A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume 3 / Taken from a View of the Education and Discipline, Social Manners, Civil and Political Economy, Religious Principles and Character, of the Society of Friends

by Thomas Clarkson

CHAP. XIV.

Another trait is that of a want of animation or affection—This an appearance only, and not a reality, arising from a proper subjugation of the passions—from the prohibitions relative to dress—and address—and the amusements of the world.

It is said next of the Quakers, that they are a cold and inanimate people; and that they have neither the ordinary affection, nor the gradation of affection, of other people.

I may immediately pronounce upon this trait, that it is merely an outward appearance. The Quakers have as warm feelings as the rest of their countrymen. Their love of their fellow-creatures, more conspicuous in them than in many others, as has been amply shewn, gives them a claim to the possession of warm and affectionate feeling. The Quakers too have the character of a domestic people; but surely, if they do not possess affection, and this in a very high degree, they must have miserable homes. There is indeed a want of gradation in their affections, which may be traced upon some occasions. In making their wills, for example, they are not apt to raise up an eldest son to the detriment of the rest of their offspring. And this certainly is a proof, that they do not possess the gradation of affection of many other people! Happy is it for their own comfort and the welfare of their families, that they give this proof to the world of this equal affection for their children.

That this trait is only an appearance, and not a reality, I shall shew, by staring many outward circumstances, in the Quaker constitution, which may be preventive of apparent animation, but which can have no influence on the heart.

We must all of us be sensible, that both opinions and customs have an influence on the warmth or coldness of our characters. Who would expect, if two faithful portraits could have been handed down to us from antiquity, to find the same gravity or coldness of countenance and manners in an Athenian, as in a Spartan? And in the same manner who can expect, that there will not be a difference in the appearance of Quakers and other people?

The truth is, that the discipline and education of the Quakers produce an appearance of a want of animation, and this outward appearance the world has falsely taken as a symbol of the character of the heart. Can we expect that a due subjugation of the passions, which is insisted upon in true Quaker families, will give either warmth to the countenance, or spirit to the outward manners? Do not the passions animate, and give a tone to the characters of men? Can we see then the same variety of expression in the faces of the Quakers as in those of others on this account? The actions of men, again, enliven their outward appearances, but Quakers, being forbidden to use the address of the world, can assume no variety of action in their intercourse with others. The amusements, again, of the world, such as of music and the theatre, reach the mind, and, animating it, give a greater expression to the countenance, on which the contemplation afterwards produces a similar though a slighter effect. But in what Quakers can you see sensibility from the same cause? The dress too, of the members of this society gives them an appearance of gravity and dulness. It makes them also shy of their fellow citizens. But gravity, and dulness, and shyness, have generally, each of them, the appearance of coldness of manners.