I would like also to attempt a description of the gorgeous "Floral Festivals," which are celebrated in every September, when the streets of the town blaze with processions of vehicles decorated with flowers, and the sidewalks and house-fronts are packed with thousands of delighted spectators; but if "of making many books there is no end," there ought to be a proper end in the making of a book.

In the course of my life I may have done some very foolish things, and quite too many sinful things, but I have always endeavored to avoid doing too long a thing, if it were possible.
During the last twenty-three years I have spent a portion of almost every summer at Mohonk Lake Mountain House, a hostlery equally celebrated for the culture of its guests and charms of its scenery.

It is situated on a spur of the Shawangunk Mountains, about six miles from New Paltz, on the Wallkill Valley Railway.

Its discoverer and proprietor is Albert K.Smiley, who was for many years president of a Quaker Ladies Academy in Providence, R.I., and is a gentleman of fine scholarship and varied attainments.

He is quite equal to discussing geology with Professor Guyot (from whom one of the highest hilltops near his house is named), or art with Huntington, or botany or landscape gardening with Frederick L.Olmstead, or theology with Dr.Schaff, or questions of philanthropy with General Armstrong or Booker T.Washington.
The distinctive character of the house is that there is a notable absence of what is regarded as the chief attractions of some fashionable summer resorts.