Stratford – on – Avon

Cromwell Argus, Volume LXVIII, Issue 3483, 23 August 1937, Page 7

Stratford - on - Avon

“Heart of the Heart of England.” “Stratford-on-Avon is the heart of the heart of England.” says Mr. Arthur Mee in “Enchanted Land.” “We look out upon this lovely countryside and feel as Shakespeare felt; it is a precious stone set in a silver sea. So near it Is to him that we should hardly be surprised to see him walking here. “Here is the place where he was born, the very room. Here is the school in which he learned to write, the very room and perhaps the very desk. Here is the tower he looked upon as he sat In his garden, with the very metal of the bell still ringing out as it rang out the precious hours for him. “The is the river he loved, the banks where he would sit and watch the peaceful Avon rolling on. Here are the lanes in which he walked, the fields he crossed to see Anne Hathaway, the seat on which he sat to talk to her. Here is a note he had from a friend, the actual letter he held in his hand to read. Here is the bridge he crossed when he walked to London, widened but still with its old stones, and still looking much as he saw it; he sits In bronze at the end of it, with a group of his characters about him. “Then he crossed the bridge all unknown, but when he crossed it coming home again the seed was sown, the work was done, that was to make him better known than Caesar, more grimly set in fame than Socrates. Here are the visible foundations of the house he lived in then, still enclosing the very spot he died on. And here on the bank of the river he lies, his dust part of this earth, this blessed plot, this England. Well may we feel that there is no place like it anywhere for English folk, for us who speak the tongue that Shakespeare spoke.”