THE OLD TOWER OF INDEPENDENCE HALL WHERE RANG THE LIBERTY BELL
THE
PROMISE OF THE BELL
Christmas in Philadelphia
When from the wooden steeple of the Philadelphia State House (the Nation’s birthplace, and the most sacred spot on American soil) the Liberty Bell rang out its message of freedom “throughout the land,” it did more than proclaim the Declaration of Independence, and it did more than summon the colonists to defend that independence with their lives. It promised them in a beautiful and borrowed phrase the reward of their valour. It affirmed their inalienable right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”; thus linking with bare existence two things which give it worth, thus striving to ennoble and embellish the length of years which lie between man’s cradle and his grave.
Never was phrase more profoundly English or more profoundly Greek in its rational conception of values. It means a vast deal more than the privilege of casting a ballot, which privilege has been always praised and glorified beyond its deserts. “The liberty to discover and pursue a natural happiness,” says Santayana, “the liberty to grow wise, and live in friendship with the gods and with one another, was the liberty vindicated by the martyrdom of Thermopylæ, and by the victory of Salamis.” It is also the liberty which England has always prized and cherished, and which has promoted the thoroughly English qualities of “solidity and sense, independence of judgment, and idiosyncrasy of temperament.” To the colonists it opened a fair vista, a widening of their somewhat restricted horizon, a very definite and shining goal, well worth their resolute endeavour.
When on the 23d of October, 1781, three hours before sunrise, a watchman called through the quiet streets of Philadelphia, “Past three o’clock, and Lord Cornwallis is taken,” the city awoke to a refreshing sense of safety and exhilaration. The war was not over; but victory was assured, and, with it, life and liberty. There remained the pursuit of happiness, and it was undertaken in good faith, and without undue delay. A sober and sedate community, kept in order by Quaker dominance, Philadelphians had always shown a singular capacity for enjoying themselves when they had the chance. They had danced twelve hours at the Mischianza,—a notable achievement. They had promoted horse-racing, condoned bull-baiting, and had been “decently drunk” from time to time at punch parties on the river. Now, deeming pleasure to be one approach to happiness, they opened the old Southwark theatre, which had led a life of sore vicissitudes, rechristened it cautiously the Academy of Polite Science, and gave a performance of Beaumarchais’s “Eugénie,” in honour of Washington, who graced the occasion with his presence. He was escorted to his box by attendants bearing wax candles in silver candlesticks, a deferential courtesy which made him distinctly and desirably visible to the audience in the dimly lit theatre.
Nothing in the way of entertainment came amiss to people whose hearts were at ease, and who were unspoiled by wealth or poverty. They went to Washington’s rigidly formal receptions. They danced as gaily, if not as long, at the Assembly balls, and at the less august tradesmen’s balls, as they had danced at the Mischianza and at the Fête du Dauphin. They dined well with such hosts as Robert Morris and William Bingham. They opened hospitable doors to strangers, who sometimes thought them dull; “the men grave, the women serious,” wrote Brissot de Warville in 1788. They feasted on Christmas Day, and they built bonfires on the Fourth of July. They rode to hounds. They began the long career of parades and processions which have always been dear to the city’s heart, and which the famous New Year Mummers have by now carried to the wonder point of gaiety, brilliancy, and burlesque.
Eating and drinking were the fundamentals of enjoyment in the Quaker town, as they have been in all cities and in all ages of the world. But it was eating and drinking relished “as the sane and exhilarating basis of everything else”; and its most precious asset was companionship. When the Chevalier de Luzerne drank twelve cups of tea during the course of a winter afternoon call upon Mrs. Robert Morris, it was not because he doted on the beverage. No Frenchman has ever shared Dr. Johnson’s passion for tea. It was for love of the warm brightly lit rooms (warm rooms were no everyday indulgence in the era of open fires and Franklin stoves), and for love of his agreeable hostess, and of the animated and purposeful conversation. When John Adams “drank Madeira at a great rate” at the house of Chief Justice Chew, “and found no inconvenience in it,” it was not because he was a tippler; but because the generous wine quieted his anxious thoughts, and stimulated him to match mind with mind in the sympathetic society of his friends.
Indeed, the drinking of Madeira was in the nature of a ceremonial rite. Even in the days of Penn no serious business was enacted, no compact sealed, no social gathering complete without this glass of wine. It signified good-fellowship and good-will; and when Penn returned to England for the last time, he left his little store of wine in the cellar of the Letitia House “for the use and entertainment of strangers,” which was a gracious thing to do.