Stratford is reeking with dramatic quality, and a sudden breath of its atmosphere makes for mental unbalance.
“Don’t take it so hard,” said Tommy, with his gentle smile; “this is really the worst of it,—except perhaps one other bit,—and it will soon be over.”
“Why, we haven’t begun yet,” said I, in astonishment.
“You’re thinking of the Birthplace, the Memorial, and the Church. You ought to know that we can see, absorb, and assimilate those things in just about one minute each. It is this that counts,—this, and the footpath across the fields to Shottery.”
“And the River,” I added.
“Yes, and the River.”
Following his unerring instincts, Tommy’s steps led us, though perhaps not by the most direct route, to the Shakespeare Hotel.
“You know,” he said, “intending visitors to Stratford are invariably instructed by returned visitors to go to the Red Lion Inn, or Red Bear, or Red something; but instinct tells me that this hostelry has a message for us.”
Nor was the message only that of the typical English luncheon which the dining-room afforded. There were many other points about that hotel which impressed me with peculiar delight, from the quaint entrance hall to the garden at the back.
Each room is named for one of Shakespeare’s plays, and has the title over its door. After hesitating between Hamlet and Twelfth Night, I finally concluded that should I ever spend a whole summer in Stratford, which I fully intend to do, I should take possession of the delightful, chintz-furnished Love’s Labour’s Lost.