often since proved, when the spell of the Poets’ Corner is most
potent—the hour when a prismatic shaft of sunlight strikes exactly on
the marble forehead of Burns, and flickering sun-rays light up the face
of Southey. There, above the mortal remains of Henry Irving, I stood,
and as I looked up, I knew that at last Westminster Abbey and I were at
one.
For I saw Shakespeare.
It was not the emotional atmosphere of the place, for that had not as
yet affected me. It was not historic association, for I knew
Shakespeare’s bones did not rest there. It was not the inherent,
artistic worth of the sculptured figure, for I knew that it has never
been looked upon as a masterpiece, and that Walpole, or somebody, called
it “preposterous.” But it was Shakespeare, and from his eyes there shone
all the wonder, the beauty, and the immortality of his genius.
I am told the whole monument is wrong in composition and in execution,
but that is merely
A fault to pardon in the drawing’s lines,—
Its body, so to speak; its soul is right.
Or at least it was to me, and from that moment I felt at home in
Westminster Abbey.
Without leaving the United States, I could have found a more magnificent
statue of Shakespeare in our own Library of Congress, but no other
representation of him, in paint or stone, has ever portrayed to my mind
the personality of the poet as does the Abbey monument.
I invited emotions and they accepted with thanks. They came in crowds,
rushing, and soon I was unqualifiedly certain that I would rather be
dead in Westminster Abbey than alive out of it. Having reached this
important decision, I broke off my emotions at their height and went
home.
The next day, as the sunlight touched Burns’s uplifted brow, I was there
again, and the next, and the next.
The first impressions being comfortably over, Shakespeare and I became
very good friends, without the necessity for heaving breast and
suppressed tears on my part.
I had affable feelings, too, toward many of the other great and
near-great. It amused me to learn how many succeeded in getting into the
Abbey by the mere accident of dying while there was plenty of room.
John Gay, they tell me, is one of the interlopers, and his epitaph,
Life is a jest and all things show it;
I thought so once, but now I know it,
is dubbed irreverent.
But to my mind the irreverence is not in the sentiment, but in the fact
that it is placed upon his tomb, the responsibility therefore, even
though Gay requested it, lying with his survivors. Surely the man who
wrote _Trivia_ is as much entitled to honor as many others whose virtues
are set forth in stone.
But if any one is disturbed by Gay’s irreverence, he has only to step
through the door which is close at hand, into the little chapel of St.
Faith.
For some indefinable reason, this chapel breathes more the spirit of
reverence and holiness than any other in the Abbey. There is no especial
beauty of decoration here, but he who can enter the solemn little room
without putting up the most fervent prayer of his life must be of an
unresponsive nature indeed.
[Illustration: He so dominates the group of tourists he conducts that
they often show signs of almost human intelligence.]
It did not seem to me inharmonious to visit the Chapels of the Sanctuary
in charge of a verger. The Abbey guide is also a philosopher and friend.
His intoned information is pleasantly in keeping with the chiselled
epitaphs, and his personality is invariably delightful; and he so
dominates the group of tourists he conducts that they often show signs
of almost human intelligence. The guide answers questions, not
perfunctorily, but with an air of personal interest. To be sure, he
passes lightly over many of the most impressive figures and proudly
exhibits the fearsome Death who jabs a dart at Lady Nightingale, while
her husband politely endeavors to protect her. But after becoming
acquainted with the chapels one may return on free days and visit,
unescorted, the tomb of Sir Francis Vere.
The Waxen Effigies greatly took my fancy. Hidden away in an upper room,
they are well worth the extra fee which it costs to see them. The verger
describes them with a show of real affection, and indeed, I felt
strangely drawn to the ghastly puppets, which are, undoubtedly, very
like the kings and queens they represent. William and Mary are easily
lodged in a case by themselves, and their brocades and velvets and real
laces are beautiful to look upon, though stiffened by age and dirt.
Elizabeth is a terror, and Charles the Second a horror, but vastly
fascinating in their weird dreadfulness. Again and again I returned to
my waxen friends, and found that they gave me more historic atmosphere
than their biographies or tombs.
Hanging round the outside of the Abbey, I one day stumbled into St.
Margaret’s. The window is wonderful, of course, but I was more
interested in remembering that here Mr. Pepys married the wife of whom
he later naïvely chronicled:
“She finds, with reason, that in the company of other women that I love,
I do not value her or mind her as I ought.”
Having seen the church where Pepys was married, I felt an impulse to
visit the house where he died. But I was relieved rather than otherwise
to learn that no trace of the house now remains.
And, anyway, the house where he died wasn’t the house where he made the
pathetic entry in his _Diary_:
“Home, and, being washing day, dined upon cold meat.”
[Illustration] _VII._ _Certain Social Uncertainties_
Londoners have no definiteness of any sort. Their most striking trait
is, paradoxically, a vague uncertainty, and this is seen in everything
connected with London, from the weather to the gauzy, undecided,
wavering scarfs which the women universally wear.
Indeed I do not know of anything that so perfectly represents the
mentality of an Englishwoman as these same uncertain morsels of drapery.
This state of things is doubtless founded on a logical topographical
fact. Baedeker states that the city of London is built on a tract of
undulating clay soil, and the foundation of the average Londoner’s mind
seems to be of equal instability.
I have learned from the recent newspapers that, owing to these
lamentable subsoil conditions, Saint Paul’s Cathedral is even now
cracking and crumbling, and parallel cases may sometime be noted among
the great minds of the Britons.
I trust this will not be mistakenly thought to mean any disparagement to
the British mind, whether great or small. It is, I am sure, a matter of
taste; and the English people prefer their waveringness of brain, as the
Pisan Tower prefers to lean.
The result of this state of things is, naturally, a lack of a sense of
proportion, and an absolute ignorance of values.
And it is this that makes it impossible, or at least improbable, to
generalize about the manners and customs of London’s polite society;
though indeed anything so uncertain as their society ways can scarcely
be called customs.
I received one morning from Mrs. C. a hastily-written note of invitation
to dine with her that same evening.
“Quite informally,” the note said, “and afterward,” it went on, “we will
drop in at Lady Sutherland’s.”
As I had learned that “quite informally” meant anything its writer chose
it to mean, I was uncertain as to the formality of the function, and,
having no idea who Lady Sutherland might be, I asked information of a
casual caller.
[Illustration: “Why, in social importance, she’s only next to the
King!”]
“Who is she?” was the response, “why, in social importance, she’s only
next to the King! that’s all! She’s the Duchess of Sutherland. She lives
in Stafford House. You may not be familiar with Stafford House, but it
is on record that when Queen Victoria was there, calling on a former
Duchess of Sutherland, she took her leave with the remark, ‘I will now
go from your palace to my humble home,’ referring to her own residence
in Buckingham.”
[Illustration: And so for the informal dinner I arrayed myself.]
I was dumfounded! To be invited to Stafford House in that careless way,
and to have the Duchess of Sutherland mentioned casually as Lady
Sutherland,—well!
And so for the informal dinner I arrayed myself in the most elaborate
costume in my wardrobe.
Nor was I overdressed. The informal dinner proved to be a most pompous
function, and after it we were all whisked into carriages, and taken to
the reception at Stafford House.
Once inside of the beautiful palace I ceased to wonder at Queen
Victoria’s remark. Admitted to be the most beautiful of all English
private mansions, Stafford House seemed to my American inexperience far
more wonderful than Aladdin’s palace could possibly have been.
The magnificent Entrance Hall, with its branching staircase and
impressive gallery, seemed an appropriate setting for the beautiful
Duchess, who stood on the staircase landing to greet her guests. Robed
in billows of white satin, and adorned with what seemed to me must be
the crown jewels, the charming, gracious lady was as simple and
unaffected of manner as any American girl. She greeted me with a
sincerity of welcome that had not lost its charm by having already been
accorded to thousands of others.
Then, a mere atom of the thronging multitude, I was swept on by the
guiding hands of belaced and bepowdered lackeys, and, quite in keeping
with the unexpectedness of all things in London, I found myself suddenly
embarked on a sightseeing tour. But this was a sort of sightseeing
toward which I felt no objection. To be jostled by thousands, all
arrayed in costumes and jewels that were sights in themselves; to visit
not only the great picture gallery of Stafford House, but the smaller
apartments, rarely shown to visitors; to be treated by guests and
attendants as an honored friend of the family and not as an intruder;
all these things made me thoroughly enjoy what would otherwise have been
a sightseeing bore.
It was a marvellous pageant, and to stand looking over the railing of
the high balcony at the crush of vague-expressioned lights of London
society, drifting slowly up the staircase in their own impassive way,
was to me a “Sight Which Should on No Account be Omitted.”
With a sort of chameleonic tendency, I involuntarily acquired a similar
air, and like one in a dream I was introduced to celebrities of all
degrees. Authors of renown, artists of repute, soldiers of glorious
record, all were presented in bewildering succession.
Their demeanor was invariably gracious, kindly, and charming; they
addressed me as if intensely interested in my well-being, past, present,
and future. And yet, combined with their warm interest, was that
indefinite, preoccupied, waveringness of expression, that made me feel
positive if I should suddenly sink through the floor the speaker would
go on talking just the same, quite unaware of my absence.
The feast prepared for this grand army of society was on a scale
commensurate with the rest of the exhibition.
Apparently, whoever was in charge had simply provided all there was in
the world of everything; and a guest had merely to mention a preference
for anything edible, and it was immediately served to him.
The Londoners of course, being quite unaware what they wanted to eat,
vaguely suggested one thing or another at random; and the vague waiters,
apparently knowing the game, brought them something quite different.
These viands the Londoners consumed with satisfaction; but in what was
unmistakably a crass ignorance of what they were eating.
All this fascinated me so that I greatly desired to try experiments,
such as sprinkling their food thickly with red pepper or putting sugar
in their wine. I have not the slightest doubt that they would have
calmly continued their repast, without the slightest suspicion of
anything wrong.
The air of the “passive patrician” of London society is unmistakable,
inimitable, and absorbingly interesting; and never did I have a better
opportunity to observe it than at the beautiful reception at Stafford
House to which I was invited, “quite informally.”
In contrast to this, and as a fine example of the Londoner’s utter
absence of a sense of proportion, listen to the tale of a lady who
called on me one day.
I had met her before, but knew her very slightly. She was exceedingly
polite, and well-bred, and of very formal manner.
The purpose of her call was to invite me to her house. She definitely
stated a date ten days hence, and asked if I would enjoy a
bread-and-milk supper. “For we are plain folk,” she said, “and do not
entertain on an elaborate scale.”
I accepted with pleasure, and she went politely away.
But I was not to be fooled by intimations of informality. “Bread and
milk,” indeed! _that_, I well knew, was a euphonious burlesque for a
high tea if not a sumptuous dinner. I remembered that she had called
personally to invite me; that she asked me ten days before the occasion;
and that the hour, seven o’clock, might mean anything at all.
Therefore, when the day came, I donned evening costume, called a hansom,
and started.
I had never been to the house before, and on reaching it found myself
confronted by a high stone wall and a broad wooden door.
Pushing open the latter, I doubtfully entered, and seemed to be in a
large and somewhat neglected garden filled with a tangle of shrubs,
vines, and flowers. Magnificent old trees drooped their branches low
over the winding paths; rustic arbors, covered with earwiggy vines,
would have delighted Amy March; here and there a broken and
weather-beaten statue of stone or marble poked its head or its
headlessness up through the wandering branches.
I started uncertainly along the most promising of the paths, and at last
came in sight of a house.
A picturesque affair it was. A staircase ran up on the outside, and a
tree,—an actual tree—came up through the middle of the roof. It was
like a small, tall cottage, almost covered with rambling vines, and
surrounded by an irregular, paved court.
From an inconspicuous portal my hostess advanced to greet me. She wore a
summer muslin, simply made, and I promptly felt embarrassed because of
my stunning evening gown.
Her welcome was most cordial, and expressive of beaming hospitality.
“You must enter by the back door,” she explained, “as the vines have
grown over the trellis, so that we cannot get around them to the front
door to enter; though of course we can go out at it. But this side of
the house is more picturesque, anyway. Do you not think it delightful?”
A bit bewildered, I was ushered into a room, strange, but most
interesting. It contained a mantel and fireplace which had been
originally in Oliver Goldsmith’s house, and which was a valuable gem,
both intrinsically and by association. The other fittings of the room
were quite in harmony with this unique possession, and showed
experienced selection, and taste in arrangement. The next room, in the
centre of the house, was the one through which the tree grew. Straight
up, from floor to ceiling, the magnificent trunk formed a noble column,
around which had been built a somewhat undignified table.
Another room was entirely furnished with wonderful specimens of old
Spanish marquetry—such exquisite pieces that it seemed unfair for one
person to own them all. Any one of them would have been a gem of any
collection.
My friend was a charming hostess; and when her husband appeared, he
proved not only a charming host, but a marvellous conversationalist.
So engrossed did we all become in talking, so quick were my friends at
repartee, so interesting the tales they told of their varied
experiences, that the time slipped away rapidly, and the quaint old
clock, which was a gem of some period or other, chimed eight before any
mention had been made of the evening meal.
“Why, it’s after supper-time!” exclaimed my hostess, “let us go to the
dining-room at once.”
The dining-room was another revelation. One corner was occupied by a
huge, high-backed angle-shaped seat of carved wood, which carried with
it the atmosphere of a ruined cathedral or a _Hofbrauhaus_. The latter
effect was perhaps due to the sturdy oaken table which had been drawn
into the corner, convenient to the great settee.
After we were seated, a maid suddenly appeared. She was garbed in a
gorgeous and elaborate costume which seemed to be the perfection of a
peasant’s holiday attire. Huge gold earrings and strings of clinking
beads were worn with a confection of bright-colored satin and cotton
lace, which would have been conspicuous in the front row of a comic
opera chorus.
[Illustration]
If you’ll believe me, that Gilbert and Sullivan piece of property
brought in and served, with neatness and despatch, a meal which
consisted solely of bread and milk!
The bowls were of Crown Derby, the milk in jugs of magnificent old ware,
and the old silver spoons were beyond price.
Yet so accustomed had I become to unexpectedness, and so imbued was I
with the spirit of surprise that haunted the whole place, that the
proceeding seemed quite rational, and I ate my bread and milk
contentedly and in large quantities.
[Illustration: I ate my bread and milk contentedly and in large
quantities.]
There was no other guest, but I shall never forget the delight of that
supper. Never have I seen a more innate and beautiful hospitality; never
have I heard more delightfully witty conversation; never have I been so
fascinated by an experience.
And so if Londoners choose to scribble a hasty note inviting one
carelessly to a reception at Stafford House, and if they see fit to make
a personal call far in advance to ask one to a bread-and-milk supper,
far be it from me to object. But I merely observe, in passing, that they
have no sense of proportion, at least in their ideas of the formality
demanded by social occasions.
[Illustration] _VIII._ _A Sentimental Journey_
I suppose every one experiences sudden moments of self-revelation that
come without rhyme or reason, like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky:
revelations that make clear in one illuminative flash conditions and
motives that have been tangled in a vague obscurity of doubt.
It was when such an instantaneous radiance of mental vision came to me I
realized at once why I had come to England. It was simply and only that
I might visit Stratford-on-Avon.
Nor was this pilgrimage to be lightly undertaken. Well I knew that the
position Shakespeare occupied in my lists of hero-worship demanded that
a fitting tribute of emotion be displayed at sight of such material
memorials as were preserved at his birthplace.
Moreover, I knew that, whatever might be my sense of reverential homage,
in me the power of emotional demonstration did not abound.
But it is ever my custom, when possible, to supply or amend such lacks
as I may note in my nature, by any available means.
And what could be wiser than when going on such an important journey,
and where I knew my own powers would fall short of an imperative
requirement, to take with me some one who should adequately supplement
my shortcomings?
Being of a methodical nature, I have my friends as definitely classified
and as neatly pigeon-holed as my old letters. Mentally running over my
collection of available companions, I stopped at Sentimental Tommy,
knowing I need look no further.
Of course Sentimental Tommy was not his real name, but it is my custom
to bestow upon my friends such titles as seem to me appropriate or
descriptive.
Sentimental Tommy, then, was the only man in the world, so far as I
knew, who would make a perfect associate for a day in Stratford. His
especial qualifications were a chameleonic power of adaptability, an
instant and sympathetic comprehension of mood, an unbounded capacity for
sentiment, and a genius for comradeship. He was also a man to whom one
could say “come, and he cometh,” without any fuss about it.
The date being arranged, I turned to my Baedeker and was deeply
delighted to discover that we must take a train from Euston Station. For
it seemed that the wonderful columned façade of Euston was the only
appropriate exit from London, when one’s destination was Stratford. I
had hoped that our route might cause us to pass through Upper Tooting,
as, next to Stratford, this was to me the most interesting name in my
little red book. I know not why, but Upper Tooting has always possessed
for me a strange fascination and, though it sounds merely like the high
notes of a French horn, yet my intuition tells me that it is full of
deep and absorbing interest.
Sentimental Tommy met me at Euston Station, and bought tickets for
Stratford as casually as if it had been on the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Tommy was in jubilant spirits that morning, with the peculiar kind of
international triumph which comes only to an American who has attained
some especial favour of the English. Gleefully he told me of his great
luck: Only that morning he had been kicked by the King’s cat! An early
stroll past Buckingham Palace and along Constitution Hill had resulted
in an interview with the royal feline, and the above-mentioned honorable
result had been achieved. My observation to the effect that I didn’t
know that cats kicked, was met by the simple statement that this cat
did,—and then we went on to Stratford.
[Illustration: Kicked by the King’s cat.]
The ride being in part through the same country that I had traversed
when coming to London, I felt quite at home in my surroundings; and we
chatted gayly of everything under the sun except the immortal hero of
our pilgrimage.
That’s what I like about Tommy—he has such a wonderful intuitive sense
of conversational values. And though his obsession by Shakespeare is
precisely the same as my own, and though he is himself a _Bartlett’s
Concordance_ in men’s clothing, yet I knew, for a surety, that he would
quote no line from the poet through the entire day.
As we had neither of us ever been in Stratford before, we left the train
at the station and paced the little town with an anticipation that was
like a blank page, to be written on by whatever might happen next.
Trusting to Tommy’s instinct, we asked no questions of guidance, and
started off at random, on a nowise remarkable street. It was an affable
August day, and our gait was much like that of a snail at full gallop;
yet before we turned the first corner tears stood in my eyes,—though
whether caused by the thrill of being on Shakespeare’s ground, or the
reflection of Tommy’s discernibly suppressed emotion, I’ve no idea.
But for pure delightfulness of sensation it is difficult to surpass that
aimless wandering through Stratford, with a subconsciousness of what was
awaiting us.
In London, historical associations crop up at every step; but, though
pointing backward, each points in a different direction, and so they
form a great semicircular horizon which becomes misty and vague in the
distance. This is restful, and gives one a mere sense of blurred
perspective. But Stratford is definite and coherent. Everything in it,
material or otherwise, points sharply back to the one figure, and the
converging rays meet with a suddenness that is dazzling and well-nigh
stunning.
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.”