an enthusiast on the subject of +the arts," was sent abroad, he devoted his scant leisure to securing the +best possible sculptor for the statue of Washington, or the best +possible models for public buildings at home. Much that we now prize in +architecture and design we owe to the men who supposed themselves too +occupied with politics and war to encourage art and artists. They were +not too busy to provide the beauty without which liberty would have been +a poor affair--not too busy to welcome the first Americans who saw to it +that all the beauty should not be imported from Europe. "After the first +cares for the necessaries of life are over, we shall come to think of +the embellishments," Franklin wrote to his London landlady's daughter. +"Already some of our young geniuses begin to lisp attempts at painting, +poetry and music. We have a young painter now studying at Rome." + +[Illustration: THE HALL AT CLIVEDEN, THE CHEW HOUSE] + +In this care for the embellishments of life, of so much more real +importance than the necessaries, Philadelphia was the first town to take +the lead, though Philadelphians have since gone out of their way to +forget it. The old Quaker lady in her beautiful dress, preserving her +beautiful repose, in her beautiful old and historic rooms, shows the +Friends' instinctive love of beauty even if they never intentionally, or +deliberately, undertook to create it. For the most beautiful of what we +now call Colonial furniture produced in the Colonies, Philadelphia is +given the credit by authorities on the subject. Franklin's letters +could also be quoted to show Philadelphians' keenness to have their +portraits done in "conversation" or "family" pieces, or alone in +miniatures, whichever were most in vogue. Even Friends, before Franklin, +when they visited England sought out a fashionable portrait-painter like +Kneller because he was supposed the best. Artists from England came to +Philadelphia for commissions, artists from other Colonies drifted there, +Peale, Stuart, Copley. Philadelphia, in return, spared its artists to +England, and the Royal Academy was forced to rely upon Philadelphia for +its second President--Benjamin West. The artist's studio in Philadelphia +had become a place of such distinction by the Revolution that members of +the first Congress felt honoured themselves when allowed to honour it +with their presence--in the intervals between legislating and dining. +The Philadelphian to-day, goaded by the moss-grown jest over +Philadelphia slowness and want of enterprise into giving the list of +Philadelphia "firsts," or the things Philadelphia has been the first to +do in the country, can include among them the picture exhibition which +Philadelphia was the first to hold, and the Pennsylvania Academy which +was the first Academy of the Fine Arts instituted in America. +Philadelphia was the richest American town and long the Capital; the +marvel would be if it had not taken the lead in art as in politics. + + + + +CHAPTER XV: PHILADELPHIA AND ART--CONTINUED + + +I + +By the time I grew up years had passed since Philadelphia had ceased to +be the Capital, and during these years its atmosphere had not been +especially congenial to art. But the general conditions had not been +more stimulating anywhere in America. The Hudson River School is about +all that came of a period which, for that matter, owed its chief good to +revolt in countries where more was to be expected of it: in France, to +first the Romanticists and then the Impressionists who had revolted +against the Academic; in England to the Pre-Raphaelites who, with noisy +advertisement, broke away from Victorian convention. Art in America had +not got to the point of development when there was anything to revolt +against or to break away from. What it needed was a revival of the old +interest, a reaction from the prevailing indifference to all there was +of art in the country. + +[Illustration: THE OLD WATER-WORKS, FAIRMOUNT PARK] + +Some say this came in Philadelphia with the Centennial. The Centennial's +stirring up, however, would not have done much good had not artists +already begun to stir themselves up. How a number of Americans who had +been studying in Paris and Munich returned to America full of youth and +enthusiasm in the early Eighteen-Seventies, there to lead a new +movement in American art, has long since passed into history--also the +fact that one of the most remarkable outcomes of this new movement was +the new school of illustration that quickly made American illustrated +books and magazines famous throughout the world. But what concerns me as +a Philadelphian is that, once more at this critical moment, Philadelphia +took the lead. The publishers of the illustrated books and magazines may +have been chiefly in New York, the illustrations were chiefly from +Philadelphia, and there is no reason why Philadelphia should not admit +it with decent pride. Abbey and Frost were actually, Howard Pyle and +Smedley virtually, Philadelphians. Blum and Brennan passed through the +Academy Schools. J., when I met him, was at the threshold of his career. +And the illustrators were but a younger offshoot of the new Philadelphia +group. Miss Mary Cassatt had already started to work in Paris, where +Jules Stewart and Ridgway Knight represented the older Philadelphia +school; Mrs. Anna Lea Merritt was already in London; J. McLure Hamilton +had finished his studies at Antwerp; Alexander and Birge Harrison had +been heard of in Paris where Sargent--who belongs to Philadelphia if to +any American town--had carried off his first honours. At home Richards +was painting his marines; Poore had begun his study of animals; Dana, I +think, was beginning his water-colours; William Sartain had long been +known as an engraver; Miss Emily Sartain was an art editor and soon to +be the head of an art school; the Moran family, with the second +generation, had become almost a Philadelphia institution; from Stephen +Ferris J. could learn the technic of etching as from the Claghorn +collection he could trace its development through the ages; and of the +younger men and women, his contemporaries, he did not leave me long in +ignorance. + +My own work had led me to the discovery of so many worlds of work in +Philadelphia, I could not have believed there was room for another. But +there was, and the artists' world was so industrious, so full of energy, +so sufficient unto itself, so absorbed in itself, that, with the first +glimpse into it, the difficulty was to believe space and reason could be +left for any outside of it. This new experience was as extraordinary a +revelation as my initiation into the newspaper world. I had been living, +without suspecting it, next door to people who thought of nothing, +talked of nothing, occupied themselves with nothing, but art: people for +whom a whole army of men and women were busily employed, +managing schools, running factories, keeping stores, putting up +buildings--delightful people with whom I could not be two minutes +without reproaching myself for not having known from the cradle that +nothing in life save art ever did count, or ever could. And at this +point I can afford to get rid of Philadelphia reticence without scruple +since through this, to me, new world of work I had the benefit of J.'s +guidance. + +It was a moment when it had got to be the fashion for artists in all the +studios in the same building to give receptions on the same day, and I +learned that J.'s, so strange to me at first, was only one of an endless +number. For part of my new experience was the round of the studios on +the appointed day, when I was too oppressed by my ignorance and my +desire not to expose it and my uncertainty as to what was the right +thing to say in front of a picture, that I do not remember much besides, +except the miniatures of Miss Van Tromp and the marines of Prosper +Senat, and why they should now stand out from the confused jumble of my +memories I am sure I cannot see. + +Then J. took me to the Academy of Fine Arts and it was revealed to me as +a place not to pass by but to go inside of: artists from all over the +country struggling to get in for its annual exhibition of paintings +which already had a reputation as one of the finest given in the +country; artists from all over the world drawn in for its international +exhibitions of etchings--Whistler, Seymour Haden, Appian, Lalanne, a +catalogue-full of etchers introduced for the first time to my uneducated +eyes; everybody who could crowding in on Thursday afternoons to sit on +the stairs and listen to the music, while I upbraided myself for not +having known ages ago what delightful things there were to do, instead +of letting my time hang heavy on my hands, in Philadelphia. + +J. had me invited to more private evenings and reunions of societies of +artists, and I remember--if they do not--meeting many who were at the +very heart of the machinery that made the wheels of the new movement go +round:--Mr. Leslie Miller, the director of the School of Industrial Art +from which promising students were emerging or had emerged; Stephen +Parrish and Blanche Dillaye and Gabrielle Clements, whose etchings were +with the Whistlers and the Seymour Hadens in the international +exhibitions; Alice Barber full of commissions from magazines; Margaret +Leslie and Mary Trotter in their fervent apprenticeship; Boyle and +Stephens the sculptors; Colin Cooper and Stephens the painters. What a +rank outsider I felt in their company! And how grateful I was for my +talent as a listener that helped to save me from exposure! + + +II + +I saw another side of the revival at my Uncle's Industrial Art School in +the eagerness of teachers and pupils both to know and to learn and to +practise--an eagerness that had, I fear, an eye to ultimate profit. That +was the worst feature of the booming of art in the Eighteen-Eighties. +Gain was the incentive that drove too many students to the art schools +of Philadelphia as to those of Paris, or London, and set countless +amateurs in their own homes to hammering brass and carving wood and +stamping leather. Art was to them an investment, a speculation, a +gentlemanly--or ladylike--way of making a fortune. An English painter I +know told me a few years since that he had put quite six thousand pounds +into art, what with studying and travelling for subjects, and he thought +he had a right to look for a decent return on his money. That expresses +the attitude of a vast number of Philadelphians in their new active +enthusiasm. However trumpery the amount of labour they invested, they +counted on it to bring them in a big dividend in dollars and cents. + +[Illustration: THE STAIRWAY, STATE HOUSE] + +I am afraid my Uncle, without meaning to, encouraged this spirit, when +he started not only the Industrial Art School, but the Decorative Art +Club in Pine Street. He was an optimist and saw only the beautiful side +of anything he was interested in. To please him I was made the Treasurer +of the Club. The Committee sympathised with my Uncle and worked for the +ultimate good he thought the Club was to accomplish in Philadelphia. +Mrs. Harrison, Mrs. Mifflin, Mrs. Pepper, Miss Julia Biddle with whom I +served, agreed with him that women who had some training in art would +understand better the meaning of art and the pleasure of the stimulus +this understanding could give. My Uncle, however, always ready to do +anybody a good turn, went further and was anxious that provision should +also be made to sell the work done in the Club, which in this way would +be open to many who could not otherwise afford it. I fancy that this +provision, if not the success of the Club, was one of its chief +attractions. The amateur is apt to believe she can romp in gaily and +snatch whatever prizes are going by playing with the art which is the +life's work, mastered by toil and travail, of the artist. + +I criticise now, but in my new ardour I saw nothing to criticise. On the +contrary, I saw perfection: artists and students encouraged, +occupations and interests lavished upon amateurs whose lives had been as +empty as mine; and I worked myself up into a fine enthusiasm of belief +in art as a new force, or one that if it had always existed had been +waiting for its prophet,--just as electricity had waited for Franklin to +capture and apply it to human needs. I went so far in my exaltation as +to write an inspired--or so it seemed to me--article on Art as the New +Religion, proving that the old religions having perished and the old +gods fallen, art had re-arisen in its splendour and glory to provide a +new gospel, a new god, to take their place, and I filled my essay with +ingenious arguments, and liberal quotations from William Morris and +Ruskin, and rhetorical flights of prophecy. I had not given the last +finishing and convincing touches to my exposition of the new gospel +when, with my marriage, came other work more urgent, and I was spared +the humiliation of seeing my Palace of Art collapse, like the house +built on sand, while I still believed in it. In the years that followed +I got to know most of the galleries and exhibitions of Europe; despite +my scruples I made a profession of writing about art; and the education +this meant taught me, among other things, the simple truth that art is +art, and not religion. But I cannot laugh at the old folly of my +ignorance. The enthusiasm, the mood, out of which the article grew, was +better, healthier, than the apathy that had saved me from being +ridiculous because it risked nothing. + + +III + +These years away from home were spent largely in the company of artists +and were filled with the talk of art; what had been marvels to me in +Philadelphia became the commonplaces of every day. But I was all the +time in Italy, or France, or England, and could not realize the extent +to which, for Philadelphians who had not wandered, artists and art were +also becoming more and more a part of everyday life. I did not see +Philadelphia in the changing, not until it had changed, and possibly I +feel the change more than those who lived through it. It is not so much +in the things done, in actual accomplishment, that I am conscious of it, +as in the new concern for art, the new attentions heaped upon it, the +new deference to it. Art is in the air--"on the town," a subject of +polite conversation, a topic for the drawing-room. + +When I first came out, art had never supplied small talk in society, +never filled up a gap at a dull dinner or reception. We should have been +disgracefully behind the times if we could not chatter about Christine +Nilsson and Campanini and the last opera, or Irving and Ellen Terry and +their interpretation of Shakespeare; if we had not kept up with Trollope +and George Eliot, and read the latest Howells and Henry James, and raved +over the Rubaiyat. But we might have had the brand-newest biographical +dictionary of artists at our fingers' ends--as we had not--and there +would have been no occasion to use our information. Nobody sparkled by +sprinkling his talk with the names of artists and sculptors, nobody +asked what was in the last Academy or who had won the gold medal in +Paris, nobody discussed the psychology or the meaning of the picture of +the year. I remember thinking I was doing something rather pretentious +and pedantic when I began to read Ruskin. I remember how a friend who +was a tireless student of Kuegler and Crowe and Cavalcaselle, as a +preparation to the journey to Europe that might never come off, was +looked upon as a sort of prodigy--a Philadelphia phenomenon. But to-day +I am sure there is not the name of an artist, from Cimabue and Giotto to +Matisse and Picasso, that does not go easily round the table at any +Philadelphia dinner; not a writer on art, from Lionardo to Nordau, who +cannot fill up awkward pauses at an afternoon crush; not one of the +learned women of Philadelphia who could not tell you where every +masterpiece in the world hangs and just what her emotions before it +should be, who could not play the game of attributions as gracefully as +the game of bridge, who could not dispose of the most abstruse points in +art as serenely as she settles the simplest squabble in the nursery. + +The Academy is no longer abandoned in the wilderness of Broad and Cherry +Streets; its receptions and private views are social functions, its +exhibitions are events of importance, the best given in Philadelphia and +throughout the land, its collections are the pride of the wealthy +Philadelphians who contribute to them, its schools are stifled with +scholarships. + +[Illustration: UPPER ROOM, STENTON] + +The other Art Schools have multiplied, not faster, however, than the +students whose legions account for, if they do not warrant, the +existence not of the Academy Schools alone, but of the School of +Industrial Art, the Drexel Institute, the Woman's School of Design, the +Uncle's old little experiment enlarged into a large Public Industrial +Art School where, I am told, the Founder is comfortably forgotten--of +more institutes, schools, classes than I probably have heard of. + +The Art Galleries have multiplied: there is some reason for Memorial +Hall now that the Wilstach Collection is housed there, and the _Yellow +Buskin_, one of the finest Whistlers, hangs on its walls, now that the +collections of decorative art are being added to by Mrs. John Harrison +and other Philadelphians who are ambitious for their town and its +supremacy in all things. Nor does this Philadelphia ambition soar to +loftier heights than in the project for the new Parkway from the City +Hall with a new Art Gallery--the centre of a sort of University of Art +if I can rely upon the plans--to crown the Park end of this splendid +(partially still on paper) avenue, as the Arc de Triomphe crowns the +western end of the Avenue of the Champs-Elysees. + +The collectors multiply, their aims, purse, field of research, all +expanding; their shyness on the subject surmounted; Old Masters for whom +Europe now weeps making their triumphant entry into Philadelphia; the +highest price, that test of the modern patron, paid for a Rembrandt in +Philadelphia; the collections of Mr. Johnson and Mr. Widener and Mr. +Elkins and Mr. Thomas in Philadelphia as well known by the authorities +as the Borghesi collection in Rome or the Duke of Westminster's in +London. + +The social life of art grows and can afford the large luxurious Club in +South Broad Street, artists and their friends amply supporting it. And +the old Sketch Club, once glad of the shelter of a room or so, has +blossomed forth in a house of its own in the flourishing "Little Street +of Clubs," with the Woman's Plastic Club close by. + +The artists only, as far as I can see, have not multiplied and grown in +proportion. But the artist somehow appears to be the last consideration +of those who think they are encouraging art. Still there are new names +for my old list: Henry Thouron, Violet Oakley, Maxfield Parrish, now +ranked with the decorative painters--and, I might just point out in +passing, it is to Philadelphia that Boston, Harrisburg, and at times New +York must send for their decorators, whose work I have not seen in place +to express an opinion on it one way or the other. Cecilia Beaux and +Adolphe Borie now figure with the portrait painters; Waugh and Fromuth +with the marine painters, who include also Stokes, the chronicler of +Arctic splendors of sea and sky, and Edward Stratton Holloway, the +making of beautiful books claiming his interest no less than the sea; +Glackens, Thornton Oakley, Elizabeth Shippen Green, Jessie Wilcox Smith +with the illustrators; McCarter, Redfield with the group gathered about +the Academy; Grafly with the sculptors; Clifford Addams, Daniel Garber +with the winners of scholarships. Architects have not lagged behind in +the race--after the Furness period, a Cope and Stewardson period, a +Wilson Eyre period, to-day a Zantzinger, Borie, Medary, Day, Page, +Trumbauer, and a dozen more periods each progressing in the right +direction; with young men from the Beaux-Arts and young men from the +University School, eager to tackle the ever-increasing architectural +commissions in a town growing and re-fashioning itself faster than any +mushroom upstart of the West, to inaugurate a period of their own. + + +IV + +I am not a fighter by nature, I set a higher value on peace as I grow +older, and I look to ending my days in Philadelphia. Therefore I +chronicle the change; I do not criticise it. But a few comments I may +permit myself and yet hope that Philadelphia will not bear me in return +the malice I could so ill endure. I think the gain to Philadelphia from +this new interest has, in many ways, been great. If art is the one thing +that lives through the ages--art whether expressed in words, or paint, +or bricks and mortar, or the rhythm of sound,--it follows that the +pleasure it gives--when genuine--is the most enduring. This is a +distinct, if perhaps at the moment negative, gain. A more visible gain I +think comes from the new desire, the new determination to care for the +right thing: a fashion due perhaps to the insatiable American craving +for "culture," and at times guilty of unintelligent excesses, but +pleasanter in results than the old crazes that filled Philadelphia +drawing-rooms with spinning wheels and cat's tails and Morris +mediaevalism,--if they brought _Art Nouveau_ in their train, thank +fortune it has left no traces of its passing; a fashion more dignified +in results than the old standards that filled Philadelphia streets with +flights of originality, and green stone monsters, and the deplorable +Philadelphia brand of Gothic and Renaissance, Romanesque and Venetian, +Tudor and everything except the architecture that belongs by right and +tradition in Penn's beautiful town. + +[Illustration: WYCK--The doorway from within] + +But interest in art does not create art, and when Philadelphia believes +in this interest as a creator, Philadelphia falls into a mistake that it +has not even the merit of having originated. I have watched for many +years the attempts to make art grow, to force it like a hot-house plant. +The same thing is going on everywhere. In England, South Kensington for +more than half a century has had its schools in all parts of the +kingdom, the County Council has added to them, the City Corporation and +the City Guilds have followed suit, artists open private classes, +exhibitions have increased in number until they are a drug on the +market, art critics flourish, the papers devote columns to their +platitudes. And what has England to show as the outcome of all this +care? Go look at the decorations in the Royal Exchange and the pictures +in the Royal Academy, examine the official records and learn how great +is the yearly output of art teachers in excess of schools for them to +teach in, and you will have a good idea of the return made on the money +and time and red tape lavished upon the teaching of art. It is no better +in Paris. Schools and students were never so many, foreigners arrive in +such numbers that they are pushing the Frenchman out of his own Latin +Quarter, American students swagger, play the prince on scholarships, are +presented with clubs and homes where they can give afternoon teas and +keep on living in a little America of their own. And what comes of it? +Were the two Salons, with the Salon des Independants and the Salon +d'Automne thrown in, ever before such a weariness to the flesh?--was +mediocrity ever before such an invitation to the poseur and the crank to +pass off manufactured eccentricity as genius? + +It would not be reasonable to expect more of Philadelphia than of London +and Paris. I cannot see that finer artists have been bred there on the +luxury of scholarships and schools than on their own efforts when they +toiled all day to be able to study at night, when success was theirs +only after a hard fight. The Old Masters got their training as +apprentices, not as pampered youths luxuriating in fine schools and +exhibitions and incomes and every luxury; they were patronized and more +splendidly than any artists to-day, but not until they had shown reason +for it, not until it was an honour to patronize them. The new system is +more comfortable, I admit, but great work does not spring from comfort. +Philadelphia is wise to set up a high standard, but not wise when it +makes the way too easy. For art is a stern master. It cares not if the +weak fall by the roadside, so long as the strong, unhampered, succeed in +getting into their own. The best thing that has been done at the Academy +for many a day is the reducing of the scholarships from a two, or three, +years' interval free of responsibility, to a summer's holiday among the +masterpieces of Europe, which, I am told, is all they are now. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI: PHILADELPHIA AT TABLE + + +I + +If interest in the art of eating called for justification, I could show +that I come by mine legitimately. My family took care of that when the +sensible ancestor who made me an American settled in Accomac, where most +things worth eating were to be had for the fishing or the shooting or +the digging, so that Accomac feasted while the rest of Virginia still +starved, and when my Grandfather, in his day, moved to Philadelphia +which is as well provided as Accomac and more conscientious in +cultivating its possibilities. It would be sheer disloyalty to the +family inheritance if I did not like to eat well, just as it would be +rank hypocrisy to see in my loyalty a virtue. + +Accomac's reputation for good eating has barely got beyond the local +history book, Accomac, I find, being a place you must have belonged to +at one time or another, to know anything about. But Philadelphia made a +reputation for its high living as soon as the Philadelphian emerged from +his original cave, or sooner--read Watson and every other authority and +you will find that before he was out of it, even the family cat occupied +itself in hunting delicacies for the family feast. And right off the +Philadelphian understood the truth the scientist has been centuries in +groping after: that if people's food is to do them good, they must take +pleasure in it. The material was his the minute he landed on the spot, +not the least recommendations of which were its fish and game and its +convenience as a port where all the country did not produce could be +brought from countries that did--a spot that, half-way between the North +and the South, assured to Philadelphia one of the best-stocked markets +in the world, ever the wonder and admiration of every visitor to the +town. Pleasure in the material, if history can be trusted, dates as far +back. A wise man once suggested the agreeable journeys that could be +planned on a gastronomical map of France--from the Tripe of Caen to the +Bouillabaisse of Marseilles, from the Chateau Margaux of Bordeaux to the +Champagne of Rheims, from the Ducks of Rouen to the Truffles of +Perigord, and so, from one end to the other of that Land of Plenty. I +would suggest that an agreeable record of Philadelphia might be based +upon the dinners it has eaten, from the historic dinner foraged for by +the cat over a couple of centuries ago, to the banquet of yesterday in +Spruce Street or Walnut, at the Bellevue or the Ritz. + +[Illustration: THE PHILADELPHIA DISPENSARY FROM INDEPENDENCE SQUARE] + +I should like some day to write this history myself, when I have more +space and time at my disposal. I have always been blessed with a healthy +appetite, a decent sense of discrimination in satisfying it, and also a +deep interest in the Philosophy of Food ever since I began to collect +cookery books. The more profoundly I go into the subject, the readier I +am to believe with Brillat-Savarin that what a man is depends a good +deal on what he eats. This is why I think that if the Philadelphian is +to be understood, the study of him must not stop with his politics and +his literature and his art, but must include his marketing and his bill +of fare. He has had the wit never to doubt the importance of both, and +the pride never to make light of his genius for living well. + +The early Friends in Philadelphia knew better than to pull a long face, +burrowing for the snares of the flesh and the devil in every necessity +of life, like the unfortunate Puritans up in New England. It was not to +lead a hermit's existence William Penn invited them to settle on the +banks of the Delaware, and he and they realized that pioneer's work +could not be done on hermit's fare. They entertained no fanatical +disdain for the pleasures of the table, no ascetic abhorrence to good +food, daintily prepared. Brawn and chocolate and venison were Penn's +tender offering as lover to Hannah Callowhill, olives and wine his +loving gift as friend to Isaac Norris. For equally "acceptable presents" +that admirable citizen had to thank many besides Penn. James Logan knew +that the best way to manage your official is to dine him, and in his +day, and after it, straight on, no public commissioner, and indeed no +private traveller, could visit Philadelphia and not be fed with its +banquets and comforted with its Madeira and Punch, while few could +refrain from saying so with an eloquence and gratitude that did them +honour. Benjamin Franklin, keeping up the tradition, was known to feast +more excellently than a philosopher ought, and his philosophy of food is +explained by his admission in a letter that he would rather discover a +_recipe_ for making Parmesan cheese in an Italian town than any ancient +inscription. The American Philosophical Society could not conduct its +investigations without the aid of dinners and breakfasts, nor could any +other Philadelphia Society or Club study, or read, or hunt, or fish, or +legislate, or pursue its appointed ends, without fine cooking and hard +drinking--though I hope they were not the inspiration of Thomas +Jefferson's severe criticism of his fellow Americans who, he said, were +unable to terminate the most sociable meals without transforming +themselves into brutes. It was impossible for young ladies and grave +elders to keep descriptions of public banquets and family feasts and +friendly tea-drinkings out of their letters and diaries: one reason of +the fascination their letters and diaries have for Philadelphians who +read them to-day. And altogether, by the Revolution, to judge from John +Adams' account of his "sinful feasts" in Philadelphia, and General +Greene's description of the luxury of Boston as "an infant babe" to the +luxury of Philadelphia, and the rest of America's opinion of +Philadelphia as a place of "crucifying expenses," and many more signs of +the times, the dinners of Philadelphia had become so inseparable from +any meeting, function, or business, that I am tempted to question +whether, had they not been eaten, the Declaration of Independence could +have been signed. But it was signed and who can say, in face of the +fact, that Philadelphia was any the worse for its feasting? And what if +it proved a dead weight to John Adams, did Boston, did any other town do +more in the cause of patriotism and independence? + +[Illustration: MORRIS HOUSE, GERMANTOWN] + +One inevitable feature of the "sinful feasts" was the Madeira John Adams +drank at a great rate, but suffered no inconvenience from. I could not +dispense with it in these old records, such a sober place does it hold +in my own memories of Philadelphia. The decanter of Madeira on my +Grandfather's dinner table marked the state occasion, and I would not +have recognized Philadelphia on my return had the same decanter not been +produced in welcome. It was an assurance that Philadelphia was still +Philadelphia, though sky-scrapers might break the once pleasant monotony +of low, red brick houses and motor horns resound through the once +peaceful streets. + +From the beginning Madeira was one of the things no good Philadelphia +household could be without--just the sound, dignified, old-fashioned +wine the Philadelphian would be expected to patronize, respectable and +upright as himself. Orders for it lighten those interminably long +letters in the Penn-Logan correspondence, so long that all the time I +was reading them, I kept wondering which of the three I ought to pity +the most: Penn for what he had to endure from his people; Logan for +having to keep him posted in his intolerable wrongs; or myself for +wading through all they both had to say on the subject. As time went +on, I do not believe there was an official function at which Madeira did +not figure. There I always find it--the wine of ceremony, the +sacrificial wine, without which no compact could be sealed, no event +solemnized, no pleasure enjoyed. It seems to punctuate every step in the +career of Philadelphians and of Philadelphia, and I thought nothing +could be more characteristic, when I read the _Autobiography_ of +Franklin, than that it should have been over the Philadelphia Madeira +one Governor of Pennsylvania planned a future for him, and another +Governor of Pennsylvania later on discoursed provincial affairs with +him, "most profuse of his solicitations and promises" under its pleasant +influence. Throughout the old annals I am conscious of that decanter of +Madeira always at hand, the Philadelphian "as free of it as an Apple +Tree of its Fruit on a Windy Day in the month of July," one old visitor +to the town records with a pretty fancy for which, as like as not, it +was responsible. + +And throughout the more modern records, there it is again. Even in the +old-fashioned Philadelphia boarding-house less than a century ago, the +men after dinner sat over their Madeira. New generations of visitors, +like the old, drank it and approved, the Madeira that supported John +Adams at Philadelphia's sinful feasts helping to steer Thackeray and an +endless succession of strangers at the gate through Philadelphia's +course of suppers and dinners. It amuses me to recall, as an instance of +all it represented to Philadelphia, that for a couple of years at the +Convent, though a healthier child than I never lived, I was made by the +orders of my Father, obeyed by no means unwillingly on my part, to drink +a glass of Madeira, with a biscuit, every morning at eleven. And so +deep-rooted was its use in the best traditions of Philadelphia +respectability, that the irreproachable Philadelphia ladies who wrote +cookery books never omitted the glass of Madeira from the Terrapin, and +went so far as to quote Scripture and to recommend a little of it for +the stomach's sake. + + +II + +One of these Philadelphia ladies wrote the most famous cookery book to +this day published in America; a fact which pleases me, partly because, +with Edward Fitzgerald, I cannot help liking a cookery book, and still +more because it flatters my pride as a Philadelphian that so famous a +book should come from Philadelphia. It seems superfluous to add that I +mean Miss Leslie's _Complete Cookery_. What else could I mean? + +There had been cookery books in America before Miss Leslie's. America, +with Philadelphia to set the standard, could not get on very far without +them. If in the hurry and flurry of Colonial life, the American did not +have the leisure to write them, he borrowed them, the speediest way to +manufacture any kind of literature. There is an American edition of Mrs. +Glasse, with Mrs. Glasse left out--the American pirate was nothing if +not thorough. There is an American edition of Richard Briggs who was +not deprived of the credit of his book, though robbed of his title. +There are American editions I have no doubt of many besides which I have +only to haunt the old bookstalls and second-hand book stores of +Philadelphia assiduously enough to find. But of American cookery books, +either borrowed or original, before the time of Miss Leslie, I own but +the stolen Mrs. Glasse and an insignificant little manual issued in New +York in 1813, an American adaptation probably of an English model to +which I have not yet succeeded in tracing it. + +Nor do I know of any I do not own, and I know as much of American +cookery books as any of the authorities, and I do not mind saying so, as +I can without the shadow of conceit. Vicaire includes only two or three +in his _Bibliographie_; Hazlitt, to save trouble, confined himself to +English books; Dr. Oxford's interest is frankly in the publications of +his own country, though, in his first bibliography, he mentions a few +foreign volumes, and in his second he refers to one American piracy, and +these are the three chief bibliographers of the Kitchen in Europe. +American authorities do not exist, when I except myself. It is true that +G. H. Ellwanger made a list of cookery books, but he threw them together +anyhow, with no attempt at classification, and his list scarcely merits +the name of bibliography. The history of the American cookery book is a +virgin field, and as such I present it to the innumerable American +students who are turned out from the Universities, year after year, for +the research work that is frequently of as little use to themselves as +to anybody else. + +[Illustration: THE STATE HOUSE COLONNADE] + +But many as may be the discoveries in the future, Miss Leslie cannot be +dethroned nor deprived of her distinction as the Mrs. Glasse of America. +Other writers, if there were any, were allowed to disappear; should they +be dragged out of their obscurity now, it would be as bibliographical +curiosities, bibliographical specimens. Miss Leslie was never forgotten, +she survives to-day, her name honoured, her book cherished. She leapt +into fame on its publication, and with such ardour was the First Edition +bought up, with such ardour either reverently preserved or diligently +consulted that I, the proud possessor of Mrs. Glasse in her First +Edition "pot folio," of Apicius Coelius, Gervase Markham, Scappi, Grimod +de la Reyniere, and no end of others in their first Editions, cannot as +yet boast a First Edition of Miss Leslie. I have tried, my friends have +tried; the most important book-sellers in the country have tried; and in +vain, until I begin to think I might as well hope for the Elzevir +_Patissier Francais_ as the 1837 _Complete Cookery_. It may be hidden on +some unexplored Philadelphia book shelf, for it was as indispensable in +the Philadelphia household as the decanter of Madeira. I ask myself if +its appreciation in the kitchen, for which it was written, is the reason +why I have no recollection of it in the Eleventh and Spruce Street +house, well as I remember _Lippincott's_ on the back parlour table, nor +in my Father's library, well as I recall his editions of Scott and +Dickens, Voltaire and Rousseau, a combination expressive of a liberal +taste in literature. But never anywhere have I seen that elusive First +Edition, never anywhere succeeded in obtaining an earlier edition than +the Fifty-Eighth. The date is 1858--think of it! fifty-eight editions in +twenty-one years! Can our "Best Sellers" surpass that as a record? Or +can any American writer on cookery after Miss Leslie, from Mrs. Sarah +Joseph Hale and Jenny June to Marion Harland and the Philadelphia Mrs. +Rorer, rank with her as a rival to Mrs. Glasse, as the author of a +cookery book that has become the rare prize of the collector? + + +III + +It is so proud an eminence for a quiet Philadelphia maiden lady in the +Eighteen-Thirties and Forties to have reached that I cannot but wish I +knew more of Miss Leslie personally. From her contemporaries I have +learned nothing save that she went to tea parties like any ordinary +Philadelphian, that she was interested in the legends and traditions of +her town, which wasn't like any ordinary Philadelphian, and that she +condescended to journalism, editing _The Casket_. There is a portrait of +her at the Academy, Philadelphia decorum so stamped upon her face and +dress that it makes me more curious than ever to know why she was not +the mother of children instead of a writer of books. These books explain +that she had a literary conscience. In her preface to her _Domestic +Economy_, which is not an unworthy companion to her _Complete Cookery_, +she reveals an unfeminine respect for style. "In this as in her Cookery +Book," she writes, a dignity expressed in her use of the third person, +"she has not scrupled when necessary, to sacrifice the sound to the +sense; repeating the same words when no others could be found to express +the purport so clearly, and being always more anxious to convey the +meaning in such terms as could not be mistaken than to risk obscuring it +by attempts at refined phraseology or well-rounded periods." Now and +then the temptation was too strong and she fell into alliteration, +writing of "ponderous puddings and curdled custards." But this is +exceptional. As a rule, in her dry, business-like sentences, it would be +impossible to suspect her of philandering with sound, or concerning +herself with the pleasure of her readers. + +Her subject is one, happily, that can survive the sacrifice. The book is +a monument to Philadelphia cookery. She was not so emancipated as to +neglect all other kitchens. _Recipes_ for Soup _a la Julienne_ and +Mulligatawny, for Bath Buns and Gooseberry Fools, for Pilaus and +Curries, are concessions to foreign conventions. _Recipes_ for Oysters +and Shad, for Gumbo and Buckwheat Cakes, for Mint Juleps and Sweet +Potatoes, for Pumpkins and Mush, show her deference to ideals cultivated +by Americans from one State or another. But concessions and deference do +not prevent her book--her two books--from being unmistakably +Philadelphian:--an undefinable something in the quality and quantity, a +definable something in the dishes and ingredients. I know that in my +exile, thousands of miles from home, when I open her _Complete Cookery_, +certain passages transport me straight back to Philadelphia, to my +childhood and my youth, to the second-story back-building dining-room +and the kitchen with the lilacs at the back-yard door. I read of Dried +Beef, chipped or frizzled in butter and eggs, and, as of old in the +Eleventh and Spruce Street house, a delicious fragrance, characteristic +of Philadelphia as the sickly smell of the ailanthus, fills my nostrils +and my appetite is keen again for the eight o'clock tea, long since +given way to the eight o'clock dinner. I turn the pages and come to Reed +Birds, roasted or baked, and at once I feel the cool of the radiant fall +evening, and I am at Belmont or Strawberry Mansion after the long walk +through the park, one of the gay party for whom the cloth is laid. Or +the mere mention of Chicken Salad sets back the clock of the years and +drops me into the chattering midst of the Philadelphia five o'clock +reception, in time for the spread that, for sentiment's sake, is dear to +me in memory, but that, for digestion's sake, I hope never to see +revived. Or a thrill is in the dressing for the salad alone, in the mere +dash of mustard that Philadelphia has the independence to give to its +Mayonnaise. I am conservative in matters of art. I would not often +recommend a deviation from French precedent which is the most reliable +and the finest. But Philadelphia may be trusted to deviate, when it +permits itself the liberty, with discretion and distinction. + +[Illustration: THE SMITH MEMORIAL, WEST FAIRMOUNT PARK] + + + + +CHAPTER XVII: PHILADELPHIA AT TABLE--CONTINUED + + +I + +So much of Philadelphia is in Miss Leslie that her silence on one or two +matters essentially Philadelphian is the greater disappointment. + +I have said that when I was young it was the business of the man of the +house to market and to make the Mayonnaise for the dinner's salad, and I +have searched for the reason in vain. His appropriation of the marketing +seems to be comparatively modern. If the chronicles are to be trusted, +it was the woman's business as late as Mrs. Washington's day. But by +mine, the man's going to market had settled solidly into one of those +Philadelphia customs taken for granted by Philadelphians simply because +they were Philadelphia customs. Never in print have I seen any reference +to this division of family labour except in the Philadelphia stories of +Thomas A. Janvier who, as a Philadelphian, knew that it became well +brought up Philadelphia men to attend to the marketing and that duties +becoming to them were above explanation. Janvier knew also that only in +Philadelphia, probably, could it occur to the "master of a feast" to +dress the salad, and that this was the reason "why a better salad is +served at certain dinner tables in Philadelphia than at any other +dinner tables in the whole world." Miss Leslie is not without honour in +her own town and was there reverenced by no one as truly as by Janvier, +but his reverence for the Art of Cookery was more profound and he shared +the belief of the initiated that in it man surpasses as hitherto, I +regret to say, he has surpassed in all the arts. + +Janvier himself was the last "master of the feast" it was my good +fortune to watch preparing the Mayonnaise. It was a solemn rite in his +hands, and the result not unworthy--his salads were delicious, perfect, +original, their originality, however, never pushed to open defiance of +the Philadelphia precedents he respected. One of my pleasantest memories +of him is of his salad-making at his own dinner table in his London +rooms, one or two friends informally gathered about him, and the summer +evening so warm that he appeared all in white--a splendid presence, for +he was an unusually handsome man, of the rich, flamboyant type that has +gone out of fashion almost everywhere except in the South of France. The +white added, somehow, to the effect of ceremony, and he lingered over +every stage of the preparation and the mixing,--the Philadelphia touch +of mustard not omitted,--with due gravity and care. How different the +salad created with this ceremony from the usual makeshift mixed nobody +knows how or where! + +[Illustration: THE BASIN, OLD WATER-WORKS] + +That the Philadelphia man should have accepted this responsibility, +explains better than I could how high is the Philadelphia standard. I +could not understand Miss Leslie's silence on the subject, did I not +suspect her of a disapproval as complete as her Cookery. She had no +new-fangled notions on the position of woman, no desire to dispute man's +long-established superiority. If she was willing to teach women how to +become accomplished housewives, it was that they might administer to the +comfort and satisfy the appetite of their fathers and brothers and +husbands and sons. The end of woman, according to her creed, is to make +the home agreeable for man, and it would save us many of to-day's +troubles if we agreed with her. No man, since it is to his advantage, +will blame her for being more orthodox as a woman than as a +Philadelphian, nor is it at very great cost that I forgive her. I prize +her book too much from the collector's standpoint, if from no other, to +resent its sentiment. And my joy in my copy--in my Fifty-eighth +Edition--is none the less because it was presented to me by Janvier who, +in a few short stories, gave the spirit of the Philadelphia feast as +Miss Leslie, in two substantial volumes, collected and classified its +materials. + +Another thing I do not find in Miss Leslie is the Oyster Croquette, +which she could not have ignored had she once eaten it. Therefore I am +led to see in it the product of a generation nearer my own. In my +memories of childhood it is inseparable from my Grandmother's eight +o'clock tea on evenings when the family were invited in state--in my +memories of youth inseparable from every afternoon or evening party at +which I feasted fearlessly and well--and it figured at many a Sunday +high-tea, that exquisite feast which, by its very name, refuses to let +itself be confounded with its coarser counterpart known to the English +as a meat-tea. From these facts I conclude, though I have no other data +to rely upon, that the Oyster Croquette must have been not simply the +masterpiece, but the creation of Augustine, for the Oyster Croquette +which the well-brought-up Philadelphian then ate at moments of rejoicing +was always of his cooking. + + +II + +Augustine--the explanation is superfluous for Philadelphians of my +age--was a coloured man with the genius of his race for cookery and +probably a drop or more of the white blood that developed in him also +the genius for organization, so that he was a leader among caterers, as +well as a master among cooks. It is worth noting that the demand for +cooks in Philadelphia being great, the greatest cooks in America never +failed to supply it: worth noting also that the Philadelphia housewife, +being thus well supplied, had not begun when I was young to amuse +herself with the chafing-dish as she does now. For many years, +Augustine's name and creations were the chief distinction of every +Philadelphia feast. To have entertained without his assistance would +have been as serious a crime as to have omitted Terrapin--in season--and +Ice-cream from the Philadelphia menu; as daring as to have gone for +chocolates anywhere save to Penas' or for smilax anywhere save to +Pennock's, and this sort of daring in Philadelphia would have been +deplored not as harmless originality, but as eccentricity in the worst +possible taste. Thanks to Augustine, Philadelphia became celebrated in +America for its Oyster Croquettes and Terrapin and Broiled Oysters--what +a work of genius this, with the sauce of his invention!--as Bresse is in +France for its Chickens, or York in England for its Hams. + +So much I know about him, and no more--but his name should go down in +history with those of Vatel and Careme and Gouffe: an artist if ever +there was one! Because he did not commit suicide like Vatel--his oysters +were never late--because he did not write encyclopedias of cookery like +Careme and Gouffe, his name and fame are in danger of perishing unless +every Philadelphian among my contemporaries hastens to lay a laurel leaf +upon his grave. I fear nothing as yet has been done to preserve his +memory. His name survives on the simple front of a South Fifteenth +Street house, where I saw it and rejoiced when I was last at home and, +in compliment to him, went inside and ate my lunch in the demure light +of a highly respectable dining-room in the society of a dozen or more +highly respectable Philadelphians seated at little tables. I could not +quarrel with my lunch--it was admirably cooked and served--but it was an +everyday lunch, not the occasional feast--the Augustine of old did not +cook the ordinary meal and the Fifteenth Street house is too modest to +be accepted as the one and only monument to his memory. + +[Illustration: GIRARD STREET] + +The Oyster Croquette could not have sprung up in a day and triumphed +were Philadelphia as hide-bound with convention as it is supposed to be. +Philadelphia is conservative in matters of cookery when conservatism +means clinging to its great traditions; it is liberal when liberality +means adapting to its own delightful ends the new idea or the new +masterpiece. It never ceased to be sure of its materials nor of their +variety, the Philadelphia market half way between North and South +continuing to provide what is best in both: the meats of the finest--the +fattest mutton he ever saw, Cobbett, though an Englishman, found in +Philadelphia--its fruits and vegetables of the most various, its butter, +good Darlington butter, famed from one end of the land to the other. And +in the preparation of its materials, for the sake of eating better, +Philadelphians never have hesitated to take their good where they have +found it. Dishes we prize as the most essentially Philadelphian have +sometimes the shortest pedigree. Why, the Ice-cream that is now one of +Philadelphia's most respected institutions, came so recently that people +we, of my generation, knew could remember its coming. On my return to +Philadelphia, with the advantage the perspective absence gives, I could +appreciate more clearly than if I had stayed at home how well +Philadelphia eats and how nobly it has maintained its old ideals, how +nobly accepted new ones. It has not wavered in the practice of eating +well and taking pleasure in the eating--the reputation of giving good +dinners is, as in my youth, the most highly prized. To quote Janvier: +"The person who achieves celebrity of this sort in Philadelphia is not +unlike the seraph who attains eminence in the heavenly choir." But I am +conscious of a latitude that would not have been allowed before in the +choice of a place to eat them in, and amazed at the number of new +dishes. + + +III + +The back-building dining-room was the one scene I knew for the feast. If +I were a man I could tell a different tale. As a woman I used to +hear--all Philadelphia women used to hear--of colossal masculine +banquets at the Philadelphia Club and the Union League, of revels at the +Clover Club, of fastidious feasts at more esoteric clubs--the State in +Schuylkill, the Fish-House Club, and what were the others?--clubs +carrying on the great Colonial traditions, perpetuating the old Colonial +Punch as zealously as the Vestal Virgins watched their sacred fire, +observing mystic practices in the Kitchen, the Philadelphia man himself, +it was said, putting on the cook's apron, presiding over grills and +saucepans, and serving up dishes of such exquisite quality as it has not +entered into the mind of mere woman to conceive or to execute: with the +true delicacy of the gourmet choosing rather to consecrate his talents +to the one perfect dish than to squander them upon many, shrinking as an +artist must from the plebeian "groaning-board" of the gluttonous +display. To stories of these marvels I listened again and again, but my +only knowledge of them is based on hearsay. I would as soon have +expected to be admitted to Mount Athos or to the old Chartreuse as to +banquets and feasts and revels so purely masculine; to ask for the vote +would have seemed less ambitious than to pray for admission. What folly +then it would be for me to pretend to describe them! What presumption to +affect a personal acquaintance I have not and could not have! Into what +pitfalls of ignorance would I stumble! It is for the Philadelphia man +some day to write this particular chapter in the history of Philadelphia +at Table. + +As to the Philadelphia woman at the period of which I speak, she had no +Clubs. It was not supposed to be good form for her to feast outside of +the back-building dining-room. She might relieve her hunger with Oysters +in Jones's dingy little shop, or a plate of Ice-cream in Sautter's +sombre saloon; or, with a boating party in spring or summer, she might +go for dinner or supper to one of the restaurants in the Park. But for +more serious entertaining, home, or her friends' home, was the place. +Not that she was, as the fragile, fainting Angelina type once admired, +too ethereal to think of food and drink. She could order and eat a +luncheon, or a dinner, with the best, though she did not do the +marketing or make the Mayonnaise. But she would rather have gone without +food than defy the unwritten Philadelphia law. + +[Illustration: THE UNION LEAGUE, FROM BROAD AND CHESTNUT STREETS] + +Now Philadelphia has changed all that. The wise remain faithful to the +back-building dining-room and, within its grave and tranquil walls, on +its substantial leather-covered chairs, Stuart's Washington looking down +from his place above the mantelpiece, they continue to feast with a +luxury Lucullus might have envied. Fashion, however, drives the less +wise to more frivolous scenes. I never thought to see the day when I +should, in Philadelphia, lunch at a large, well-appointed, luxurious +woman's club, when I should be invited to feast at the Union League--my +lunch there was one of the most extraordinary of all my extraordinary +experiences on my return to Philadelphia--when the cloth for my dinner +would be laid in a big, gay, noisy, crowded Country Club--and yet the +miracle had been worked in my absence and I saw not the day, but the +many days when these things happened. Not only this. In Clubs and +Country Clubs a degree of privacy is still assured. But it is a degree +too much, to judge from the way Philadelphia rushes to lunch, and dine, +and drink the tea it does not want at five o'clock, in hotels and +restaurants: our little secluded oyster saloons exchanged for dazzling +lunch counters, the Spruce and Pine and Walnut Street house that could +not be except in Philadelphia deserted for the Ritz and the Bellevue +that might be in New York or Chicago, Paris or London, Vienna or Rome. +The old fashion was to celebrate the feast in cloistered seclusion, to +let none intrude who was not bidden to share it. Now the fashion is to +cry out and summon the mob and the multitude to gaze upon Philadelphia +feasting. I know that this is in a measure the result of a change that +is not peculiar to Philadelphia alone. All the world to-day, wherever +you go, dines in public--the modern Dives must always dine where his +Lazarus cannot possibly mistake the gate. But I could not have believed +that Philadelphia would come to it--that Philadelphia would step out +from the sanctuary into the market-place and proclaim to the passer-by +the luxury he had once so scrupulously kept to himself. + + +IV + +Nor is the feast quite what it was, though this is not because it has +lost, but rather because it has gained. I trembled on my return lest the +old gods be fallen. My first visit after long years away was one of a +few hours only. I ran over from New York to lunch with old friends. +There was a horrid moment of bewilderment when I stepped from the +Pennsylvania Station into a street where I ought to have been at home +and was not, and this made me dread that at the luncheon the change +would be more overwhelming. Certain things belong to, are a part of, +certain places that can never be the same without them. I met a +Frenchman the other day in London, who had not been there for ten years, +and who was in despair because at no hotel or restaurant could he find a +gooseberry or an apple tart. They were not dishes of which he was warmly +enamoured; no Frenchman could be; but a London shorn of gooseberry and +apple tarts was not the London he had known. The dread of the same +disillusionment was in my heart as I drew near my luncheon, more serious +in my case because the things I did not want to lose were too good to +lose. But my dread was wasted. Broad Street might have changed, but not +the Chicken Salad with the Philadelphia dash of mustard in the +Mayonnaise, not the Croquettes though Augustine had gone, not the +Ice-cream rising before me in the splendid pyramid of my childhood with +the solid base of the Coffee Ice-cream I had never gone to Sautter's +without ordering. And I knew that hope need not be abandoned when I was +assured that, though Sautter's have opened a big new place on Chestnut +Street, where a long _menu_ disputes the honours with their one old +masterpiece, it is to the gloomy store in the retirement of Broad and +Locust that the Philadelphia woman, who gives a dinner, sends for her +Ice-cream. + +These things were unaltered--they are unalterable. All the old friends +reappeared at the breakfasts, luncheons and dinners that followed in the +course of the longer visit when, not the Fatted Calf, but the Fatted +Shad, Soft-Shell Crab, Fried Oyster, Squab--how the name mystified my +friend, George Steevens, though he had but to open an old English +cookery book in my collection to know that in England, before he was +born, a Squab was a young Pigeon--Broiled Chicken, Cinnamon Bun, little +round Cakes with white icing on top, were prepared for the prodigal. But +there were other dishes, other combinations new to me: Grape Fruit had +come in during my absence, though long enough ago to have reached +England in the meanwhile; also the fashion of serving Shad and +Asparagus together, the _dernier cri_ of the Philadelphia epicure, +though--may I admit it now as I have not dared to before?--a combination +in which I thought two delicate flavours were sacrificed, one to the +other. And there were amazing combinations in the Salads, daring, +strange, unPhiladelphian, calling for the French Dressing for which my +Philadelphia had small use. I so little liked the new sign of the new +Sundae at the new popular lunch-counter and druggist's that, with true +Philadelphia prejudice, I never sampled it. And there were other +innovations I would need to write a cookery book to exhaust--sometimes +successful, sometimes not, but with no violation of the canons of the +art in which Philadelphia has ever excelled. In every experiment, every +novelty, the motive, if not the result, was sound. + +For this reason I have no fear for the future of Philadelphia cookery, +if only it has the courage not to succumb unreservedly to cold storage. +The changes may be many, but Philadelphia knows how to sift them, +retaining only those that should be retained, for beneath them all is +the changelessness that is the foundation of art. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII: PHILADELPHIA AFTER A QUARTER OF A CENTURY + + +I + +I confess to a good deal of emotion as the train slowed up in the +Pennsylvania Station, and I think I had a right to it. It is not every +day one comes home after a quarter of a century's absence, and at the +first glance everything was so bewilderingly home-like. Not that I had +not had my misgivings as the train neared Philadelphia. From the car +windows I had seen my old Convent at Torresdale transformed beyond +recognition, many new stations with new names by the way, rows and rows +of houses where I remembered fields, Philadelphia grown almost as big as +London to get into, a new, strange, unbelievable sky-line to the town, +the bridges multiplied across the Schuylkill--change after change where +I should have liked to find everything, every house, field, tree, blade +of grass even, just as I had left it. But what change there might be in +the station kept itself, for the moment anyway, discreetly out of sight. +For all the difference I saw, I might have been starting on the journey +that had lasted over a quarter of a century instead of returning from +it. + +This made the shock the greater when, just outside in Market Street, I +was met by a company of mounted policemen. It is true they were there +to welcome not me, but the President of the United States who was due by +the next train, and were supported by the City Troop, as indispensable a +part of my Philadelphia as the sky over my head and the bricks under my +feet; true also that, well-uniformed, well-mounted, well-groomed as they +were, I felt they would be a credit to any town. But the shock was to +find them there at all. Philadelphia in my day could not have run, or +would not have wanted to run, to anything so officially imposing; that +it could and did now was a warning there was no mistaking. Whatever +Philadelphia might have developed, or deteriorated, into, it was not any +longer the Philadelphia I had known and loved. + +It was the same sort of warning all the way after that. Wherever I went, +wherever I turned, I stumbled upon an equally impossible jumble of the +familiar and the unfamiliar. At times, I positively ached with the joy +of finding places so exactly as I remembered them that I caught myself +saying, just here "this" happened, or "that," as I and my Youth met +ourselves; at others I could have cried for the absurdity, the tragedy, +of finding everything so different that never in a foreign land had I +seemed more hopelessly a foreigner. + +[Illustration: BROAD STREET STATION] + +I did not have to go farther than my hotel for a reminder that +Philadelphia, to oblige me, had not stood altogether still during my +quarter of a century's absence, but had been, and was, busy refashioning +itself into something preposterously new. From one of my high windows I +might look down to the Philadelphia Library and the Episcopal +Academy,--those two bulwarks of Philadelphia respectability--and beyond, +stretching peacefully away to the peaceful curves of the Delaware, to a +wide plain of flat red roofs and chimneys, broken by the green lines of +the trees that follow the straight course of Philadelphia's streets and +by the small green spaces of the trees that shade Philadelphia's +back-yards: level and lines and spaces I knew as well as a lesson learnt +by heart. But, from the midst of this red plain of roofs, huge high +buildings, like towers, that I did not know, sprang up into the blue +air, increasing in number as my eye wandered northward until, from the +other window, I saw them gathered into one great, amazing, splendid +group with William Penn, in full-skirted coat and broad-brimmed hat, +springing still higher above them. + +When I went down into the streets, I might walk for a minute or two +between rows of the beloved old-fashioned red brick houses, with their +white marble steps and their white shutters below and green above, and +then, just as exultantly I began to believe them changeless as the +Pyramids and the Sphinx, I would come with a jar upon a Gothic gable, an +absurd turret, a Renaissance doorway, a facade disfigured by a hideous +array of fire escapes, a sham Colonial house, or some other upstart that +dated merely from yesterday or the day before. And here and there a +sky-scraper of an apartment house swaggered in the midst of the little +"homes" that were Philadelphia's pride--the last new one, to my dismay, +rearing its countless stories above the once inviolate enclosure of +Rittenhouse Square. + +When I went shopping in Chestnut Street my heart might rejoice at the +sight of some of the well remembered names--Dreka, Darlington, Bailey, +Caldwell, as indispensable in my memory as that of Penn himself--but it +sank as quickly in the vain search for the many more that have +disappeared, or indeed, for the whole topsy-turvy order of things that +could open the big new department stores into Market Street and make it +the rival of Chestnut as a shopping centre, or that could send other +stores up to where stores had never ventured in my day: stores in Walnut +Street as high as Eighteenth, a milliner's in Locust Street almost under +the shadow of St. Mark's, a stock-broker at the corner of Fifteenth and +Walnut, Hughes and Mueller--I need tell no Philadelphian who Hughes and +Mueller are even if they have unkindly made two firms of the old +one--within a stone's throw of Dr. Weir Mitchell's house; when I saw +that I felt that sacrilege could go no further. + +[Illustration: WANAMAKER'S] + +For sentiment's sake, I might eat my plate of ice-cream at the old +little marble-topped table in the old Locust Street gloom at Sautter's, +or buy cake at Dexter's at the old corner in Spruce Street, but Mrs. +Burns with her ice-cream, Jones with his fried oysters, had vanished, +gone away in the _Ewigkeit_ as irrevocably as Hans Breitmann's Barty or +the snows of yester-year. And Wyeth's and Hubbell's masqueraded under +other names, and Shinn, from whom we used to buy our medicines, was +dead, and the new firm sold cigars with their ice-cream sodas, and my +Philadelphia was stuffed with saw-dust. + +Not a theatre was as I had left it, new ones I had never heard of +drawing the people who used to crowd the Chestnut, which has rung down +its curtain on the last act of its last play even as I write; the Arch, +given over now, alas! to the "Movies" and the "Movies" threaten the end +of the drama not only at the Arch but at all theatres forever; +well-patronized houses flourishing in North Broad Street; the staid +Academy of Music thrown into the shadow by its giddy prosperous upstart +of a rival up-town. + +Vanished were old landmarks for which I confidently looked--the United +States Mint from Chestnut Street; from Broad and Walnut the old yellow +Dundas House with the garden and the magnolia for whose blossoming I had +once eagerly watched with the coming of spring; from Thirteenth and +Locust the old Paterson House, turned into the new, imposing, very much +criticised building of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; from +Eleventh and Spruce, that other garden overlooked by the windows of the +house my Grandfather built and lived in, as my Father did after him, +and, to me more cruel, the house itself passed into other hands, grown +shabby with time, and the sign "For Sale" hanging on its neglected +walls. Change, change, change--that was what I had come home for! + + +II + +I am not sure, however, that I had not the worst shock of all when I +wandered from the old home, further down Spruce Street, below the +beautiful Eighteenth Century Hospital, dishonoured now and shut in on +the Spruce Street side by I hardly know what in the way of new wings and +wards. As I had left it, this lower part of Spruce and Pine and the +neighbouring streets, had changed less perhaps than any other part of +the town--has changed less to-day in mere bricks and mortar. It had +preserved the appropriate background for its inheritance of history and +traditions. Numerous Colonial houses remained and upon them those of +later date were modelled. It had kept also the serenity and repose of +the Quaker City's early days, the character, dignity, charm. Many old +Philadelphia families had never moved away. It was clean as a little +Dutch town with nothing to interrupt the quiet but the gentle jingling +of the occasional leisurely horse-car. + +[Illustration: ST. PETER'S CHURCHYARD] + +And what did I find it?--A slum, captured by the Russian Jew, the old +houses dirty, down-at-the-heel; the once spotless marble steps unwashed, +the white shutters hanging loose; the decorative old iron hinges and +catches and insurance plaques or badges rusting, and nobody can say how +much of the old woodwork inside burned for kindling; Yiddish signs in +the windows, with here a Jewish Maternity Home, and there a Jewish +newspaper office; at every door, almost every window, and in groups in +the street, men, women and children with Oriental faces, here and there +a man actually in his caftan, bearded, with the little curls in front of +his ears, and a woman with a handkerchief over her head, and all +chattering in Yiddish and slatternly and dirty as I remembered them in +South-Eastern Europe, from Carlsbad and Prague to those remote villages +of Transylvania where dirt was the sign by which I always knew when the +Jewish quarter was reached. A few patriotic Philadelphians have recently +returned hoping to stem the current, and their houses shine with +cleanliness. In Fourth Street the dignified Randolph House, which the +family never deserted, seems to protest against the wholesale surrender +to the foreign invasion. In Pine Street, St. Peter's, with its green +graveyard, has survived untarnished the surrounding desecration. But I +could only wonder how long the church and these few houses will be able +to withstand the triumphing alien, and I abandoned hope when, at the +very gate of St. Peter's, a woman with a handkerchief tied over her head +stopped me to ask the way to "_Zweit und Pine_." + + +III + +I know that the same thing is going on in almost all the older parts of +the United States, and the new parts too--I know that some small New +England towns can support their two and three Polish newspapers, that +New York swarms with people who talk any and every language under the +sun except English, and can boast, if it is a thing to boast of, more +Italians than Rome, more Jews than Jerusalem; that San Francisco has its +Chinatown, that the Middle West abounds in German and Swedish +settlements--in a word, I know that everywhere throughout the country, +the native American is retreating before this invasion of the alien. But +it is with a certain difference in Philadelphia. Have I not said that +one of the absurdities of my native town--I can afford to call them +absurdities because I love them--is that for the Philadelphian who looks +upon himself as the real Philadelphian, Philadelphia lies between the +Delaware and the Schuylkill, and is bounded on the north by Market +Street, on the south by Lombard; that in the ancient rhyming list of its +streets he recognizes only the line: + + "Chestnut, Walnut, Spruce, and Pine"? + +Now, when I left home this narrow section was threatening to grow too +narrow and it was with some difficulty the Philadelphian kept within it. +Up till then, however, it was in no danger except from his own +increasing numbers. The tragedy is that the Russian Jew should have +descended upon just this section, should now, not so much dispute it +with him, as oust him from it--the Russian Jew, a Jew by religion but +not by race, who has been found impossible in every country on the +Continent of Europe into which he has drifted, so impossible when that +country is Holland that the Jews who have been there for centuries +collect among themselves the money to send him post haste on to England +and poor America, for even the Dutch Jew cannot stand the Russian +Jew--and, from what I have heard, neither can the decent Pennsylvania +Jew who has been with us almost from the beginning. Other aliens have +been more modest and set up their slums where they interfere less with +Philadelphia tradition. I cannot understand, and nobody has been able to +explain to me, why the Russian Jew was allowed to push his way in. But +the indolent never see the thin end of the wedge, and there are +philanthropists whose philanthropy for the people they do not know +increases in direct proportion to the harm it does to those they do +know. I was told more than once to consider what Philadelphia was doing +for the Russian Jew, to remember that he has paid America the compliment +of accepting it as the Promised Land, that his race in America has +produced Mary Antin, and to see for myself what good Americans were +being made of his children. But though Philadelphia may one day blossom +like the rose with Mary Antins, though there might have been an +incipient patriot in every one of the small Russian Jews I met being +taken in batches across Independence Square to Independence Hall to +imbibe patriotism at the fount, I could not help considering rather what +the Russian Jew is just now doing for Philadelphia. For it is as plain +as a pipe stem to anybody with eyes to see that the Philadelphians to +whom Philadelphia originally belonged are being pushed by the Russian +Jew out of the only part of it they care to live in. + +[Illustration: CITY HALL FROM THE SCHUYLKILL] + +I wondered at first why so many people had fled to the country, why so +many signs "For Sale" or "For Rent" were to be seen about Spruce and +Pine and Walnut Streets. Various reasons were given me:--with the Law +Courts now in the centre of the town and the new Stock Exchange at Broad +and Walnut, and stores everywhere, nobody could live in town; the noise +of the trolleys is unbearable; the dirt of the city is unhealthy; soft +coal has made Philadelphia grimier than London; the motor has destroyed +distance;--excellent reasons, all of them. But it was not until I +discovered the Russian Jew that I understood the most important. It is +the Russian Jew who, with an army of aliens at his back--thousands upon +thousands of Italians, Slavs, Lithuanians, a fresh emigration of negroes +from the South, and statistics alone can say how many other +varieties--is pushing and pushing Philadelphians out of the town--first +up Spruce Street, nearer and nearer to the Schuylkill, then across the +Schuylkill into the suburbs, eventually to be swept from the suburbs +into the country, until who can say where there will be any room for +them at all? With the Russian Jew's genius for adapting himself to +American institutions, I could fancy him taking possession of, and +adding indefinitely to, the little two-story houses that already stretch +in well-nigh endless rows to the West and the North, Germantown and West +Philadelphia built over beyond recognition. I remember when, one day in +a trolley, I had gone for miles and miles between these rows--each +little house with the same front yard, the same porch, the same awning, +the same rocking-chairs--I had a horrible waking nightmare in which I +saw them multiplying--as the alien himself multiplied beyond the most +ardent dreams of Mr. Roosevelt,--and creeping out further and further, +across the city limits, across the State, across the Middle West, across +the prairies, across the Rockies, across the Sierras, until at last they +joined East to West in one unbroken line--one great, unbroken, unlovely +monument to the enterprise of the new American, and the philanthropy of +the old: while only the Russian Jew at the door of the State House, like +Macaulay's New Zealander under the shadow of St. Paul's, remained to +muse and moralize on the havoc he had wrought. + +[Illustration: CHESTNUT STREET BRIDGE] + +This may seem a trifle fantastic, but I should find it hard to give an +idea of how impossibly fantastic the prevailing presence of the alien in +Philadelphia appeared to me. To be sure, we had our aliens a quarter of +a century ago. But they were mostly Irish, Germans, Swedes. The Italian +at his fruit-stall was as yet rather the picturesque exception, and I +can remember how, not very long before I left home, the whole town went +to stare at the first importation of Russian Jews, dumped down under I +have forgotten what shelter, as if they were curiosities or freaks from +Barnum's. But now the aliens are mostly Latins, Slavs, Orientals who do +not fit so unobtrusively into our American scheme of things, and who +come from the lowest classes in their own countries, so ignorant and +degraded most of them that, what with their increasing numbers and our +new negro population from the South, there are people in Pennsylvania +who are trying to introduce an educational test at the polls--America +having learned the evil of universal suffrage just as England is +coquetting with it. + + +IV + +The rest of Philadelphia--the rest of America, for that matter--may be +accustomed to this new emigration to my town as well as to all parts of +the country. But I had not seen the latter-day alien coming in by every +steamer, and gradually, almost imperceptibly, establishing himself. The +advantage, or disadvantage, of staying away from home so long is that, +on returning, one gets the net result of the change the days and the +years bring with them. Those who stay at home are broken in to the +change in its initial stages and can accept the result as a matter of +course. I could not. To be honest, I did not like it. I did not like to +find Philadelphia a foreign town. + +I did not like to find Streets where the name on almost every store is +Italian. I did not like to find the new types of negro, like savages +straight from the heart of Africa some of them looked, who are disputing +South Street and Lombard Street and that disgraceful bit of Locust +Street with the decent, old-fashioned, self-respecting Philadelphia +darkies. I did not like to find the people with foreign manners--for +instance, to have my hand kissed for a tip in the hotel by a Lithuanian +chambermaid, though I should add that in a month she had grown American +enough to accept the same tip stoically with a bare "Thank You." I did +not like to find the foreigner forcing his way not only into the +Philadelphian's houses, the Philadelphian's schools, the Philadelphian's +professions--professions that have been looked upon as the sacred right +of certain Philadelphia families for almost a couple of centuries. I +have heard all about his virtues, nobody need remind me of them; I know +that he is carrying off everything at the University so that rich Jews +begin to think they should in return make it a gift or bequest, as no +rich Jew has yet, I believe. I know that the young Philadelphian must +give up his sports and his gaieties if he can hope to compete with the +young Russian Jew who never allows himself any recreation on the road to +success--and perhaps this won't do the young Philadelphian any harm. I +know that if the Russian Jew keeps on studying law, the Philadelphia +lawyer will be before long as extinct as the dodo--a probability that if +it wakes up the Philadelphia lawyer may have its uses. All this, and +much besides, I know--also, incidentally, I might add the fact that the +Russian Jew, who is not unintelligent, has mastered in a very short time +the possibilities of arson and bankruptcy as investments. But if there +were no other side to his virtues--and of course there is that other +side too--I should not like to think of the new Philadelphian that is to +come out of this incredible mixture of Russian Jews and countless other +aliens as little like us in character and tradition. + +The new Philadelphian may be a finer creature far than in my hopes for +him, finer far than the old Philadelphian I have known--but then he will +not be that old Philadelphian whom I do not want to lose and whom it +would be a pity to lose in a country for which, ever since Penn pointed +the way to the constitution of the United States, he has probably +accomplished more than any other citizen. + +Personally, I might as well say that I do not believe he will be a finer +creature. It seems to me that he is doing away with the old American +idea of levelling up and is bent on the levelling down process that is +going on all over Europe. And so foreign is he making us, that I would +not think J. very far wrong in declaring himself the only real American +left, if only he would include me with him. + +[Illustration: THE NARROW STREET] + + + + +CHAPTER XIX: PHILADELPHIA AFTER A QUARTER OF A CENTURY--CONTINUED + + +I + +It was not only the change that oppressed me those first days of my +return. As bewildering, as discouraging, were the signs everywhere of +the horrible haste with which it has been brought about: a haste foreign +to the Philadelphia habit. But the aliens pouring into Philadelphia have +increased its population at such a prodigious rate that it has been +obliged to grow too prodigiously fast to meet or to adapt itself to the +new conditions without the speed that does not belong to it. + +I had left it a big, prosperous, industrial town--Baldwin's, Cramp's, +Kensington and Germantown mills all in full swing--but it carried off +its bigness, prosperity, and industry with its old demure and restful +airs of a country town. The old-fashioned, hard-working, Philadelphia +business man could still dine at four o'clock and spend the rest of the +afternoon looking out of the window for the people who rarely passed and +the things that never happened--nobody would be free to dine at four +now-a-days, nobody would have the leisure to sit at any hour looking out +of the window, except perhaps the Philadelphia clubman who clings to +that amiable pastime, as he does, so far successfully, to his Club +house, threatened on every side as it is by the advance of the +sky-scraper. The old-fashioned busy Philadelphia crowds, as I remember +them, could still take their time in the streets, so that I remember, +too, my friend, George Steevens' astonishment because a passer-by he +thanked for information could linger to say "You are very welcome." The +old-fashioned Philadelphia business, going on at a pace that only New +York and Chicago could beat, was still accomplished with so little fuss +that the rest of America laughed at Philadelphia for its slowness and +sleepiness, and told those old time-worn stories that have passed into +folk-lore. It was just this that gave Philadelphia such a distinct +character of its own--that it could be laughed at for slowness and +sleepiness by the other towns, and all the while be sleepy and slow to +such good purpose as to make itself into one of the most prosperous and +influential in the country: to be able to work at the American pace and +yet preserve its dignity and sedateness. + +But the old stories have lost what little point they had. Philadelphia +does not look slow and sleepy any longer. Things have changed, indeed, +when a modern traveller like Mr. Arnold Bennett can speak of "spacious +gaiety" in connection with Philadelphia--with its spacious dulness the +earlier traveller was more apt to be impressed. At last, however, it has +given up its country-town airs for the airs of the big town it is--given +up the calmness that was its chief characteristic for the hurry-flurry +of the ordinary American town. And there is scarcely a Philadelphian +who regrets it, that is the saddest part of it--scarcely a Philadelphian +who does not rejoice that Philadelphia is getting to be like New York. + +[Illustration: THE MARKET STREET ELEVATED AT THE DELAWARE END] + +I think, of all the innovations, this was the one that distressed me +most, though I could understand the difficulty of calm in the face of +the multitude of new housing and traffic problems it has had to tackle, +at a rate and with a speed that the Philadelphian, left to himself, +would never have imposed upon it. Somehow, it has had to keep on putting +up those rows of little two-story houses in sufficient numbers to +shelter the too rapidly increasing population if it is to maintain its +reputation as the City of Homes; somehow, it has had to provide subways, +and elevateds, and new suburban lines with no level crossings, and new +central Stations and Terminals, and big trolley cars out of all +proportion to Philadelphia's narrow streets, and taxis too dear for any +but the millionaire to drive in, if the too-rapidly increasing crowds +are to be got to work and back again; somehow, new bridges have had to +cross the Schuylkill, new streets have had to be laid out, so many new +things have had to be begun and done in the too-rapidly growing town, +that there is small chance and less time for it to take them calmly or, +alas! to keep itself clean and tidy. + + +II + +In my memory Philadelphia was a model of cleanliness under a clean sky, +free of the smoke that the use of soft coal has brought with it. Every +Saturday every servant girl--"maid," Philadelphia calls her now--turned +out with mops and buckets and hose, for such a washing up of the front +for a week that, until the next Saturday, Philadelphia could not look +dirty if it tried. But I do not believe that a legion of servant girls, +with all the mops, buckets, and hose in the world, could ever wash +Philadelphia clean again, to such depths of dirt has it fallen. It could +not have been more of a disgrace to its citizens when Franklin deplored +the shocking condition of its streets, especially in wet weather, or +when Washington had to wade through mud to get to the theatre where he +found his recreation. It has become actually the Filthydelphia somebody +once called it in jest. Not even in the little Spanish and Italian towns +whose dirt the American deplores, have I seen such streets--all rivers +and pools and lakes when it rains, ankle-deep in dust when it is dry, +papers flying loose, corners choked with dirt, tins of ashes and garbage +standing at the gutter side all day long--even London, that I used to +think the dirtiest of dirty towns, knows how to order its garbage better +than that. We Americans are supposed to be long-suffering, to endure +almost anything until the crisis comes. But I thought that crisis had +long since come in the Philadelphia streets. Everybody agreed with me, +and I was assured that a corrupt government having been got out and a +reform government got in, already there was tremendous talk of schemes +for garbage--bags to be hauled off full of garbage, dust-tight on the +way, and hauled back empty, old paper to be bought up by the city so +that no thrifty citizen would throw a scrap of paper into the +street--and as tremendous talk of experiments in garbage, ten patriotic +citizens promising to contribute one thousand dollars each to make them. +I was assured also that the reform Mayor has done his best and struggled +valiantly against the evil, but unfortunately it is not he alone who can +vote the money for a wholesale spring-cleaning. It occurred to me that, +in the meanwhile, we might be better off if we returned with much less +expense, to the hogs that were "the best of scavengers" when William +Cobbett visited Philadelphia. Or, at no more than the cost of a ticket +to New York, the reformers might at least learn how to keep garbage tins +off the front steps of inoffensive, tax-paying citizens at five o'clock +in the afternoon when they ask their friends to drink tea in that +English fashion which is as novel in my Philadelphia as the difficulty +with the garbage. + +[Illustration: THE RAILROAD BRIDGES AT FALLS OF SCHUYLKILL] + +My own opinion was that Philadelphia had lost its head over the +magnitude of the task before it. In no other way could I account for the +recklessness with which old streets were torn up for blocks and repaired +by inches; new streets built and horrible stagnant pools left on their +outskirts--the suburbs quite as bad in this respect, so bad that I +understand associations of citizens are formed to do what the +authorities don't seem able to; boulevards planned and held up when half +finished, a monumental entrance designed to the most beautiful Park in +the world and, on its either side, silly little wooden pergolas set up +to try the effect, by the dethroned government I believe, and, though +nobody, from one end of the town to the other, approves, neither the +time nor the money is found to pull them down again--neither the time +nor the money found for anything but dirt and untidiness. + + +III + +The people, their manners, their life,--everything seemed to me to have +been caught in this mad whirlwind of change and haste. The crowds in the +street were not the same, had forgotten the meaning of repose and +leisureliness; had at last given in to the American habit of leaving +everything until the last moment and then rushing when there was no +occasion for rush, and pretending to hustle so that not one man or woman +I met could have spared a second to say "You are welcome" for anybody's +"Thank you," or, for that matter, to provide the information for +anybody's thanks;--indeed, these crowds seemed to me to have mastered +their new role with such thoroughness that to-day the visitor from +abroad will carry away the same idea of Philadelphia as Arnold Bennett, +who, during his sojourn there, never ceased to marvel at its liveliness. + +[Illustration: THE PARKWAY PERGOLAS] + +And the crowds have migrated from the old haunts--every sign of life now +gone from Third Street and round about the Stock Exchange, where nobody +now is ever in a hurry--carts and cars going at snail's pace, the whole +place looking as if time did not count--the old town business quarter +deserted for Market Street and Broad Street round the City Hall. + +And the crowds do not get about in the same way--no slow, leisurely ride +in the horse-car to a _Depot_ in the wilds of Frankford, or at Ninth and +Green, on the way to the suburbs, but a leap on a trolley, or a rush +through thronged streets to the _Terminal_ at Twelfth and Market, to the +_Station_ at Broad and Market. And it was another sign of how +Philadelphia had "moved" since the old days when, in place of the old +horse-car, which I could rely upon to go in a straight line from one end +of the long street to the other, I took the new trolley and it twisted +and turned with me until the exception was to arrive just where I +expected to, or, if I only stayed in it long enough, not to be landed in +some remote country town where I had no intention of going. I have been +told the story of the stay-at-home Philadelphian as puzzled as I, who +was promised by a motorman, as uncertain as she where he was going, that +at least he could give her a "nice ride through a handsome part of the +town." Worse still, the trolley did not stop at the corners where the +car used to stop so that I, a native Philadelphian, had to be told where +to wait for it by an interloper with a foreign accent. Nor was it +crowded at the same hours as the car used to be, so that going out to +dinner in a Walnut Street trolley I could sit comfortably and not be +obliged to hang on to a strap, with everybody who got in or out helping +to rub the freshness from my best evening gown, which would have been my +fate in the old days. + +And the crowds were not managed in the old way--the ordinary policeman +used to do his best to keep out of sight, and here was the mounted +policeman prancing about everywhere, and, at congested corners, adding +to the confusion by filling up what little space the overgrown trolleys +left in the narrow streets. I am not sure that it was not this mounted +policeman--unless it was the coloured policemen and the coloured +postmen--I had most difficulty in getting accustomed to. I came upon him +every day, or almost every hour, with something of a new shock. Can this +be really I, I would say to myself when I saw him in his splendour, can +this be really Philadelphia? + + +IV + +The difference I deplored was not confined to the crowds I did not know; +it was no less marked in the people I did know, in their standards and +outlook, in the way they lived. It is hard to say what struck me most, +though nothing more obviously the first few days than that flight to the +suburbs which had left such visible proofs as those signs "For Rent" and +"For Sale" everywhere in the streets where I was most at home--a flight +necessitated perhaps by the inroads of the alien, but only made possible +by the annihilation of space due to the motor-car. + +[Illustration: MARKET STREET WEST OF THE SCHUYLKILL] + +Once, when a Philadelphian set up a carriage, it was the announcement +to Philadelphia that he had earned the fifty thousand dollars which +fulfilled his ideal of a fortune. In my day Fairman Rogers' four-in-hand +was the limit, and but few Philadelphians had the money and the +recklessness to rival him. Now the Philadelphian does not have to earn +anything at all before he sets up his motor-car, and it is the +announcement of nothing except that he is bound to keep in the swim. Our +children begin where we leave off, as one of my contemporaries said to +me. Everybody has a motor-car. Everybody who can has one in London, I +know, and there also the signs "To Let" and "For Sale" in such regions +as Kensington and Bayswater have for some time back explained to me the +way it has turned London life upside down. But in Philadelphia not +merely everybody who can, but everybody who can't has one, and the +Philadelphian would not do without it, if he had to mortgage his house +as its price. I remember how incredulous I was, one of my first Sunday +evenings at home, when I was dining with friends in the +crowded-to-suffocation dining-room at the Bala Country Club and was +given as an excuse for being rushed from my untasted coffee to catch an +inconsiderately early last train, that ours was probably the only dinner +party in the room without a car to take us back to town. But from that +evening on I had no chance for incredulity, my own movements beginning +to revolve round the motor-car. If I was asked to dinner and lunch at a +distance to which nobody would have thought of dragging me by train in +the old days, a motor was sent to whirl me out in no time at all. If I +went into a far suburb for an afternoon visit, instead of coming soberly +back to town on my return ticket, I would take a short cut by flying +over half the near country, often in the car of people I had never seen +before, as the most convenient route to the hotel. All Philadelphia life +is regulated by the motor-car. It makes a ball or a tea or a dinner ten +miles away as near as one just round the corner was in my time, and so +half the gaiety is transferred to the suburbs and the suburban country, +and, to my surprise, I found girls still going to dances at midsummer. + +And the motor has made club life for women indispensable. The woman who +comes up to town in her car must have a Club, and there is the Acorn +Club in Walnut Street, The New Century, and the College and Civic Clubs, +jointly housed at Thirteenth and Spruce, and more clubs in other +streets, probably, which it was not my privilege to be invited to; all, +to judge by the Acorn, with luxurious drawing-and dining-and smoking-and +dressing-and bed-rooms, and women coming and going as if they had lived +in clubs all their lives, when a short quarter of a century before there +had not been one for them to see the inside of. And for men and women +both, the car has brought within their reach those amazing Country Clubs +that have sprung up in my absence. I had read of Country Clubs in +American novels and short stories, I had seen them on the stage in +American plays, but I had never paused to think of them as realities in +Philadelphia until I was actually taken to the Bala and Huntington +Valley Clubs, and until I ate their admirable dinners--at Bala, with the +crowds and in the light and to the music that would have made me feel I +was in a London restaurant, had it not been for the inevitable +cocktail--and until I saw with my own eyes the luxurious houses so +comfortably and correctly appointed--even to brass bedroom candlesticks +on a table in the second-story hall, just as in an old-fashioned English +inn, though as far as I could make out there was excellent electric +light everywhere--until I also saw with my own eyes the trim lawns, and +gardens, and the wide view over the delicate American landscape, and +women in the tennis courts, and the men bringing out their ponies for +polo, and the players dotted over the golf course. + +And whether the Country Clubs have created the sport or the sport has +created the Country Clubs, I cannot say, but in the increased attention +to sport I was confronted with another difference as startling. +Philadelphia, I know, has always been given to sport. It hunted and +raced and fished before time and conscience allowed most of the other +Colonists in the North the chance to amuse themselves out-of-doors, or +indoors either, poor things! And the old sports, barring the least +civilized like bull-baiting and cock-fighting, were kept up, and are +kept up, and had their Clubhouses, which, in some cases, have survived. +But, in my time, these sports had been limited to the few who had +country houses in the right districts or the leisure for the +gentlemanly pursuit of foxes and fishes, and their clubs were primitive +compared to the palatial Country Clubs, whose luxury women now share +with men. If you were in the hunting or fishing set, you heard all about +it; but if you were not, you heard little enough. But you did not have +to be in any set to keep up with the great Philadelphia game of cricket, +which was popular, exclusive as the players in their team might be--all +Philadelphia that did not play scrupulously going on the proper +occasions to the Germantown Cricket Ground to watch all Philadelphia +that did. The one alternative as popular was the pastime of rowing, the +exclusiveness here in the rowing men's choice among the Clubs with the +little boating clubhouses on the Schuylkill where boats could be stowed. +And now? The cricket goes on, as gentlemanly and correct a pastime as +ever. And the boating goes on, but with a delightful exclusive old +Colonial house, for one Club at least, hidden in thickets of the Park +where the stranger might pass within a stone's throw and never discover +it, but where the boating party can dine with a privacy and a +sumptuousness undreamed of at Belmont, where boating parties dined in my +young days. And, in addition, time has been prodigal with golf and +tennis and polo; women, who had begun tennis in my time, now beginning +golf, games which, I might as well admit, I have no use for and can +therefore say little about. And I am told that the University foot-ball +matches are among the most important and lavishly patronized social +functions of the year. And in town is the big Racquets Club, in a fine +new building, big enough to shelter any number of sports besides. And +the Natatorium, in moving from the unpretentious premises in South Broad +Street, where it has left its old building and name, to the marble +palace that was once George W. Childs's. Oh, the sacrilege! the house +where his emperors and princes and lords and authors were +entertained,--has converted the swimming lesson into the luxury of +sport. And all told, so many, and so exhaustive, and so universal are +the provisions for sport that I might have believed the Philadelphian +had nothing in the world to do, save to invent amusements to help him +through his empty hours. + +[Illustration: MANHEIM CRICKET GROUND] + +And, apparently, it is to provide for the same empty hours that those +elaborate lunch places have multiplied on Chestnut Street, some +delightful where you feast as only Philadelphia can, some horrible where +you sit on high stools at counters and fight for your food; that little +quiet discreet tea-places have sprung up in side streets; that gilded +restaurants, boasting they reproduce the last London fads and fashions, +have succeeded the old no restaurant at all; that hotels as big and +strident as if they had strayed off Fifth Avenue increase in number year +by year, culminating in the Adelphia, the latest giant, which I have not +seen; that the old poky hotels of my day have branched out in roof +gardens where on hot summer evenings you can sit up among the +sky-scrapers, a near neighbour to William Penn on his tower, and get +whatever air stirs over the red-hot furnace of Philadelphia; that a huge +new hotel has appeared up Broad Street where it seems the Philadelphian +sometimes goes with the feeling of adventure with which he once +descended upon Logan Square. Even business hours are broken into; the +lunch of a dozen oysters or a sandwich snatched up anywhere has gone out +of fashion; the chop, in the Philadelphia imitation of a London +chop-house that seemed luxurious in my Father's day, has become far too +simple; and disaster was predicted to me for the Stock Exchange by a +pessimistic member who knew that, from the new building that has +followed the Courts to the centre of the town, brokers will be running +over to lunch at the Bellevue and to incapacitate themselves more or +less for the rest of the day, and business will go on drifting, as it +has begun to, to New York and will all be done by telephone. And as if +the feasting were not enough of a pastime, everywhere lunches, teas and +dinners are served to the sound of music, so that distraction and +diversion may be counted upon without the effort to talk for them. When +I was young, the best Philadelphia could do in the way of combining +music and eating--or principally drinking--was at the Maeennerchor Garden +at Ninth and Green, where a pretzel might be had with a glass of beer, +or a sherry cobbler, or a mint julep--"high-balls" had not been heard +of--and the Philadelphia girl who went, though it was under the +irreproachable charge of her brother, could feel that she was doing +something very shocking and compromising. But in the new Philadelphia, +it is music whenever the Philadelphian eats or drinks in public, which +seems to be next to always. + +[Illustration: DOCK STREET AND THE EXCHANGE] + +It may be said that these are harmless innovations, part of the change +in town life as lived in any other town as big. But the marvel to me was +their conquest of Philadelphia, the town that used to pride itself on +not being like other towns, and there they exaggerated themselves in my +eyes into nothing short of revolution. The craving for novelty--that was +at the root of it all: of the restlessness, the willingness to do what +the old-fashioned Philadelphian would rather have been seen dead than +caught doing, of the deliberate break with tradition. Nothing now can be +left peacefully as it was. I felt the foundations of the world crumble +when I heard that the Dancing Class has taken new quarters over in +Horticultural Hall and the Assembly in the Bellevue, that Philadelphia +consents to go up Broad Street for its opera, quieting its conscience by +the compromise of going in carriages and motors and never on foot. There +surely was the end of the old Philadelphia, the real Philadelphia. And +it made matters no better to be assured that so rapidly does +Philadelphia move with the times that the Philadelphian who stays away +from home, or who is in mourning, for a year or so, finds on coming +back, or out of retirement, that Philadelphia society has been as +completely transformed in the meanwhile as Philadelphia streets. Nor did +it make matters better to discover the different prices that different +standards have brought in their train. I could see the new pace at which +life in public is set, I heard much of the new pace set for it in +private--servants' wages prohibitive according to old ways of thinking, +provisions risen to a scale beyond belief, every-day existence as dear +as in London--in Philadelphia, as elsewhere, people threatened with ruin +from, not the high cost of living, but the cost of high living. + + +V + +And the change is not simply in the outward panoply, in the parade of +life, it is in the point of view, in the new attitude toward life--a +change that impressed itself upon me in a thousand and one ways. I have +already referred to my astonishment at finding Philadelphia occupying +itself with art and literature. But really there is nothing with which +it does not occupy itself. Universal knowledge has come into fashion and +it makes me tired just to think of the struggle to keep up to it. Once +the Philadelphian thought he knew everything that was necessary to know +if he could tell you who every other Philadelphian's grandfather was. +But now he, or I should say she--for it is the women who rule when it +comes to fashion--is not content unless she knows everything, or thinks +she does, from the first chapter in Genesis to the latest novelty on the +Boulevards, the latest club gossip in Pall Mall. And how she can talk +about it! I have made so many confessions in these pages that it will do +no harm to add one more to their number, and to own my discomfiture +when, on finding myself one of a group of Philadelphia women, I have +been stunned into silence, in my ignorance reduced to shame and +confusion by their encyclopedic, Baedeker-Murray information and their +volubility in imparting it. It is wonderful to know so much, but, as the +philosopher says, what a comfort, to be sure, a dull person may be at +times. + +On the whole, it was the new interest in politics that most astonished +me. That just when Philadelphia has plunged into incredible frivolity, +it should develop an interest in problems it calmly shirked in its days +of sobriety--that is astounding if you will. When I left home, politics +were still beneath the active interest of the Philadelphian--still +something to steer clear from, to keep one's hands clean of. A man who +would rather live on the public than do an honest day's work, was my +Father's definition of the politician. I remember what a crank we all +thought one of my Brother's friends who amused himself by being elected +to the Common Council. It was not at all good form--who of self-respect +could so far forget himself as to become part, however humble, of the +machine, a hail-fellow-well-met among the Bosses and liable to be +greeted as Bill or Tom or Jim by the postman on his rounds or the +policeman at the corner. Better far let the city be abominably governed +and the tax-payers outrageously robbed, than to submit to such +indignities. The Philadelphian who realized what he owed to himself and +his position was superior to politics. But he is not any longer. I +found him up to his eyes in politics--taking the responsibility of +municipal reform, waging war against state corruption, running meetings +for Roosevelt and Progress at the last Presidential election. And not +only this. The women are sharing his labours--the women who of old +hardly knew the meaning of politics, might have been puzzled even to +know how to spell the unfamiliar word--they too are busy with civic +reform, and turn a watchful but unavailing eye on the garbage, and run +settlements in the slums, and qualify as policemen, and demand the +vote--parade for it, hold public meetings for it, hob-nob with coloured +women for it, run after the discredited English militant for it,--and +talk politics on any and every occasion. There were days when I heard +nothing but politics--politics at lunch, politics at tea, politics at +dinner--think of it! politics at a Philadelphia dinner party, politics +over the Soft Shell Crabs and the Shad and the Broiled Chicken and the +Ice-cream from Sautter's and the Madeira! It is better and wiser and +more improving, no doubt, than the old vapid talk--but then the old +vapid talk was part of my Philadelphia, and my Philadelphia was what I +wanted to come back to. + +[Illustration: THE LOCOMOTIVE YARD, WEST PHILADELPHIA] + + + + +CHAPTER XX: PHILADELPHIA AFTER A QUARTER OF A CENTURY--CONTINUED + + +I + +Of course I resented all the changes and, equally of course, it was +unreasonable that I should. I had not stood stock still for a quarter of +a century, why should I expect Philadelphia to? + +And little by little, as I got my breath again after my first indignant +surprise, as I pulled myself together after my first series of shocks, I +began to understand that the wonder was that anything should be left, +and to see that Philadelphia has held on to enough of its character and +beauty to impress the stranger, anyway, with the fine serenity that I +missed at every turn. Philadelphia does not "bristle," Henry James wrote +of it a very few years ago, by which he meant that it does not change, +is incapable of changing, though to me it was, in this sense, so +"bristling" that I tingled all over with the pricks. But, then, I knew +what Philadelphia had been. That was why I was impressed first with the +things that had changed, why, also, my pleasure was the keener in my +later discovery of the things that had not. + +I can laugh now at myself for my joy in all sorts of dear, absurd +trifles simply because of their homely proof that the new Philadelphia +had saved some relics of the old. What they stood for in my eyes gave +value to the little iced Cakes of my childhood; to the frequent street +parade, glorified as it was beyond recognition by the new presence of +the mounted police; to the City Troop, gorgeous and splendid as of old, +and as of old turning out to decorate every public ceremony; to the nice +old-fashioned "ma'am," unheard in England except, I believe, at court; +to all the town, including my hotel, getting ready for the summer with +matting and gauze and grey Holland. Old associations, old emotions, were +stirred by the fragrance of the Cinnamon Bun that is never so fragrant +out of Philadelphia, and one of the cruelest disappointments of my +return was not to be able to devour it with the untrammelled appetite of +youth when it was offered me in an interval between the Soft-Shell Crab +and Ice-cream of a Philadelphia lunch and the Planked Shad and Broiled +Chicken of a Philadelphia dinner. The row of heads at the Philadelphia +Club windows, so embarrassing to me in my youth, borrowed beauty from +association. I was thrilled by the decanter of Sherry or Madeira on the +dinner table, where I had not seen it served in solitary grandeur since +I had last dined in Philadelphia. The old rough kindliness of the +people--when they were not aliens--in the streets, in the stores, in the +trolleys, went to my heart. And in larger ways, too, the place filled me +with pride for its constancy: for the steady development of all that +made it great from the beginning--its schools, its charities, its +hospitals, its libraries, its galleries; above all, for retaining what +it could of its dignified reticence in keeping its private affairs to +itself. It may live more in public than it did, but it still does not +shriek all its secrets from the house-top. It does not thrust all its +wealth down every man's throat. It still hides many of its luxurious +private palaces behind modest brick fronts. It may have broken out in +gaudy hotels and restaurants, but Friends still continue to go their +peaceful way completely apart in their spacious houses and pleasant +gardens. Nor would any other town be so shy in acknowledging to itself, +and boasting to others of, its beauty. + +[Illustration: THE GIRARD TRUST COMPANY] + + +II + +Philadelphia has always been over-modest as to its personal +appearance,--always on the surface, indifferent to flattery. Nobody +would suspect it of ever having heard that to a philosopher like +Voltaire it was, without his seeing it, one of the most beautiful cities +in the universe, that a matter-of-fact traveller like William Cobbett +thought it a fine city from the minute he knew it, that all the old +travel-writers had a compliment for it, and all the new travellers as +well, down to Li Hung Chang, who described it felicitously as "one of +the most smiling of cities"--the "Place of a Million Smiles." It was not +because it had ceased to be beautiful that it assumed this indifference. +As I recall it in my youth, it was beautiful with the beauty +Philadelphians searched Europe for, while they were busy destroying it +at home--the beauty that life in England has helped me to appreciate as +I never did before, for it has given me a standard I had not when I knew +only Philadelphia. + +Judged by this standard, I found Philadelphia in its old parts more +beautiful than I remembered it. In a street like Clinton, which has +escaped the wholesale destruction, or in a block here and there in other +streets less fortunate, I felt as I never had before the austere +loveliness of their red brick and white marble and pleasant green shade. +As never before I realized the Eighteenth-Century perfection of the old +State House and Carpenter's Hall. I know of no English building of the +same date that has the dignity, the harmonious proportions, the +restrained ornament of the State House,--none with so noble a background +of stately rooms for those stately figures who were the makers of +history in Philadelphia. And the old churches came as a new revelation. +I questioned if I ever could have thought an English Cathedral in its +close lovelier than red brick St. Peter's in its walled graveyard on a +spring day, with the green in its first freshness and the great +wide-spreading trees throwing soft shadows over the grassy spaces and +the grey crumbling gravestones. The pleasure it gave me positively hurt +when--after walking in the filth of Front Street, where the old houses +are going to rack and ruin and where a Jew in his praying shawl at the +door of a small, shabby synagogue seemed the explanation of the filth--I +came upon the little green garden of a graveyard round the Old Swedes' +Church, sweet and still and fragrant in the May sunshine, though the +windows of a factory looked down upon it to one side, and out in front, +on the railroad tracks, huge heavy freight cars rattled and rumbled and +shrieked by, and beyond them rose the steam stacks of steamers from +Antwerp and Liverpool that unload at its door the hordes of aliens who +not only degrade, but "impoverish" Philadelphia, as the Irish porter in +my hotel said to me. And what pleasure again, after the walk full of +memories along Front and Second Streets, with the familiar odours and +Philadelphia here quiet as of yore, to come upon Christ Church a part of +the street like any French Cathedral and not in its own little green, +but with a greater architectural pretension to make up for it, and with +a gravestone near the sanctuary to testify that John Penn, one at least +of the Penn family, lies buried in Philadelphia. And what greater +pleasure in the old Meeting Houses--why had I not known, in youth as in +age, their tranquil loveliness?--What repose there, down Arch Street, in +that small simple brick building, with its small simple green, one bed +of tulips at the door, shut off from the noise and confusion and dirt +and double trolley lines of Arch Street by the old high brick wall; and +no less in that equally small and simple brick building in South Twelfth +Street, an old oasis, or resting place, in a new wilderness of +sky-scrapers. With these churches and meeting-houses standing, can +Philadelphians deplore the ugliness of their town? + +[Illustration: TWELFTH STREET MEETING HOUSE] + +And the old Eighteenth-Century houses? Would I find them as beautiful? I +asked myself. Would they survive as triumphantly the test of my +travelled years and more observant eyes? How foolish the question, how +unnecessary the doubt! More beautiful all of them, because my eyes were +better trained to appreciate their architectural merit; more peaceful +all of them, with the feeling of peace so intense I wondered whether it +came of the Colonial architecture or of associations with it. + +Germantown may be built up beyond recognition, its Lanes, many of them, +turned into Streets for no reason the average man can see, but some of +the big old estates, are still green and untouched as if miles away, and +the old houses are more guarded than ever from change. One by one, I +returned to them:--Stenton restored, but as yet so judicially that Logan +would to-day feel at home in its halls and rooms, on its stairway, +outside by the dovecote and the wistaria-covered walls,--at home in the +garden full of tulips and daisies, and old familiar Philadelphia roses +and Johnny-jump-ups, enclosed by hedges, every care taken to plant in it +afresh just the blossoms he loved. But what would he have said to the +factories opposite? To the rows of little two-story houses creeping +nearer and nearer? And the Chew House--could the veterans of the +Revolution return to it, as the veterans of the Civil War return every +year to Gettysburg, how well they would know their way in the garden, +how well, in the wide-pillared hall with the old portraits on the white +wall, and in the rooms with their Eighteenth-Century panelling and +cornices and fire-places, and in the broad hall upstairs could they +follow the movements of the enemy that lost for them the Battle of +Germantown? And Wyck white, cloistered, vine-laden, with fragrant garden +and shade-giving trees! And the Johnson House, and the Wistar House, and +the Morris House. And how many other old houses beyond Germantown! +Solitude, and Laurel Hill, and Arnold's Mansion in the Park, Bartram's +at Gray's Ferry. + +[Illustration: WYCK] + +I thought first I would not put Bartram's to the test, no matter how +bravely the others came out of it--Bartram's, associated with the +romance of work and the dawn of my new life. But how glad I am that I +thought twice and went back to it! For I found it beautiful as ever, +though I could reach it by trolley, and though it was unrecognizably +spick and span in the little orchard, and under the labelled trees, and +by the old house and the old stables, and in the garden where gardeners +were at work among the red roses. But the disorder has not been quite +done away with in the wilderness below the garden, and there was the +bench by the river, and there the outlook up and down--had so many +chimneys belched forth smoke and had the smoke been as black on the +opposite bank, up the river, in the old days? Certainly there had not +been so many ghosts--not one of those that now looked at me with +reproachful eyes, asking me what I had done with the years, for which +such ambitious plans had been made on that very spot ages and ages ago? + + +III + +Philadelphia is not responsible for the ghosts; they are my affair; but +it has made itself responsible for the beauty, not only at Bartram's but +at as many other of the old places as it has been able to lay claims +upon, converting them into what the French would call historic +monuments. And Philadelphia, with the help of Colonial Dames, and an +Automobile Club, and those societies and individuals who have learned at +last to love the Philadelphia monuments though still indifferent to the +town, has not been too soon in prescribing the desperate remedies their +desperate case demands. In the new care of these old places, as well as +in the new devotion to the old names and the old families, in the new +keenness for historic meetings and commemorations, in the new local +lectures on local subjects and traditions, in the very recent +restoration of Congress Hall, in all this new native civic patriotism I +seemed to see Philadelphia's desperate, if unconscious, struggle against +the modern invader of the town's ancient beauty and traditions. The +grown-up aliens who can be persuaded, as I am told they can be, to come +and listen to papers on their own section of the town, whether it be +Southwark, or Manayunk, or Frankford, or Society Hill, or the Northern +Liberties, will probably in the end look up the old places and their +history for themselves, just as the little aliens will who, in the +schools, are given prizes for essays on local history:--offer anything, +even a school prize, to a Russian Jew, and he will labour for it, in +this case working indirectly for patriotism. + +[Illustration: THE MASSED SKY-SCRAPERS ABOVE THE HOUSETOPS] + +But I am not sure that the greatest good the Society of Colonial Dames +is doing is not in emphasizing the value of the past to those who date +back to it. It has helped one group of Philadelphians to realize that +there are other people in their town no less old as Philadelphians and +more important in the history of Philadelphia, what is called society +luckily not having taken possession of the Colonial Dames in +Philadelphia as in New York. If all who date back see in the age of +their families their passport into the aristocracy of Philadelphia and +therefore of America, they may join together as a formidable force +against the advance of the formidable alien. Mr. Arnold Bennett was +amused to discover that every Bostonian came over in the Mayflower, but +he does not understand the necessity for the native to hold on like grim +death to the family tree--pigmy of a tree as it must seem in Europe--if +America is to remain American. My one fear is lest this zeal, new to me, +is being overdone, for I fancy I see an ill-concealed threat of a new +reaction, this time against it. What else does the Philadelphian's +toying with the cause of the "loyalists" during the Revolution and his +belated espousal of it mean, unless perhaps the childish Anglomania +which fashion has imposed upon Philadelphia? People are capable of +anything for the sake of fashion. The ugliest blot on the history of +Philadelphia is its running after the British when they were in +possession of the town that winter we ought to try to forget instead of +commemorating its feasts--that winter when Philadelphia danced and +Washington and his troops starved. Now Philadelphia threatens another +blot as ugly by upholding the citizens who would have kept the British +there altogether. However, this is as yet only a threat, Philadelphians +are too preoccupied in their struggle for survival. + + +IV + +Not only the new patriotism, but the new architecture is Colonial. For +long after Colonial days Philadelphia kept to red brick and white +facings in town, to grey stone and white porches in Germantown, often +losing the old dignity and fine proportions, but preserving the unity, +the harmony of Penn's original scheme, and the repose that is the +inevitable result of unity. But there were many terrible breaks before +and during my time--breaks that gave us the Public Buildings and +Memorial Hall and many of the big banks and insurance offices down town, +and a long list of regrettable mistakes;--breaks that burdened us with +the brown stone period fortunately never much in favour, and the Furness +period which I could wish had been less in favour so much too lavish was +its gift of undesirable originality, and the awful green stone period of +which a church here and a big mansion there and substantial buildings +out at the University, too substantial to be pulled down for many a day, +rise, a solid reproach to us for our far straying from righteousness; +breaks that courted and won the admiration of Philadelphia for +imitations of any and every style that wasn't American, especially if it +was English, Philadelphia tremendously pleased with itself for the bits +borrowed from the English Universities and dumped down in its own +University and out at Bryn Mawr, there as unmistakable aliens as our own +Rhodes Scholars are at Oxford. + +[Illustration: SUNSET. PHILADELPHIA FROM ACROSS THE DELAWARE] + +But from the moment Philadelphia began to look up its genealogy and +respect it, the revival of Colonial was bound, sooner or later, to +follow. It meant a change from which I could not escape, had I +deliberately refused to see the many others. I was face to face with it +at every step I took, in every direction I went--from the Navy Yard on +League Island to the far end of North Broad Street; from Germantown, the +old grey stone here returned to its own again, to West Philadelphia; +from the University where the Law School building looks grave and +distinguished and genuine in the midst of sham Tudor and sham I hardly +know what, and deplorable green stone, to the Racquets Club in town; +from the tallest sky-scraper to the smallest workman's dwelling--it was +Colonial of one sort or another: sometimes with line results, at others +with Colonial red brick and white facings and Colonial gables and +Colonial columns and Colonial porches so abused that, after passing +certain Colonial abortions repeated by the dozens, the hundreds, the +thousands, in rows upon rows of two-story houses, all alike to the very +pattern of the awning and the curves of the rocking chair on the +invariable porch. I had it in my heart to wish that Philadelphia had +never heard the word Colonial. However, on the whole, more good has been +done than harm. The original model is a fine one, it belongs to +Philadelphia, and in reviving it the Philadelphia architect is working +along legitimate lines. + +But even as I write this, I realise that it is not to the revival of +Colonial that Philadelphia owes all its new beauty. Indeed, the +architecture that has done most for it in its new phase is that from +which least would be expected by those who believe in appropriateness or +utility as indispensable to architectural beauty. A town that has plenty +of space to spread out indefinitely has no reason whatever to spread up +in sky-scrapers, and this is precisely what Philadelphia has done and, +moreover, looks all the better for having done. Its sky-scrapers compose +themselves with marvellous effectiveness as a centre to the town, though +they threaten by degrees to become too scattered to preserve the present +composition; they provide an astounding and ever-varying arrangement of +towers and spires from neighbouring corners and crossings; they give new +interest as a background to some simple bit of old Philadelphia, as +where Wanamaker's rises sheer and high above the little red brick +meeting-house in Twelfth Street; they add to the charm of some ambitious +bit of new Philadelphia as where the little Girard Trust +Building--itself a happy return to standards that gave us Girard +College and the Mint and Fairmount Water-Works--stands low among the +clustered towers, just as many a town in the Alps or Apennines lies low +in the cup of the hills, and is the lovelier for it; they redeem from +ugliness buildings of later periods, as where they give the scale in the +most surprising fashion to the Union League; from far up or down the +long straight line of Broad Street they complete the perspective as +impressively as the Arc de Triomphe completes that other impressive +perspective from the Garden of the Tuileries in Paris. They are as +beautiful when you see them from the bridges or from the Park, a great +group of towers high above the houses, high above the lesser towers and +spires, high above the curls and wisps of smoke that now hang over +Philadelphia; and from the near country they give to the low-lying town +a sky-line that for loveliness and grandeur is not to be surpassed by +the famous first view of Pisa across the Italian plain. + +[Illustration: THE UNION LEAGUE BETWEEN THE SKY-SCRAPERS] + +Philadelphia is, in truth, such a beautiful town that I am surprised the +world should be so slow in finding it out. The danger to it now is the +Philadelphian's determination to thrust beauty upon it at any cost, not +knowing that it is beautiful already. There is too much talk everywhere +about town-planning as a reform, as a part of the whole tiresome +business of elevating the masses. As I have said, Penn talked no +nonsense of that kind, nor did Sir Christopher Wren when he made the +fine design that London had not the sense to stick to, nor L'Enfant when +he laid out Washington. For the town that gets into the clutches of the +reformer, I feel much as Whistler did for art--"What a sad state the +slut is in an these gentlemen can help her." A town, like a woman, +should cultivate good looks and cannot be too fastidious in every +detail. But that is no reason why it should confuse this decent personal +care with a moral mission. There is too much reform in Philadelphia just +now for my taste, or its good. The idea of the new Parkway; with fine +buildings like the new Free Library and the new Franklin Institute, +along its route through the town; with the City Hall at one end and the +fine new Art Gallery in the Park at the other; promises well, and I +suppose that eventually the silly little wooden pergolas will disappear +and the new buildings go up in their place. But though I know it sounds +like shocking heresy, I should feel more confidence if its completion +were in the hands of the old corrupt government we never tired of +condemning, which may have stolen some of our money but at least gave us +in return a splendidly planned and thoroughly well-kept Park, one of the +most beautiful in the world. I believe that not only this monumental, +but more domestic experiments are in view, the workman this time to +profit--our old self-reliant American workman to have a taste of the +benevolent interference that has taken the backbone out of the English +workman. Rumours have reached me of emissaries sent to spy out the land +in the Garden Cities of Germany and England. But what have we, in our +far-famed City of Homes, to learn from other people's Garden Cities? +For comfort, is the workman anywhere better off at a lower rent than in +the old streets of neat little two-story brick houses, or in the new +streets of luxurious little Colonial abortions? And what does he want +with the reformer's gardens when he lives in the green country town of +Philadelphia? + +[Illustration: UP BROAD STREET FROM LEAGUE ISLAND] + + +V + +Philadelphia might have lost more of its old architecture and been less +successful with its new, and would still be beautiful, for as yet it has +not ceased to respect Penn's wish to see it fair and green. It is not so +green as it was, I admit--not so green as in the days of my childhood to +which, in looking back, the spring always means streets too well lined +with trees for my taste, since in every one those horrid green measuring +worms were waiting to fall, crawling, upon me. There are great stretches +in some streets from which the trees have disappeared, partly because +they do not prosper so well in the now smoke-laden air; partly because +every one blown down or injured must be replaced if replaced at all by +some thrifty citizen held responsible for whatever damage it may do +through no fault of his; partly, I believe, because at one time street +commissioners ordered one or two in front of a house to be cut down, +charged the landlord for doing it, and found too much profit not to +persevere in their disastrous policy. Still, though Philadelphians in +summer fly to little European towns to escape the streets they deplore +as arid in Philadelphia, I know of no other town as large that is as +green. The notes I made in Philadelphia are full of my surprise that I +should have forgotten how green and shady are its streets, how tender is +this green in its first spring growth under the high luminous sky, how +lovely the wistaria-draped walls in town and the dogwood in the suburbs. +Walk or drive in whatever direction I chose, and at every crossing I +looked up or down a long green vista, so that I understood the +Philadelphia business man who described to me his daily walk from his +Spruce Street house to the Reading Terminal as a lesson in botany. On +the other side of the Schuylkill, in any of the suburbs, every street +became a leafy avenue. There were evenings in that last June I spent in +Philadelphia, when, the ugly houses bathed in golden light and the trees +one long golden-green screen in front of them, I would not have +exchanged Walnut or Spruce Street in West Philadelphia or many a Lane in +Germantown, for any famous road or boulevard the world over. Really, the +trees convert the whole town into an annex, an approach to that Park +which is its chief green beauty and which, to me, was more than +sufficient atonement for the corrupt government Philadelphia is said to +have groaned under all the years Fairmount was growing in grace and +beauty. And beyond the Park, beyond the suburbs, the leafy avenues run +on for miles through as beautiful country as ever shut in a beautiful +town. + +[Illustration: FROM GRAY'S FERRY] + + +VI + +After all, there is beauty enough left to last my time, and I suppose +with that I should be content. But I cannot help thinking of the future, +cannot help wondering, now that I see the change the last quarter of a +century has made, what the next will do for Philadelphia--whether after +twenty-five years more a vestige of my Philadelphia will survive. I do +not believe it will; I may be wrong, but I am giving my impressions for +what they are worth, and nothing on my return impressed me so much as +the change everywhere and in everything. I think any American, from no +matter what part of the country, who has been away so long, must, on +going back, be impressed in the same way--must feel with me that America +is growing day by day into something as different as possible from his +America. For my part, I am just as glad I shall not live to see the +Philadelphia that is to emerge from the present chaos, since I have not +the shadow of a doubt that, whatever it may be, it will be as unlike +Philadelphia as I have just learned to know it again, as this new +Philadelphia is unlike my old Philadelphia, the beautiful, peaceful town +where roses bloomed in the sunny back-yards and people lived in dignity +behind the plain red brick fronts of the long narrow streets. + + + + +INDEX + + + Abbey, Edwin A., 393 + + Academy of Fine Arts, 64, 231, 376, 379, 380, 389, 395, 402, 405, 407, + 412, 428 + + Academy of Music, 206, 459 + + Academy of Natural Sciences, 64 + + Acorn Club, 494 + + Adams, John, 6, 50, 161, 297, 385, 418-422 + + Addams, Clifford, 407 + + Adelphia, the, 499 + + Adirondacks (mountains), 169 + + Aitken, Robert, 310 + + Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 243 + + Alexander, John W., 393 + + _Alhambra, The_, 315 + + Alicia, Mother, 371 + + Allen's, 125 + + America, new and old, 471 + + _American_, the (weekly), 249 + + American Army crossing the Delaware, 375 + + American Philosophical Society, 418 + + Angelo, Michael, 373 + + Annabel, Miss, school, 258 + + Annals, Watson's, 314 + + Antin, Mary, 467 + + Appian etchings, 395 + + _Arabian Nights, The_, 64 + + Arc de Triomphe, 405 + + Arch Street Meeting House, 120, 517 + + Arch Street Theatre, 67, 459 + + Ardea, Father, 191, 192 + + Arnold, Matthew, 161, 342-344 + + Arnold's Mansion, 521 + + _Arrah-na-Pogue_, 67 + + Art Gallery in the Park, proposed, 534 + + Art (Industrial) School, 257, 330, 332, 405 + + _Art Nouveau_, 408 + + Assembly, the (social), 153-174, 206, 216, 254, 260, 304, 316, 503 + + Atlantic City, 170, 246, 298 + + _Atlantic Monthly_, 243, 244, 257 + + Augustine's, 60, 148, 151, 153, 281, 438, 439, 449 + + Bailey, Banks & Biddle, 125, 456 + + Bala Country Club, 493, 495 + + Baldwin's Locomotive Works, 228, 477 + + Bank, Philadelphia, 49 + + Baptists, 176, 183 + + Bar Harbor, 169 + + Barber, Alice, 396 + + Barcelona (churches of), 199 + + Barrett, Lawrence, 324 + + Barrie (publisher of art books), 376 + + Bartram, John, 31, 300, 521 + + Bartram's Garden, 31, 42, 299-303, 337, 521, 522 + + Bayswater, England, 493 + + Beau Nash, 145 + + Beaux, Cecilia, 406 + + Beaux-Arts (school), 407 + + Beidleman (architecture), 361 + + Bellamy (_Looking Backward_), 338 + + Bellevue-Stratford (hotel), 148, 162, 414, 447, 500, 503 + + Belmont (Fairmount Park), 210, 299, 430, 496 + + Bennett, Arnold, 478, 486, 525 + + Bibliotheque Nationale, 12 + + Biddle, Miss Julia, 399 + + Biddles, 50, 145, 214-216 + + _Biglow Papers_, 320 + + _Black Crook, The_, 67 + + Blanchard (publisher), 313 + + Blitz, Signor, 91 + + Blum, Robert, artist, 246, 393 + + Board of Education, 257 + + Bobbelin, Father, 192 + + Boker, George H., 316, 323-325 + + Booth, Edwin, 68 + + Borghesi collection (art), 406 + + Borie, C. L. Jr., architect, 407 + + Bories, the, 31, 107 + + Borrow, George Henry, 320 + + Boswell, James, 290 + + Boudreau, Father, 193 + + Boudreau, Mother, 97 + + Bowie, Mrs., social leader, 146, 147 + + Boyle, John, sculptor, 396 + + Bradstreet, Anne, 309 + + _Breitmann Ballads_, 320, 456 + + Brennan, artist, 393 + + Brewster, Benjamin Harris, 342 + + Briggs, Richard, 424 + + Brillat-Savarin, 414 + + British Museum, 12, 309 + + Broad and Locust Streets, 257, 258, 259, 449 + + Broad and Walnut, 42 + + Broad Street, 324, 449, 489, 499-503, 529, 533 + + Broad Street, North, 459, 529 + + Broad Street Station, 12 + + Brook Farm, 347 + + Brown, Charles Brockden, 313, 363 + + Browning Societies, 352 + + Bryn Mawr, 98, 104, 173, 307, 364, 529 + + Bullitts, the, 107 + + Bunyan, John, 308 + + Burns's, 126, 210, 456 + + Burr, Anna Robeson, 363 + + Burr, Charles, 363 + + _Burton's Gentleman's Magazine_, 314 + + Business and Professional Club, 352 + + + Cadwallader-Biddle, 343 + + Cadwalladers, 50, 145, 216 + + Caldwell, J. E. & Co., 125, 456 + + _Callista_, 59 + + Callowhill, Hannah, 417 + + Callowhill Street Bridge, 281 + + Camac Street, 351 + + Camden (N. J.), 293, 324-329 + + Campanini, opera singer, 401 + + Campbell, Helen, 338 + + Cape May, 170 + + Carlyle, Thomas, 243 + + Carpenter's Hall, 514 + + Carson, Hampton L., 6, 363 + + Cary (publisher), 313 + + _Casket, The_, 314, 428 + + Cassatt, Mary, 393 + + Castleman, Richard, 6 + + Cathedral, the, 120, 183, 184, 187, 198, 200, 203 + + Catholics, 176, 177-204, 258 + + Cavalcaselle, Giovanni B., 402 + + Centennial Exposition, 205-232, 233, 234, 253, 267, 276, 277, 357, + 375, 390 + + _Century, The_, 337 + + Champs-Elysees, 405 + + Chapman, Miss, school, 258 + + Charles the Bold, 337 + + Chartres Cathedral, 199 + + Chartreuse, the old, 444 + + Chase, William M., 246 + + Chester, 54, 152 + + Chestnut Hill, 78, 123, 129, 170, 258 + + Chestnut Street, 125, 144, 226, 227, 325, 342, 368, 449, 456, 459, 499 + + Chestnut Street Theatre, 67, 459 + + "Chestnut, Walnut, Spruce, and Pine," 119, 123, 151, 158, 182, 263, + 297, 464 + + Chew House, 297, 298, 518 + + Childs, George W., 113, 342, 499 + + Chippendale furniture, 289 + + Christ Church, 114, 120, 183, 188, 277, 517 + + Christ Church Burial Ground, 120, 281 + + Church (painting), 246 + + Church of England, 183 + + Cimabue, Giovanni, 402 + + City Companies in London, 152 + + City Hall, 259, 260, 405, 489, 526, 534 + + City of Homes, 481, 534 + + City Troop, 64, 452, 510 + + Civic Club, 494 + + Civil War, the, 130, 146, 518 + + Claghorn's collection of old prints, 376, 394 + + Clements, Gabrielle, 396 + + Clinton Street, 514 + + Clover Club, 152, 443 + + Club (Art), South Broad Street, 406 + + Coates, Mrs. Florence Earle, 336, 362 + + Cobbett, William, 440, 485, 513 + + Coghlan, Father, 193 + + Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 324 + + College Club, the, 494 + + Colonial (American) art, 381, 389 + + Colonial Congress, 253, 267 + + Colonial Dames, 219, 221, 361, 522, 525 + + Colonial days, 283, 526 + + Colonial doorways, 361 + + Colonial history, 9 + + Colonial houses, 6, 36, 73, 158, 282, 297, 298, 382, 443, 460, 496, + 518, 526, 529 + + Colonial life and society, 6, 443 + + Colonists, 495 + + Colonnade (hotel), 148 + + Columbia (College), 364 + + Comegys, Mrs., school, 258 + + _Complete Cookery_ (Miss Leslie), 423-430 + + Concord (Mass.), 347-348 + + Coney Island, 213 + + Conflans (convent), 175 + + Congress Hall, 522 + + Connor, Mrs., social leader, 147 + + Contemporary Club, 352 + + _Continent, Our_, 293 + + Continental (hotel), 148 + + Convent, 27, 31, 36, 47, 55, 59, 63, 67, 68, 72 sq., 104, 117, 126, + 133-137, 175 sq., 205, 238, 241, 258, 368, 372, 373, 374, 451 + + Convent at Paris, 222 + + Cooper, Colin Campbell, 396 + + Cope, Walter, architect, 407 + + Copley, John Singleton, 389 + + Country Clubs, 152, 162, 447, 494-496 + + Courts (of law), 468, 500 + + Cox, Kenyon (painting), 246 + + Cramp's shipyard, 228, 477 + + "Crazy Norah," 27, 35, 375 + + Crowe, Joseph Archer, 402 + + Cruikshank drawings, 375 + + Curtis Publishing Co. Building, 355 + + Cushman, Charlotte, 68 + + + Dana, William P. W., artist, 393 + + Dancing Class, 138, 139, 143-145, 147, 148, 157, 182, 184, 203, 254, + 260, 304, 316, 503 + + Darlington butter, 440 + + Darlington, J. G. & Co., 125, 456 + + Darwin, Charles, 242 + + Daughters of Pennsylvania, 219, 221 + + Davenports, the (actors), 64 + + Davis, Clarke, 246 + + Davis, Mrs. Rebecca Harding, 336 + + Davis, Richard Harding, 336 + + Day, Frank Miles, architect, 407 + + Declaration of Independence, 158, 214, 227, 253, 267, 418 + + Decorative Art Club, 399 + + Delaware River, 278, 294, 308, 455 + + Dexter's, 35, 88, 126, 456 + + Dickens, Charles, 6, 59, 375, 427 + + Dickinson, Jonathan, 15, 313 + + Dillaye, Blanche, 396 + + _Domestic Economy_ (Miss Leslie), 428 + + Drama-Reforming Societies, 352 + + Dreka Co. (engraver), 125, 148, 151, 456 + + Drew, Mrs. John (actress), 68 + + Drexel, Anthony J., 342 + + Drexel Institute, 405 + + Duclaux, Mme (Mary Robinson), 260 + + Duke of Westminster's collection (art), 406 + + Dundas house, 42, 108, 459 + + Dutch descent, 219 + + Dutch in New York, 16 + + Dutch Jew, 467 + + + Earle's, 125 + + Eastern Shore, Maryland, 219, 245, 246 + + Eberlein, Harold Donaldson, 6, 361 + + Education, Board of, 257 + + Eleventh Street, 48 + + Eleventh and Spruce (streets), 44, 47, 48 sq., 94, 102, 104, 314, 427, + 430 + + Eliot, George, 401 + + Eliphas, Levi, 242 + + Elkins art collection, 406 + + Ellwanger, G. H., 424 + + Elwood, Thomas, 15, 308 + + Episcopal Academy, 143, 162, 181, 258, 455 + Head Master of, 181 + + Episcopalians, 176 177, 183, 187 + + _Evening Telegraph_, 246, 341 + + Ewing, Miss Julia, 341 + + Exposition, Centennial, 205, 232 + + Eyre, Wilson, 407 + + + _Fabiola_, 59 + + Fairmount Park, 64, 129, 173, 210, 213, 281, 299, 444, 486, 496, 521, + 533, 534, 538 + + Fairmount Water-Works, 299, 533 + + _Faith Gartney's Girlhood_, 59, 335 + + Ferris, Stephen, 394 + + Fildes, Luke, 231 + + Fisher, Sydney George, 6, 309, 358 + + Fishers, the, 31 + + Fish-House Club, 152, 443 + + Fitzgerald, Edward, 423 + + _Fool's Errand_, 338 + + _Forget-Me-Not_, 348 + + Fourth of July, 63 + + Fox, George, 15, 308 + + _Francesca da Rimini_, 324 + + Frankford, 81, 489, 522 + + Franklin, Benjamin, 24, 166, 215, 216, 253, 263, 281, 290, 355, 310, + 313, 358, 386, 389, 400, 417, 422, 482 + + Franklin Inn, 351 + + Franklin Institute, 263, 534 + + Free Public Library, 307, 534 + + _French Revolution_ (Thiers), 375 + + Friends, 1, 9, 15, 16, 20, 92, 134, 166, 197, 203, 258, 283, 289, 290, + 294, 307, 309, 357, 380, 386, 389, 513 + + Friends' School (Germantown), 258 + + Fromuth, marine painter, 406 + + Front Street, 278, 281, 290, 326, 514, 517 + + Frost, Arthur B., artist, 393 + + Furness (architecture), 407, 526 + + Furness, Dr. Horace Howard, 332, 335 + + Furness, Horace Howard, Jr., 362, 363 + + Furness, William Henry, D.D., 332, 335 + + + Garber, Daniel, 407 + + Gebbie and Barrie, 125, 376 + + German mystics, 176 + + Germans (immigrants), 471 + + Germantown, 91, 123, 124, 258, 294, 297, 336, 468, 477, 496, 518, 521, + 526, 529, 538 + + Germantown Cricket Ground, 496 + + Gettysburg (battle-fields), 518 + + Gibson collection, 379 + + _Gift, The_, 314 + + Gilchrist, Mrs. Alexander, 119, 284, 287 + + Gillespie, Mrs., social leader, 215, 216, 253 + + Giotto di Bondone, 402 + + Girard College, 123, 379, 533 + + Girard House, 148 + + Girard Trust Building, 530 + + Gissing, George, 239 + + Glackens, William J., illustrator, 406 + + Glackmeyer, Father, 193 + + Glasse, Mrs. (Cookery Book), 314, 423-428 + + _Godey's Lady's Book_, 314, 337 + + Gough Square (London), 324 + + Grafly, Charles, sculptor, 407 + + _Graham's_ (Magazine), 314, 337 + + Grants, the, 31 + + Gray's Ferry, 281, 299, 521 + + Green, Elizabeth Shippen, 406 + + Greene, General, 418 + + Grelaud, Miss, 107 + + Griggs (publisher), 313 + + Groton (school), 162 + + + Haden, Seymour, etchings, 395, 396 + + Hale, Mrs. Sarah Josepha, 314, 428 + + Hallowell, Mrs. Sarah, 341 + + Hamilton, J. McLure, 393 + + Handy, Moses P., 245 + + _Hans Breitmann_, 320, 456 + + Harland, Marion, 428 + + _Harper's_ (magazine), 238, 337 + + Harrison, Alexander, 393 + + Harrison, Birge, 393 + + Harrison, John, 405 + + Harrison, Mrs. (Art Club), 399 + + Harvard (College), 162 + + Hassler's band, 140, 148 + + Haverford (school), 258 + + Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 347 + + Hawthorne, Rose, 347 + + Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 6, 157, 216, 220, 290, 307, 315, + 364, 459 + + Hogarth's engravings, 376 + + Holloway, Edward Stratton, 406 + + Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 243 + + Holmesburg, 258 + + Holy Trinity (church), 183 + + Home Arts School (London), 257 + + Homer and Colladay's, 125 + + Hooper, Mrs. Lucy, 341 + + Hopkins, the, 31 + + Hopkins, Dr. (dentist), 64 + + Horticultural Hall, 347, 503 + + Hospital, Pennsylvania, 24, 114, 277, 358, 460 + + Hotel Meurice, 222 + + Howells, William Dean, 259, 401 + + Howland's Hotel at Long Branch, 103 + + Hubbell's, 126, 459 + + Hudson River School, 390 + + _Hugh Wynne_, 357, 358, 363 + + Hughes and Mueller, 456 + + Huguet, Madame, 77, 85 + + Hunt, Holman, 372, 373 + + Huntington Valley Club, 495 + + Hutchinson Ports, 363 + + + Impressionists (artists), 390 + + Independence Hall, 467 + + Independence Square, 355, 467 + + Industrial Art School, 257, 330, 396, 399 + + Ingersolls, the, 145 + + _Initials, The_, 59 + + International expositions, 213, 231, 253 + + Irish immigrants, 471 + + Irving, Henry, 401 + + Irving, Washington, 315 + + Irwin, Miss, school, 140, 175, 258 + + Italians (immigrants), 464, 468 + + + James, Henry, 6, 16, 401, 509 + + Janauschek (actress), 348 + + Janvier, Thomas Allibone, 169, 363, 433-437, 443 + + Jastrow, Dr. Morris, 364 + + Jefferson, Thomas, 50, 386, 418 + + Jenkins, Howard, 249 + + Jesuits, 191, 193, 197 + + Jew, Dutch, 467 + + Jew, Pennsylvania, 467, 514 + + Jew, Russian, 214, 282, 283, 297, 361, 460, 464-473, 525 + + Jews, religious liberty of, 177 + + Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 324 + + Johnson House, 297, 521 + + Johnson's, John G., art collection, 406 + + Jones's, 126, 210, 444, 456 + + Jourdain, M., 282 + + June, Jenny, 428 + + + _Kate Vincent_, 178 + + Keatings, the, 31 + + Kellogg, Clara Louise, 67 + + Kensington, 228, 297, 477 + + Kensington, England, 493 + + Keppel, Frederick, 376 + + Kings, the, 31 + + Kirk, John Foster, 337 + + Kirkbride's Insane Asylum, 263 + + Kneller, portrait-painter, 389 + + Knight, Ridgway, 393 + + Kuegler, Franz, 402 + + + _La Belle Helene_, 68 + + _La Grande Duchesse_, 68 + + La Pierre House, 148 + + _Ladies' Home Journal_, 355 + + Ladies of the Sacred Heart, 72, 93 + Convent, 72 sq. + + _Lady of Shalott_, 27, 373 + + Lalanne etchings, 395 + + Lamb, Charles, 126, 324 + + _Lamplighter, The_, 56 + + Long, John Luther, 363 + + Lathrop, Mr. and Mrs. George, 347 + + Latin Quarter, 411 + + Laurel Hill, 521 + + Law Courts, 468, 500 + + Law School, building, 529 + + Lea, Henry Charles, 313, 363 + + League Island, 529 + + Leary's, 126 + + _Ledger_ (newspaper), 113, 341, 355 + + Lee, Vernon (Violet Paget), 260 + + Leland, Charles Godfrey, 42, 234-238, 240-244, 254, 257, 263, 272, + 275, 276, 316, 319-330, 332, 335, 344-348, 396, 399, 405 + + Leland, Charles Godfrey, _Memoirs_ of, 276 + + L'Enfant (architect), 533 + + Leslie, Margaret (artist), 396 + + Leslie, Miss, Cookery Book, 313, 423-437 + + Levi, Eliphas, 242 + + Lewises, 50 + + Li Hung Chang, 20, 513 + + Library, Bryn Mawr College, 307 + + Library of Congress, 309 + + Library, Free Public, 307, 534 + + Library, Friends', Germantown, 307 + + Library, Historical Society, 307 + + Library, Mercantile, 114, 241 + + Library, Philadelphia, 24, 114, 241, 290, 307, 455 + + Library, Ridgway, 241, 307, 364 + + _Life of Blake_, 119 + + Lionardo da Vinci, 402 + + Lippincott, Horace Mather, 6, 361 + + Lippincott, J. B., 124, 313 + + Lippincott's (book-store), 125, 313, 315 + + _Lippincott's Magazine_, 243, 314, 315, 337, 341, 427 + + Lithuanians (immigrants), 468, 473 + + "Little England" of Kensington, 19 + + "Little Street of Clubs, the," 351, 406 + + _Lives of the Artists_, 373 + + Locust Street, 472 + + Logan, Deborah, 309 + + Logan, James, 31, 177, 184, 241, 307, 417, 421, 518 + + Logan Square, 120, 162, 500 + + Loganian Library (see Ridgway), 364 + + Lombard Street, 472 + + Long Branch, 169 + + Longfellow, Henry W., 320, 329 + + _Looking Backward_, 338 + + _Lost Heiress, The_, 59 + + Lowell, James Russell, 316 + + + Macalisters, the, 31 + + McCalls, the, 158 + + McCarter, Henry, artist, 407 + + MacVeagh, Wayne, 343 + + Madeira (wine), 55, 153, 417-423, 506, 510 + + Maeennerchor Garden, 500 + + Main Line, 31, 123, 297 + + Main Street in Germantown, 297 + + Manayunk, 522 + + Maria, Father de, 191 + + Marion, General Francis, 216 + + "Market, Arch, Race and Vine," 281 + + Market Street, 119, 120, 123, 157, 281, 294, 310, 329, 451, 456, 489 + + Martin, Madame, 137, 138 + + Maryland, Eastern Shore of, 219 + + Matisse, artist, 402 + + Mayflower (ship), 219, 525 + + Meeting-Houses, 188, 281, 517 + + _Meg Merrilies_, 27, 68, 375 + + Memorial Hall, 213, 405, 526 + + Mennonites in Germantown, 176 + + Mercantile Library, 114, 241, 307 + + Merritt, Mrs. Anna Lea, 393 + + Methodists, 183 + + Mifflin, Mrs. (Art Club), 399 + + Millais, John Everett, 275 + + Miller, Leslie, 396 + + Milton, John, 308 + + Mint, United States, 108, 130, 379, 459, 533 + + _Mischief in the Middle Ages_, 243 + + Mitchell, Dr. S. Weir, 6, 357, 363, 456 + + Moore, Mrs. Bloomfield, 379 + + Moran family, 394 + + Moravians, monasteries of, 176 + + Morrises, the, 216 + + Morris, Gouverneur, 133 + + Morris, Harrison S., 362 + + Morris House, 297, 521 + + Morris, William, 400, 408 + + Mother Goose, 242 + + Mount Airy, 170 + + Mount Pleasant, 31, 299 + + Moxon's _Tennyson_, 372 + + Moyamensing Prison, 263 + + Murillo (painting), 372 + + Mustin's, 125 + + + Napoleon, pictures of, 374 + + Narragansett Pier, 169 + + Nash, Richard ("Beau"), 145 + + Natatorium, 139, 140, 145, 499 + + _Nation_, the (New York), 249 + + _National Observer_, 294 + + Navy Yard, 529 + + New Century Club, 494 + + New Testament (German), 310 + + New Year's Day, 152 + + New York magazines, 337 + + Newman's _Callista_, 59 + + Nilsson, Christine, 401 + + Ninth and Green (streets), 489, 500 + + Nordau, Max, 402 + + Norrises, the, 216 + + Norris, Isaac, 15, 417 + + _North American_, the, 355 + + Northern Liberties, 522 + + + Oakdale Park, 293 + + Oakley, Thornton, 406 + + Oakley, Violet, 406 + + _Old Mam'selle's Secret_, 335 + + Old Swedes Church, 114, 120 + + Orpheus Club, 153 + + Ouida's Guardsman, 275 + + _Our American Cousin_, 67 + + _Our Continent_, 337, 341 + + _Our Convent Days_, 88, 358 + + _Ours_, 67 + + Oxford (England), 86, 529 + + Oxford, Dr. (cookery books), 424 + + + Page, George Bispham, architect, 407 + + Paget, Violet (Vernon Lee), 260 + + Park (see Fairmount), 534, 538 + + Parkway, the new, 405, 534 + + Parrish, Maxfield, 406 + + Parrish, Stephen, 396 + + Patterson, General, house of, 108, 459 + + Peale, Charles Wilson, 389 + + Pegasus Societies, 352 + + Penn Club, 351 + + Penn, John, 517 + + Penn, William, 2, 9, 10, 15, 24, 31, 35, 36, 74, 85, 117, 219, 260, + 282, 287-289, 290, 294, 375, 382, 408, 417, 421, 455, 456, 474, + 500, 526, 533 + + Penn, William, statue of, 9 + + Pennell, Joseph, 1, 24, 203, 219, 237, 246, 268, 271-303, 308, 337, + 338, 341, 348, 351, 357, 368, 376, 380, 393-395, 474 + + Pennock Brothers, 144, 439 + + Pennsbury, 31 + + Pennsylvania Historical Society, 6, 157, 216, 290, 315, 364 + + Pennsylvania Hospital, 24, 114, 277, 358, 460 + + Pennsylvania Jew, 467 + + Pennsylvania, promotion of science by, 309 + + Pennsylvania Railroad, 276 + + Pennsylvania Railroad Station, 276, 448, 451 + + Pennsylvania, University of, 143, 162, 173, 258, 358, 364, 473, 496, + 526 + + Pennypacker, Governor, 307 + + Peppers, the, 50, 399 + + _Peterson's_ (magazine), 314, 337 + + Philadelphia Art Club, 324 + + Philadelphia Bank, 49 + + Philadelphia Club, 153, 316, 443, 510 + + Philadelphia Library, 24, 114, 241, 290, 307, 313, 315, 455 + + _Philadelphia Saturday Museum_, 314 + + Phillips, John S., 376 + + Philosophical Society, American, 418 + + Picasso, artist, 402 + + Plastic Club, 406 + + Pocahontas, 9 + + Poe, Edgar Allan, 27, 316 + + Poor Richard (club), 352 + + Poor Richard's Almanac, 310 + + Poore, Harry, 271, 272 + + Pope of Rome, 120 + + Pope's Head, 310 + + Porter and Coates, 125, 315 + + Post-Impressionists, 381 + + Powhatan, 9 + + Pre-Raphaelites, 373, 390 + + Presbyterian Building, 271 + + Presbyterians, 176, 183 + + _Press_, the, 245 + + Provence, 60 + + Public Buildings (see City Hall), 10, 526 + + Public Industrial Art School, 405 + + _Punch_ (London), 250 + + Puritans (New England), 417 + + Putnam (N. Y. publisher), 315 + + Pyle, Howard, 249, 393 + + + Quakers (see Friends), 15 + + _Queechy_, 59, 335 + + + Race (Sassafras) Street, 281 + + Racquets Club, 499, 529 + + Rafael (pictures), 372, 375 + + Ralph (Franklin's friend), 310 + + Randolph House, 463 + + Reading Terminal, 538 + + Redfield, Edward W., artist, 407 + + Rembrandt (painting), 246, 406 + + Renaissance, period of, 11 + + Repplier, Agnes, 6, 88, 358 + + Revolution (American), 382, 389, 418, 518, 525 + + Rhodes scholars, 80, 529 + + Richards, William T., artist, 393 + + Ridgway Library, 241, 307, 364 + + Rittenhouse Smiths, 363 + + Rittenhouse Square, 24, 91, 120, 139, 198, 456 + + Ritz-Carlton (hotel), 148, 414, 447 + + _Robin Hood_ (Howard Pyle's), 249 + + Robins, Edward, Jr., 358 + + Robins, Edward, Sr., 1, 50, 54, 56, 74, 81, 107, 111, 123, 130, 138, + 178, 181, 183, 187, 200, 239, 244, 259, 260, 263, 294, 307, 323, + 371, 372, 374, 375, 423, 427, 459, 500, 505 + + Robins, Grant, 139, 140, 147, 165, 216, 505 + + Robins, Mrs. Thomas, 40, 41, 43, 53, 54, 50, 60, 61, 183, 239, 268, + 437 + + Robins, Thomas, 1, 35-36, 41, 43, 48-63, 107, 178, 183, 219, 222, 307, + 314, 357, 373-375, 413, 421, 459 + + Robinson, Mary (Mme. Duclaux), 260 + + Rogers, Fairman, 493 + + "Rogers Group," 39, 374, 375 + + Romanticists (artists), 390 + + Roosevelt, Theodore, 506 + + Rorer, Mrs. (cookery book), 428 + + Ross, Betsy, house of, 281 + + Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 119, 372, 373 + + Rossetti, William Michael, 119, 284 + + _Routledge_, 59 + + Royal Academy, 389, 411 + + Royal Exchange, 411 + + _Rubaiyat_, the, 401 + + Rubens (painting), 246 + + Rue de Rivoli, 225 + + Rush, Dr. Benjamin, 241, 307 + + Rush, Mrs., social leader, 146 + + Ruskin, John, 287, 400, 402 + + Russian Jew, 214, 282, 283, 297, 361, 460, 464-471, 473 + + + Sacred Heart, Ladies of the, 72 + Convent of, 72 sq., 258 + + St. Andrew's (church), 184 + + St. Augustine's (church), 198 + + St. Clement's (church), 184, 278 + + St. James's (church), 183 + + St. John's (church), 183, 199, 200, 203 + + St. Joseph's (church), 64, 91, 183, 184, 187, 188, 191, 193-199 + + St. Mark's (church), 183, 200 + + St. Mary's (church), 184, 198, 199, 278 + + St. Michael's (church), 198 + + St. Patrick's (church), 91, 183, 199, 200, 203 + + St. Paul's (school), 162 + + St. Peter's (church), 108, 114, 183, 188, 277, 463, 514 + + Salons (Paris), 411 + + Sargent, John S., artist, 393 + + Sartain, Miss Emily, 338, 393 + + Sartain, William, 393 + + _Sartain's Union Magazine_, 314 + + Sassafras (Race) Street, 281 + + Saturday Club, 152 + + _Saturday Evening Post_, 355 + + Saur's New Testament, 310 + + Sautter's, 126, 444, 449, 456, 506 + + Schaumberg, Emily, 107 + + School Board, 259 + + School of Industrial Arts, 257, 330, 332, 405 + + Schools, Public, 335 + + Schuylkill (river), 173, 276, 281, 294, 299, 362, 451, 468, 481, 496, + 538 + + Scott, Walter, 59 + heroines of, 27, 375 + novels of, 197, 335, 336, 427 + + Second Street, 42, 137, 147, 148, 166, 277, 517 + + Second Street Market, 114, 120, 277 + + Seminary at Villanova, 198 + + Senat, Prosper, 395 + + Seville (churches of), 199 + + Shakespeare Societies, 352 + + Shakespeare, William, 68, 332, 363, 401 + + Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 145, 313 + + Sheppard, J. B. & Sons, 125 + + Shinn (apothecary), 459 + + Shippen, Edward, 42 + + Shippen, Peggy, 31, 162 + + "Shippen, Peggy," 162, 356 + + Shippens, the, 158 + + Simses, the, 158 + + Sketch Club, 406 + + Sky-scrapers, 355, 530 + + Slavs (immigrants), 468, 471 + + Smarius, Father, 193 + + Smedley, William T., artist, 393 + + Smith, Albert, 263 + + Smith, Jessie Wilcox, 406 + + Smith, Lloyd, 242 + + Smith, Logan Pearsall, 364 + + Smith, Provost, house of, 281 + + Society Hill, 522 + + _Solon Shingle_, 67 + + Sons of Pennsylvania, 219, 221 + + Sothern, Edward Askew, 68 + + South Kensington, England, 408 + + South Street, 472 + + Southwark, 522 + + Southworth, Mrs. Emma D. E. Nevitt, 59 + + _Souvenir, The_, 314 + + Springett, Guli, 15 + + Spruce Street, 28, 42, 48 sq., 60, 63, 104, 107, 108, 113, 114, 215, + 245, 253, 282, 460, 468, 538 + + State House, the, 113, 158, 220, 277, 358, 382, 471, 514 + + State in Schuylkill, 443 + + Station (Broad and Market), 489 + + Stations and terminals, 12, 28, 276, 481, 489, 538 + + Stations (railroad), 481, 489, 538 + + Steadmans, the, 31 + + Steevens, George, 449, 478 + + Stenton, 31, 297, 298, 518 + + Stephens (artist), 396 + + Stephens, Alice Barber, 396 + + Stephens, Charles H., 396 + + Stevenson, Mrs. Cornelius, 364 + + Stewardson, John, architect, 407 + + Stewart, Jules, 393 + + Stock Exchange, 54, 107, 111, 468, 486, 500 + + Stockton, Frank R., 336, 338 + + Stockton, Louise, 338 + + Stokes, Frank W., artist, 406 + + Strawberry Mansion, 210, 299, 430 + + Strawbridge and Clothier, 125 + + Stuart, Gilbert, artist, 389 + + Stuart, Gilbert, picture of Washington by, 41, 374, 375, 447 + + Swarthmore (school), 258 + + Swedes (immigrants), 471 + + Swedes Church, Old, 114, 277, 514 + + + _Telegraph, Evening_, 246 + + Temple, the (London), 324 + + Tennyson's Poems, 27, 372, 373 + + Terminals (railroad), 12, 481, 489, 538 + + Terry, Ellen, 401 + + Thackeray (William Makepeace), 151, 294, 422 + + Thanksgiving Day, 63 + + Theatre Francais, 68 + + Theatres, 67 + + Thiers' _French Revolution_, 375 + + Third Street, 28, 107, 111, 113, 134, 137, 187, 206, 278, 290, 486 + + Thomas, George C., 307 + + Thompson, "Aunt Ad," 342 + + Thouron, Henry, 406 + + Torresdale, 28, 31, 72 sq., 123, 191, 258, 278, 451 + + Tourgee, Judge Albion W., 338 + + Traubel, Horace, 364 + + _Traveller, The_, 315 + + Treaty with the Indians (Penn), 375 + + Tree, Beerbohm, 68 + + Trollope, Anthony, 401 + + Trotter, Mary, 396 + + Trumbauer, Horace, architect, 407 + + Tuileries (Paris), 222, 533 + + Twelfth and Market, 489 + + Twelfth Street Market, 54 + + + Union League, 152, 443, 447, 533 + + University of Pennsylvania, 143, 162, 173, 258, 307, 364, 473, 496, + 526, 529 + + University, Provosts of, 119 + + University School (architecture), 407 + + + Van Rensselaer, Mrs. John King, 363 + + Van Tromp, Miss, miniatures, 395 + + Vaux, Richard, 342 + + Vicaire (_Bibliographie_), 424 + + Vienna Cafes (Centennial), 210, 227 + + Villanova Seminary, 198 + + Villon, Francois, essay on, 238 + + Virginia Company, the first, 219 + + Virginia, early settlers in, 216, 219 + + Voltaire (author), 428, 513 + + + Walnut Lane, 298, 538 + + Walnut Street, 184, 203, 297, 468, 489, 494, 538 + + Walnut Street Theatre, 67 + + Wanamaker's, 530 + + War, Civil, the, 130 + + Ward, Genevieve, 348 + + Wardle, Thomas (bookseller), 313 + + Washington (city), 226, 534 + + Washington, George, 44, 119, 215, 290, 482, 526 + + Washington's Birthday, 63 + + Washington's household, 44, 433 + + Washington, statue of, 386 + + Waterloo (eve of), 254 + + Water-Works (Fairmount), 64, 67, 299, 533 + + Watson, John, 6, 356, 357, 413 + + Watts, Harvey M., 362 + + Waugh, Frederick J., marine painter, 406 + + Welsh, John, 50 + + West, Benjamin, 64, 389 + + West Philadelphia, 126, 294, 297, 468, 529, 538 + + Wharton, Anne Hollingsworth, 6, 361 + + Whartons, the, 50, 145, 216 + + Whelans, the, 31 + + Whistler, James A. McNeill, 16, 395, 396, 405, 534 + + White, Ambrose, 78, 120 + + White, Bishop, 290 + + White, Dr. (dentist), 64 + + White, William, 144 + + White, Willie, 144, 145 + + Whitefield, George, 177 + + Whitman, Walt, 119, 316, 324-331, 336, 337, 344, 347, 364 + + Whittier, John G., 320 + + _Wide, Wide World, The_, 59, 335 + + Widener, Peter A. B., 307, 406 + + Wilde, Oscar, 344, 347 + + Williams, Dr. Francis Howard, 336, 362 + + Williams, Dr. Talcott, 364 + + Willing's Alley, 184 + + Willings, the, 158 + + Willis, N. P., 316 + + Willow Grove, 213 + + Wilstach Collection, 405 + + Wise, Herbert C., 361 + + Wissahickon (creek), 177, 298, 299 + + Wistar House, 297, 521 + + Wistar parties, 146 + + Wister, Mrs., authoress, 335, 336 + + Wister, Owen, 363 + + "Wister, Sally," 162, 356 + + Wisters, the, 107 + + Woman in White (German mystics), 176 + + Woman's School of Design, 405 + + Wood, Bishop, 200, 203 + + Woodland's, 126 + + Wren, Sir Christopher, 283, 289, 533 + + Wyck, 297, 521 + + Wyeth's, 126, 456 + + + Yale (college), 162 + + Yearly Meeting, 289 + + _Yellow Buskin_, the, 405 + + + Zantzinger, C. C., architect, 407 + + Zola, Emile, 259 + + + + + IN THE LAND OF TEMPLES + + By JOSEPH PENNELL + + Reproductions of a series of lithographs + by him, together with impressions and + notes by the artist and an introduction by + W. H. D. ROUSE, M.A., L.H.D. + + _Crown Quarto, printed on dull finished + paper, lithograph by Mr. Pennell on cover. + $1.25 net._ + + + JOSEPH PENNELL'S PICTURES OF THE PANAMA + CANAL + + Reproductions of a series of twenty-eight + lithographs made on the Isthmus of Panama, + January-March, 1912, with Mr. Pennell's + introduction, giving his experiences, + impressions, and full description of each + picture. + + _Volume 7-1/4 by 10 inches. Beautifully + printed on dull finished paper. Lithograph + by Mr. Pennell on cover. $1.25 net._ + + + LIFE OF JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER + + By ELIZABETH R. and JOSEPH PENNELL + + The Pennells have thoroughly revised the + material in their Authorized Life, and + added much new matter, which for lack of + space they were unable to incorporate in + the elaborate two-volume edition now out + of print. Fully illustrated with 96 plates + reproduced from Whistler's works, more + than half reproduced for the first time. + + _Crown octavo. Fifth and revised edition. + Whistler binding, deckle edge, $3.50 net. + Three quarters grain levant, $7.50 net._ + + + J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY + PUBLISHERS PHILADELPHIA + + + + + +----------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Notes: | + | | + | Obvious punctuation errors repaired. | + | | + | Printer errors corrected. These include: | + | - Page 74, Illustration caption "Loudorn" corrected to be | + | "Loudoun" (LOUDOUN, MAIN STREET GERMANTOWN) | + | - Page 152, word "Fast" corrected to be "East" (Italy and the | + | East) | + | - Page 157 and 313, word "Pensylvania" corrected to be | + | "Pennsylvania" (Historical Society of Pennsylvania) | + | - Page 170, word "Philadephia" corrected to be "Philadelphia" | + | (reception in Philadelphia) | + | - Page 174, word "to" corrected to be "too" (all too short at | + | the best) | + | - Page 402, word "Nordan" corrected to be "Nordau" (from | + | Lionardo to Nordau) | + | - Page 486, word "Your" corrected to be "You" (You are welcome)| + | | + | Index entries that do not match their referred text corrected | + | (except if the referred text is an obvious typo). These | + | include: | + | - Index entry "Beidelman" corrected to be "Beidleman" | + | - Index entry "Cimabue" corrected to be "Cimabue" | + | - Index entry "Francesco da Rimini" corrected to be "Francesca | + | da Rimini" | + | - Index entry "Greland" corrected to be "Grelaud" | + | - Index entry "Hughes and Muller" corrected to be | + | "Hughes and Mueller" | + | - Index entry "Kugler" corrected to be "Kuegler" | + | - Index entry "Maennerchor" corrected to be "Maeennerchor" | + | - Index entry "Racquet Club" corrected to be "Racquets Club" | + | - Index entry "Tourgee" corrected to be "Tourgee" | + | - Index entry "Vieaire" corrected to be "Vicaire" | + | | + | Index page references that erroneously lead to pages without | + | text (blank or illustration only) were removed. | + | | + | The author's variable spelling has been kept. This includes: | + | - Both "ailantus" and "ailanthus" | + | - Both "baptised" and "baptized" | + | - Both "bookseller" and "book-seller" | + | - Both "colored" and "coloured" | + | - Both "Delancey" and "De Lancey" | + | - Both "dreamt" and "dreamed" | + | - Both "encyclopaedia" and "encyclopedia" | + | - Both "everyday" and "every-day" | + | - Both "football" and "foot-ball" | + | - Both "forefathers" and "fore-fathers" | + | - Both "halfway" and "half-way" | + | - Both "learnt" and "learned" | + | - Both "neighborhood" and "neighbourhood" | + | - Both "nowadays" and "now-a-days" | + | - Both "realise" and "realize" | + | - Both "refashioning" and "re-fashioning" | + | - Both "reunion" and "re-union" | + | - Both "role" and "role" | + | - Both "splendor" and "splendour" | + | - Both "uptown" and "up-town" | + | - "Waterworks," "Water Works," and "Water-Works" | + | | + | Some advertisements for other books published by J. B. | + | Lippincot were moved from page ii to the end of the text. | + | | + +----------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Our Philadelphia, by Elizabeth Robins Pennell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUR PHILADELPHIA *** + +***** This file should be named 38076.txt or 38076.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/0/7/38076/ + +Produced by Judith Wirawan, Suzanne Shell, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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