It cannot be expected that persons, educated like the Quakers, should
assimilate much in their manners to other people. The very dress they
wear, which is so different from that of others, would give them a stiff
appearance in the eyes of the world, if nothing else could be found to
contribute towards it. Excluded also from much intercourse with the
world, and separated at a vast distance from it by the singularity of
many of their customs, they would naturally appear to others to be close
and reserved. Neither is it to be expected that those, whose spirits
are never animated by music, or enlivened by the exhibitions of the
theatre, or the diversions which others follow, would have other than
countenances that were grave. Their discipline also, which calls them so
frequently to important duties, and the dispatch of serious business,
would produce the same feature. I may observe also, that a peculiarity
of gait, which might be mistaken for awkwardness, might not unreasonably
be expected in those, who had neither learned to walk under the guidance
of a dancing, master, nor to bow under the direction of the dominion of
fashion. If those and those only are to be esteemed really polished and
courteous, who bow and scrape, and salute each other by certain
prescribed gestures, then the Quakers will appear to have contracted
much rust, and to have an indisputable right to the title of a clownish
and inflexible people.
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