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.
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.