I have every reason to believe that God loves Shakers, but I do
not think He admires them. I do not see how He can; but perhaps
this is not a competent reason to offer in the premises. I saw a
wagon-load of what I supposed to be Shakers of both sexes, riding
along the street, the other day; and I wondered what I should
think of them if I had made them. I think I should have been
about equally vexed and amused to see the lines that I had made
beautiful, disguised, and every grace-giving swell of limb and
bust, upon which I had exercised such exquisite toil, carefully
hidden. They sat up very straight and prim, in a very square
wagon, behind a square-trotting horse, driven by "right lines" in
a pair of hands that seemed to grow out of the driver's stomach,
while his elevated, rectangular elbows cut rigidly against the air
on either side. It was a vision for a painter--a house painter--
"a painter by trade." The long-haired, meek-looking men,
with their flat-crowned, broad-brimmed hats, straight coats and
neutral colors, and the women with their sugar-scoop bonnets,
white kerchiefs and straight waists, looked like a case of faded
wax-figures, in prison uniform, that had "come down to us from a
former generation."

I heaved a sigh as the wagon-load of mortified and badly-dressed
flesh passed out of sight, and wondered if the souls inside of
those bodies were as angular as their covering. I did not believe
it--I do not believe it. I have no doubt that underneath those
straight waistcoats hearts have throbbed at the sight of woman and
child, and longed for home and family life, with yearnings that
could not be uttered. Those straightlaced sensibilities have been
thrilled by beauty, and bathed in the grace and glory of the life