Selections from Washington Irving Author:Washington Irving Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: STRATFORD-ON-AVON. Thou soft-flowing Avon, by thy silver stream Of things more than mortal sweet Shakspeare would dream; The fairies by moonlight dance ... more »round his green bed, For hallow'd the turf is which pillow'd his head. Garbick. To a homeless man, who has no spot on this wide world which he can truly call his own, there is a momentary feeling of something like independence and territorial consequence, when, after a weary day's travel, he kicks off his boots, thrusts his feet into slippers, and stretches himself before an inn fire. Let the world without go as it may; let kingdoms rise or fall, so long as he has the wherewithal to pay his bill, he is, for the time being, the very monarch of all he surveys. The armchair is his throne, the poker his sceptre, and the little parlor, some twelve feet square, his undisputed empire. It is a morsel of certainty, snatched from the midst of the uncertainties of life; it is a sunny moment, gleaming out kindly on a cloudy day; and he who has advanced some way on a pilgrimage of existence, knows the importance of husbanding even morsels and moments of enjoyment. "Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn ? " thought I, as I gave the fire a stir, lolled back inmy elbow-chair, and cast a complacent look about the little parlor of the Red Horse, at Stratford-on-Avon. The words of sweet Shakspeare were just passing through my mind as the clock struck midnight from the tower of the church in which he lies buried. There was a gentle tap at the door, and a pretty chambermaid, putting in her smiling face, inquired, with a hesitating air, whether I had rung. I understood it as a modest hint that it was time to retire. My dream of absolute dominion was at an end; so abdicating my throne, like a prudent potentate, to avoid being depose...« less