The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-07-04

| that Shakespeare S father moved out OF
Snitterfeld into Stratford about the
middle of the sixteenth century. People
laugh at you if you take names serious
| " in these days, as Mr.. George Moore
takes them, but nevertheless | do not
| believe it is humanity possible for a
great poet TO be born in place called
Snitterfeld. I will not discuss here the
question whether StratfoTd is the most
| beautiful of all names for poet s
birthplace. You can take no objection
to it. however, on the score of indlgnlty
Stratford- Shakespeare Stratford-
/ Stratford that draws men and women
with their strange voices and their
| guide books from all corners Of the
| earth-is now little more than a name.
Or, rather, it is a spirit, surviving IN
spite of ell the groeers and the haber-
| dashers of the place who do reverence
| to commensense and the commonplace
from behind their modern shop windows.
Here and there the spirit of Stafford
| expresses itself in beauty, or, if not in
beauty. at least in delightful quaint
/ ness. At the corner of a street stands
an ancient cross timbered house, put
| together with something of child g
clumsiness ard pleasure in its work,
/ or a featureless old chapel, of whose
beauty the devastating wind and rain,
and not the men who built it, are the
architects. The Chapel of the Guild,
indeed, is the beginning of the single
piece of continuous oldworld loneliness
/ of which Stratford can boast. Beside
| it stand the Guildhall and the long old
almshouses with their projecting upper
stories, their little loaded windows and
and their modest doors. Walking past
the antique-though, I suppose, 're-
stored fronts of these houses, one
does really breathe Shakespeare. The
| people who hobhle in and out of the
doorways are Shakespeare IS people
Verges and Huh Oatcake and George
Seacole, and the rest. They are so real,
| indeed, that at first / felt sure they
must be gotten up for the occasion, and
be employed by some Shakespeare
| Society to show their withered faces
at the doors in order to give an at
| mosphere to the town.
An Oldtimer.
spoke to one of the old men-a
| toothIess old fellow, with red-rimmed,
watery eyes that had dwindled with
age-an old man garrulons, wearing a
collar of e-Gladstonian fashion and
clothes to match-and he took me into
his inner room. "0h, be an old man,
he quavered, shaking his wisp of face
at vacancy; Il be an old man, be,
though | bain't more than thirty or
forty to look at. I be eighty-six years
old. It's as true as God s in heaven,
| if I was never to stir hand or foot
again. -
1 told him he did not look it;
which was true enough, for he looked
at least ninety.
q Yes, . he went on, ~ were born in
1923. I balm L no scholard, sir, and L
don t know whether I've reckoned it
up right, but perhaps you be scholard,
and can reckon it up for me. =
He ehuckled with pleasure when L
told him he was In his eighty-sixth year.
"My eyel'' he said; 81 have done
bit of kiekin about, I have +" And
thereupon he proceeded to unfold to me
a story of himself and a flood and
boat and an escape from death by
drowning, about which things, he said,
he often thought when he was lying in
his bed at night. I listened to the ms
and outs of his story for about quarter
of an hour, trying TO disentangle the
sense of it. At last ] had to cut short
a tediousness that was worse than Dog
herry's.
As I was going to ask him what he
thought of all this Shakespeare bust
ness. Eh?'' he grunted, with a vacant
look, as he leaned, shaking, on his
staff. | repeated my question. His
face broke into a tremble of deaf
man s intelligence eyes, y he nodded.
as though heartily agreeing with me;
81 have seen some kickin' about.
have; is as true as I IN a sinful
man."
Spirit Of Shakespeare.
| sought the spirit of Shakespeare g
Stratford, however, not only in the old
men OF the almshouse, but in the com
mon sights of the town I visited the
house in which Shakespeare was born.
and paid sixpenee for it. I visited
the room in which he went to school.
and paid sixpenee for it. I visited the
church in which he was buried. and
paid sixpence for it. / went out to
Shottery to see the cottage in which
he made love to Anne Hathaway. and
ought TO have paid sixpence for it, but
l resolved to allow myself at least one
unbought mood in Stafford, so / re-
manned outside the door
| suppose all this sixpennv business
is necessary. It is very discouraging.
however, to the imagination that wishes
TO forget itself in bygone centuries.
Even as I approached the substantial
dwelling house in which Shakespeare
was born little well-dressed. golden
haired boy ran toward me, the light of
commerce in his eyes.