They
consider him, when he has used this freedom, to have acted as they
express it "kindly." Nothing can be more truly polite than that conduct
to another, by which he shall be induced to feel himself as comfortably
situated, as if he were in his own house.
As the Quakers desire their visitors to be free, and to do as they
please, so they do not fail to do the same themselves, never regarding
such visitors as impediments in the way of their concerns. If they have
any business or engagement out of doors, they say so and go, using no
ceremony, and but few words as an apology. Their visitors, I mean such
as stay for a time in their houses, are left in the interim to amuse
themselves as they please. This is peculiarly agreeable, because their
friends know, when they visit them, that they neither restrain, nor
shackle, nor put them to inconvenience. In fact it may be truly said
that if satisfaction in visiting depends upon a man's own freedom to do
as he likes, to ask and to call for what he wants, to go out and come in
as he pleases; and if it depends also on the knowledge he has, that, in
doing all these things, he puts no person out of his way, there are no
houses, where people will be better pleased with their treatment, than
in those of the Quakers.
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