Poor creeter! if he and Columbus have got acquainted with each other where they be now, as I spoze it is nateral to think they have, how they must sympathize with each other over the numerous faces they wuz said to have had on this planet! Noble creeters, it wuz too bad, when they only had one apiece, and good, noble-lookin’ ones, I most know, or they wuz, anyway, when they got older, for Time, the sculptor, must have sculped some of their noble traits into their faces.
Martin and Alice bought quite a number of steroscopic views, and I bought a few, and would, though Josiah looked askance at me as I did it, and we left the cottage. But I laid my hand on the doorway as I went out, as though it wuz a shrine, as indeed it wuz.
Wall, havin’ seen the place where he wuz born, we naterally wanted to see the place where he is a-layin’, where “After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well,” havin’ “Ended the heartache, and all the natural ills that flesh is heir to.”
So we sot out for Holy Trinity Church. New Place, as it wuz called, where Shakespeare spent the last days of his life, and where his girl entertained Queen Henriette, wuz torn down in 1757 by its owner, who had moved away, and didn’t want to pay the heavey taxes levied on it. While livin’ there, he had cut down the mulberry-tree Shakespeare planted, because folks thronged into his garden so, and cut off twigs, etc., for relicks; so he cut it down.
It seems mean in him, and then, on the other hand, it would be hard for us to be broke in on any hour of the day, sometimes when we had a hard headache, and wanted to set quiet under our own vine and mulberry-tree, to have a gang of enthusiastick tourists come, and not only break up your quiet, but break off your branches over your achin’ head, and mebby recite Shakespeare right there in broad daylight, and declaim, and elocute, and act.
It would be tuff—tuff both ways. But the young folks of Stratford wuzn’t megum—they didn’t try to see on all sides, as she who wuz once Smith tries to do, so they used to pelt his winder with stuns and things, so he moved out. And much as I honor and revere Shakespeare, I feel kinder sorry for the man, mebby because nobody else seems to say a decent word for him. But I believe he see trouble, with taxes, tourists, elocution, and sech. And because our eyes are sot on a blazin’ sun that is shinin’ high in the Heavens, it hain’t no sign that we ort to kick over every kerosene lamp and candle that we come acrost. No; less be jest to all, and respect what is respectable in ’em, and be sorry for humble trials, as well as proud of lofty glories.
But to resoom—The house that stands on the spot now is owned by the town, and is a museum of Shakespeare’s relicks and souvneirs. It is needless to say how many emotions I had as I walked onwards towards the tomb of the greatest writer who has ever appeared on our planet—in fact, I couldn’t count ’em or begin to, if there wuz any need on’t.
Nor nobody couldn’t see the crowd that walked with me—King Lear, with sweet Cordelia a kinder holdin’ him up; eloquent Portia, Lady Macbeth—the Henrys and Richards—the bright-faced Shrew that wuz tamed—Prince Hamlet—Ophelia a-babblin’ her love ditties—Imogene—poor Desdemona, and her folks, and etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. How they pressed round me!—a great deal nigher to me than Adrian wuz, though I wuz a-leadin’ him by the hand.
The church stands near the banks of the sweet Avon. And we went up to it by a avenue of trees, and through a great Gothic door, into a porch that led into the church itself. The old sexton, who had onlocked the door for us, at our request led us right up to the monument, which is in a niche in the chancel, and is spozed to be a perfect likeness, as it wuz made by a sculptor who wuz acquainted with Shakespeare, and who had a death mask to work from.
There he stands or sets, as the case may be, for a sort of a marble cushion comes up in front of him, and you can’t see quite to the bottom of his vest.