FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   125   >>  
The American had never heard a nightingale and it was his first pilgrimage to the shrine of the actor-manager whose productions Americans curiously couple with the Bible as sacred lore. During the day Joel Wixon had seen the sights of Stratford with the others from his country and from England and the Continent. But now he wanted to get close to Shakespeare. So he hired the skiff and declined the services of the old boat lender. And now he was stealing up into the rich gloom the church spread across the river. He was pushing the stern of the boat foremost so that he could feast his eyes. He was making so little speed that the only sounds were the choked sob of the water where the boat cleaved it gently and the tinkle of the drops that fell from the lazy oars with something of the delicate music of the uncertain nightingale. Being a successful business man, Wixon was a suffocated poet. The imagination and the passion and the orderliness that brought him money were the same energies that would have made him a success in verse. But lines were not his line, and he was inarticulate and incoherent when beauty overwhelmed him, as it did in nearly every form. He shivered now before the immediate majesty of the scene, and the historic meanings that enriched it as with an embroidered arras. Yet he gave out no more words than an A
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   125   >>  



Top keywords:
nightingale
 

passion

 

energies

 

imagination

 

brought

 
orderliness
 
business
 

delicate

 
tinkle
 

uncertain


suffocated

 

successful

 
gently
 

enriched

 
embroidered
 

meanings

 
historic
 
majesty
 

inarticulate

 

incoherent


cleaved

 

beauty

 

shivered

 

overwhelmed

 

success

 

sights

 

Stratford

 

During

 

country

 

Shakespeare


wanted

 
England
 

Continent

 

sacred

 

pilgrimage

 
shrine
 

American

 
manager
 

couple

 
curiously

Americans
 

productions

 
foremost
 
pushing
 

making

 

choked

 
sounds
 

lender

 
services
 

declined