Some Advantages of Being a Philadelphian

THE CONTRIBUTORS’ CLUB

WHY need we pretend to ignore our advantages? Let us rather endeavor to live up to them.

I think it is Sherlock Holmes who says that he cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues, because, to the logician, and hings should appear exactly as they are; and it is Mr. Chesterton who has discovered that, ’All that is the matter with the proud is that they will not admit that they are vain.' Let us admit that we are both proud and vain, not indeed by our own merit, but by right of being born so, for being a Philadelphian is like being a Jew, — you cannot be one unless you are one; you cannot hope to become one; — and it has this at least in common with being a gentleman, that you have to begin several generations back.

There are those who have been born in my city, and who are called by her name, who yet, in some of the most ordinary affairs of life, betray the blood of an alien ancestor. For instance, your true Philadelphian is cautious in money matters, but dislikes to appear so. He has not that unfailing ability to extract a dollar’s worth for a dollar, which savors of the commercial rather than of the professional spirit. He can travel with frugality, and often does so, but he scorns to haggle. He will take a back room on the third floor, but it is beneath his dignity to dicker with the landlord. Not so a charming friend of mine with whom my happy lot was sometimes cast. I would turn a discreet and unconscious back to the hotel desk, while she interviewed the clerk; and I own that I would unblushingly accept the palatial accommodations (bath included) which resulted from her bargaining. Yet her very success betrayed the lurking taint: a New England grandfather! ‘Yankee’ was the opprobrious title by which we christened her, even while enjoying the free picnic luncheons which she convinced the landlord it was his duty to provide.

Then again, a genuine Philadelphian has a solemn and dignified sense of the responsibilities of hospitality. When you meet a charming hostess who welcomes you and your next of kin to dinner at a half-hour’s notice, or who throws wide her hospitable doors, for weeks at a time, to your daughters on their vacation, you may know that, she is not the real article. Her grandmother came from South Carolina. A person of that easy-going nature might be guilty of dark meat in the salad, or of veal in the chicken croquettes, or she might even be capable of not serving those delicacies at all.

In the matter of things to eat, I think that a Philadelphian’s advantages are so well known as to be generally conceded. Do not ‘Philadelphia squab,’ ‘Philadelphia capon,’figure on menus from New York to San Francisco? and among the delicacies, mind you, not the vulgar fare, like, shall we say, Baked Beans? In fact, when I consider the case of dwellers in other cities in respect to good eating, I see that it is questionable indeed. Suppose you live in Chicago, or Cleveland, or even Pittsburg, your oysters shall not be above suspicion, and your soft-shell crabs will figure so frequently at your company feasts as to prove that you consider them a delicacy. If you are a New Englander, your clams will be of a tough and uncanny variety, gruesome things with tails to them; if you live in Baltimore, you may be guilty of serving terrapin with white sauce; and if you are a dweller in San Francisco, you will probably eat shrimp salad. You may even eat it every day. I have an aunt (by marriage) who claims the doubtful advantage of being a New Yorker by birth, but who annually returns to her native flats, laden with two pounds of butter and a White Mountain cake. It was a friend and co-citizeness of hers who, upon a visit, was once heard to murmur that she missed her condensed milk! O haughty Gotham!

Your true Philadelphian is a person of forethought and precision. He prefers to take no chances. Such an one I once knew, who, planning a picnic, rode carefully beforehand over the route on horseback, and had the chickens for the sandwiches cooped up two weeks ahead, to be fattened.

The advantages of our manner of speaking the English language are not always recognized by our fellow countrymen. Last summer I met an old man from Providence. He was not a pleasant old man. I did n’t like him. ‘ People from Philadelphia,’ he announced, ‘say “Kiarr ” for “ Cah.”’ He was oblivious of the fact that he said ‘ Philadelphier.’ A gentle Brooklyn lady wished to save my feelings. ‘Why, I don’t think you talk like a Philadelphian,’ said she. She meant it for a compliment! For those who may be ignorant of the fact, I would explain that we, in Philadelphia, speak the English language in a plain and dignified and Doric manner, giving to each letter its full and proper value. We speak it without needless prettinesses; we do not, so to speak, quirk our little finger over the tea-cup, but grasp it boldly and solidly by the handle; and I defy any one not to understand what we mean. We speak the language, I repeat, plainly, clearly, and may I add, grammatically? We do not say, ‘Up to Portland,’or‘Standing back to,’ as do the dwellers in a certain pleasant town in Maine. We do not ‘Stop by for you,’ as our Louisville friends have been known to do; and although dwelling near Mason and Dixon’s line, we do not say ‘You all.' A German friend consulted me lately as to the latter phrase. ’Is it a Western expression?’ he asked; ‘I found it in a book of Jack London’s.’

It has not been our custom to parade our advantages. ’Why, where do your rich people live?’ asked a Western friend, surveying our discreet exteriors, with manifest leanings toward North Broad Street. So it is with our best silver, which we habitually keep at the bank, and even with our art treasures. It is not in New York that you hang your Botticellis in the back entry, and your Raphaels in the bathroom. Delightful people as many of you are, your goods are in the shop-window, you put the best foot foremost, we feel that we know all about you. Now, you never know all about us. We always keep a little something in reserve.

We have been reproached in the past with a too great interest in ancestry, and twitted with a lack of proper parallelism with present-day affairs. I would merely gently remind you that it is not in Philadelphia, but in Boston, that a daily paper runs a column of genealogies, presumably as items of current news.

Even in matters in which certain localities are supposed to excel, I have been struck by the easy supremacy of my native town. On a visit to New Orleans in the month of May, I naturally expected to see roses, but a cursory inspection of the gardens revealed nothing more interesting than sweet peas and nasturtiums, the mark of the lazy gardener all the world over. (I grow them myself.) No roses were to be bought, but a kind and attentive friend, hearing of my desire, returned triumphant with some magnificent carnations. ‘Where did they come from?’ I demanded. ’From Philadelphia,’ he admitted, crestfallen.

So, my fancy likes to picture us, seated upon the Keystone of the Arch, smiling gently down at those in less fortunate situations. I knew at least one man who was thus conscious of his advantages. At the time of the Chicago Exposition, when asked why he did not go to it, his reply was, to what purpose? He had seen the Centennial. Behold the Keystone attitude! And there— as a dist inguished gentleman might say — we are.