struction by Dr. H. Osgood and Mrs. William Parsons of Boston, Mrs. J. G. Chapman and Thomas McKittrick of St. Louis, and by Franklin MacVeagh of Chicago. Those who will begin building during the present year are the Misses Houghton and Professor A. B. Hart of Cambridge, Mrs. Edward Frothingham of Boston, Francis M. Jencks and Dr. Lindon Mellus of Baltimore, and C. W. Wyman of New York. Nearly the whole of the region about Monadnock Lake, as well as the western slope of Beech Hill and the eastern spurs of Monadnock, are now occupied by the summer residents. The western end of the town is still devoted to farming to a limited extent. The eastern end has not yet been invaded by the summer resident; and here are found the greater part of the farms. It has come about, however, that every interest of the town now centres in the summer population. The farmers find here a profitable market for their produce; the securing of wood and ice offers a winter occupation; while a goodly contingent of laborers, mechanics and others are actively employed for at least six months in the year. Two characteristics of the summer life in Dublin deserve special mention. The first of these is the fact that the "summer resort" aims and methods have not found manifestation. Almost exclusively the persons who have purchased and built in the town have sought a summer home for rest and recreation; they have not wished for society or fashion; and the life has been kept natural and simple. While there is a kindly interchange of social courtesies on the part of the summer residents. any display of fashion or wealth has been discarded to a large degree, and many interests bring persons together in a simple and unconventional manner. Το keep to the the ways of nature in yards, walks, roads and fields has been accepted as desirable; and an unwritten law has been adopted, that nature is to be interfered with as little as possible. The same law has been followed in society,that simplicity is to obtain on all occasions. The absence of fashion may be said to distinguish Dublin as a place of summer residence. The limited hotel accommodations and the small number of houses that are rentable have had an effect in limiting the summer population largely to those who have sought in Dublin a natural and recuperative life. were in the process of making by persons spending the summer in the town. For many years Dublin has been a favorite place of resort for artists. The scenery is of unrivalled interest to painter and poet alike. The quiet, simple life of the town, in the midst of many charms of wood, lake and mountain, make this an ideal place for the dreams and labors of the artist. Every summer sees a number of studios in the town; and the work of Smith, Thayer and Brush has come to be widely These conditions have been conducive to bringing to the town every summer a considerable number of persons devoted to literary and artistic pursuits. Already the names of Colonel Higginson, Professor Pumpelly and Professor Richard Burton have been mentioned. To this num ber may be added Justin Winsor, Professor Albert Bushnell Hart, Rev. William R. Alger, Rev. Robert Collyer, Rev. William C. Winslow, and Professor Henry W. Rolfe of the University of Chicago. summer of 1898 nearly a During the During the dozen books known. To these names may be added those of Frank W. Benson, Edmund C. Tarbell and Miss Rose Lamb, all of whom have been drawn to Dublin year after year in pursuit of beauty and the helpful conditions of artistic production. George Grey Barnard, the rising young sculptor of New York, has also spent one or more summers in the town. In former years Miss Maida Craigin and Miss Georgia Cayvan found rest and recuperation here after the close of the theatrical season. In the neighboring town of Chesham, William Preston Phelps devotes himself almost entirely to the painting of Monadnock scenery.* Edward Waldo Emerson occupies his studio every summer, on one of the southern spurs of the mountain.† There can be no doubt that the attractions of Dublin for the summer resident have been the cause of its redemption as a town. The house and barn, with the surrounding acres for garden, orchard and pasture, one of the best village properties in the town, that sold in 1865 for $600, has been offered for rental the present summer for twothirds that sum. That indicates the merely financial gain that has been secured by the summer visitor. The improved roads indicate another advantage, and one of no inconsiderable im * See the illustrated article on "A Painter of Monadnock," by Charles E. Hurd, in the NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE, November, 1897. † See Dr. Emerson's illustrated article, "The Grand Monadnock," in the September, 1896, number of the magazine. MR. JOSEPH LINDON SMITH'S ITALIAN THEATRE. sirable, their wanton destruction has been guarded against. The tidiness, thrift and beauty of the town have been in considerable degree increased. The assessed property of the town has been much more than doubled in the last twenty-five years. In a more limited way the summer resident has contributed to the social and intellectual life of the town, by aiding in the rejuvenation and enlargement of the town library, now containing about 3,000 volumes, and by bringing before the people various lectures, concerts and other entertainments of a high order. During the summer of 1898 Colonel T. W. Higginson, Professor A. B. Hart, Professor Raphael Pumpelly and Mr. Franklin MacVeagh gave on Sunday afternoons in August, in the First Parish church, talks on the events of the day as developed by the Cuban war. A talk on his latest impressions of life in England, given in the rectory by Colonel Higginson, was one of the attractions of the season. Two piano rehearsals by Professor Karl Baermann, in the primitive concert 'hall (an old barn) adjoining the May cottage, proved sources of the greatest delight to those privileged to attend. All these things add to the interest and attractiveness of the town life. It is not to be assumed, however, that the summer resident and boarder are an unmixed good to the hill town. Such in reality is not the case, for they bring into it divisive interests, destroy the homogeneity of its life, and pre THE MOUNTAIN BROOK. sent standards of living which the native population cannot accept without injury to their social and moral conduct. The summer resident wishes for good roads, and he secures them; he is not interested in the schools, and they have deteriorated. Probably more money is spent on the schools than in 1850, but the standard maintained is much lower. At that earlier time the Dublin schools would compare well with any in the state, even in the larger towns and cities; but at the present time they are not adequate to the educational needs of the town. For this there can be no remedy until the state is persuaded to work for the equalization of school privileges throughout all its territory or until the summer resident can be made to see that he ought to aid the schools as he aids the roads and the library. With the deterioration of the schools and the incoming of an outside population, conditions it is perhaps impossible to prevent or to overcome, it has been made somewhat more difficult to maintain the old standards of moral and intellectual life. The native population of Dublin, however, has always been intelligent, self-respecting and moral, with an almost entire absence of vice and crime. What gives Dublin its characteristics as a town is the fact that it lies on the lower slopes of "Cheshire's haughty hill," as Emerson nobly described it. The solitary presence of Grand Monadnock gives climate, beauty and distinctness to the town, has made its outward attractions what they are, and has moulded the lives of its people. This isolated and unique mountain has been well described by one who knows it well: "From field and fold aloof he stands, "An eyemark and the country's core," standing in the midst of a wide-extended region as a "Pillar which God aloft hath set So that men might it not forget; It should be their life's ornament, And mix itself with each event." One would need to travel far to find another mountain so individual as Monadnock, with so distinct and assertive a character. Individual as he is, however, multifarious are the forms of his manifestation, presenting a new face from almost every point of view. What he is from Monadnock Lake is so unlike what he is from Jaffrey or Troy that the view might be that of an entirely different mountain. A halfmile walk will give a new aspect of this "mountain strong," and give a new indication of the many elusive forms he presents. Monadnock is not rugged, bold or high, lifting his head only 3,169 feet above the sea and 1,676 feet above the lake and village; but he stands in masterful repose in the midst of a beautiful land, a majestic beacon and friend "To all the dwellers in the plains Round about, a hundred miles, With salutation to the sea and to the bordering isles." To the eastward, a distance of ten miles, are the Pack Monadnocks, a long succession of wooded hills in Temple and Peterborough, that are fit companions to their loftier neighbor. From Dublin village they present on the eastern horizon a constant miracle of beauty, only less elusive and shifting than that of Grand Monadnock himself. These hills are beyond the territory of Dublin, but at least onehalf of Monadnock belongs to the town by right of possession; and with it belong the brooks, wooded slopes, forests, mountain paths and lake, that make up a perpetual succession of delights to the lover of nature. With these go the succession of flowers, the variety of trees and shrubs, the many kinds of bird life and song, that give to this region an unrivalled charm. To climb Monadnock is not a difficult task, so gradually does he rise |