Gbe Berkshire IRiver. 109 



Bear Rock. From not less than twenty-five out of 

 the thirty-two townships of Berkshire, the Housa- 

 tonic gathers its life-currents. By this sign it holds 

 its right and title to be called the Berkshire river. 

 And wherever in its course the lover of Berkshire 

 comes upon it, the river seems to bear to his soul a 

 message from the very heart of the county, from its 

 mountain heights, its greenwood shades, its broad 

 vales and intervales, its well-tilled fields, its vistas of 

 enchanting scenery. Sometimes the river runs white 

 and broken over its rocky channel like a reflection of 

 Berkshire skies, flecked with fleecy clouds, driving 

 before the crisp wind of the north-west. Sometimes 

 it slips serenely along under overhanging thickets, or 

 through grassy meadows, a reminder of the dreamy 

 summer days when the August sun shimmers across 

 the ripened rye. It is alive with the life of the 

 hills. 



Modern civilisation, which is hostile to all grand 

 natural features, to forests and to mountains, to 

 waterfalls and to shade-trees, seems to bear a special 

 antipathy toward rivers. For it attacks them in 

 every conceivable way, their resources, their util- 

 ities, their beauties. The hour in which the modern 

 man settles beside a river is a bad one for the 

 stream, for he begins at once to tax his powers to 

 see how he can destroy the attractions and advant- 

 ages which have drawn him to its banks. He tries 

 to tire it out with work, to exhaust it with cruelties. 

 He strangles it with dams, and poisons it with dye- 



