ity it
is that she and Shakespeare did not meet in London afterward and talk it
over!

Some hasty individual has put forth a statement to the effect that poets
can only be bred in a mountainous country, where they could lift up their
eyes to the hills. Rock and ravine, beetling crag, singing cascade, and
the heights where the lightning plays and the mists hover are certainly
good timber for poetry--after you have caught your poet--but Nature
eludes all formula. Again, it is the human interest that adds vitality to
art--they reckon ill to leave man out.

Drayton before Shakespeare's time called Warwick "the heart of England,"
and the heart of England it is today--rich, luxuriant, slow. The great
colonies of rabbits that I saw at Charlcote seemed too fat to frolic,
save more than to play a trick or two on the hounds that blinked in the
sun. Down toward Stratford there are flat islands covered with sedge,
long rows of weeping-willows, low hazel, hawthorn, and places where
"Green Grow the Rushes, O." Then, if the farmer leaves a spot untilled,
the dogrose pre-empts the place and showers its petals on the vagrant
winds. Meadowsweet, forget-me-nots and wild geranium snuggle themselves
below the boughs of the sturdy yews.

The first glimpse we get of Stratford is the spire of Holy Trinity; then
comes the tower of the new Memorial Theater, which, by the way, is
exactly like the city hall at Dead Horse, Colorado.

Stratford is just another village of Niagara Falls. The same shops, the
same guides, the same hackmen--all are there, save poor Lo, with his
beadwork and sassafras. In fact, a "cabby" just outside of New Place
offered to take me to the Whirlpool and the Canada side for a dollar. At
least, this is what I thought he said. Of course, it is barely possible
that I was daydreaming, but I think the facts are that it was he who
dozed, and waking suddenly as I passed gave me the wrong cue.

There is a Macbeth livery-stable, a Falstaff bakery, and all the shops
and stores keep Othello this and Hamlet that. I saw briarwood pipes with
Shakespeare's face carved on the bowl, all for one-and-six; feather fans
with advice to the players printed across the folds; the "Seven Ages" on
handkerchiefs; and souvenir-spoons galore, all warranted Gorham's best.

The visitor at the birthplace is given a cheerful little lecture on the
various relics and curiosities as they are shown. The young ladies who
perform this office are clever wome