The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1869-11-02

tween the two. We look at him in his
fine painfully nice clothes, as we would
look at painting representing beauti-
ful apartment with COW chewing her
cud in the center. Yet not at all does
he refrain from his ambitious efforts, and
"bccome cityfcd as fast as possible" i"
seems to Se the order of the day in the
country. But / have found at last a
bright and shining exception to this rule,
place that rcsists every cncroachment
Of the city, and instead of adopting and
initiating its fashions and extravagances,
utterly rejects them, laughs the city to
scorn, and seems to become more and
more puritanical every year. 1t is this
little village, lying upon one of the high
ways of the pleasure seekers. Every day
during the "exodus," the great yellow
stage lumbers through with its burden of
tourists bound for Mt. Mansfield, and a
few weeks later takes them back with sor-
ier cheeks and brighter eyes. Yet Essex
proudly disdains them, and stunning in
novations, unpolluted by the city's vices,
unstained by the city's follies, and puri-
tanically impervious to its influence, it
remains stagnant, calm, self-contained,
ancient, and orthodox as ever Every
year the tide of city life Gibbs and flows
through the sleepy town, which yet re-
mains as uncontaminated as the great,
still mountain that gazes down upon it..
1t is essentially a religious community.
The spires of four churches point homo
ward from village of not more than five
times that number of houses. Sunday in
Essex is solemn, sepulchral anniversary
that chills the marrow in ones bones, and
will be forever inseparably associated in
my mind with stagnation, desolation, and
dispair. The native of Essex adds to his
decalogue, "thou shalt not smoke pipe"
"Thou shalt not play at cards" Thou
shalt not Dance" and severe ostracism
is practiced against all such luckless per-
sons as partake of these forbidden indul-
ganccs. The waterfall does not "go
down" in this community, and consequent
ly the Grecian bend is unknown. On
one point, however, the Essexian can be-
come enthusiastic, and that is his Acade-
my. He gloried in it, he gloricd in the
three hundred students annually nstruc-
ted within its walls, and when last spring
it burned to the ground and its Principal
became an apostate, an ungodly sinner
and "wandering refugee" he stood fol-
a moment irresolute, with his hands lifted
in holy horror and dispair. But then his
Puritan grit and obstinate determination
showed itself, and to-day, where four
months ago stood the blackencd ruins Of
the old Academy, one of the finest Acad.
emy buildings in the State rears its form
against the dark background Of the noun.
tains, and all day its class rooms sound
with the pleasant murmurs from the throne
of .talwart young men and bright eyet
girls who gather there for instruction
and after school hours the green ring
with the merry shouts of the ball-player'
and the crequcters, and witnesses the fan
ciful gyrations of the velocipedcs, which
attributes of the outside world bear II
mind, appertain exclusively to the Acad
emy, and have nothing to do with tn,
town.
| suppose to be in the fashion ough
to write you something concerning tn
freshot. L will merely remark in refer
ence to it, that | remember we had
heavy fall of dew short time ago, whicl
made things rather Juicy" for a fey
days
DoN GLAND.