William Winter

“ RICHARD Brother, give me thy hand; and, gentle Warwick,
Let me embrace thee in my weary arms:
I, that did never weep, now melt with woe
That winter should cut off our spring-time so.
WARWICK Away, away! Once more, sweet lords farewell.
GEORGE Yet let us all together to our troops,
And give them leave to fly that will not stay;
And call them pillars that will stand to us;
And, if we thrive, promise them such rewards
As victors wear at the Olympian games:
This may plant courage in their quailing breasts;
For yet is hope of life and victory. ”

“ XII Crabbed age and youth cannot live together:
Youth is full of pleasance, age is full of care;
Youth like summer morn, age like winter weather;
Youth like summer brave, age like winter bare.
Youth is full of sport, age’s breath is short;
Youth is nimble, age is lame;
Youth is hot and bold, age is weak and cold;
Youth is wild, and age is tame.
Age, I do abhor thee; youth, I do adore thee;
O, my love, my love is young! ”

“ What hardy little birds they are! The coldest winter of the north does not affect them. They are fearless of man at times, and if you keep quiet they will flit about from place to place, alternately disclosing to you now their ashy blue backs, now their dull white, russet-flanked under-parts, as they swing from twig to twig, scanning each little crevice for a choice morsel of insect life. ”

“ As for the season, it was winter, and those who have experienced the winters of the country know them to be sharp and severe, and subject to fierce storms, when it is dangerous to travel to known places,—much more to search an unknown coast. ”

“ Life is just awakening in the northern woods. The winter has been long and severe. Following the course of the creek we see large cakes of ice thrown topsy-turvy all over the meadow, where they have been carried by the spring freshet. In the gorge block after block is piled; they are lying in every conceivable position. The spring sun is busy undoing what the hard winter has accomplished. The cakes of crystal ice are fast losing their deep blue color, becoming “rotten” and breaking off in huge chunks with a report that fairly startles one. ”

“ He married Gertrude, daughter of Sir John Talbot (of the Shrewsbury line) and of Katherine Petre, by whom he had four children,—John, who died in 1622, leaving issue; Helen, of Cooksey, died 5th May 1670; Mary, a nun; and Catherine, died before 1670. All the daughters were unmarried.
Thomas Winter, one of the chief actors in the plot, was probably born about 1570, and seems to have died a bachelor. He may have been the “Thomas or William Wynter,” apparently of Bradgate Hall, Oxford, who took his B.A. degree on 29th January 1589. ”

“ From Clopton's bridge upward the river winds capriciously between banks that are sometimes fringed with willows and sometimes bordered with grassy meadows or patches of woodland or cultivated lawns, enclosing villas that seem the chosen homes of all this world can give of loveliness and peace. ”

“ Through the high eastern window of the chancel of Holy Trinity church the morning sunshine, broken into many-coloured light, streams in upon the grave of Shakespeare and gilds his bust upon the wall above it. ”

“ The fierce sharpness of these Winds makes the changes of their Weather and Seasons more violent and surprising, than in any place I know; so as a warm faint Air turns in a night to a sharp Frost, with the Wind coming into the North-East; And the contrary with another change of Wind. The Spring is much shorter, and less agreeable, than with us; the Winter much colder, and some parts of the Summer much hotter; and I have known more than once, the violence of one give way to that of the other, like the cold Fit of an Ague to the hot, without any good temper between. ”

“ Human life, as depicted [Pg 105] in A Winter's Tale, shows itself like what it always seems to be in the eyes of patient, tolerant, magnanimous experience—the eyes "that have kept watch o'er man's mortality"—for it is a scene of inexplicable contrasts and vicissitudes, seemingly the chaos of caprice and chance, yet always, in fact, beneficently overruled and guided to good ends. Human beings are shown in it as full of weakness; often as the puppets of laws that they do not understand and of universal propensities and impulses into which they never pause to inquire ”

“ Hard by, upon the summit of the hill, stands the gray tower that overlooks the surrounding region and constantly symbolises, to eyes both far and near, the perpetual peace of which it is at once guardian and image. All around the spot tall trees give shade and music, as the sun streams on their branches and the wind murmurs in their leaves. ”

“ But the cool winds are sweet and bracing, the dark waters of the Avon, shimmering in mellow sunlight and frequent shadow, flow softly past the hallowed church, and the reaped and gleaned and empty meadows invite to many a healthful ramble, far and wide over the country of Shakespeare. ”

“ In early manhood he laid in her grave the woman of his first love—the wife who had died in absence from him, herself scarcely past the threshold of youth, lovely as an angel and to all that knew her precious beyond expression. ”

“ Those great elms, which in their wealth of foliage and irregular and pompous expanse of limb are finer than all other trees of their class, fill the prospect, and nod and murmur in the wind. Through a rift in their heavy-laden boughs is visible a long vista of green field, in which many children are at play. ”

“ Never was poet truer to the highest truth of spiritual life than Shakespeare is when he invests with ineffable mournfulness—shadowy as twilight, vague as the remembrance of a dream—those creatures of his fancy who are preordained to suffering and a miserable death. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ A cold wind blows briskly from the east and sweeps a million streamers of white smoke in turbulent panic over the darkening roofs of the city, far below. In the north the lovely Lomond Hills are distinctly visible across the dusky level of the Forth, which stretches away toward the ocean, one broad sheet of glimmering steel,—its margin indented with many a graceful bay, and the little islands that adorn it shining like stones of amethyst set in polished flint. ”

“ As you drive along the lonely roads your way will sometimes be, for many miles, between hedges that are bespangled with wild roses and with the silver globes of the laurel blossom, while around you the lonely mountains, bare of foliage save for matted grass and a dense growth of low ferns, tower to meet the clouds. ”

“ That evening he camped in the southern foothills of the range just off the trail that mounted to the divide and plunged again down into Shoestring Cañon. Next day he resumed his ride and climbed steadily into the gloomy forests that covered the slopes, sensing the snow that hovered behind the mists on the peaks and wondering if Solange would plunge into it or turn back. He rather judged of her that a little thing like snow would not keep her from her objective. ”

“ At a little distance the gray tower of the noble church,—an edifice of peculiar and distinctive majesty, and one well worthy of the exceptional beauty enshrined within it,—rears itself among the elms. Close by the sleek and indolent cattle are couched upon the cool sod, looking at you with large, soft, lustrous, indifferent eyes. The waterfall sings on, with its low melancholy plaint, while sometimes the silver foam of it is caught up and whirled away by the breeze. ”

“ Those three superb spires steadily dominate the scene, and each new view of them seems fairer than the last. All around this little city the fields are richly green, and many trees diversify the prospect. Pausing to rest awhile in the mouldering graveyard of old St. Chad's, I saw the rooks flocking homeward to the great tree-tops not far away, and heard their many querulous, sagacious, humorous croakings, while over the distance, borne upon the mild and fragrant evening breeze, floated the solemn note of a warning bell from the minster tower, as the shadows deepened and the night came down. ”

“ How sweet tonight would be the rustle of the ivy on the dark walls of Hadley church, where late I breathed the rose-scented air and heard the warbling thrush, and blessed, with a grateful heart, the loving kindness that makes such beauty in the world! Out there on the hillside of Highgate, populous with death, the starlight gleams on many a ponderous tomb and the white marble of many a sculptured statue, where dear and famous names will lure the traveller's footsteps for years to come. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You are scarcely conscious of the low rustling of the leaves outside, the far-off sleepy murmur of the brook, or the faint fragrance of woodbine and maiden's-blush that is wafted in at the open casement and that swathes in nature's incense a memory sweeter than itself. ”

“ Many years roll backward under the spell of such an experience, and the gray-haired man is a boy again, with all the delights of the Waverley Novels before him, health shining in his eyes, and joy beating in his heart, as he looks onward through vistas of golden light into a paradise of fadeless flowers and of happy dreams. ”

“ For a long time the train runs through a deep ravine, with rocky banks on either hand, but presently it emerges into pastures where the sheep are grazing, and into fields in which the late harvest stands garnered in many graceful sheaves. Tall chimneys, vigorously smoking, are visible here and there in the distant landscape. The fat, black rooks are taking their morning flight, clamouring as they go. Stone houses with red roofs glide into the picture, and a graceful church-spire rises on a remote hill-top. ”

“ The relics of the past, contemplated merely because they are relics, are nothing. You tire, in this old land, of the endless array of ruined castles and of wasting graves; you sicken at the thought of the mortality of a thousand years, decaying at your feet, and you long to look again on roses and the face of childhood, the ocean and the stars. ”

“ Each distant summit is seen to be crowned with a tower or a town. A fine castle springs into view just before Birtley glances by, and we see that this is a place of woodlands, piquant with a little of the roughness of unsophisticated nature. But the scene changes suddenly, as in a theatre, and almost in a moment the broad and teeming Tyne blazes beneath the scorching summer sun, and the gray houses of Gateshead and Newcastle fill the picture with life and motion. The waves glance and sparkle,—a wide plain of shimmering silver. The stream is alive with shipping. ”

“ Uncle Hughie gazed indignantly over the golden mill-pond and hummed "The March o' the Cameron Men."
"Well, sir, that McIntyre man has a hard row to hoe," said Jake Sawyer, wisely steering away from the dangerous topic. "It's a caution now, ain't it, how some folks seems to have everything they want in this world, an' others gets all the things nobody wants?"
"Man, did you ever think what a queer, botched-up world we live in, anyhow?" inquired William Winters, who, whenever he found himself beyond the influence of his well-managed home, was always in a rebellious state. ”