As with all places possessing an ancient fame, which is much visited by strangers, the popular mind of Stratford was continually driven back to the days of its idol, when the house of Tudor held the sceptre of England, and the man of Stratford held the imperial baton in the universe of song. In the windows, as one walked along the street, appeared Shakespeare collars and Shakespeare cuffs, and Shakespeare drinking-cups, and Shakespeare plates, and Shakespeare chairs. Everything one looked upon drove the mind back to Queen Bess. But it was not to the weapon named after the virgin queen. Here was no compulsion to think of foreign wars or approaching Armada. No discords and bloody broils of armed men broke in upon the ears. This was a wayside village hard by the Forest of Arden. At the other side of that hill stood the 'wood not far from Athens.' No one was in haste here, not even American tourists. The town had plenty of time for all it had to do. Strangers, when they came to the place, assumed a grave and deliberate manner. They looked up and down streets with conciliatory eyes, as though embryo poets might be coming those ways, and it were only meet to show respect to those of Shakespeare's cloth. It was a place where the strangers listened and the inhabitants talked, and talked of little else than Shakespeare. It was the business of Stratford to do honour to all things which, in point of time, approach her great son, and to regard the things of to-day as mere shadows passing across that splendid background formed by the achievements of her immortal son. With such a mind and in such a place, George Osborne had reached the prime of manhood. Had he been dull, or vicious, or fond of pleasure, he might have braved all the dangers of a plunge from such a history into London. But he was intellectual rather than intelligent, as Marie had told him. He dwelt within himself rather than went forth to seek new things. He had no mastering evil passion, and consequently nothing which at once gave him an object of pursuit and a reason for darkening his conscience. He was not a frivolous man, and could not be put off with toys and bubbles. But he was religious, profoundly religious. In the presence of the object of his worship he felt pride in his manhood, diffidence in himself. He believed that if a man were thoroughly good, that man could worship worthily. He lifted his eyes and asked help or sympathy fearlessly when he thought of his manhood; when he thought of himself he bent his eyes upon the ground. He aspired with all his soul to rise above evil; the daily routine of petty cares and petty passions dragged him down. He would have given up his life freely any day for his fellow-man.