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Berkshire House,

Pittsfield, Massachusetts,

May Sixteenth.

Spent the morning at the "Berkshire," posting my journal and attending to private and business correspondence. The afternoon was passed in a stroll through the town, where I saw much that was of interest and gathered some information concerning its early history, progress and present condition.

Of the fourteen counties of Massachusetts, the most strongly marked and highly favored is Berkshire, with its four cardinal boundaries, formed by four different states. To one who sees, for the first time, the luxuriance of its vegetation, the beauty of its forest-covered hills, the broad shady avenues of its villages, with their palatial homes, it seems as if Nature and wealth had combined to make this spot a veritable "Garden of the Gods."

In the exact centre of all this loveliness, more than 1,000 feet above the level of the sea, lies the little city of Pittsfield, containing about 16,000 inhabitants. Its principal streets form a cross, North, South, East, and West streets meeting at an elliptical grove of stately elms forming a small park. Here in old days stood one central tree, its height one hundred and twenty-eight feet, its bare shaft ninety feet, with many a memory of the French and Indian wars attached to it. In 1841, it was struck by lightning. In 1861 it was cut down, even stern men weeping at its fall. It was replaced by a fountain, whose stream may be raised to the height of the old tree. This park also holds a huge shaft of granite, upon which stands the bronze figure of a soldier, flag in hand. On the granite are cut the words, "For the dead a tribute, for the living a memory, for posterity an emblem of devotion to their country's flag." To the west of the park is Pittsfield's large brownstone Post Office, it being the first building on North street, a small business thoroughfare, whose stores, with their dainty wares and tasteful fabrics, would do credit to many a large city.

On the south of the park stands the Athenæum, a building of rough stone, erected at the cost of $100,000 as a "tribute to art, science, and literature," and presented to his fellow-townspeople by Thomas Allen. It contains a large free library, an art gallery, and a very entertaining museum of curiosities. Next door to the Athenæum is the large white Court House, said to have cost $400,000. Across from the Court House, in a little corner of the park, is a tiny music house, gay with colored electric lights, where open air evening concerts are given all through the summer.

On the north of the park stand two of the handsomest of Pittsfield's eleven churches.

The city's manufactories are large and thrifty, but they, and the operatives who manipulate them, are tucked away in a corner, so to speak, where they may not offend the eyes of the opulent inhabitants. Only in the riotous jostle of Saturday night in the store is one brought face to face with the fact that beauty, leisure and wealth do not hold a monopoly of the sweet Berkshire air. For everything appears so lovely. The streets are very wide, great stately avenues, where beautiful strips of the finest lawn border each edge of the sidewalk. Society is the choicest, for the summer residences of New York's four hundred intermingle with the magnificent old mansions owned by the staunchest of Massachusetts' old blue-blooded sons and daughters. Cropping out through the elegance of this little city are some queer old Yankee traits. Lawlessness there is none. No policemen guard the park, with its ideal lawns, but a polite notice informs passers-by that this being no thoroughfare, trespassing will not be tolerated, and there is none. When the concerts are in full blast, people gather in the walks and drives only. Whole rows of little street Arabs may be seen on these occasions, drawn up with their little bare toes touching the very edge of the precious grass. The open music house is always left full of chairs, which no one steals, nay, which no one uses. The entrance to the Court House is filled with blooming plants. No child, no dog even, is ill-bred enough to break one.

But the peculiarities of the people, the beauty of the dwellings, the magnificence of the equipages, the tide of fashionable life which pours in, summer and fall, all, ALL is forgotten as, from some point of vantage, the spectator takes in the beauty surrounding him. "On the west sweep the Taconics, in that majestic curve, whose grace travelers, familiar with the mountain scenery of both hemispheres, pronounce unequaled. On the east the Hoosacs stretch their unbroken battlements, with white villages at their feet, and, if the sunlight favors, paths of mingled lawn and wood, enticing to their summits; while from the south, 'Greylock, cloud-girdled on his purple throne' looks grandly across the valley to the giant heights, keeping watch and ward over the pass where the mountains throw wide their everlasting gates, to let the winding Housatonic flow peacefully toward the sea."

Thus, in taking leave of Massachusetts, I looked back to the starting-point, and thought with pleasure of the many beautiful links in the chain connecting Boston with Pittsfield, none more beautiful than the last.