"
North Adams still.--The village, viewed from the top of a hill to the
westward at sunset, has a peculiarly happy and peaceful look. It lies on
a level, surrounded by hills, and seems as if it lay in the hollow of a
large hand. The Union Village may be seen, a manufacturing place,
extending up a gorge of the hills. It is amusing to see all the
distributed property of the aristocracy and commonalty, the various and
conflicting interests of the town, the loves and hates, compressed into a
space which the eye takes in as completely as the arrangement of a
tea-table. The rush of the streams comes up the hill somewhat like the
sound of a city.
The hills about the village appear very high and steep sometimes, when
the shadows of the clouds are thrown blackly upon them, while there is
sunshine elsewhere; so that, seen in front, the effect of their gradual
slope is lost. These hills, surrounding the town on all sides, give it a
snug and insulated air; and, viewed from certain points, it would be
difficult to tell how to get out, without climbing the mountain ridges;
but the roads wind away and accomplish the passage without ascending very
high.
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