Page:Marie Corelli - the writer and the woman (IA mariecorelliwrit00coat).pdf/363

 but a Shakespeare enthusiast, is known to all her friends; she would see the day come, if possible, and help to speed its coming, when the whole town of Stratford-on-Avon shall be a Shakespeare memorial. She would exclude steam-launches and all similar misplaced modernities from the peaceful Avon; she would have every new building that is erected in the birthplace of Shakespeare constructed in accordance with the architecture of the Master's day; she would sacredly and lovingly guard every old building and the form of all Stratford's old streets; she would have the storehouse, that exists there, of never explored sixteenth-century records, thoroughly ransacked and reported upon, as it should be, by competent and national authorities, and given an adequate place and publicity. We should hear little more then, we venture to assert, of Baconian theories. Miss Corelli would have, moreover (and perhaps the statement may help to further the object), a great development of the Shakespeare Festival at Stratford. She would like it to be the Bayreuth of Literature. She would establish a central Shakespearean Society, with branches all over the world, which would circulate notes of interest among all Shakespeare lovers, and hold annual conferences in connection with the April Shakespearean celebrations.