“Why, dear father,” said Ann, “though I admit that the Friends are very estimable people, one cannot call them entertaining. I think they are the dullest of people.”
“By no means,” said Mr. Woodburn; “not half so dull as your genuine aristocracy. Now, in my younger days, I spent a good deal of time in London. I had introductions to much high aristocratic society, through my neighbour, Lord Manvers, and I must say that duller society I never was in.”
“Oh, no! that is impossible,” said Letty, all wonder. “Why, the aristocracy have all sorts of amusements. In the country, hunting and racing. In town, theatres, operas, concerts; music and dancing, and the finest singing, at their own parties. Their London season is a perfect round and whirl of pleasures, according to all that I ever heard or read.”
“But I am not talking,” said Mr. Woodburn, “of their pleasures and amusements; I am talking of their society. They give you good dinners and good wine, I grant you, and you have all that you say—music, and dancing, and fine singing. You have great crowds of fine and titled people of whom you learn to know nothing but their fine clothes, and fine jewels, and fine outsides. At their more select and domestic parties—dinner-parties, say—all is very outwardly agreeable, polite, and even, to a casual eye, unassuming, for such great people; but, my dear girls, I tell you that, notwithstanding, aristocratic society is the dullest of all society. Spite of that seeming ease and non-pretence, there is a world of real resting upon their own self-consequence and greatness of station. Try to break a little through that soft and shining surface by a little of that familiarity which is quite allowable in the middle ranks of life, and you will soon feel that there is an invisible but not impalpable division betwixt you and them. It is what a clear glass window must be to a bird that flies against it, thinking it air. You cannot get beyond a specious, arm’s-length acquaintance with these apparently so modest and pleasant people.
“A country yeoman may say of the aristocracy, as Northcote the painter says, as regards his profession: ‘An artist may honour them as patrons; but to imagine that he can hold communion with them, on a footing of friendship, is a moral misdemeanour, for which he ought to be soundly whipped.’
“Try to introduce a topic of more than lightest and most gossipping interest, and see the effect. Instead of the warm kindling up of a truly interesting and ennobling conversation, you produce a deep silence. So many are the topics in those ranks, which, from political and other causes, would be offensive to some one or other, that all really important topics are tabooed. These gay and speciously pleasant people dare not speak their own minds in society. There may be peculiar and close little cliques in which they do; but in my time it was well known that there were not above three or four aristocratic houses in London in which there was any real freedom of discussion. You met at many of them men of science, men high in the Church and theology, men and women famous in letters, but they were as dull there as the rest. They smiled, and talked of the weather, or of the play, but their deeper thoughts were carefully locked in their souls. No, I say it—that any one who long frequents aristocratic circles, comes to feel a heavy, dull atmosphere there, and is glad to get into the middle regions to breathe life and intellectual thought once more. There is a science of dining-out discourse—the art of talking without saying anything—and those who are adroit at billiards may get well through the long after-dinner hours. I have been at many out-of-door fêtes. It was the same. You had coveys of gay people—great lords, bishops, princes even, great lawyers, and great soldiers, and their ladies. Much beauty, much collecting of gay equipages at the gates, and splendid military bands of music—but that was all. It is true what Lord Byron says—
‘He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find
The loftiest peaks most wrapped in clouds and snow.’
“I don’t mean to say that the aristocracy, in their families, and the familiar circles of their kith and kin, are not as agreeable and as full of heart and pleasantness as other people. I am now only speaking of them in their general society, as you were speaking of the general society of the Friends; and, in fact, it may seem a strange fancy to you, but I have always seen a great similarity in the manners of the aristocracy and those of Friends. There is the same quiet, unexcited manner—a repose that expresses no surprise at anything. The women of the Society, in particular, are vastly, in their manners and deportment, like ladies of rank, though so different in costume. Both one and the other class can live in society on the smallest possible quantum of ideas imaginable. Look at the fair, smooth, unimpassioned faces of the Quaker ladies! On those placid countenances you trace no vestiges of the storms of passion or the cravings of ambition. Perhaps the Quaker ladies possess that tranquillity of tone and temper which their aristocratic sisters wear so admirably. Certainly I know no class of people who approach so closely to the aristocratic caste, as the Friends. But, as to dulness, give me the Quakers rather than the titled great, for they do indulge in topics of the highest importance. On the means of putting down war, slavery, priestcraft, and political injustice; and on the means of promoting freedom of conscience and thought, peace, and knowledge, they will at any time grow eloquent.”
“Upon my word, dear father,” said Letty, “I never knew you were so much of a Quaker before!”
“I am no Quaker, little quiz,” said Leonard Woodburn, “but I like them as honest and practical people. Do you know that William Fairfax, of whom I was speaking a little while ago, saved me seventy pounds lately? I was passing along the street in which his shop is, when out he came, bare-headed. ‘Leonard Woodburn,’ he said, ‘hast thou any of Dakeyne’s notes?’ I replied, that it was very probable, as I had lately received a large payment for corn from Derbyshire. This Dakeyne was a flax-spinner, of Darley Dale, and on his bank-notes he had an engraving of a flax-dressing machine, and the motto, ‘Strike, Dakeyne! the devil is in the flax.’ ‘I never liked that man,’ said Mr. Fairfax. ‘If the devil was in his flax, he was not the man for me. But if thou hast any of his notes, get rid of them, for he won’t stand a fortnight. He has many paper-kites out, and they are beginning to fall.’