The Berkshire hills are not noted for their grandeur, it would not be the proper word to use in a descriptive sense. They are beautiful almost beyond compare.
They incite the poetic instinct rather than awe and for that reason the euph- onious name “Mohawk Trail” should never have been dese- crated by introducing so unpoetic a name as Hairpin Curve to any part of it.
True, that would probably suggest itself to the mind of the engineer who, by the way, had to work out some mathematical problems in making that bend, but should this not be termed Inspiration Point? For that is just what it is.
You drive along a beautiful road lined with elms, oaks, birches and other trees too numerous to mention, to say nothing of the clinging shrubs, the ivy, sumac, golden rod and the aster, when all at once you come to this curve and a scene of beauty lies before you.
From that point you look into the States of Vermont, Connecticut and New York, and observe numerous villages quietly browsing in the lawns of nature. The undulating hills give a quaint and pic- turesque touch in their rational continuity not infrequently contrasted and in the later fall must present a picture of in- describable beauty.
We were there when Jack Frost had pinched the cheek of the stately elm or the maple, but he had none the less stealthily crept along the ground and in his merciless delight brought the first blush to the poison ivy and the sumac. Proceeding as far as Charlemont we then retraced our steps to North Adams thence to Williamstown.
As related, the impression indescribably fixed upon our minds at Stockbridge reached its superlative degree at the quaint old college town. It beggars description. Apart from its scholastic atmosphere and its tutored refinement, there is a culture that one inevitably feels and not only is this in the air, not only evidenced in its stately and beautiful buildings but even the tourists seem impressed with it and the wait- ers in the hotel were marked by it.
You cannot enter Williamstown without departing with a feeling better for having been there, and whether in man or place such a trait is an invaluable asset and a beautiful heritage.
