of costume.
The Meeting House law made costume a matter of ethics for a century. But
to-day there is great diversity. Probably this is a sign of the
transition from the Quaker to the broader human order. But all one can
say upon costume is that there is now no dress prescribed for any
occasion. At one extreme there are a few, in 1905 only three, in 1907
only one, who wear the Quaker garb. At the other extreme are outsiders
who dress as the city tailor and milliner clothe them. And between these
there is liberty.

The dispositions again are varied. One finds the aggressiveness of five
stirring men and three capable women sufficient to give character to the
place. Many functions of the community are still vigorously upheld, yet
the number of aggressive spirits is diminishing. The instigative type is
present in three, and its processes give pleasure to all who behold. The
domineering type is present in eight members, especially in those
families which claim by right of inheritance either social or religious
leadership. And, as to others, as I quoted an observer above, "They are
an obedient people." I do not know any creative minds, much less any
class with original initiative. If there had been any such, Quaker Hill
would have produced artists, great and small, and writers, not a few.
There is a consciousness of material for creation, and in certain
families the culture which creation presupposes; but something in
Quakerism has quieted the muse and banked the fires.

As to types of character, there are forceful persons, a very few, nine
at the utmost being of this type. Austere persons, who have in the past
given to the Hill much of its character, have almost disappeared, not
more than four being within that category, among the population under
study in this part of the book.

The number of the rationally conscientious is as small as is that of the
convivial. The Meeting, which was for over a century the organ of
conscience for the community, denied to the convivial their license, and
released the conscientious from any obligation to be rational. The
Meeting has now but recently passed away, and its standards of character
speak as loudly as ever. I find three women who may be called rationally
conscientious, one a Quakeress, one a New Yorker, and one of Quaker
birth and worldly breeding. I find also three who are truly convivial in
type, one a son of Quakers, and two who are Irish Catholics; while
to these might be adde