Stratford-on-Avon, June 23.
Our resting-place was the Red Horse Inn, of which Washington Irving has written so delightfully. One can hardly say that he comes into Shakespeare's country, for one is always there, so deeply and widely has his influence reached. We live in his land always; but, as we approached the quiet little village where he appeared on earth, we could not help speculating upon the causes which produced the prodigy. One almost expects nature herself to present a different aspect to enable us to account in some measure for the apparition of a being so far beyond all others; but it is not so—we see only the quiet beauty which characterizes almost every part of England. His sweet sonnets seem the natural outbirth of the land. Where met he the genius of tragedy, think you? Surely not on the cultivated banks of the gentle Avon, where all is so tame. But as Shakespeare resembled other burghers of Stratford so much, not showing upon the surface that he was that
"largest son of time
Who wandering sang to a listening world,"
Shakespeare's Tomb.
our search for external conditions as to his environment need not be continued. Ordinary laws are inapplicable—he was a law unto himself. How or why Shakespeare was Shakespeare will be settled when there shall be few problems of the race left to settle. It is well that he lies on the banks of the Avon, for that requires us to make a special visit to his shrine to worship him. His mighty shade alone fills the mind. True monotheists are we all who make the pilgrimage to Stratford. I have been there often, but I am always awed into silence as I approach the church; and when I stand beside the ashes of Shakespeare I cannot repress stern, gloomy thoughts, and ask why so potent a force is now but a little dust. The inexplicable waste of nature, a million born that one may live, seems nothing compared to this—the brain of a god doing its work one day and food for worms the next! No wonder, George Eliot, that this was ever the weight that lay upon your heart and troubled you so!
A cheery voice behind me. "What is the matter? Are you ill? You look as if you hadn't a friend in the world!" Thanks, gentle remembrancer. This is no time for the Scribe to forget himself. We are not out for lessons or for moralizing. Things are and shall be "altogether lovely." One must often laugh if one would not cry.
Here is a funny conceit. A worthy draper in the town has recently put an upright stone at the head of his wife's grave, with an inscription setting forth the dates of her birth and death, and beneath it the following verse:
"For the Lord has done great things for us, whereof we are exceeding glad."