6 IRature Studies in Berkshire. 



sense of entrance which so much adds to the enjoy- 

 ment of coming to a famous region. 



Perhaps if suddenness and surprise were what are 

 sought, the sensation might be depended on if one 

 entered by way of Hoosac Tunnel. But there are 

 drawbacks to the experience of being hurled at grand 

 and imposing scenery out of a hole. 



There is a special attraction, in coming to Berk- 

 shire from the south, in the keen perception of the 

 changing air, the quickening of the pulse under the 

 gentle tonic of the climate. There are few finer 

 experiences to be crowded into a few brief hours, 

 than the change in midsummer from a New York 

 morning to a Berkshire noon. One leaves the stifling 

 city, steaming in a dog-day fog, sultry, humid, lifeless, 

 reeking with acrid odours, heavy with smoke, and 

 gas, and dust. He swelters and suffocates in the 

 great iron half-barrel of the Grand Central Station. 

 He gasps away his few remaining breaths in the tight- 

 shut cars rattling through the dark tunnel. 



Just before the traveller is dead he reaches open 

 air and daylight in Harlem, and sniffs the salty breath 

 of the Sound and the sedges along the shore. Then 

 comes the northward turn at South Norwalk ; and 

 still the thick air is laden with vapours and the languid 

 lungs cannot get oxygen enough to feed the fires of 

 life. But now at least there is no more gas to drug 

 the ozone ; and by the time Bethel is passed the 

 odours of the field replace the clogging fumes of 

 brewery and mill ; and the other side of Danbury the 



