Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1Stowe, Harriet Beecher
History
Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Europe -- Description and travel
After that we were taken to see New Place. "And what is New Place?" you
say; "the house where Shakspeare lived?" Not exactly; but a house built
where his house was. This drawing is taken from an old print, and is
supposed to represent the house as Shakspeare fitted it up.
We went out into what was Shakspeare's garden, where we were shown his
mulberry--not the one that he planted though, but a veritable mulberry
planted on the same spot; and then we went back to our hotel very tired,
but having conscientiously performed every jot and tittle of the duty of
good pilgrims.
As we sat, in the drizzly evening, over our comfortable tea table, C----
ventured to intimate pretty decidedly that he considered the whole thing
a bore; whereat I thought I saw a sly twinkle around the eyes and mouth
of our most Christian and patient friend, Joseph Sturge. Mr. S.
laughingly told him that he thought it the greatest exercise of
Christian tolerance, that he should have trailed round in the mud with
us all day in our sightseeing, bearing with our unreasonable raptures.
He smiled, and said, quietly, "I must confess that I was a little
pleased that our friend Harriet was so zealous to see Shakspeare's
house, when it wasn't his house, and so earnest to get sprigs from his
mulberry, when it wasn't his mulberry." We were quite ready to allow the
foolishness of the thing, and join the laugh at our own expense.
As to our bed rooms, you must know that all the apartments in this house
are named after different plays of Shakspeare, the name being printed
conspicuously over each door; so that the choosing of our rooms made us
a little sport.
"What rooms will you have, gentlemen?" says the pretty chamber maid.
"Rooms," said Mr. S.; "why, what are there to have?"
"Well, there's Richard III., and there's Hamlet," says the girl.
"O, Hamlet, by all means," said I; "that was always my favorite. Can't
sleep in Richard III., we should have such bad dreams."
"For my part," said C----, "I want All's well that ends well."
"I think," said the chamber maid, hesitating, "the bed in Hamlet isn't
large enough for two. Richard III. is a very nice room, sir."
In fact, it became evident that we were foreordained to Richard; so we
resolved to embrace the modern historical view of this subject, which
will before long turn him out a saint, and not be afraid of the muster
roll of ghosts which Shakspeare represented as infesting his apartment.
Well, for a wonder, the next morning arose a genuine sunny, beautiful
day. Let the fact be recorded that such things do sometimes occur even
in England. C---- was mollified, and began to recant his ill-natured
heresies of the night before, and went so far as to walk, out of his own
proper motion, to Ann Hathaway's Cottage before breakfast--he being one
of the brethren described by Longfellow,
"Who is gifted with most miraculous powers
Of getting up at all sorts of hours;"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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