" In building anew, he
would take care to have more light, a more equal distribution of heat,
and a more general care for protection and comfort, because these things
tend to health and long life. But no beauty. He described to me
amusingly the disgust he had experienced in a costly New York dwelling,
where he saw carpets nailed down on the floor, "of course with piles of
dust beneath, never swept away, and of which I had to breathe;" and with
heavy picture-frames hung against the walls, also the receptacles of
dust. "You people in the world are not clean according to our Shaker
notions. And what is the use of pictures?" he added scornfully.
[Illustration: A SHAKER ELDER.]
They have paid much attention to the early Jewish policy in Palestine,
and the laws concerning the distribution of land, the Sabbatical year,
service, and the collection of debts, are praised by them as
establishing a far better order of things for the world in general than
that which obtains in the civilized world to-day.
They hold strongly to the equality of women with men, and look forward
to the day when women shall, in the outer world as in their own
societies, hold office as well as men. "Here we find the women just as
able as men in all business affairs, and far more spiritual.
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