"Thee must pardon me: it is a habit I have."
"Habits are bad things to have."
"Thank thee," I said.
I know that unnecessary words are wholly unlooked for amongst us Friends, and that description of any part of the Lord's works is as unnecessary and carries with it as little of what we mean as can be. Incidents are greater than description, as the telling to me how a tree looked when it was in full foliage is not near so incisive as that the tree fell with a great crash during a storm in the night. Therefore it would be using needless language, which a Friend's discipline enjoins him to beware of, for me to say how friend Hicks's daughter might have seemed to those to whom I wished to impart how she seemed to me; rather let some various incidents provide their estimate of her. That one of the world's people might say she was pleasant to look upon I have no doubt; but to me she was not beautiful: she was only what I would have had her to be; and that which is entirely as we would have it to be is never beautiful: it is too near us to be that. I cared well to be with her while her father bided near and talked to me of the community I had left, and which had given me my certificate to friend Hicks's Meeting. And yet I fear me that I made several dubious replies to his many trite questions as we sat on the porch in the quiet of the evening, for friend Barbara's eyes were upon me, and she had a little dint in either cheek which affected me amazingly. (I have heard such dints called dimples—by whom, I cannot say.) She had a most extraordinary way of miscomprehending all that I said, and frequently appealing to her father; so I perforce must repeat all that I had before said, which often forced me into much confusion of words, which seemed to make her dints more deep than usual. Then the quiet of her home after a busy day of traffic and bargaining and buying and selling was infinitely composing to my mind. There were trees all about the house, and some orderly flowers—more of the herb species, I think, than the decorative. There were faint sounds coming from distant places, and when a great many stars were come and the wind waved the branches of the trees, the stars looked, as one might say, like tiny musical lamps set among the leaves, they seemed so many and so bright there, and the distant sounds so pleasant. I am not, as a usual thing, a noticing man, but while friend Hicks's daughter was within a few feet of me it seemed I noticed everything with considerable acuteness. I think this may be accounted for on the score that I was trying to notice something which failed me as I searched for it; and that was, if I were to Barbara what Barbara was to me. She was too friendly, and yet I would have her friendly: she was too cheerful, and yet I would have her cheerful. I bethink me that I would rather that her friendliness and cheerfulness might in a measure depend upon me for existence. I think I came too often to friend Hicks's house, although he understood me.
"Thee is a most persistent young man," he said to me.
"Does thee think too much so?" I asked.
"Nay, friend Biddle: persistency is an excellent quality which is most praiseworthy in youth."
"And does thee think that persistency will gain me a wife?"
"Thee had better depend upon thyself more than upon persistency in such an issue," he said, with the corners of his mouth much depressed.
"Does thee think I might venture to offer myself to thy daughter for a husband?"