The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-06-09
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Mjgllts Eagle
IN sEssKESPEARE'6 HOME.
Thoughts of Traveller Writing near the
Resting Place of the Poet.

Thouehts of n Traveller Writing Near the
Resting Place of the Poet.
A man NAV take pen and ink and write
of a Mace as he will, and the page will
likely enough be pretty honest index to
his own temperament. But never will it
do for another mans reliance. So let it be
confessed that for day we searched STRAIT
ford streets and found nothing of the
Shakespeare that we sought. Neither in
the famous birthplace in Henley street
restored tout of all whooping," crammed
with worthless mementos, and penciled
over with lesser names; nor in the fussy,
inept Memorial theater; nor in the New
place, where certain holes protected with
wire gratings mark what may have been
the foundation Of Shakespeare's house-in
none of these could we find him.
His name echoed in the market place, on
the lips of guide and sightseer, and shone
on monuments, shops, inns and banking
houses. His effigies were everywhere-ln
photographs, in statuettes, now doing duty
as a tobacco box with the bald scalp re-
movable), now as a trade mark for beer
And even while we despised these things
the fault was ours. All the while the
colossus stood high above, while we
"walked under his huge legs and peep'd
about" too near to see.
Nor until we strolled over the meadows
to Aunt Hathaway's cottage at Shottery
did understanding come with the quiet
falling of the day Rarely enough, and
never but in the while between sunset and
twilight, may man hear the sky and
earth breathing together, and drawing his
own small breath ambitiouslyin tune with
them, "feel that he is greater than he
knows" But here and at this hour it hap
pened to US that, our hearts being uplifted,
we could measure Shakespeare for mo-
ment; could know him for the puissant in
telligence that held communion with all
earth and sky, and all mortal aspirations
that rise between them, and knew him also
for the Stratford youth treading this very
footpath beside this sweet smelling hedge
toward those elms a mile away, where the
red light fingers, and the cottage below
them, where already in the window Ann
Hathaway trims her lamp.
You are to believe that our feet trod air
lily across those meadows and our talk was
worth listening to. And at the cottage,
old Mrs. Baker, last living descendant of
the Hathaways, was pleased with our rev.
erent behavior, and picked for each of at
parting a sprig of rosemary from her gar
den for remembrance. God keep her mem
DRY as green and as fragrant!
1t was easy now to forgive all that before
had seemed unworthy in Stratford; easy
next morning, standing before Shake
speare's monument, while the sunshine,
colored by thu eastern window, fell on one
particular slab within the chancel rails, to
live back for a moment to that April morn
ing when Shakespeare had passed from
the earth, and earth must mourn there
for" to follow bis coffin on its short jour
ney from the New place, between the bios
soming lines of the Church walk, out OF
the sunlight into the lasting shadow, up
the dim nave to this spot; and easy to di-
vine, in the quaint epitaph so often quoted,
the mans passionate dread lest his bones
might be flung in time to the common
charmed house; the passionate longing to
lie here always in this dusky corner, close
to his friends and kin and the familiar
voices that meant home-the talk of birds
in the near elns, the chant of Holy Trinity
choir, and night and day, but a stones
throw from his resting place, the whisper
of Avon running perpetually.
For even the wayfarer finds Stratford a
hard place to part from. And looking
back as we left her, so kindly, so full of
memories, giving her haunted streets, her
elms and riverside to the sunshine, but
guarding always as a mother the shrine OF
her great son, know she will pardon my
light words.-A T. CUTLER Couch in
Harper's.