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