Our Shakespeare trip

To visit the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford upon Avon is to undertake a pilgrimage, though one that ultimately leaves the traveler balancing intense reverence with a healthy dose of modern skepticism and shared disappointment. In the spring of 1786, while serving my country as Minister to France, diplomatic business required my presence in London. Seizing a brief respite from our official duties, my esteemed friend John Adams and I departed the crowded capital for a tour of the English countryside. We sought to inspect their grand gardens and, above all, to pay our respects to the master of the English language.

Both Mr. Adams and I have long shared a profound, unwavering admiration for Shakespeare’s genius. Throughout our lives, we have turned to his plays not merely for entertainment, but as an essential study in the human condition. While I look to his verse as a supreme textbook of morality, vividly illustrating the beauty of virtue and the ruin of vice, Mr. Adams studies his historical dramas to understand the dangerous machinations of political power and human ambition. To us, Shakespeare is the ultimate architect of the language we now use to shape a new republic.

Yet, upon our arrival at the house on Henley Street, the grand illusions we both held were swiftly shattered, leaving us entirely underwhelmed by the reality of the scene. Mr. Adams, ever direct in his observations, noted with distinct disapproval that the dwelling was as small and mean as one could possibly conceive, finding nothing in the cramped architecture worthy of the poet's legacy. For my part, I found the local caretakers entirely too eager to turn a profit from the poet's memory, charging us a fee at every turn. It was deeply disheartening to see what ought to be a sacred monument to human genius reduced to a sordid commercial enterprise designed to pocket the coins of weary travelers.

The highlight of the tour, according to our guides, was an old, weathered wooden armchair resting in the chimney corner. We were assured, with great solemnity, that this was the very seat in which Shakespeare sat while composing his timeless works. While the romantic in both of us wished to feel inspired, the rational philosopher could not help but wonder how a single chair could survive the elements, the decades, and the endless stream of curious travelers. We left feeling that the entire exhibition was a deception. If the claims were true, this chair must possess the miraculous properties of holy relics, somehow regenerating its own wood to survive the constant toll of human curiosity.

Never the less, a traveler must yield to the accepted customs of the country, which fully expect a visitor to secure a tangible memento of their journey. In this land, it is entirely commonplace and understood that one proves their respect for a historic site by taking a physical piece of it home. Knowing that our caretakers anticipated such an action, and finding ourselves momentarily unobserved, we resolved to gather our proper keepsake. With a pocketknife, we sliced a small chip of wood from the arm of the chair. As Mr. Adams rightly noted in his journal, we cut off a chip according to the custom, engaging in the standard etiquette of the modern traveler.

I have preserved that tiny sliver of English oak, wrapping it carefully in paper with a note detailing its origin and my own doubts as to its absolute authenticity. Whether Shakespeare truly sat in that chair matters less than what the object represents. This fragment will return with me to Virginia, a small piece of the old world brought to the new, a physical remnant of a disappointing excursion that nevertheless reminds us of the literary giant who taught both Adams and myself how to articulate the triumphs and tragedies of the human soul.