n.

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.

CHAP. XV.

_Another trait is that of evasiveness in speech--This an appearance
only, arising from a peculiar regard to truth--and from a caution about
the proper use of words, induced by circumstances in the discipline, and
by the peculiarities in the Quaker language._

It is alleged against the Quakers, as another bad trait in their
character, that they are not plain and direct, but that they are evasive
in their answers to any questions that may be a