William Winter

“ There is many a venerable, weather-stained church in London, at sight of which your steps falter and your thoughts take a wistful, melancholy turn—though then you may not know either who built it, or who has worshipped in it, or what dust of the dead is mouldering in its vaults. The spirit which thus instantly possesses and controls you is not one of association, but is inherent in the place. Time's shadow on the works of man, like moonlight on a landscape, gives only graces to the view—tingeing them, the while, with sombre sheen—and leaves all blemishes in darkness. ”

“ The higher a man's faculties the higher are his ideals,—toward which, under the operation of a divine law, he must perpetually strive, but to the height of which he will never absolutely attain. So, inevitably, it was with Shakespeare.
But, although genius cannot escape from itself and is no more free than the humblest toiler in the vast scheme of creation, it may—and it must—sometimes escape from the world: and this wise poet, of all men else, would surely recognise and strongly grasp the great privilege of solitude amid the sweetest and most soothing adjuncts of natural beauty. ”

“ The streets have been levelled, swept, rolled and garnished till they look like a Flemish drawing, of the Middle Ages. Even the Shakespeare cottage, the old Harvard house in High Street, and the two old churches—authentic and splendid memorials of a distant and storied past—have been "restored." If the poet could walk again through his accustomed haunts, though he would see the same smiling country round about, and hear, as of old, the ripple of the Avon murmuring in its summer sleep, his eyes would rest on but few objects that once he knew. ”

“ England means stability—the fireside and the altar, home here and heaven hereafter; and this is the secret of the power that she wields in the affairs of the world, and the charm that she diffuses over the domain of thought. Such a temple as St. Paul's cathedral, such a palace as Hampton Court, such a castle as that of Windsor or that of Warwick, is the natural, spontaneous expression of the English instinct of permanence; and it is in memorials like these that England has written her history, with symbols that can perish only with time itself. ”

“ It is off the noble crags of Holyhead that the voyager first observes with what a deft skill the hand of art has here moulded nature's luxuriance into forms of seeming chance-born beauty; and from that hour, wherever in rural England the footsteps of the pilgrim may roam, he will behold nothing but gentle rustic adornment, that has grown with the grass and the roses—greener grass and redder roses than ever we see in our western world! In the English nature a love of the beautiful is spontaneous, and the operation of it is as fluent as the blowing of the summer wind. ”

“ The march of improvement nowadays carries everything before it: even British conservatism is at some points giving way: and, noting the changes that have occurred here within only five years, I am persuaded that those who would see what remains of the London of which they have read and dreamed—the London of Dryden and Pope, of Addison, Sheridan, and Byron, of Betterton, Garrick, and Edmund Kean—will, as time passes, find more and more difficulty both in tracing the footsteps of fame, and in finding that sympathetic, reverent spirit which hallows the relics of genius and renown. ”

“ Hardly a light is anywhere visible. A few great elms, near by, are nodding and rustling in the wind, and once or twice a drowsy bird-note floats up from the neighbouring thicket that skirts the vacant, lonely road. There, at some distance, are the dim arches of Clopton's Bridge. In front—a graceful, shapely mass, indistinct in the starlight—rises the fair Memorial, Stratford's honour and pride. Further off, glimmering through the tree-tops, is the dusky spire of Trinity, keeping its sacred vigil over the dust of Shakespeare. ”

“ This avenue of foliage is said to be the copy of one that existed there in Shakespeare's day, through which he must often have walked, and through which at last he was carried to his grave. Time itself has fallen asleep in that ancient place. The low sob of the organ only deepens the awful sense of its silence and its dreamless repose. Yews and elms grow in the churchyard, and many a low tomb and many a leaning stone are there, in the shadow, gray with moss and mouldering with age. ”

“ This writer, when lately he visited the Abbey, found a chair upon the grave of Johnson, and sat down there to rest and muse. The letters on the stone are fast wearing away; but the memory of that sturdy champion of thought can never perish, as long as the votaries of literature love their art and honour the valiant genius that battled—through hunger, toil, and contumely—for its dignity and renown. It was a tender and right feeling that prompted the burial of Johnson close beside Garrick. They set out together to seek their fortune in the great city. ”

“ There is a row of cottages opposite to the ruins of the castle, in which contentment seems to have made her home. The ivy embowers them. The roses cluster around their little windows. The greensward slopes away, in front, from big, flat stones that are embedded in the mossy sod before their doors. Down in the valley, hard by, your steps stray through an ancient graveyard—in which stands the parish church, a carefully restored building of the eleventh century, with tower, and clock, and bell—and past a few fragments of the Abbey and Monastery of St. Mary, destroyed in 1538. ”

“ Shakespeare's grave, in the chancel of Stratford church, awakens the same ennobling awe and melancholy pleasure; and it is with kindred feeling that you linger at the tomb of Gray. But who can be content that poor Letitia Landon should sleep beneath the pavement of a barrack, with soldiers trampling over her dust? One might almost think, sometimes, that the spirit of calamity, which follows certain persons throughout the whole of life, had pursued them even in death, to haunt about their repose and to mar all the gentleness of association that ought to hallow it. ”

“ There is no tediousness of solitude to him who has within himself resources of thought and dream, the pleasures and pains of memory, the bliss and the torture of imagination. It is best to have few acquaintances—or none—on shipboard. Human companionship, at some times, and this is one of them, distracts by its pettiness. The voyager should yield himself to nature now, and meet his own soul face to face. The routine of everyday life is commonplace enough, equally upon sea and land. But the ocean is a continual pageant, filling and soothing the mind with unspeakable peace. ”

“ Baker—lives in the house now, and welcomes with homely hospitality the wanderers, from all lands, who seek—in a sympathy and reverence most honourable to human nature—the shrine of Shakespeare's love. There is one such wanderer who will never forget the farewell clasp of that kind woman's hand, and who has never parted with her gift of woodbine and roses from the porch of Anne Hathaway's cottage.
In England it is living, more than writing about it, that is esteemed by the best persons. They prize good writing, but they prize noble living far more. ”

“ It is an experience very strange and full of awe suddenly to find your steps upon the sepulchres of such illustrious men as Burke, Pitt, Fox, and Grattan; and you come, with a thrill of more than surprise, upon such still fresh antiquity as the grave of Anne Neville, the daughter of Warwick and queen of Richard the Third. But no single spot in the great cathedral can so enthral the imagination as that strip of storied stone beneath which Garrick, Johnson, Sheridan, Henderson, Cumberland, Dickens, Macaulay, and Handel sleep, side by side. ”

“ The house in which he once lived might, no doubt, be discovered; but every nook and vista, every green lane and upland lawn and ivy-mantled tower of this delicious solitude is haunted with his presence.
The night is coming on and the picture will soon be dark; but never while memory lasts can it fade out of the heart. What a blessing would be ours, if only we could hold forever that exaltation of the spirit, that sweet, resigned serenity, that pure freedom from all the passions of nature and all the cares of life, which comes upon us in such a place as this! ”

“ Hundreds of persons roam through the storied places of England, carrying nothing away but the bare sense of travel. It is not the spectacle that benefits, but the meaning of the spectacle. In the great temples of religion, in those wonderful cathedrals that are the glory of the old world, we ought to feel, not merely the physical beauty but the perfect, illimitable faith, the passionate, incessant devotion, which alone made them possible. The cold intellect of a sceptical age, like the present, could never create such a majestic cathedral as that of Canterbury. ”

“ Elizabeth Claypole, the meek, merciful, beloved daughter of Cromwell; Matilda, Queen to Henry the First, and model of every grace and virtue; and sweet Anne Neville, destroyed—if his enemies told the truth—by the politic craft of Gloster. Strange sights, truly, in the lonesome Abbey to-night!
In the sombre crypt beneath St. Paul's cathedral how thrilling now must be the heavy stillness! No sound can enter there. No breeze from the upper world can stir the dust upon those massive sepulchres. ”

“ At the ancient grammar-school, with its pent-house roof and its dark, sagging rafters, you still may see, in fancy, the unwilling schoolboy gazing upward absently at the great, rugged timbers, or looking wistfully at the sunshine, where it streams through the little lattice windows of his prison. New Place, with its lovely lawn, its spacious garden, the ancestral mulberry and the ivy-covered well, will bring the poet before you, as he lived and moved, in the meridian of his greatness. ”

“ In no other way than by personal observance of such memorials can historic reading be invested with a perfect and permanent reality. Over the tomb of the Black Prince, with its fine recumbent effigy of gilded brass, hang the gauntlets that he wore; and they tell you that his sword formerly hung there, but that Oliver Cromwell—who revealed his iconoclastic and unlovely character in making a stable of this cathedral—carried it away. Close at hand is the tomb of the wise, just, and gentle Cardinal Pole, simply inscribed "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord" ”

“ We embarked at Westminster Bridge and landed close by the church in Southwark, and we were so fortunate as to get permission to enter it without a guide. The oldest part of it is the Lady chapel—which, in English cathedrals, is almost invariably placed behind the choir. Through this we strolled, alone and in silence. Every footstep there falls upon a grave. The pavement is one mass of gravestones; and through the tall, stained windows of the chapel a solemn light pours in upon the sculptured names of men and women who have long been dust. ”

“ Once again, as on that sacred night, the streets of Stratford are deserted and silent under the star-lit sky, and I am standing, in the dim darkness, at the door of the cottage in which Shakespeare was born. It is empty, dark, and still; and in all the neighbourhood there is no stir nor sign of life; but the quaint casements and gables of this haunted house, its antique porch, and the great timbers that cross its front are luminous as with a light of their own, so that I see them with perfect vision. ”

“ Nothing breaks the silence but the sighing of the wind in the great yew-tree at the church door,—beneath which was the poet's favourite seat, and where the brown needles, falling, through many an autumn, have made a dense carpet on the turf. Now and then there is a faint rustle in the ivy; a fitful bird-note serves but to deepen the stillness; and from a rose-tree near at hand a few leaves flutter down, in soundless benediction on the dust beneath. ”

“ No one should come abruptly upon the poet's home. The mind needs to be prepared for the impression that awaits it; and in this gradual approach it finds preparation, both suitable and delicious. The luxuriance of the country, its fertile fields, its brilliant foliage, its myriads of wild-flowers, its pomp of colour and of physical vigour and bloom, do not fail to announce, to every mind, howsoever heedless, that this is a fit place for the birth and nurture of a great man. ”

“ The old foot-path across the fields to Shottery remains accessible. Wild-flowers are blooming along its margin. The gardens and meadows through which it winds are sprinkled with the gorgeous scarlet of the poppy. The hamlet of Shottery is less than a mile from Stratford, stepping toward the sunset; and there, nestled beneath the elms, and almost embowered in vines and roses, stands the cottage in which Anne Hathaway was wooed and won. This is even more antiquated in appearance than the birthplace of Shakespeare, and more obviously a relic of the distant past. ”

“ His grave is under the gray pavement of the chancel, near the altar, and his wife and one of his daughters are buried beside him. The pilgrim who reads upon the gravestone those rugged lines of grievous entreaty and awful imprecation that guard the poet's rest feels no doubt that he is listening to his living voice—for he has now seen the enchanting beauty of the place, and he has now felt what passionate affection it can inspire. ”

“ No human foot to-night invades its sacred precincts. The dead alone possess it. I see, upon its gray walls, the marble figures, white and spectral, staring through the darkness. I hear the night-wind moaning around its lofty towers and faintly sobbing in the dim, mysterious spaces beneath its fretted roof. Here and there a ray of starlight, streaming through the sumptuous rose window, falls and lingers, in ruby or emerald gleam, on tomb, or pillar, or dusky pavement. ”

“ Nothing else upon earth—no natural scene, no relic of the past, no pageantry of the present—can vie with the shrine of Shakespeare, in power to impress, to humble, and to exalt the devout spirit that has been nurtured at the fountain of his transcendent genius.
A fortunate way to approach Stratford-on-Avon is by Warwick and Kenilworth. Those places are not on a direct line of travel; but the scenes and associations that they successively present are such as assume a symmetrical order, increase in interest, and grow to a delightful culmination. ”

“ It has left to succeeding ages not only a legacy of permanent beauty, not only a sublime symbol of religious faith, but an everlasting monument to the loveliness and greatness that are inherent in human nature. No creature with a human heart in his bosom can stand in such a building as Canterbury cathedral without feeling a greater love and reverence than he ever felt before, alike for God and man. ”

“ England is a country which to see is to love. As you draw near to her shores you are pleased at once with the air of careless finish and negligent grace that everywhere overhangs the prospect. The grim, wind-beaten hills of Ireland have first been passed—hills crowned, here and there, with dark, fierce towers that look like strongholds of ancient bandit chiefs, and cleft by dim valleys that seem to promise endless mystery and romance, hid in their sombre depths. ”