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.
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]
Bibliothèque 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-Elysées, [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],