Droneville people are profound philosophers. You will not find them chattering incessantly upon every topic under the sun; their ideas are connected by none of your “obvious relations;” they are slow, but sure thinkers, and when they _do_ speak, you may expect to hear something. Catch Droneville people doing any thing in a rash, hasty manner? catch a weasel asleep. They are equally considerate in their mental and physical operations. If a man begins to build a house, without reflecting upon it for some twenty years, Droneville people shake their heads in a very significant manner, muttering something about not “counting the cost.” A house is commenced by one generation, allowed to “season” through another, and completed by the third. Droneville people are not composed of any of your inflammable materials; you will not find them acting under the influence of “excitement” or “passion.” They like to “take things coolly”--to think deliberately. Deacon Snuffle was informed that widow Switchtail had been _recently_ converted, and hastened to converse with her. “How long is it, Mrs. Switchtail,” said he, “since you first began to see the error of your ways?” “Why, Deacon, it is as long ago as what we old folks call the _hard winter_.” Deacon Snuffle made his exit with all imaginable speed, exclaiming, “your religion, widow, is something like an old clock, in considerable need of being wound up.” A minister was “settled” among Droneville people, several years since, who is about as ardent as they are phlegmatic, suggesting the image of a spirited young steed, yoked to a contemplative ox. He exhorts, preaches, frets, drives his flesh off in attempting to “rouse them up;” but they take it “just as easy” as conceivable. What can be more tantalizing! He appoints meetings upon week days, but Droneville people are not so fond of meetings upon week days; it savors too much of _driving_ people into religion. The parson consoles himself with the thought that they will come to church upon the Sabbath, and prepares for them a warm reception. And they _do_ come upon the Sabbath, and sleep, yea, snore as loud as if they were in their beds. Miss Catnip, a snappish old maid, once complained that “Deacon Snuffle’s wife snored so loud that she couldn’t get the least bit of rest.” My Aunt Tabitha is never absent from church. She has so constantly seated herself upon the same bench, that she has fairly impressed her own proportions there. She has one invariable reply to the parson’s oft repeated exhortations, “young people may die, old people must die.”