Description
I A FEW GENERALITIES Stratford-on-Avon stands first on the itinerary of nearly every American who proposes to visit the historic shrines of Old England. Its associations with Britain’s immortal bard and with our own gentle Geoffrey Crayon are not unfamiliar to the veriest layman, and no fewer than thirty thousand pilgrims, largely from America, visit the delightful old town each year. And who ever came away disappointed? Who, if impervious to the charm of the place, ever dared to own it? My first visit to Stratford-on-Avon was in the regulation fashion. Imprisoned in a dusty and comfortless first-class apartment-first-class is an irony in England when applied to railroad travel, a mere excuse for charging double-we shot around the curves, the glorious Warwickshire landscapes fleeting past in a haze or obscured at times by the drifting smoke. Our reveries were rudely interrupted byPg 2 the shriek of the English locomotive-like an exaggerated toy whistle-and, with a mere glimpse of town and river, we were brought sharply up to the unattractive station of Stratford-on-Avon. We were hustled by an officious porter into an omnibus, which rattled through the streets until we landed at the Sign of the Red Horse; and the manner of our departure was even the same. Just two years later, after an exhilarating drive of two or three hours over the broad, well-kept highway winding through the parklike fields, fresh from May showers, between Worcester and Stratford, our motor finally climbed a long hill, and there, stretched out before us, lay the valley of the Avon. Far away we caught the gleam of the immortal river, and rising from a group of splendid trees we beheld Trinity Church-almost unique in England for its graceful combination of massive tower and slender spire-the literary shrine of the English-speaking world, the enchanted spot where Shakespeare sleeps.
[amz_corss_sell asin=”1776743792″]
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