A few aged men, who have grown gray on their hereditary acres, and are of
the good old colonial stock, exert a patriarchal sway in all matters of
public and private import; their opinions are considered oracular, and
their word is law.
The inhabitants, moreover, have none of that eagerness for gain and rage
for improvement which keep our people continually on the move, and our
country towns incessantly in a state of transition. There the magic
phrases, "town lots," "water privileges," "railroads," and other
comprehensive and soul-stirring words from the speculator's vocabulary, are
never heard. The residents dwell in the houses built by their forefathers,
without thinking of enlarging or modernizing them, or pulling them down and
turning them into granite stores. The trees, under which they have been
born and have played in infancy, flourish undisturbed; though, by cutting
them down, they might open new streets, and put money in their pockets. In
a word, the almighty dollar, that great object of universal devotion
throughout our land, seems to have no genuine devotees in these peculiar
villages; and unless some of its missionaries penetrate there, and erect
banking houses and other pious shrines, there is no knowing how long the
inhabitants may remain in their present state of contented poverty.
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