According to Dr. Weir Mitchell, Philadelphia was famous for its Madeira, which, being a temperamental wine, throve best in that serene atmosphere, and in the careful hands of Philadelphians. It was kept by preference in demijohns, and lived in moderate darkness under the roof, where it “accumulated virtues like a hermit.” For seventy years—the allotted years of man—it could be trusted to acquire merit. After that period, it began—like man—to deteriorate. When its owner was compelled by circumstance to house it in the cellar, it was suffered to rest and revive for a day or two in a warm room on its way to the dining-table; and the bottles were carried with infinite tenderness lest the wine be bruised in the transit. A crust of bread was placed by every glass to “clean the palate” before drinking. Elizabeth Robins Pennell tells us that, in her grandfather’s old-fashioned household, Madeira was the wine of ceremony, dedicated to the rites of hospitality, sacred to the stranger, to whom it was offered like the bread and salt of the Arab, and with whom it established (if the stranger knew anything about wine) a bond of sympathy and understanding.
When in the winter of 1799 the directors of the Mutual or “Green Tree” Assurance Company were holding their annual dinner, word was brought them of Washington’s death. They charged their glasses, rose to their feet, and gravely drank to his memory. In the century and a quarter which have intervened since then, the rite has been yearly repeated. Even to-day, though the toast may no longer be drunk, the diners rise, the words are spoken, and the dead leader is honoured by the living.
How cordial, how dignified, how intelligent was this hospitality practised by men who were pursuing happiness along tranquil and rational lines! How immaculately free from the grossness of Georgian drunkenness, and from the grossness of Victorian gluttony! It is true that boned turkey and terrapin were making their way to tables where wild ducks and venison had always been plentiful, and where dairy products, made perfect by practice, were admittedly the finest in the land. But it was companionship and conversation, “the liberty to grow wise and live in friendship with one another,” which citizens prized, and which strangers recognized and remembered. Philadelphia, said the poet Moore, was the only American city in which he felt tempted to linger. It was the silver talk, alternating with golden silence, which made the nights speed by when friend met friend, and the wreckage of years was forgotten.
“And the men that were boys when I was a boy
Shall sit and drink with me.”
The Wistar parties were born naturally into a world where social intercourse was pleasant and esteemed. First a few friends dropped casually in upon Dr. Caspar Wistar, and sat by his fire on winter nights. Then he asked a few more. By 1811 the custom was an established one, and every Saturday night Dr. Wistar entertained his guests, among them any foreigners of distinction who chanced to be visiting Philadelphia. His house at Fourth and Prune Streets was spacious; the supper he provided was simple and sufficient. In 1818 he died, and his friends wisely resolved to perpetuate his name by perpetuating his hospitality. A hundred years is a respectable age for any social observance to reach in the United States; but Philadelphians reckon such things by centuries. Their tenacity in clinging to old customs, and maintaining them unchanged, is a valiant and poignant protest against the ills done to their town by modernity.
For more than any other American city, Philadelphia has suffered the loss of her comeliness, a comeliness that was very dear to those who first heard the promise of the Bell. “After our cares for the necessities of life are over,” said the wise Franklin, “we shall come to think of its embellishments.” In the pursuit of a rational happiness, Philadelphians devoted time, thought, and money to the embellishment of their daily lives. They had an unerring taste in architecture and decoration. Their portraits were painted by good artists, Peale and Stuart and Sully. Trim gardens lent brilliancy of colour to their handsome, sober homes. They made of “Faire Mount” hill a thing of beauty, a little spot of classic grace and charm, which artists loved, and politicians ruthlessly destroyed—perhaps because it was the only thing in the nature of an eminence to break the level surface on which Penn laid out his checkerboard town.
To the casual visitor of to-day, Philadelphia seems an ugly and shabby city, set in the fields of Paradise. Surroundings of exceptional loveliness have lured the town-dweller from his narrow streets, from soot and grime and perpetual racket, to pursue happiness in the clean and composed life of the country. And as more and more citizens seek every year this method of escape, the abandoned city grows more and more downcast and forlorn. It is to be forever regretted that its oldest streets, lined with houses of unsurpassable dignity, should have degenerated into filthy slums, where an alien population violates every tradition of reticence and propriety. Christ Church, Gloria Dei, and Saint Peter’s still stand inviolate, keeping their dirty neighbours at arm’s length with green churchyards and cherished slips of lawn. Indeed, churchyards, which were once in disfavour, have come to be highly commended. They interpose their undesecrated neatness between many an ancient place of worship and its elbowing associates.
To the visitor who is not casual, to a few careful observers like Mrs. Pennell and Christopher Morley, and to those Philadelphians who love her pavements better than turf, and her brick walls better than trees, Penn’s city has a charm which enterprise and immigrant are equally powerless to destroy. It is a beauty faded with years, and dimmed by neglect, and it lies hidden away in quiet nooks and corners; but none the less is it apparent to the eye of the artist and the antiquarian. The Bell, the joyous, old Liberty Bell, is, indeed, housed with appropriate splendour. It has been carried over the country in a series of triumphant processions, and many thousands of Americans have greeted it with reverence. But the deepening fissure in its side now calls imperatively for rest; and Independence Hall—a remarkably agreeable example of colonial architecture—is the Mecca of patriotic pilgrims. All the year round they come to look upon the room where the Declaration of Independence was signed, and upon the Bell which rang its message to the land.