Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-07-12
NATURE AT HER BEST.
Just Enough of Mans Handiwork to
Drive Away the Solitude.
LIFE AT PITTSFIELD AND LENOX.
Drives in Exhilarating Air Between the
Grandest Landscapes.
ROSE TERRY COOKIES SUMNER RESORT
CORRESPONDENCE OF THE DIsPArcH.1

! hVO1 1Cbh Il OUUhG y CUmmGh bUOOhl
| CORRESPONDENCE OF THE DIsPArcH.1
| THE HEART OF BERKSHIRE, MASS,
July 10.-My dear old teacher used to say
81 love Nature-with her hair combed =
There is certain amount of wisdom in the
words; it is not given to every soul to love
the savage solitudes of forest and mountain,
or to find consolation in scenery of the wild
est beauty for the absence of human faces
and the rest of familiar aspects.
Well do remember the terror Of night in
the Adirondack woods when 1 first ex.
perienced the doubtful charms of that
"forest primeval;" the sense of exile and
loneliness. Day had been inefably disap.
! pointing, the shores of the small river down
| which we slowly foated, packed into boat
as comfortless as the stocks of old times,
were strewn with such relics as German
| picnic leaves in suburban "grove." Sar-
dine cans, lemon peels, broken bottles,
remnants Of paper, bits of clothing evidently
worn to its last decencies were lying about
everywhere, and the tall slender trees grow
ing close together from dense beds of moss
and swamp grass forbade any outlook. There
were neither birds nor beasts to interest our
weary eyes; we stopped at a log cabin and
eked out our own supplies with poor ad-
juncts; but when night came and our tent
was duly pitched, the beds of fir boughs
spread and the campfire lighted, then came
also
A Dreadful Horror of Isolation,
a terrified consciousness of solitude and dis
tance that stihed ones breath and made
sleep or rest impossible. Never will at
tempt the like again! Give me for rest and
recreation place like the dear old town
the beautiful new city-where have spent
three summers and as many winters already
feeling at home in its borders and more and
more enamored of its charms
Winter is not to be celebrated here. It
is winter anywhere out of the tropics, "tol-
erable and not to be endured" the annual
pitched battle of humanity and nature. 1
sometimes think that here in Berkshire is
illustrated that relentless theory of 'the
survival of the fttest" to its full extent.
Shut into the warm chamber of an invalid I
look out with envy and amazement on the
alert figures with bright eyes and glowing
cheeks that traverse the ways of ice and
snow, or go laughing by in fur-heaped
sleighs as if they really enjoyed living with
the thermometer deep below zero and the
ways. But when spring returns, the
Sweet, Shy New England Spring,
in its myriad charms, one forgets and for
gives the cruel season that has gone; the air
auivers with warm sunshine; there
are no lingering crests of snow on the en-
circling hills the blue lakes are icy no
longer; the brooks leap downward with foam
and flash, and still glittering reaches; the
rods of the dogwood are a clear, warm GRIM
son, and the swamp willows shine with q
golden glow; the elms show then gray-green
blossoms, the far woods begin to thicken
with the young buds soon to be misty opal
exquisite beyond the telling of brush or
pen.
All this delicate loveliness the city peo-
pie who do not come to the country before
June lose. Yet in June how beautiful
Pittsfeld isl A high plateau, its central
spot 1000 feet above sea level, its site is
too expanded to get the shadow and gloom
of the hills, but they make a great ring of
protection about the town "as the mount
aims are round about Jerusalem" and send
their fresh GOODNESS on the wings of the
wind to sweep through our streets with
keen breath Of life and strength. Here, in
the streets that are fringed with elms and
adorned with broad spaces of greenest turf
on either side of the roadway, stand pleas
ant houses, ancient and modern, with bright
blossoms and ciipging vines about them,
and within them families of the old New
England types; friendly, cultivated, hos
pitable; delightful to know, the best sort of
friends, the pleasantest kind of acquaint-
ances
The Lions of Pittsfleld.
Nor is the town without its lions Here
on the broad and beautiful street, that
dignifed simplicity christens EAST" street,
is the stately old house where LongfelIow
wrote the sold Clock on the Stairs" His
kindred have long ago left the homestead,
but have left it in the hands of adequate
successors; literature, philanthropy and
kindliness inhabit it, and the stranger within
our gates celebrates its hospitality. Here,
too, is the church where DR.. John Todd, a
divine of the Puritan sort, veritable '1ion
in the way" of heresy, schism, evil-doing
and ight-mindedness, thundered out
the DEGREES and doctrines of law
and Gospel for many a year; and Just
without the limits is the charming house
where Oliver Wendell Holmes spent once
his happy summers, now floating on the
rippled river that lay about his possessions,
now hunting for great trees, measuring
line in hand, that Pittsfeld elms might
have due celebration; now exchanging joke
ana repdTCec WIN IrlenQS IN Lne village,
who were qualified to meet him in the e1-
change of wits as in "a fair field with no
favor"
In this goodly city of the hills you find
all the comforts, luxuries and conveniences
of civilization, and in ten minutes you can
be in the deep country, comfortably consci-
GUS as you delight in the woods and fields
that you need not spend the nights on a
husk mattress in a musty farm house cham
Der, fed on the sort of food such impromptu
hotels afford you of recurrent pie, fried |
steaks, cold meats ill-cooked and stale
the post and telegraph offices
miles away, and the only reading matter
available piles of old second-rate magazines,
ancient almanacs, or Complete Guides to |
one thing and another that you care nothing |
about.
Paradise for Those Who Drive.
The drives and walks about Piftsfeld are |
lovely, and the roads well |
kept; if you want keener breath of mount |
ain air take the road up Potter Mountain. |