lack in size; by noble forests, gently undulating meadows, quaint
farmhouses, old bridges and bits of roadway which are a never-ending
delight to the artist. Writers, too, have found inspiration here and
many exquisite descriptions in prose and verse commemorate the beauties
of this region.

Catharine Maria Sedgwick, the first woman in America to make a literary
reputation on two continents, was born at Stockbridge, and her stories
and sketches were located here. That old seat of learning, Williams
College, is situated among these foothills. In his summer home at
Pittsfield, Longfellow wrote "The Old Clock on the Stairs"; at
Stockbridge, Hawthorne builded his "House of the Seven Gables"; and
Lydia Sigourney poetically told of "Stockbridge Bowl" with "Its foot of
stone and rim of green." It was at Lenox that Henry Ward Beecher
created "Norwood" and "Star Papers." Here Charlotte Cushman and Fanny
Kemble came for many summers to rest and find new life. Harriet Hosmer
had her first dreams of fame at the Sedgwick school. The Goodale
sisters, Elaine and Dora, were born upon one of these mountainsides and
both embalmed its memory in their poems. Dora lovingly sings:

Dear Berkshire, dear birthplace, the hills are thy towers,
Those lofty fringed summits of granite and pine;
No valley's green lap is so spangled with flowers,
No stream of the wildwood so crystal as thine.
Say where do the March winds such treasures uncover,
Such maple and arrowwood burn in the fall,
As up the blue peaks where the thunder-gods hover
In cloud-curtained Berkshire who cradled us all?

Henry Ward Beecher said: