Page:The Promise of the Bell (1924).pdf/14

 more and more citizens seek every year this method of escape, the abandoned city grows more and more downcast and forlorn. It is to be forever regretted that its oldest streets, lined with houses of unsurpassable dignity, should have degenerated into filthy slums, where an alien population violates every tradition of reticence and propriety. Christ Church, Gloria Dei, and Saint Peter's still stand inviolate, keeping their dirty neighbours at arm's length with green churchyards and cherished slips of lawn. Indeed, churchyards, which were once in disfavour, have come to be highly commended. They interpose their undesecrated neatness between many an ancient place of worship and its elbowing associates.

To the visitor who is not casual, to a few careful observers like Mrs. Pennell and Christopher Morley, and to those Philadelphians who love her pavements better than turf, and her brick walls better than trees, Penn's city has a charm which enterprise and immigrant are equally powerless to destroy. It is a beauty faded with years, and dimmed by neglect, and it lies hidden away in quiet nooks and corners; but none the less is it apparent to the eye of the artist and the antiquarian. The Bell, the joyous, old Liberty Bell, is, indeed, housed with appropriate splendour. It has been carried over the country in a series of triumphant processions, and many thousands of Americans have greeted it with reverence. But the deepening fissure in its side now calls imperatively for rest; and Independence Hall—a remarkably agreeable example of