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_.
The library was a continuation of fascination. A strange-shaped room
whose length is half a dozen times its width, it seemed a place to enter
but not to leave.
However, one does not visit Stratford for the delights of hotel-life,
and, luncheon over, we again began our wanderings.
By good luck we chanced first upon the Memorial Theatre. The good luck
lay in the fact that, having seen the outside of this Tribute to Genius,
we had no desire to enter. It was remindful of a modern New England high
school building, and, though we knew it contained authentic portraits
and first folios, it had little to do with our Shakespeare.
We paused at the Monument, and commented on the cleverness of the happy
thought that provided _Philosophy_ to fill up the fourth side of
Shakespeare’s genius.
And then we went on to Henley Street and the house where Shakespeare was
born.
We entered the narrow door-way into the old house, which shows so
plainly the frantic endeavor at preservation, and we climbed the stairs
to the room where the poet was born. The air was smoky with memory and
through it loomed the rather smug bust, its weight supported by a
thin-legged, inadequate table.
With Tommy I was not troubled by the objectionable thought of “first
impressions.” In the first moment we took in, with one swift glance, the
fireplace, the walls, the windows, and the few scant properties, and
after that our attitude was as of pilgrims returning to an oft-visited
shrine.
In the room back of the Birthroom, the one that looks out over the
garden, sat the old custodian of the place. He was a large handsome man
with none of the doddering, mumbling effects of his profession.
[Illustration: My thoughts all with Mary Arden.]
He looked at me keenly, as I stood looking out of the back window, my
thoughts all with Mary Arden, and he said, in a low voice, “You love
him, too,” and I said, “Yes.”
A little shaken by the Birthplace, but of no mind to admit it, we went
gayly through the Stratford streets, passing groups of Happy Villagers,
and so suddenly did we meet the Avon, that we almost fell into it. We
chanced upon two broad marble steps that seemed to be the terminal of a
macadamized path to the river.
The Avon was using the lower of these two steps, so we sat on the upper
one and watched the children sailing boats upon the Memorial Stream.
This brought to my mind Mr. Mabie’s word picture of Shakespeare at four
years old, and for a time the baby Shakespeare took precedence over the
man poet.
It is scarcely fair that the Avon should be so beautiful of itself, for
this, with its vicarious interests, makes it too blessed among rivers.
[Illustration: At the chancel.]
Then we went to Holy Trinity. The approach, plain as way to parish
church, seemed like a solemn ceremony, and, as Tommy afterward admitted,
“it got on his nerves.”
Unbothered by verger or guide, oblivious to tourists, if any were there,
we walked straight to the chancel, looked at Shakespeare’s grave,—and
walked away.
It was fortunate for me at this moment that I had taken Sentimental
Tommy with me; for, as his emotions are so much more available than
mine, so he has them under much better control.
I had expected to look around the church a bit, but Tommy led me away,
through the old graveyard, to the low wall by the river. And there,
under the waving old trees, we sat until we could pick up our lost three
hundred years.
Back through the town we went; and I must needs stop here and there at
the little shops, which, with their modern attempts at quaintness,
display relics and antiques, more or less genuine.
[Illustration: The footpath across the fields.]
Few of their wares appealed to me, so I contented myself with a tiny
celluloid bust of Shakespeare, which by chance presented the familiar
features with an expression of real power and intellect. It was strange
to find this poet face on a cheap trinket, and with deep thankfulness of
heart I possessed myself of my one souvenir of Stratford.
It is directly opposed to all the instincts of Tommy’s nature to ask
instructions in matters which he feels that he ought to know
intuitively.
And so, upon his simple announcement, “This is the footpath across the
fields to Shottery,—to Anne Hathaway’s Cottage,” we started.
As Tommy had hinted, during our walk from the station, there would be
another bit of the real thing; and this was it. The walk across the
fields was crowded with impulses that came perilously near emotional
intensity. But from such appalling fate we were saved by our sense of
humor. One cannot give way to emotion if one is conscious of its
humorous aspect. And we agreed that as the path across the field had
been here ever since Shakespeare trod it, and as it would in all
probability remain for some time in the future, the mere coincidence
that we were traversing it at this particular moment was nothing to be
thrilled about.
And yet,—it _was_ the path from Stratford to Shottery, and we _were_
there!
But it was a longer path than we had thought, and the practicality which
is one of the chief ingredients of Tommy’s sentiment moved him to look
at his watch and announce that we would have to turn back at once, if we
would catch the last train to London.
Not entirely disheartened at leaving Anne Hathaway’s cottage
unvisited,—for we both well knew the value of the unattained,—we
turned, and wandered back to the station just in time for the late
afternoon train.
And that was why we didn’t discover until some time afterward that we
had taken the wrong road across the fields; and that, as we imagined our
faces turned toward it, Anne Hathaway’s cottage was getting further and
further away to our left.
[Illustration]
[Illustration] _IX._ _All in a Garden Fair_
To be in London is to be in Society. Each invitation accepted brings two
more, with an ultimate result like that of the old-fashioned “chain
letter.”
Having thoughtlessly begun a social career, I suddenly found my London
carpeted with crimson velvet. And by insidious processes, and by reason
of the advance of summer, the velvet carpet magically transformed itself
into country-house lawns, the only difference being that the green
velvet carpet was of a richer pile.
I had determined to accept no country-house invitations. The somewhat
ample length and breadth of London itself was all the England I desired,
and this I absorbed as fast as I could; my only difficulty being that I
could not live nimbly enough.
But, like the historic gentleman who “loved but was lured away,” I was
invited to a Saturday afternoon garden party in the country, and, under
pressure of argument by some cherished friends, I consented to go.
The Garden Party, unlike Sheridan, was seventy miles away; but I learned
that it would be a typical English Garden Party of the three-volume
sort, and though it necessitated a week-end stay, and concomitant
luggage bothers, I stoically prepared to see it through.
I was to meet my cherished friends, who were none other than the Wag O’
The World and his Wife, at Victoria Station.
This, of itself, was a worth-while experience, for meeting friends at a
London station is always exciting. To begin with, they are never there.
You rush madly about from one ridiculous, inadequate ticket wicket to
another,—from one absurd, inadequate waiting-room to another,—and then
you think that after all they must have said Charing Cross.
Then you forget them, and become absorbed in watching the comic opera
crowd of week-enders, in their neat travelling-suits of beflounced
muslin, frilly lace scarfs, and stout boots.
[Illustration: The comic opera crowd of week-enders.]
Wandering about in the luggage-room, I suddenly chanced upon my friends
calmly sitting on their own boxes, and looking as if they had been
evicted for not paying their rent.
And such a multiplicity of luggage as they had! I had contented myself
with one box of goodly proportions, but my cherished friends had no less
than twelve pieces of the varying patterns of enamelled blackness and
pig-skinned brownness which only England knows.
[Illustration: Looking as if they had been evicted for not paying their
rent.]
“Why sit ye here idle?” I demanded.
“We await the psychical moment,” responded the Wag O’ The World; “you
see they won’t stick our luggage sooner than ten minutes before train
time, and they’re not allowed to stick it later than five minutes before
train time. The game is to catch a porter between those times.”
The game seemed not only difficult, but impossible, for the porters were
not only elusive but for the most part invisible. Preoccupied-looking
men strolled about with a handful of labels and a paste-pot, but could
not be induced to decorate our luggage therewith.
“The principle is all wrong!” I declared. “It is absurd for one to be
such a slave to one’s luggage. Somebody ought to invent a trunk with
legs and intelligence, that would run after us,—instead of our running
after it!”
“Even that would not be necessary,” responded the Wag O’ The World, in
his mild way; “if somebody would only invent a porter with legs and
intelligence, it would fulfil all requirements.”
Now this is the strange part.
Though there were more than a thousand people waiting to have their
luggage stuck (_i. e._, labelled), and though there were but few of the
invisible porters, yet everybody was properly stuck, and started when
the train did!
The next entertainment was the securing of an entire compartment for our
party of three. This is always accomplished in England, but by many
devious and often original devices.
“I’ve thought of a good plan, which I’ve never tried yet,” observed the
Wag O’ The World, “to get a compartment to one’s self. That is, to
invent some collapsible rubber people,—like balloon pigs, you
know,—that may be carried in the pocket, and blown up when necessary.
Three or four of these, when blown up and placed in the various seats
would fool any guard. And if one were shaped like a baby, with a crying
arrangement that would work mechanically, the others would not be
needed.”
This plan was ingenious, but, like everything else in England,
unnecessary. It is one of the most striking characteristics of the
English that nothing is absolutely necessary to their well-being or
happiness. If anything is omitted or mislaid, it is not missed but
promptly forgotten, and no harm done.
After an hour or two of pleasant travel through the hop-poled scenery of
Southeastern England, we reached a place with one of those absurd names
which always suggest Edward Lear’s immortal lyrics, where we must needs
change cars.
My Cherished Friends strolled along the length of the platform to the
luggage van, and judiciously selected such boxes as they cared to claim;
though I am sure they did not get all of their own, and acquired a few
belonging to other passengers. I easily picked out my own American
trunk, and, surrounded by our spoil, we stood on the platform while the
train wandered on.
After a long, but by no means tedious, wait there appeared on the other
side of the platform a toy railroad train, so amateurish that it looked
like one drawn by a child on a slate.
We were put into a box-stall, and locked in. The ridiculous little
contraption bobbled along its track, and finally stopped in the middle
of a beautiful landscape, and we jumped out to become part of it.
The barouche of our hostess awaited us, with still life in the shape of
liveried attendants. A huge wagon awaited the luggage, which had
mysteriously dumped itself out of the train, and we were whisked away to
the Garden Party.
Partly to be polite, and partly because I couldn’t help it, I remarked
on the marvellous beauty of the country.
The Wag O’ The World enthusiastically agreed with me. “But, Emily,” he
said, “if you could only see this same country in the spring! These
lanes are walled on either side with the pink bloom of the may,—and the
wild flowers . . .”
Tears stood in the blue eyes of the Wag, at the mere thought of spring
in Kent, and I realized at last why English poets have sometimes written
poems about Spring.
We passed through the village, one of those tiny hamlets which acquire
merit only by age and local tradition. The Happy Villagers stared at us
with just the correct degree of bucolic curiosity, and we rolled on
through the lodge gates, and along the winding, beautiful avenue to the
house. In every direction stretched wide lawns of perfect grass, that
probably acquired its uppish look when William the Conqueror trod it.
We were met by no humanity of our own stamp, but were shown to our room
by benevolent-minded factotums, and gently advised to prepare for the
Garden Party.
With the exception of entertainments of a public nature, I have never
seen so beautiful and elaborate an affair. The guests, to the number of
two hundred, came from all the country round; some in equipages dripping
with ancestral glory, and some in motor-cars reeking with modern wealth.
The women’s costumes were of themselves a study. The English woman’s
dress often inclines to the _bizarre_; and at a garden fête she lets
herself loose in radiant absurdities, which she wears with the absolute
self-satisfaction born of the knowledge that in the matter of feminine
adornment England is the land of the free and home of the brave.
The Garden Party proceeded with the regularity of clock-work. The
invitations read from four till six, and promptly at four the whole two
hundred guests arrived. This occasioned no confusion, and the hostess
greeted them with a neatness and despatch equalling that of our own
Presidential receptions.
The guests then conversed in amiable groups on the lawn, while a band of
musicians in scarlet and gold uniforms played popular airs.
All were then marshalled into a huge marquee, of dimensions exceeding
our largest circus tent. Here, a Lucullian feast was served at small
tables, and the country gentry, in their vague, involuntary way, amply
satisfied their healthy English appetites.
After the feast, the assemblage was rounded up into a compact audience,
to witness the performance of a troupe of Pierrots. The antics of these
Mountebanks, with accompanying songs and dances, were appreciatively
applauded, and then, as it was six o’clock, the assemblage dissolved and
vanished, almost with the rapidity of a bursting bubble.
To my easily flustered American mentality, it all seemed like a feat of
magic; and I looked in amazement at my hostess who, after the departure
of the last guest, was as composed and serene as if she had entertained
but a single guest. And like the insubstantial pageant faded, it left
not a rack behind. More magic dissolved the tent, the band-stand, the
Pierrots’ platform, and all other incriminating evidence, and then, with
true English forgetfulness, the Garden Party was a thing of the past,
and dinner was toward.
The house-party numbered forty, and, after exchanging the filmy finery
of the garden garb for the more gorgeous regalia demanded by
candle-light, the guests repaired to the stately dining-hall. Of course,
_repaired_ is the only verb of locomotion befitting the occasion.
Sunday passed like a beautiful daydream. The English have a great
respect for the Sabbath day, and, perhaps as a reward for this, the
weather on Sunday is usually perfect. It is not incumbent on guests to
go to church, but it is considered rather nice of them to do so;
especially if, as happened in this instance, the old church is on the
estate where one is visiting. Nor is it any hardship to sit in an old
carved high-backed pew, that has belonged to the family for ages.
Sabbath amusements are of a mild nature, one of the favorites being
photography. English people have original ideas of posing, and any one
who can invent a new mode of grouping his subjects is looked upon as a
hero.
Aside from Lord Nelson’s declaration, if there is one thing that England
expects, it is Tea; and tea she gets every day. But of all the various
modes of conducting the function, the out-of-door Tea at a country house
is probably the most delightful.
The appointments are the perfection of wicker, china, and silver, but it
is the local color and surrounding that count most.
[Illustration: English people have original ideas of posing.]
I cease to wonder that the English are only vaguely interested in their
viands, for who could definitely consider the flavor of tea when in full
view was a rising terrace leading to a magnificent old mansion of the
correct and approved period of architecture, and covered with ivy that
may have been planted by an Historical Character? or, looking in another
direction, one could perceive a formal garden, with fountain and
sun-dial; another turn of the head brought into view a unique rose
orchard, unmatched even in England; while toward the only point of the
compass left, rolled hills and dales that made many an English landscape
painter famous.
Add to this the inconsequent and always delightful small-talk of English
society, spiced here and there by their dreadful expletive, “My word!”
and enlivened by the English humor, which is, to those who care for it,
the most truly humorous thing on earth,—and I, for one, am quite ready
to concede that these conditions combine to make Afternoon Tea a Spangle
of Existence.
[Illustration] _X._ “_I Went and Ranged About to Many Churches._”
Miss Anna was certainly a godsend. It was due to her comprehension of
the “human warious,” and her experienced knowledge of London, that I was
enabled to revisit places I had never seen before.
When she calmly asked me to spend a day sightseeing in the “City,” I
gasped. But when she reminded me that I ought to look once more on some
of the old landmarks of London, I was flattered into a gracious
acceptance.
One soft, purry August morning we started out. I was supposed to be
absolutely under her direction, but when she remarked casually that we
would take a ’bus, I rebelled.
“I have never been in or on the horrid things,” I protested, “and I
never intend to!”
But she only said, “We’ll stand on the corner of Oxford Street, and wait
for a City Atlas,” and somehow I immediately felt quite accustomed to
City Atlases,—and intuitively knew it would be a blue one,—but it
wasn’t.
Imitating Miss Anna’s air of habitual custom, I swung myself aboard of
the moving monster, and laboriously climbed the curving companion-way at
the back.
[Illustration: When she remarked casually that we would take a ’bus, I
rebelled.]
Once in our seats, it was not so bad; though very like riding the
whirlwind, without being allowed to direct the storm.
Miss Anna drew my attention to points of interest as we passed them. In
her tactful way she humored my idiosyncrasy. She never said, “On your
right is the ‘Salutation and Cat,’ where Coleridge and Southey and Lamb
used to congregate of a winter evening.” She said, instead, “Haven’t you
always thought ‘Salutation and Cat’ the very dearest tavern in all
London?”
Nor when we came to the half-timbered houses of Holborn did she say,
“Here lived Lamb’s godfather, who was known to and visited by Sheridan.”
She said: “Don’t you like Hawthorne’s way of putting these things? You
remember how he tells us that on his first visit to London he went
astray in Holborn, through an arched entrance, in a court opening
inward, with a great many Sunflowers in full bloom.”
All this pleased me, as did also Bumpus’s great book-shop, which is, I
think, in this neighborhood.
Another delightful pastime was observing the signs over the shop doors.
As the English are adept in the making of phrases, so are they
especially happy in adjusting their callings to their names.
Lest I be considered frivolous, I shall mention only two; but surely
there could not be more appropriate names for dentists than two whose
sign-boards proudly announced Shipley Slipper, and, across the street
from him, Mr. Strong-i’th’arm.
We went on, absorbed in our view of kaleidoscopic London, until Miss
Anna decreed that we go down to the ground again. There was no elevator
as in the Flatiron Building, so we tumbled down the back stairs, and
were thrown off.
The sequence of the places we visited I do not remember, but they seemed
to be mostly churches and taverns.
St. Paul’s was taken casually, as indeed it should be, being, like a
corporation, without a soul.
Exteriorly, and from a goodly distance, St. Paul’s is perfection. From
the river, or from Parliament Hill, it is sympathetic and responsive.
But inside it is a mere vastness of mosaic and gilding, peopled with
shiny marbles of heroic size. There is an impressive grandeur of art,
but no message for the spirit. It is magnificent, but it is not church.
Miss Anna and I walked properly about the edifice, fortunately agreeing
in our attitude toward it.
From here, I think, she led me across something, and through something
and around something else, and then we were in St. Bartholomew’s church.
Being the oldest church in London, St. Bartholomew’s is historically
important, but it is interesting and delightful as well. The very air
inside has been shut in there ever since the twelfth century, yet one
breathes it normally, and enjoys the sudden backward transition. Had I
the time, I could easily find an inclination to walk every day round its
ancient triforium.
As we left the church, the Charter-house put itself in our way. Though
other British subjects were educated at this school, it remains sacred
to the memory of Thackeray. From here he wrote to his mother, “There are
but three hundred and seventy boys in this school, and I wish there were
only three hundred and sixty-nine.” But visitors to the Charter-house
are glad that the three hundred and seventieth boy remained there, and
stamped the whole place with his gentle memory. The atmosphere of the
Charter-house is wonderfully calm; it does not connote _boys_, but seems
tranquilly imbued with the later wisdom of the great men who spent their
youthful days within its walls.
The stranger in London has a decided advantage over the resident, in
that he can choose his heroes.
A friend of mine who lives in Chelsea proudly assured me that he could
throw a stone from his garden into Carlyle’s! The point of his remark
seemed to be not his superior marksmanship, but the proximity to the
garden of a great man. Now, were I of the stone-throwing sex, there is
many a dead hero at whose garden I should aim before I turned toward
Carlyle’s. But of course this was because my friend lived in Chelsea.
Therefore the non-resident, not being confined to a locality, can throw
imaginary stones into any one’s garden.
A desultory discussion of this subject caused Miss Anna to propose that
our next stone be aimed at the garden of Dr. Samuel Johnson.
So to the Cheshire Cheese we went.
The imposing personality of Dr. Johnson, and the antiquity of the famous
tavern, led me to anticipate great things; and I was sorely disappointed
(as probably most visitors are) at the plainly spread table, the
fearfully hard seats, and the trying umbrella-rack filled with sawdust.
Of course we occupied the historic corner, where, according to the brass
tablet, Dr. Johnson loved to linger; but two young American women whose
tastes are not of the sanded floor and mulled ale variety cannot at a
midday meal, whoop up much of the atmosphere that probably surrounded
the smoke-wreathed midnights of Johnsonian revelry.
[Illustration: Of course we occupied the Historic Corner.]