THE IDEALS OF THE QUAKERS.
In the Introduction to Professor Carver's "Sociology and Social
Progress" is a passage of great significance to one who would understand
Quaker Hill, or indeed any community, especially if it be religiously
organized. The writer refers to: "a most important psychic factor,
namely the power of idealization. This may be defined, not very
accurately, as the power of _making believe_, a factor which
sociologists have scarcely appreciated as yet. We have such popular
expressions as 'making a virtue of necessity,' which indicates that
there is a certain popular appreciation of the real significance of this
power, but we have very little in the way of a scientific appreciation
of it.
"One of the greatest resources of the human mind is its ability to
persuade itself that what is necessary is noble or dignified or
honorable or pleasant. For example, the greater part of the human race
has been found to live under conditions of almost incessant warfare. War
being a necessity from which there was no escape, it was a great
advantage to be able to glorify it, to persuade ourselves that it was a
noble calling--in other words, a good in itself.
"Another example is found in the case of work. Work is a necessity as
imperious as war ever was. Looked at frankly and truthfully, work is a
disagreeable necessity and not a good in itself. Yet by persuading
ourselves that work is a blessing, that it is dignified and honorable,
our willingness to work is materially increased, and therefore the
process of adaptation is facilitated--in other words, progress is
accelerated. Among the most effective agencies for the promotion of
progress, therefore, must be included those which stimulate this power
of idealization. In short, he who in any age helps to idealize those
factors and forces upon which the progress of his age depends, is
perhaps the most useful man, the most powerful agent in the promotion of
human well-being, even though from the strictly realistic point of view
he only succeeds in making things appear other than they really are.
From the sociologist's point of view this is the mission of art and
preaching of all kinds."
The quotation from Professor Carver bears the impression of
incompleteness, or rather of suggestiveness. If "making a virtue of
necessity" is idealization, is not symbolism also a form of "make
believe." If the "ability to persuade oneself that what is necessary is
noble or dignified or honorable or pleasant," is exhibited on Quaker
Hill as a "most important psychic factor," so is also the idealization
of the commonplace the "making believe" that peace and plainness, that
simple, old-fashioned dress, and seventeenth century forms of speech are
spiritual and are serviceable to the believing mind. The power of
idealization is nowhere exhibited as a social force more clearly than in
a Quaker community. Professor Carver's word, "make believe," is most
accurate. Quakers act with all sincerity the drama of life, using
costume and artificial speech, and attaching to all conduct peculiar
mannerisms; casting over all action a special veil of complacent
serenity; all which are parts in their realization of the ideal of life.
Their fundamental principle is that the divine spirit dwells and acts in
the heart of every man; not in a chosen few, not in the elect only, but
in all hearts. Quaker Hill to this day acts this out, in that every
person in the community is known, thought upon, reckoned and estimated
by every other. Towns on either side have a neglected population area,
but Quaker Hill has none. Pawling in its other neighborhoods has
forgotten roads, despised cabins, in which dwell persons for whom nobody
cares, drunkards, ill-doers, whom others forget and ignore. Quaker Hill
ignores no one. There are, indeed, rich and poor, but the former employ
the latter, know their state, enjoy their peculiarities, relish their
humor. It has apparently always been so. Elsewhere I have described the
measures taken by popular subscription to replace the losses suffered by
the humbler members of the community, in the tools of life (see Chapter
VII). It need not be said that the poorer members bear the rich in mind.
Every person resident on the Hill has come to partake in this sense of
the community, this practice of new Quakerism. No one is out of sight
and yet there is no dream of equality behind this communal sense. It is
as far from a communistic, as from a charitable state of mind. It is the
result of years of belief in common men and common things.
This "make believe" that commonplace things are the spiritual things was
a corollary of George Fox's life as much as of his doctrine. He opposed
pomp and ritual, salaried priests, ordinations and consecrations; he
disbelieved in "the imposition of hands." His followers therefore went
so far as to find in plainness a new sanctity. They adapted at once the
"plain garb" of the period of William Penn and Robert Barclay, and the
generations of men who followed felt themselves morally bettered by a
drab coat and breeches, a white neck-cloth, and a broad-brimmed brown
hat; the women by dresses of simple lines, low tones of color, bonnets
of peculiar shape, shielding the eyes on either side.
Of course in time this exceptional garb by its uniqueness defeated the
very desire George Fox had for "plainness." It was not commonplace but
extraordinary. Roby Osborn's garb is thus described by her biographer:
"Her wedding gown was a thick, lustreless silk, of a delightful
yellowish olive, her bonnet white. Beneath it her dark hair was smoothly
banded, and from its demure shelter her eyes looked gravely out. Her
vest was a fine tawny brown, of a sprigged pattern, both gown and vest
as artistically harmonious as the product of an Eastern loom. Pieces of
both were sewn into a patchwork quilt, now a family heirloom."[10]
For more than a century now "plainness in dress" has been extravagance
in dress. A proper Quaker hat for man or woman costs twice or thrice
what plain people of the same station in life would pay. But be it so.
In its day, which is now gone--for only one person now wears "plain
dress" on Quaker Hill--it was a true expression of the "make believe" of
sanctity in plainness. The quiet colors, the prescribed unworldliness
involved a daily discipline, and infused into the wearer an emotional
experience which mere economy and real commonness would never so
continuously have effected.
The "plain speech" has the same effect. It is part of the same dramatic
celebration of an ideal. It is a use of quaint and antique forms, not
grammatically correct nor scriptural, in which "thee" takes the place of
"thou" and you in the singular, both in the nominative and objective
cases. It is not used with the forms of the verb of solemn style, but
with common forms, as "thee has" instead of "thou hast." Another element
of the "plain speech" is the use of such terms as "farewell" for "good
day"--which is declared to be untruthful on bad days! The Quakers also
address one another by their first names, and the old-fashioned Friends
addressed everybody so, refusing to use such titles as "Mr.," "Mrs.," or
"Miss."
Of late years the younger members of the Meeting, while maintaining
their standing there, have used with persons not in the Meeting the
ordinary forms of speech, as they have refused to assume the Quaker
plain garb. With fellow-Quakers and with members of their own families
they say "thee."
Before the period of the mixed community this power of idealization, of
"making believe," had wrought its greatest effects, but it still has
full course and power without the highest direction. The minds of the
residents of the Hill are very suggestible; but the persons who have the
power to implant the suggestion are no longer inspired as of old, with a
sublime and unearthly ideal. They are only animated with an economic
one. But the result is the same. It is social, rather than religious. It
was one thing for the early Friends to cement together a community
through the feeling that in every man was the Spirit of God. A wonderful
appetite was that for the assimilation of new members coming into the
community. It was a doctrine that made all the children birthright
members of the Meeting and so of the community.
But in our later time, between 1895 and 1905, this power of "making
believe" had suffered the strain of a division of the meeting. It was
harder to believe that the Spirit of God was in all men, when half the
community was set off as "unorthodox." It had suffered the strain of
seeing the wide social difference caused by money. Yet it bravely played
the game. Children are not more adapt at "making believe" than were
these old Friends. They deceived even themselves; and their "pretending"
assimilated into the communal life every newcomer. For it created
underneath all differences a sense of oneness; it kept alive, in all
divisions, many of the operations of unity. It compelled strangers and
doctrinal enemies to "make believe" to be friends.
I find it difficult to describe this elusive force of the communal
spirit in the place, just as the communal character of the place is
itself evanescent, while always powerful. I know clearly only this, that
it proceeded, and still on Quaker Hill proceeds from the old religious
inheritance, and from the present religious character of the place; that
it tends directly to the creation of the community of all men, of all
different groups, and that it is ready at hand at all time, to be
called to the assistance of anyone who knows how to appeal to that
communal unity; and that it is a power of idealization, meaning by that
"a power of making believe." In this power, I recognize this community
as being more expert and better versed than any I have ever known.
The dramatic expression of an ideal has had great social power. Upon the
casual observer or visitor it has wrought with the effect of a charm to
impress upon them in a subtle way the ideal of Quakerism. Expressed in
words, it would have no interest: acted out so quaintly, it awakens
admiration, interest, and imitation, not of the forms, but always in
some degree of the substance of the Quaker ideal.
Thus the Quaker ideal has given authority to the Friends, especially to
the older and more conservative of them; has furnished a subtle
machinery for assimilating new members into the community and thus has
been an organizing power.
[10] "Richard Osborn--a Reminiscence," by Margaret B. Monahan;
Quaker Hill Series, 1903.