78 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. V] 



women sitting on opposite sides of the room, and there being 

 no pulpit and no clergyman and no singing, we did not care 

 to go again. But the Dissenters' chapel was always a welcome 

 change, and we went there not unfrequently to the 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 service ; 

 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 reason- 

 ing 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 

 neighbours of other religious denominations. 



