The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1886-08-12
BERKSHIRE HILLS.
Passions AND FANCIES
AT A NEW ENGLAND
SUMMER RESORT.
MODERN RESOURCES RANSACKED
TO SUPPLY THE DEMAND
FOR NEW MATERIALS.
NEW YoRK, August 6.

The Puritan element was never credited
with any love of or desire to cultivate the
beautiful. New England has always been
spoken of and has figured IN song and
story as bleak aud forbidding of aspect;
its sterile soil and cold, grey skies offer
ing little that was attractive to the strang-
er; and the grim forefathers and stiff
foremothers, severe and disciplinary as
their own straight, high-backed chairs, are
considered to have been in exact harmony
with their rigid surroundings.
This impression is subject to sudden
revulsion when one makes acquaintance
with the interior of Massachusetts and
the beauties of Berkshire county for the
first time in many years. Doubtless the
primness and plainness were characterize
ic thirty or forty years ago; but this ia
vored region must always have possessed
its wonderful quality of loveliness; its
wooded hills and rich valleys; its Jewell
like lakes and unknown depths of ferns
and flowers and summer foliage. All the
marvellous tints of earth and air and sky
were there when Jonathan Edwards wrote
his treatise on the will in little closet of
little house in Stockbridge. When Ju-
liam Hawthorne waded shoeless and sock
less perhaps in Stockbridge Bowl" while
his father was busted in the little red
house near by, writing his story of the
"House with Seven Cables" and Herman
Melville was doing boys work on the
homestead farm further along ON the
Lennox road and had not yet dreamed of
"Omos" or "Typee."
All the natural beauty was there distri-
buted not over a township, but whole
country, and forming the natural home of
poets and schOlars-as the Lake country
in England making it famous in the
same way; long after those who have
made it so had died or been driven away
by the echoes of their own regulations.
But in those days, the well-sweep, the
sunflower, the whitewashed wall, the sim
pie habits, and manners were still mas
tiers of the situation. The Illuminating
cow, as allowed to browse over the "com-
mon" unmOested. The unrehective pig,
| likewise. Chickens were domiciled near
the house, and were almost part of the
family; and trees which had been merci-
lessly cut down by the hardy settler were
as scarce as pianos. There is tradition
in regard to one forest tree which had
been allowed to remain in the town OF
Pittsfeld, but was about to be demolished
because it might be in the way of some
thing or other; when dame, near whose
house it stood placed herself in front of
it, and declared they should cut her down
first; and her determination being in
vincible the old forest tree was left stand
ing.
The lady is still living whose "happy
thought" suggested the first Village i'm
provement society" and, whose taste and
energy, aided by helpful friends, have
turned the bare streets into shaded ave-
nues; the ragged doorways into velvet
lawns; the stony common into the royal
park.
AN EARTHLY PARADISE
is all this beautiful Berkshire country in
its summer robes; peopled by the-to all
seeming-happiest and most prosperous
people under the sun. Lennox, the ia
nous old town, is given over to the ex
tremely fashionable and exceedingly
wealthy; and no one worth under mil
lion could think of going and staying over
night, except as guest of some resident
millionaire. The seBson does not begin
till the LIST of August, but it lasts till the
LIST of November; and the gaiety is not
phub VI biO bbd uTluKl0RS'
and meeting house gatherings, but of grand
dinners and private theatricals, lawn ten
mis- and garden parties, polo and club
racket.
Most of the original inhabitants have
left Lennox; those who remain rent their
little two story houses, upon which they
have put coat of red or blue paint, and
to which they have put an awning-for
more money, for two or three months,
than they would formerly have dreamed of
asking for selling them out
altogether. The widest coal oil
or California excitement never
produced such Advance in prices, as Len
nox has seen during the past fifteen years.
1t is enough to make Caroline Sedgwick
turn in her grave to find little frame houses
worth about fifteen hundred dollars, rent
ing for thousand dollars per month; and
it must make Fanny Kemble groan over
the sale of her "Perch," old as she is, and
notwithstanding the good prices she
thought she got for it. A place which a
certain judge sold for three thousand dol
lars, was sold subsequently for twenty -tive
thousand, and is considered worth thirty
thousand. In fact, "ten times over"
seems to be the point which Lennox prop
erty has reached. \ well known lady in
New York society, who was so fortunate
as to lease house several years ago, now
subjects at double the rental she pays, and
pays the expenses of her own summers
elsewhere with the advance.
THE EARLY SEASON
in Lennox exhibits little signs of life :.
The pretty houses, with their we'll kept
lawns and parterres, their exquisite
views" and shaded walks, are given over
to children, governesses and nurses. The
parents are abroad or at Newport, and
will not arrive till August; excepting per-.
haps the father, who, if he is /,
business man, remains in ~
York and Boston and only .oS'yas. nvs
over Sunday. The CHI ,.,s,, ave- ioU vSc
and look as if they he d NO., al cut ont y
live picture Look, Their legs are this
but their feces are angelic; their eyes Ia.
haPhaels, and their hats. coats and frock
exact reproductions I the dress in III
last christmas childr EMS book and pa
pers. Certainly, Kat o 'Greenaway is re
sponsibie for the creation Of "a me-
american type of lind beauty. What