lo IRature Stubies in Berl^sblre. 



and Pittsfield. It recks little of the prosaic life which 

 thrives the year round in the county. But it has a 

 life of its own, brilliant, charming, intoxicating, a 

 round of interchanges of courtesy, of fetes and fes- 

 tivities, of golfing and coaching and dining. 



There is another Berkshire still, the background 

 of these other two, on which they flit and flutter in 

 their changes and chances, as clouds come and go 

 against the eternal firmament. It is the Berkshire 

 which nature has fashioned, enthroned on the hills, 

 ensconced in the valleys, singing in the brooks, 

 waving hands of welcome and farewell from the 

 branching trees, weaving rich patterns on the turf with 

 wild flower, and grass, and vine, and shrub. That, 

 after all, is the real Berkshire, the one they love the 

 most who love Berkshire for its own sake and for 

 nature's sake. It is '' our " Berkshire, whosoever we 

 may be that love the open sky, and the forest glades, 

 and the hilltops and the brooks. It is such a region 

 as Stevenson celebrates in those thrilling lines, — 



'* It's ill to loose the bonds that God ordained to bind. 

 Still will we be the children of the heather and the wind; 

 Far away from home,.0 it 's still for you and me 

 That the broom is blooming bonnie in the north countree." 



