Page:Our Philadelphia (Pennell, 1914).djvu/288

 CHAPTER XI: THE ROMANCE OF WORK

I

WAS still in the stage of wonder and joy at seeing myself in print, when work and Philadelphia joined in the most unlooked for manner to help me tell my Grandmother that "something" she was so anxiously waiting to hear. An article on Philadelphia which an intelligent Editor asked me to write was my introduction to J. The town that we both love first brought us together, as it now brings us back to it together after the many years that have passed since it laid the foundation of our long partnership.

I would say nothing about the article at this late date had it not added so materially to my life and to my knowledge of Philadelphia. I am not proud of it as a piece of literary work. But it seems, as I recall the days of my apprenticeship, to mark the turning of the ways, to point to the new road I was destined to take. I got it out the other day, the first time in over a quarter of a century, proposing to reprint it, thinking the contrast between my impressions of Philadelphia thirty years ago and my impressions of Philadelphia to-day might be amusing. In memory, it had remained a brilliant performance, one any editor would be pleased to jump at, and I was astonished to find it youthful and crude, inarticulate, inadequate not