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.