I must not forget that one of
our religions, now a dying faith, was invented in Manchester by
Ann Lee, who brought, through the usual persecutions, Shakerism
to such spiritual importance as it has now lost in these States.
Only those who have known the Shakers, with their good lives and
gentle ways, can regret with me the decline of the celibate
communism which their foundress imagined in her marital relations
with the Lancashire blacksmith she left behind her.
I am reminded (or perhaps instructed) by Mr. Hope Moncrieff in
Black's excellent _Guide to Manchester_ that before Mrs.
Gaskell's celebrity the fitful fame of De Quincey shed a backward
gleam upon his native place, which can still show the house where
he was probably born and the grammar-school he certainly ran away
from. In my forgetfulness, or my ignorance, that Manchester was
the mother of this tricksy master-spirit of English prose, who
was an idol of my youth, I failed to visit either house. The
renown of Cobden and of Bright is precious to a larger world than
mine; and the name of the stalwart Quaker friend of man is dear
to every American who remembers the heroic part he played in our
behalf during our war for the Union.
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