03.08. In England - Warwick - Kenilworth - Stratford - Oxford
Chapter 8 Warwick.
-- Kenilworth Castle -- Stratford-on-avon -- Oxford -- Addis Walk -- A Group of Boys.
Warwick, in the south of England, claims ten thousand inhabitants. Arriving at, or near midnight, I found the depot deserted by all but one man. Obtaining direction from a passing citizen, I sought a hotel several blocks away, but found it shut up, dark and silent. One street lamp, with its flickering light, revealed a bell-handle on the door. I pulled it heartily and stood listening to the clanging echoes which I had awakened in a distant part of the building die gradually away. There was no response. It is not an enviable experience to stand alone in a foreign country at the hour of midnight before a dark and silent house, where the bell only serves to arouse the barking of dogs and not the drowsy sleepers of the house. Here unquestionably I missed one of the golden opportunities of life of doing an appropriate thing. It occurred to me afterward, just as most good things do. Here I was between two famous old castles -- Warwick and Kenilworth. The thought should have transported me into the age of knight-errantry as well as into its spirit. With my lance (my umbrella) I should have struck the portcullis (the front door) until it rang again, crying out: "What, ho! sir knight of the castle (hotel keeper), what, ho!" And he finally, after much clanging of inner iron gates (creaking of doors) would have thrust his plumed (night-capped) head through an upper casement, and called out: "Now who be ye that wanders on the queen’s highway at this unseasonable hour, disturbing the rest of her loyal subjects?" And I could have replied: "Fair sir -- a wandering knight from the realm of Lottery-ana, commonly known as Louisiana, craves a night’s courteous entertainment at your hands." But all this was not thought of until too late. And so the reception by and by was commonplace, and instead of being escorted into a large antlered dining-room a la Walter Scott, and confronted with the "venison pasty," we were led promptly and prosaically to a supperless bed.
Next morning, standing on a bridge that spans the Avon, we had a view of Warwick Castle.
It might be called a river-glade view. Looking up the tree-lined banks of the Avon, you behold, a quarter of a mile away, and just where the river bends westward, the gray walls and massive towers of the castle. Embowered in trees, yet the turreted towers lift themselves above the treetops and greet the eyes of the beholder from afar. There are a number of historic incidents connected with Warwick Castle, but the calm grandeur of the building, and the beauty of its surroundings made them take a second place in my mind at the time. Not far away in the town itself I can see the spire of the church in whose crypt sleeps the body of Leicester, the favorite of Queen Elizabeth. How the graves of these prominent people are scattered. A man never knows where he is going to be buried if he is famous or infamous. My landlord drove me out in a handsome two-wheeled vehicle to visit the ruins of Kenilworth Castle that are six or seven miles north of Warwick. The weather was biting cold.
Think of it, that in July I had two buffalo robes over the lap, together with the protection of glove and overcoat. My landlord remarked, as we bowled along at a rapid rate through the beautiful English scenery, that it was an unusual spell of weather for England. I accepted his apology for his country. There was an apology needed. After awhile he remarked that he never had the least trouble in recognizing Americans, and that he knew I was from the United States the instant he heard me speak at the door the previous night. I begged him to tell me how he thus recognized me.
"By your brogue," he replied. His words fairly knocked me into a brown study. In fact, these English people are continually throwing me into the deepest spells of thought. Now here I had crossed the sea, expecting, and, in a measure, prepared to hear brogue from others, and yet before I have had the opportunity of fairly wiping the spray of the Atlantic from my face I am told that my speech--my speech that I had prided myself on for its true inflections and faithfulness to consonant and vowel sounds--that behold it was nothing but brogue! My meditation lasted a good while, and when I arose to the surface again, I came up bearing this conclusion with me: that every man’s tongue, no matter how pure, is mere brogue to his brother dwelling across a national border. My visit to Kenilworth Castle will always remain a beautiful but melancholy memory with me. It was formerly one of the largest and finest castles in England, was often the abode of royalty, witnessed a number of sieges, was possessed by a number of the lordliest men in the past, and was finally given by Queen Elizabeth to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Walter Scott, in his novel "Kenilworth," gives a description of one of three visits that Elizabeth paid to her favorite at this place.
Lordly and imposing once, it is a mournful ruin today, although there is a grandeur still left in the ruins.
One great tower in front -- fully two hundred feet square, with walls fifteen feet thick -- was built in William of Normandy’s time. This is called Caesar’s Tower. Another tower to the right was built by the Duke of Lancaster. Still a third was erected at vast expense by the Earl of Leicester. This one stands back of the other two, fronting another way. There was a time when other buildings existed, and, connecting the three towers, formed a great quadrangle; but these structures, being of a lighter character, have all disappeared and left remaining the towers mentioned.
I climbed up the crumbling remains of steps and stone ledges upon the tower of Lancaster. I looked out upon cultivated fields, where in Elizabeth’s time a lake, covering eighty acres, spread out to the side of the castle and washed its very walls. But Cromwell drained it and today not a sign of it is left. I next crept down a spiral staircase into the room where Amy Robsart was confined. With its one narrow window and stone wall it had the chill of a vault. I ascended again, and stood looking at what was once the great banqueting hall. The floor was gone, even the pillars that supported the vast, square, lofty room had crumbled away, but you could see the paneless oriel windows at the side, and the marks of the highly-ornamented chimneys left partially clinging to the inner wall. Here Elizabeth swept in her robes of state, here silk rustled, satin shone, swords clanked, wine flowed, wit sparkled, and beauty and chivalry congregated. Here Leicester acted as the host of his sovereign, and doubtless knelt before her in ministering attendance as he did to her at the castle gate when she arrived. If he could have looked into the future and seen her leaving him to die in prison, would he have been as supple in knee and gracious in demeanor? I looked next at the quadrangle, or court, that had seen the mustering of stern warriors, or the gayer sight of knights and ladies in bright array preparing for hawking, or hunting, or the tiltyard; that had heard the yelp of hound, the blast of horn, the clang of trumpet, and had witnessed the running to and fro of squire and valet, and all the sights and sounds of a great castle. In that same courtyard, now grass-grown, I noticed a small flock of sheep quietly resting. On the ragged-edged walls of the towers around where once pennons and banners fluttered, I observed the marsh-mallow, and a sedge-like grass waving in the wind. And over the towers and down in the courtyard, and about all the castle there reigned a silence and loneliness that could be felt. It was a silence that had a speech, and a loneliness that had a presence.
Stratford-on-Avon is a town of eight thousand inhabitants. A branch railroad from Warwick brings you to the place with many stoppages and a rainbow-like curve. The scenery round about the place is strikingly English with its fields and meadows. The undulation of the land is so gentle that you could not use the term hills even in courtesy in truthful description. In this immortal place, made famous by the many-sided man, as he is called, is found the birthplace, the school, the home, and the tomb of Shakespeare. It is remarkable that here was his life begun and ended. He was born here, educated, married in the neighborhood, Came back to it after an absence of years, lived here, died, and was buried. I know of no other instance like this among prominent characters, and it is a rare case with any man. Born in one place, we marry in another, live in a third, and die and are buried oftentimes in a fourth. The return of Shakespeare from the great throbbing London to the quiet country town greatly impressed me. Was it that he was ignorant of his greatness. (?) The return looks to me like conscious defeat, and consequent sadness. If he could have foreseen the vast pilgrimage of admirers that annually visit this place he would have been astounded. I counted forty people in the house the morning I was present, and thus they came and still they come. The house in which the great dramatic genius was born is a plain two-story cottage. He was born in the second story in a room so low that I could touch the ceiling with my hand. The child outgrew the room and defies measurement. How strange and often how humble are the places in which the prodigies of the world first see the light. The cottage of Anne Hathaway, his wife, is near the town. I did not visit it because of her shrewish memory. I gladly journeyed to this part of England to see the locality where lived and died a being whose lofty genius has stirred this generation, but I had no desire to look upon a place notable with recollections of a scolding tongue.
Before Shakespeare married the damsel, he, in a poem addressed to her, wrote wittily: "Anne hath a will, Anne Hathaway."
Written in jest at first, the lines afterward could have been penned in deep earnest. Tradition says that things were not comfortable at all times in the Shakespeare mansion.
How careful the matron of a house should be. Who can tell but the quiet husband who cannot be understood and who is the target of many a lingual arrow, may burst in greatness upon the wondering world, and then the sharpened curiosity of the nations will inquire insatiably into all the affairs and circumstances of home life, and as a consequence sundry infirmities of temper and certain peppery qualities of speech pertaining to the female head of the house might be revealed. When Anne, the wife of William, closed the door and administered certain wifely rebukes, she regarded him as simply the husband of Anne; but he turned out to be Shakespeare! the literary marvel of the world. And as the world insists upon hearing all that is said and done to its favorites and idols, behold! through the crack of the closed door the heated tirade of the woman has issued and been heard by pitying multitudes. So Xantippe, the wife of Socrates, has become famous by certain lip-dressings she gave her philosopher husband. She little dreamed that her curtain lectures would resound through the world. When Mrs. Wesley practiced certain indignities and cruelties like hair-pullings upon her sainted husband, she little dreamed that the scene of privacy would be thrown out in strong colors upon the canvass of the future and gazed at in astonishment by the world.
Let certain wives call a halt, and consider their husbands afresh. It may be, the quiet that is so irritating to the bustling housekeeper, is the ponderings of intellectual greatness. The husband may be a genius. If so, look out, for the world will want to know how said genius was treated.
Shakespeare is buried in the church by the side of the river Avon. After standing awhile by the spot where his body sleeps, I went forth for a meditative walk under the trees. The massiveness of the cathedral, the lengthy avenue of lofty trees, the thickly populated cemetery, the quiet flowing past of the river Avon were felt by the mind to be proper surroundings. The voices of some young men rowing by on the river failed to detract from the solemnity of the place.
Oxford is about midway between Stratford and London. In this town of colleges I sought at once the help of a guide. The river Thames puts in an appearance here under another name. Upon this stream takes place the famous annual boat-race of the university. Such is the narrowness of the stream that the boats race in what might be called single file, the object being for the prow of one to touch the stern of another. The spot where Latimer and Ridley were burned interested me far more deeply. A cross marks the place, and is today in the midst of a busy street.
Among other interesting localities I visited and threaded the silent shades of the famous "Addison’s Walk." It is back of Magdalen College and remotely situated in the park owned by the school. The walk is about twelve feet wide and over a mile in length. The forest is on either side, while an avenue of trees, large in body and lofty in size, more directly shuts it in, and with its overarching boughs produces a shadow equal to twilight. The silence is unbroken save by the note of a bird, the rustle of a leaf, or the murmur of the brook flowing hard by. To this quiet, remote spot of sylvan beauty came the future classic writer so frequently, that it was called Addison’s Walk. It was here that he separated himself from the throng and listened to voices that men cannot hear in the rush and din of the multitude. It was here in this solitude he thought for the unthinking, and thought well, and prepared himself for life, so that when his life was over, and he was to be buried, men said that he ought to be among kings and queens, and there amid them he sleeps today.
Every Methodist will readily realize with what interest I visited the college where John Wesley studied, and the one where in later years he was an instructor. No true Methodist or Christian can visit unmoved this place where our church was born, and where began the greatest revival known to the world since the days of Pentecost. In the great dining-hall of Christ College, which is a portrait gallery as well of her distinguished sons, I looked in vain for the face of John Wesley. I saw other faces that we have never heard of on our side of the water, and not generally known on this side of the sea--but the face of the man who under God sent a thrill of life, and a wave of power over the churches of the entire world is not there.
Perhaps he did not cast out devils in the way some people desired; perhaps the people that followed him were not among the "chief rulers;" perhaps a prophet is not without honor save in his own home and country. In leaving Oxford, and one or two miles south of it, I noticed from the car-window a group of boys in boat-uniform walking swiftly over the fields toward the brow of a neighboring hill. With what an eager and assured air did they press their way along the path. The great object of life was evidently awaiting them. What they wanted was just over the hill. They had the thing tied, and it was waiting for them.
Ah boys! I thought as I looked sympathetically after them, you are mistaken, you are deceived--the thing you want is not over there, I have been over the hill myself, not once, but many times, and it is not there!
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