and Elizabeth Drinker was doubtless in a very small minority when she objected to "Satan's Kingdom Aristocratical," on the score of its halting measures.
The most striking characteristic of our Quaker diarist is precisely this clear, cold, unbiased judgment, this sanity of a well-ordered mind. What she lacks, what the journal lacks from beginning to end, is some touch of human and ill-repressed emotion, some word of pleasant folly, some weakness left undisguised and unrepented. The attitude maintained throughout is too judicial, the repose of heart and soul too absolute to be endearing. Here is a significant entry, illustrating as well as any other this nicely balanced nature, which gave to all just what was due, and nothing more:—
"There has been a disorder lately among ye cats. Our poor old Puss, who has been for some time past unwell, died this morning, in ye 13th year of her age. Peter dug a grave two feet deep on ye bank in our garden, under ye stable window, where E. S., Peter and I saw her decently interred. I had as good a regard for her as was necessary."
