Having had the misfortune to set the pitcher in my room down upon vacancy, instead of upon the wash-stand, and the natural consequence thereof being a crash and a flood, I reported the same, lest the chambermaid should suffer for my careless act. Of course, I found it charged in my bill, as I had intended, but with it the whole cost of the set to which it belonged! It never struck me, till I got home, that by right of proprietorship, I might have indulged in the little luxury of smashing the remainder--which I think of taking a special journey to Philadelphia to do!
I wonder--I suppose a body may wonder--if the outward sweeping and garnishing one sees in Philadelphia is symbolical of its inward purity? If the calm placidity of its inhabitants covers up smoldering volcanoes? It is none of my business, as you say; for all that, the old proverb--"Still waters run deepest"--would occur to me, as I walked those lovely streets. An eye-witness to the constant verification of this truth, in the white-washed, saintly atmosphere of the city of Boston, may certainly be forgiven a doubt. Do the Philadelphia churches, like theirs, contain a sprinkling of those meek-faced Pharisees, who weary Heaven with their long prayers, and in the next breath blast their neighbor's character; who contribute large sums to be heard of men, and frown away from their doors their poverty-stricken relatives? Do those nun-like Philadelphia women ever gossip, "Caudle lecture" and pout? Do those correct-looking men know the taste of champagne, and have they latch-keys? Are their Quaker habits pulled off, when they come "on business" to this seething Sodom? Or--is it true of them, as Mackay says of Lady Jane--
"Her pulse is calm--milk-white her skin, She hath not blood enough to sin."
It is none of my business, as you say; but still I know that white raiment is worn alike by the rosy bride and the livid corpse.
Mischief take these microscopic spectacles of mine! mounted on my nose by the hypocrites I have known, who glide ever between my outstretched arms of love and those whom I would enfold. Avaunt! I like Philadelphia, and I like the Philadelphians, and I _will_ believe in appearances once more before I die.