‘That Friend speaks my mind’

A phrase one sometimes hears in Quaker business meetings is “That Friend speaks my mind.” This is a formulaic way of expressing agreement with the previous speaker.

To people new to Quakerism, this can be an odd-sounding phrase, since in ordinary usage, we rarely speak of one person “speaking someone else’s mind.” Expressions like “John really speaks his mind” are quite common, of course, but in this case it is John’s own mind which he speaks, not someone else’s.  The implication here is of not holding back, of expressing one’s thoughts despite a possible negative reaction from others.  This implication is not present in “That Friend speaks my mind,” which instead serves as a quite neutral statement that one’s own views on the issue under discussion were already well described by what someone else has said.

It is difficult to gauge how long this phrase has been part of Quaker usage, since it is one that appears primarily just in speech, and even then almost exclusively in the special context of business meetings. It does not appear in early Quaker literature — but this literature consists mainly of doctrinal tracts, epistles, journals, etc.; we wouldn’t expect to encounter it in these genres anyway. Nor should we expect it in business meeting minutes, since these function merely as an official record of the proceedings, and don’t ordinarily include a verbatim transcript of what was said during the meeting.  It is natural to suspect, then, that this phrase was in use long before its first appearance in print.

That having been said, the earliest occurrence of this phrase I have found is from 1821, in a newspaper article describing Quaker business practice (at Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in particular):

When a subject is broached, a member rises and gives his opinion of it in language at once concise, comprehensive, and definite. A second follows him, extending the view of the subject if there is any cause for extension, if not, he expresses his accordance of sentiment in a short sentence, such for instance as “I am in unity with the friend who has last spoken,” or, “that friend speaks my mind,” and down he sits very composedly. A third rises delivering his opinion in like manner, or, if he dissents from the others, he expresses his disapprobation in a speech equally pertinent and laconic; and thus a subject is broached, discussed, and decided upon, in less time, perhaps, than we have taken to relate the mode of proceeding; for these people do not think it necessary to use ten thousand words to communicate ten ideas, or give to ten ideas ten thousand forms.

Niles’ Weekly Register, vol. XX, no. 22, p. 348

I wonder how many of our modern business meetings could be described as similarly “laconic.”

A brief digression: Atkinson’s Casket lists the author of ‘The Outlaw of the Pines’ as A.H. Smith, but the story was republished without separate attribution of authorship in Henry C. Watson’s book The Old Bell of Independence (1852), and again in Watson’s Noble Deeds of Our Fathers (1888) and Collected Works of Henry C. Watson (2008). The only biographical information I could find on Watson lists him as born in 1831, so he could not have been the original author of this story.

Another early appearance of this phrase in print is in the mouth of a Quaker character in the short story ‘The Outlaw of the Pines’, published in Atkinson’s Casket in 1833:

“That’s right, Amy Collins; I like to hear you say so. How them Hessians can run — the tarnal niggars — they steal sassages better than they stand bullets.  I told ‘em it would be so, when they was here beguzzlen my bucket cakes, in plain English; only the outlandish Injins couldn’t understand their mother tongue.—  They’re got enough swallowen without chawen, this morning. I wish ‘em nothen but Jinerel Maxwell, at their tails, tickling ‘em with continental bagnets.”

“That friend speaks my mind,” said Elnathan, with a half sanctimonious, half waggish look, and slight nasal twang.

“Mine too,” as devoutly responded a companion, whom he had just brought to assist in the pursuit of the robbers.

Atkinson’s Casket, no. 2, p. 54.

In any case, the phrase “That Friend speaks my mind” is mentioned by several 19th century authors, almost always as a Quaker expression.  Here is a fairly typical example from 1853:

UNITY OF SENTIMENT

A contemporary asks— What is true independence? and then adds— “A great many people like ‘an independent press,’ which chimes exactly with their own opinions, but a truly honest press must differ from somebody.” Of course it must.  If everybody thought the same way, what an unhappy unanimity there would be!  To use the phraseology of the Quakers, no speech would be uttered, but some one would jump up and exclaim “That friend speaks my mind,” while all the auditors would assent by a charming display of “nods and becks and wreathed smiles,” It has been wisely ordained that tastes should be as dissimilar as individuals, of whom no two are to be found exactly alike; and it is to this opposition, and to these diversities and these similarities with a difference, that every advancement in knowledge and the arts is owing.

Arthur’s Home Magazine, vol. 1, no. 7, p. 560

In this example, the phrase itself and its connection to Quakerism are incidental to the general purpose of the text, but the phrase is discussed in more systematic descriptions of Quaker customs right up to the present, e.g. Charles Frederick Holder’s The Quakers in Great Britain and America (1913), Anna Wistar Comfort’s ‘Some Peculiarities of Quaker Speech’ (one of the first modern scholarly treatments of Quaker language, in American Speech 7.6 (1932)), Howard Brinton’s Guide to Quaker Practice (1943), Leonard Kenworthy’s Quakerism: A Study Guide on the Religious Society of Friends (1981), Thomas Hamm’s The Quakers in America (2003), etc.  Unlike some old Quaker phrases, this is not one which died out and was later revived, but seems to have been in continuous use over an extended period.