aspect of most of his yea and nay brethren, who have a perfect conviction that they have dived to the bottom of the well and found the pearl truth, while all the rest of the world look upon them as at the bottom of a well indeed; but without the pearl, and with only so much light as may come in through the little aperture that communicates with the outward world. Neither are quite right; the Shaker has no monopoly of truth or holiness, but we believe he has enough of both to light a dusky path to heaven.
Friend Wilcox is a man of no pretension whatever; but content in conscious mediocrity. We were at dinner when he came in; but friend Wilcox is too childlike or too simple, to be disturbed by any observances of conventional politeness. He declined an invitation to dine, saying he had eaten and was not hungry, and seated himself in the corner, after depositing some apples on the table, of rare size and beauty. “I have brought some notions, too” he said, “for you, B——,” and he took from his ample pocket his handkerchief, in which he had tied up a parcel of sugar plums and peppermints. B—— accepted them most affably, and without any apparent recoiling, shifted them from the old man’s handkerchief to an empty plate beside her. “Half of them,” he said, “remember, B——, are for ——. You both played and sung to me last summer—I don’t forget it. She is a likely woman, and makes the music sound almost as good as when I was young!”
This was enthusiasm in the old Shaker; but to us it sounded strangely, who knew that she who had so kindly condescended to call back brother Wilcox’s youth, had held crowds entranced by her genius. Brother Wilcox is a genial old man, and fifty years of abstinence from the world’s pleasures had not made him forget or contemn them. He resembles the jolly friars in conventual life, who never resist, and are therefore allowed to go without bits or reins, and in a very easy harness. There is no galling in restraint where there is no desire for freedom. It is the “immortal longings” that make the friction in life. After dinner, B——, at brother Wilcox’s request, sate down to the piano, and played for him the various tunes that were the favourites in rustic inland life forty years ago. First the Highland reel, then “Money Musk.”
