Page:Historic towns of the middle states (IA historictownsofm02powe).pdf/209

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summer afternoons the meditative visitor still finds the valley a place of silence and peace. The master of the spell which has brought so many pilgrims to Tarrytown sleeps in the ancient graveyard; the home which he loved with a love deepened by years of exile, still stands, somewhat enlarged, but not despoiled of its secluded and ivy-clad loveliness.

Great estates have been formed about Tarrytown and stately homes line the shores of the river, but the place has kept something of its old simplicity and repose. It has never lacked the presence of those to whom its traditions of refined social habit and generous intellectual life have been sacred; and its distinction is still to be found in an atmosphere which is in no sense dependent on its later and larger prosperity.