. Our Philadelphia. he years I was away from it than during the two centuriesbefore, and is to-day repenting in miles upon miles of shamColonial. But repentance cannot wipe away the tracesof sin—^cannot bring back the old Philadelphia I knew. I do not want to attribute too much to my new andonly partially developed power of observing. Had themeasuring worm not retreated before the sparrow, I mightperhaps have been less prepared during my walks with admit the beauty of the trees lining every street, as wellas of the houses they shaded. But what is the use oftroubling about the might-have-b
. Our Philadelphia. he years I was away from it than during the two centuriesbefore, and is to-day repenting in miles upon miles of shamColonial. But repentance cannot wipe away the tracesof sin—^cannot bring back the old Philadelphia I knew. I do not want to attribute too much to my new andonly partially developed power of observing. Had themeasuring worm not retreated before the sparrow, I mightperhaps have been less prepared during my walks with admit the beauty of the trees lining every street, as wellas of the houses they shaded. But what is the use oftroubling about the might-have-been? The importantthing is that, with him I did for the first time see howbeautiful are our green, well-shaded streets. With himtoo I first saw how beautiful is their symmetry as they runin their long straight lines and cross each other at rightangles. It was a symmetry I had confused with monotony,with which most Philadelphians, foolishly misled, still con-fuse it. They would rather, for the sake of variety, that. Sill -^.^M-A^if jx , . W^^ sV vlKf ija ,,, !%(** -w# i,-vwfyfi|^. FRANKLINS GRAVE THE ROMANCE OF WORK 287 Penn had left the building and growth of Philadelphia tochance as the founders of other American towns did—theywould rather boast with New York or Boston of the dis-orderly picturesqueness of streets that follow old cowtracks made before the town was. But Penn understoodthe value of order in architecture as in conduct. It istrue that Ruskin, the accepted prophet of my young days,did not include order among his Seven Lamps, but therewas a good deal Ruskin did not know about architecture,and a town like Paris in its respect for arrangement—fororder—for a thought-out plan—will teach more at a glancethan all his rhapsodies. Philadelphia has not the nobleperspectives of the French capital nor the splendid build-ings to complete them, but its despised regularity gives itthe repose, the serenity, which is an essential of great art,whether the art of the painte
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