acknowledged, if not by all Philadelphia, by little groups of satellites revolving round them. Literary lights had come from under the bushel and were shining in high places. Societies had been industriously multiplying for the encouragement of literature. All such encouragement in my time had devolved upon the Penn Club that patronized literature, among its other interests, and wrote about books in its monthly journal and invited their authors to its meetings. During my absence, not only had the Penn Club continued to flourish—to such good purpose that J. and I were honoured by one of these invitations and felt that never again could Fame and Fate bring us such a triumphant moment, except when the Academy of Fine Arts paid us the same honour and so upset our old belief that no Philadelphian could ever be a prophet in Philadelphia!—but Philadelphia had broken out into a multitude of Clubs and Societies, beginning with the Franklin Inn, for Franklin is not to be got away from even in Clubland, and his Inn, I am assured, is the most comprehensive literary centre to which every author, every artist, every editor, every publisher who thinks himself something belongs to the number of one hundred—that there should be the chance of one hundred with the right to think themselves something in Philadelphia is the wonder!—and in the house in Camac Street, which one Philadelphian I know calls "The Little Street of Clubs," the members meet for light lunch and much talk and, it may be, other rites of which I could speak only from hearsay, my sex
