78 MY LIFE 



evening service. The extempore prayers, the frequent singing, 

 and the usually more vigorous and exciting style of preaching 

 was to me far preferable to the monotony of the Church serv- 

 ice; and it was there only that, at one period of my life, I 

 felt something of religious fervour, derived chiefly from the 

 more picturesque and impassioned of the hymns. As, however, 

 there was no sufficient basis of intelligible fact or connected 

 reasoning to satisfy my intellect, this feeling soon left me, 

 and has never returned. 



Among our Quaker friends were two or three to whose 

 houses we were occasionally invited, and I remember being 

 greatly impressed by the excessive cleanliness and neatness 

 of everything about their houses and gardens, corresponding 

 to the delicate colouring and simple style of their clothing. 

 At that time every Quaker lady wore the plainest of dresses, 

 but of the softest shades of brown or lilac, while the men all 

 wore the plain cutaway coat with upright collar, also of some 

 shade of brown, which, with the low broad-brimmed beaver hat 

 of the best quality, gave them a very distinctive and old-world 

 appearance. They also invariably used " thee " and " thou " 

 instead of " you " in ordinary conversation, which added to 

 the conviction that they were a people apart, who had many 

 habits and qualities that might well be imitated by their neigh- 

 bours of other religious denominations. 



