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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

From the Library of

LEWIS S. WELCH

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HOLLAND,

BY

EDMON DO DE AMICIS,
Author of "Spain," "Morocco," etc.

TRANSLATED FROM THE THIRTEENTH EDITION OF THE ITALIAN BY
HELEN ZIMMERN,

ILLUSTRATED,

IN TWO VOLUMES,

Vol, I,

PHILADELPHIA
HENKY T, COATES & CO.

COPYEIGHT, 1894, EY
PORTER & COATES.

TO
PIETKO GEOLIEE.

CONTENTS.
TT PAGE
Holland  g
Zealand  29
Rotterdam  gi^
Delft  joj
The Hague  27i

6

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
VOLUME I,

Photographs taken expressly for this edition of " Holland " by Dr. Charles
L. Mitchell, Philadelphia.
Photogravures by A, W, Elson & Co., Boston. PAGK
A Dutch Windmill  . Frontispiece.
Dutch Fishing-boats. ... .  26
Dordrecht — Canal with Cathedral in the Distance. 48
In Eotterdam  . . . . 64
Interior of the Church op St. Lawrence . . 80
On the Meuse, near Eotteedam  94
The Steigeb, Rotterdam  . 110
The Statue op Tollens  126
Near the Arsenal, Delpt  134
Monument op Admiral Van Tromp  140
Stairway where William the Silent was Assassi
nated IN the Prinsenhop, Delpt . . 150
Eefectory op THE CoNVENT OP St. Agatha, Delpt 156
Old Delpt  166
On the Canal near Delpt   174
7

8 LIST OP ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE
The Binnenhop, The Hague . . ... 184
Paul Potter's Bull  ¦ • 198
On the Eoad to Scheveningen . .  214
Fisherman's Children, Scheveningen ... • 228
The Main Drive in the Bosch, The Hague . 246
The Vyver, The Hague  . 262

HOLLAND.

HOLLAND.

One who looks for the first time at a large map
of Holland must be amazed to think that a country so
made can exist. At first sight, it is impossible to
say whether land or water predominates, and whether
Holland belongs to the continent or to the sea.
Its jagged and narrow coast-line, its deep bays and
wide rivers, which seem to have lost the outer
semblance of rivers and to be carrying fresh seas
to the sea ; and that sea itself, as if transformed to
a river, penetrating far into the land, and breaking
it up into archipelagoes ; the lakes and vast marshes,
the canals crossing each other everywhere, — all
leave an impression that a country so broken up
must disintegrate and disappear. It would be pro
nounced a fit home for only beavers and seals, and
surely its inhabitants, although of a race so bold as
to dwell there, ought never to lie down in peace.
When I first looked at a large map of Holland
these thoughts crowded into my mind, and I felt a
great desire to know something about the formation
of this singular country ; and as what I learned
impelled me to make a book, I write it now in the
hope that I may lead others to read it. 11

12 HOLLAND.
Those who do not know a country usually ask
travellers, "What sort of place is it?"
Many have told briefly what kind of countiy
Holland is.
Napoleon said : " It is an alluvium of French
rivers, the Rhine, the Scheldt, and the Meuse," and
under this pretext he annexed it to the Empire.
One writer defined it as a sort of transition between
the earth and the sea. Another calls it "an immense
surface of earth floating on the water," Others
speak of it as an annex of the old continent, the
China of Europe, the end of the earth and the be
ginning of the ocean — a huge raft of mud and
sand ; and Philip II. called it " the country nearest
hell," But on one point they were all agreed, and
expressed themselves in the same words : Holland is
a conquest of man over the sea ; it is an artificial
country; the Dutch made it; it exists because the
Dutch preserve it, and would disappear if they were
to abandon it.
To understand these words we must picture to our
selves Holland as it was when the first German tribes,
wandering in search of a country, came to inhabit it.
Holland was then almost uninhabitable. It w.as
composed of lakes, vast and stormy as seas, flowing
into each other; marshes and morasses, thickets and
brushwood ; of huge forests, overrun by herds of wild
horses ; vast stretches of pines, oaks, and alder trees.

HOLLAND, 13
in which, tradition tells us, you could traverse leagues
passing from trunk to trunk without ever putting
your foot to the ground. The deep bays carried the
northern storms into the very heart of the country.
Once a year certain provinces disappeared under the
sea, becoming muddy plains which were neither earth
nor water, on which one could neither walk nor sail.
The large rivers, for lack of sufficient incline to drain
them into the sea, strayed here and there, as if uncer
tain which road to take, and then fell asleep in vast
pools amongst the coast-sands. It was a dreary coun
try, swept by strong winds, scourged by continual
rain, and enveloped in a perpetual fog, through which
nothing was heard save the moaning of the waves,
the roaring of wild beasts, and the screeching of sea-
fowl. The first people who had the courage to pitch
their tents in it were obliged to erect with their own
hands, hillocks of earth as a protection from the
inundations of the rivers and the invasions of the
ocean, and they were obliged to live on these heights
like shipwrecked-men on lonely islands, descending,
when the waters withdrew, to seek nourishment by
fishing, hunting, and collecting the eggs which the
sea-fowl had laid on the sands, Csesar, when he
passed by, gave the first name to this people. The
other Latin historians spoke with mingled pity and
respect of these intrepid barbarians who lived on " a
floating country," exposed to the inclemency of an
unfeeling sky and to the fury of the mysterious North

14 HOLLAND.
Sea. Imagination can picture the Roman soldiers
from the heights of the utmost wave-washed citadels
of the empire, contemplating with sadness and wonder
the wandering tribes of that desolate country, and
regarding them as a race accursed of Heaven.
Now, when we reflect that such a region has
become one of the richest, most fertile, and best-
governed countries in the world, we understand how
justly Holland is called the conquest of man.
But it should be added that it is a continuous
conquest. To explain this fact, — to show how the existence of
Holland, notwithstanding the great works of defence
built by its inhabitants, still requires an incessant
struggle fraught with perils, — it is sufficient to glance
rapidly at the greatest changes of its physical his
tory, beginning at the time when its people
had reduced it to a habitable country.
Tradition tells of a great inundation of Friesland
in the sixth century. From that period catastrophes
are recorded in every gulf, in every iisland, one may
say, in almost every town, of Holland. It is reckoned
that through thirteen centuries one great inundation,
besides smaller ones, has taken place every seven
years, and, since the country is an extended plain,
these inundations wore very deluges. Toward the
end of the thirteenth century the sea de
stroyed part of a very fertile peninsula near the
mouth of the Ems and laid waste more than thirty

HOLLAND, 15
villages. In the same century a series of marine
inundations opened an immense gap in Northern
Holland and formed the Grulf of the Zuyder Zee,
killing about eighty thousand people. In 1421 a
storm caused the Meuse to overflow, and in one night
buried in its waters seventy-two villages and one
hundred thousand inhabitants. In 1532 the sea
broke the embankments of Zealand, destroyed a
hundred villages, and buried for ever a vast tract
of the country. In 1570 a tempest produced
another inundation in Zealand and in the province
of Utrecht ; Amsterdam was inundated, and in Fries-
land twenty thousand people were drowned. Other
great floods occurred in the seventeenth century;
two terrible ones at the beginning and at the end
of the eighteenth ; one in 1825, which laid waste
Northern Holland, Friesland, Over-Yssel, and Gel-
derland; another in 1855, when the Rhine, over
flowing, flooded Gelderland and the province of
Utrecht and submerged a large part of North
Brabant, Besides these great catastrophes, there
occurred in the difi'erent centuries innumerable
others which would have been famous in other coun
tries, but were scarcely noticed in Holland — such as
the inundation of the large Lake of Haarlem caused
by an invasion of the sea. Flourishing towns of
the Zuyder Zee Gulf disappeared under water ; the
islands of Zealand were repeatedly covered by the
sea and then again left dry ; the villages on the coast

16 HOLLAND.
from Helder to the mouths of the Meuse were fre
quently submerged and ruined ; and in each of these
inundations there was an immense loss of life of both
man and beast. It is clear that miracles of cour
age, constancy, and industry must have been wrought
by the Dutch people, first in creating, and then in
preserving, such a country.
The enemy against which tho Dutch had to defend
their country was threefold — the sea, the rivers, and
the lakes. The Dutch drained the lakes, drove back
the sea, and imprisoned the rivers.
To drain the lakes they called the air to their aid.
The lakes and marshes were surrounded with dykes,
the dykes with canals and an army of windmills ;
these, putting the suction-pumps in motion, poured
the waters into the canals, which conducted them
into the rivers and to the sea, Thus vast areas of
ground which were buried under water saw the light,
and were transformed, as if by enchantment, into
fertile plains covered with villages and traversed bv
roads and canals. In the seventeenth century, in
less than forty years, twenty-six lakes were emptied.
In Northern Holland alone at the beginning of
this century more than six thousand hectares of
land were delivered from the waters, in Southern
Holland, before 1844, twenty-nine thousand hectares,
and in the whole of Holland, from 1500 to 1858,
three hundred and fifty-five thousand hectares. By
the use of steam pumps instead of windmills, the

HOLLAND. 17
great undertaking of draining the Lake of Haarlem
was completed in thirty-nine months. This lake,
which threatened the towns of Haarlem, Amsterdam,
and Leyden with raging storms, was forty-four kilo
meters in circumference. At present the Hollanders
are contemplating the prodigious enterprise of drain
ing the Gulf of the Zuyder Zee, which covers a space
of more than seven hundred square kilometers.
The rivers, another internal enemy of Holland,
did not cost less fatigue or fewer sacrifices. Some,
like the Rhine, which loses itself in the sand before
reaching the ocean, had to be channelled and
protected from the tide at their mouths by im
mense locks ; others, like the Meuse, were fianked
by large dykes, like those rjrised to force back the
sea ; others were turned from their channels. The
wandering waters were gathered together, the course
of the rivers was regulated, the streams were divided
with rigorous precision, and sent in different direc
tions to maintain the equilibrium of the enormous
liquid mass, — for the smallest deviation might cause
the submersion of whole provinces. In this manner
all of the rivers, which originally wandered unre
strained, swamping and devastating the whole
country, have been reduced to streams and have
become the servants of man.
But the fiercest struggle of all was the battle with
the ocean. Holland, as a whole, lies lower than the
sea-level; consequently, wherever the coast is

18 HOLLAND.
not defended by downs it had to be protected by em
bankments. If these huge bulwarks of earth, wood,
and granite were not standing like monuments to
witness to the courage and perseverance of the Dutch,
it would be impossible to believe that the hand of
man, even in the course of man}' centuries, could
have completed such an immense work. In Zealand
alone the dykes extend over an area of four hundred
kilometers. The western coast of the island of
Walcheren is protected by a dyke, the cost of whose
construction and preservation put out at interest
would, it is calculated, have amounted to a sum great
enough to have paid for the building of the dyke of
solid copper. Round the town of Helder, at the
northern extremity of JTorthern Holland, there is a
dyke made of blocks of Norwegian granite which is
ten kilometers long and stretches sixty meters into the
sea. The province of Friesland, which is eighty-eight
kilometers long, is protected by three rows of enor
mous palisades sustained by blocks of Norwegian and
German granite. Amsterdam, all the towns on the
coast of the Zuyder Zee, and all the islands which have
been formed by fragments of the land that has disap
peared, forming a sort of circle between Friesland and
Northern Holland, are protected by dykes. From the
mouths of the Ems to the mouths of the Scheldt, Hol
land is an impenetrable fort, in whose immense bas
tions the mills are the towers, the locks the gates, the
islands the advanced forts ; of which, like a real for-

HOLLAND. 19
tress, it shows to its enemy, the sea, only the tips of
its steeples and the roofs of its buildings, as though
in derision or in challenge.
In truth, Holland is a fortress, and the Dutch live
as though they were in a fort — always in arms
against the sea. A host of engineers, dependent on
the minister of the interior, is scattered throughout
the land, disciplined like an army. These men are
continually on the alert, watching over the waters of
the interior, anticipating the rupture of the dykes,
ordering and directing the works of defense. The
expenses of this warfare are distributed : one part is
paid by the state, the other by the provinces ; every
proprietor pays, besides the general imposts, a special
tax on the dykes in proportion to the extent of his
property and to its proximity to the waters. Any
accidental breach, any carelessness, may cause a fiood :
the danger is ever present. The sentinels are at
their posts on the ramparts, and at the first attack
of the sea, give the war-cry, whereupon Holland
sends out arms, materials, and money. And even
when great battles are not in progress, a slow,
noiseless struggle is ever going on. Innumerable
windmills, even in the drained lakes, are continually
working to exhaust the rain-water and the water that
oozes from the earth, and to pump it into the canals.
Every day the locks of the gulfs and rivers shut their
gigantic doors in face of the high tide, which at
tempts to launch its billows into the heart of the
Vol, I.— 2

20 HOLLAND,
country. Work is continually going on to reinforce
any weakened dykes, to fortify the downs by cultiva
tion, to throw up fresh embankments where the downs
are low — works towering like immense spears brand
ished in the midst of the sea, ready to break the
first onset of the waves. The sea thunders eternally
at the doors of the rivers, ceaselessly lashes their
banks, roars forth its eternal menace, raises the
crests of its billows curious to behold the contested
ground, heaps banks of sand before the doors to
destroy the commerce of the cities it wishes to possess ;
wastes, rasps, and undermines the coasts, and, unable
to overthrow the ramparts, against which its impotent
waves break in angry foam, it casts ships laden with
corpses at the feet of the rebellious country to tes
tify to its fury and its strength.
Whilst this great struggle continues Holland is
becoming transformed, A map of the country as
it was eight centuries ago would not at first sight
be recognized. The land is changed, the men are
changed. The sea in some parts has driven back
the coast ; it has taken portions of the land from
the continent, has abandoned and again retaken it;
has reunited some of the islands to the continent bv
chains of sand, as in Zealand ; has detached the
borders of the continent and formed of them new
islands, such as Wieringen ; has withdrawn from some
provinces, and has converted maritime cities into
inland towns, as at Leeuwarden ; it has changed vast

HOLLAND. 21
plains into archipelagoes of a hundred isles, such as
the Bies-Bosch ; it has separated the city from the land,
as at Dordrecht. New gulfs two leagues wide have
been formed, such as the Gulf of Dollart; two pro
vinces have been separated by a new sea — namely.
North Holland and Friesland. Inundations have
caused the level of the ground to be raised in some
places, lowered in others ; unfruitful soil has been
fertilized by the sediment of the overfiown rivers ;
fertile ground has been changed into deserts of sand.
The transformations of the waters have given rise to
a transformation of labor. Islands have been joined
to the continent, as was the island of Ameland ; whole
provinces are being reduced to islands, as is the
case with North Holland, which will be separated
from South Holland by the new canal of Amster
dam ; lakes as large as provinces have been made to
disappear, like the Lake of Beemster. By the re
moval of the thick mud, land has been converted into
lakes, and these lakes are again transformed into
meadows. So the country changes, ordering and alter
ing its aspect in accordance with the violence of the
waters and the needs of man. As one glances over
the latest map, he may be sure that in a few years, it
will be useless, because at the moment he is studying
it, there exist bays which will disappear Httle by
little, tracts of land which are on the point of detach
ing themselves from the continent, and large canals
which will open and carry life into uninhabited regions.

22 HOLLAND,
But Hollanders did more than defend themselves
from the water; they became its masters. The water
was their scourge; it became their defence. If a
foreign army invades their territory, they open the
dykes and loose the sea and the rivers, as they loosed
them on the Romans, the Spanish, and the army of
Louis XIV., and then defend the inland towns with
their fleets. Water was their poverty ; they have
made it riches. The whole country is covered with a
network of canals, which irrigate the land and are
at the same time the highways of the people. The
towns communicate with the sea by means of the
canals ; canals lead from town to town, bind
ing the towns to the villages, and uniting the
villages themselves, as they lie with their homesteads
scattered over the plain. Smaller canals surround
the farms, the meadows, and the kitchen-
gardens, taking the place of walls and hedges ;
every house is a little port. Ships, barges,
boats, and rafts sail through the villages, wind
round the houses, and thread the country in all
directions, just as carts and carriages do in other
places. And here, too, Holland has accomplished manv
gigantic works, such as the William Canal in North
Brabant, which, more than eighty kilometers long
and thirty meters wide, crosses the whole of North
ern Holland and unites Amsterdam to the North
Sea : the new canal, the largest in Europe, which will

HOLLAND. 23
join Amsterdam to the ocean, across the downs,
and another, equally large, which will unite the
town of Rotterdam to the sea. The canals are the
veins of Holland, and the water is its blood.
But, aside from the canals, the draining of the
lakes, and the works of defence, as one passes
rapidly through Holland he sees on every side
indications of marvellous labor. The ground, — in
other countries the gift of nature, — is here the
result of industry. Holland acquired the greater
part of its riches through commerce, but the earth
had to yield its fruits before commerce could
exist; and there was no earth — it had to be
created. There were banks of sand, broken here
and there by layers of peat, and downs which
the wind blew about and scattered over the
country ; large expanses of muddy land, destined,
as it seemed, to eternal barrenness. Iron and coal,
the first elements of industry, were lacking ; there
was no wood, for the forests had already been de
stroyed by storms before agriculture began ; there was
neither stone nor metal. Nature, as a Dutch poet
has said, had denied all its gifts to Holland, and the
Dutch were obliged to do everything in spite of her.
They began by fertilizing the sand. In some places
they made the ground fruitful by placing on it layers
of soil brought from a distance, just as a garden is
formed ; they spread the rubble from the downs over
the sodden meadows ; they mixed bits of the peat

24 HOLLAND,
taken from the water with the earth that was
too sandy ; they dug up clay to give a fresh fer
tility to the surface of the ground ; they strove to
till the downs ; and thus, by a thousand varied eff"orts,
as they continually warded off the threatening waters,
they succeeded in cultivating Holland as highly as
other countries more favored by Nature. The Hol
land of sands and marshes, which the ancients consid
ered barely habitable, now sends abroad, year by
year, agricultural products to the value of a hundred
million francs, possesses about a million three
hundred thousand head of cattle, and may be rated
in proportion to its size among the most populous
countries in Europe.
Now, it is obvious that in a country so extra
ordinary the inhabitants must be very different
from those of other lands. Indeed, few peoples
have been more influenced by the nature of the
country they inhabit, than the Dutch. Their
genius is in perfect harmony with the physical
character of Holland, When one contemplates
the memorials cf the great warfare which this
nation has waged with the sea, one understands
that its characteristics must be steadfastness and
patience, conjoined with calm and determined
courage. The glorious struggle, and the know
ledge that they owe everything to themselves,
must have infused and strengthened in them a lofty
sense of their own dignity and an indomitable spirit

HOLLAND. 25
of liberty and independence. The necessity for a
continual struggle, for incessant work, and for contin
ual sacrifices to protect their very existence, confronts
them perpetually with realities, and must have
helped to make them an extremely practical and
economical nation. Good sense necessarily became
their most prominent quality ; economy was perforce
one of their principal virtues. This nation was
obliged to excel in useful works, to be sober in its
enjoyments, simple even in its greatness, and success
ful in all things that are to be attained by tenacity
of purpose and by activity springing from refiec-
tion and precision. It had to be wise rather than
heroic, conservative rather than creative ; to give no
great architects to the edifice of modern thought, but
many able workmen, a legion of patient and useful
laborers. By virtue of these qualities of prudence,
phlegmatic activity, and conservatism the Dutch are
ever advancing, although step by step. They acquire
slowly, but lose none of their acquisitions ; — they are
loth to quit ancient usages, and, although three great
nations are in close proximity to them, they retain
their originality as if isolated. They have retained
it through different forms of government, through
foreign invasions, through the political and religious
wars of which Holland was the theatre — in spite of the
immense crowd of foreigners from every country who
have taken refuge in their land, and have lived there
at all times. They are, in short, of all the northern

26 HOLLAND.
nations, that one which has retained its ancient typi
cal character as it advanced on the road toward civil
ization. One recalling the conformation of this
country, with its three and a half millions of inhab
itants, can easily understand that although fused into
a solid political union, and although recognizable
amongst the other northern nations by certain traits
peculiar to the inhabitants of all its provinces, it
must nevertheless present a great variety. Such, in
deed, is the case. Between Zealand and Holland
proper, between Holland and Friesland, between
Friesland and Gelderland, between Groningen and
Brabant, although they are closely bound together by
local and historical ties, there is a difference as great
as that existing between the most distant provinces
of Italy and France. They diff"er in language, in
costume and in character, in race and in religion.
The communal rSgime has impressed on this nation
an indelible stamp, because nowhere else has it so
conformed to the nature of things. The interests of
the country are divided into various groups, of whose
organization the hydraulic system is an example.
Hence association and mutual help against the com
mon enemy, the sea, but freedom of action in local
institutions. The monarchical rSgimc has not extin
guished the ancient municipal spirit, which frustrated
the efforts of all those great states that tried to absorb
Holland. The great rivers and deep gulfs serve both
as commercial roads which constitute a national bond

Dutcb ifisbiiici Boats.

HOLLAND. 27
between the various provinces, and as barriers which
defend their ancient traditions and provincial cus
toms. In this land, which is apparently so uniform,
one may say that everything save the aspect of na
ture changes at every step — changes suddenly, too,
as does nature itself, to the eye of one who crosses
the frontier of this state for the first time.
But, however wonderful the physical history of
Holland may be, its political history is even more
marvellous. This little country, invaded first by
difi'erent tribes of the Germanic race, subdued by the
Romans and by the Franks, devastated by the Danes
and by the Normans, and wasted for centuries by ter
rible civil wars, — this little nation of fishermen and
merchants preserved its civil freedom and liberty of
conscience by a war of eighty years' duration against
the formidable monarchy of Philip II.', and founded a
republic which became the ark of salvation for the
freedom of all peoples, the adopted home of the
sciences, the exchange of Europe, the station of the
world's commerce ; a republic which extends its
dominion to Java, Sumatra, Hindostan, Ceylon, New
Holland, Japan, Brazil, Guiana, the Cape of Good
Hope, the West Indies, and New York; a republic
that conquered England on the sea, that resisted the
united armies of Charles II. and of* Louis XIV., that
treated on terms of equality with the greatest
nations, and for a time was one of the three powers
that ruled the destinies of Europe.

28 HOLLAND,
It is no longer the grand Holland of the
eighteenth century, but it is still, next to England,
the greatest colonizing state of the world. It has
exchanged its former grandeur for a quiet pros
perity ; commerce has been limited, agriculture has
increased; the republican government has lost its
form rather than its substance, for a family of
patriotic princes, dear to the people, govern peace
ably in the midst of the ancient and the newer lib
erties. In Holland are to be found riches without
ostentation, freedom without insolence, taxes with
out poverty. The country goes on its way without
panics, without insurrections, — preserving, with its
fundamental good sense, in its traditions, customs,
and freedom, the imprint of its noble origin. It is
perhaps amongst all European countries that nation
in which there is the best public instruction and the
least corruption. Alone, at the extremity of the con
tinent, occupied with its waters and its colonies, it
enjoys the fruits of its labors in peace without com
ment, and can proudly say that no nation in the world
has purchased freedom of faith and liberty of gov
ernment with greater sacrifices.
Such were the thoughts that stimulated my curi
osity one fine summer morning at Antwerp, as I was
stepping into a ship that was to take me from the
Scheldt to Zealand, the most mysterious province of
the Netherlands.

ZEALAND.

ZEALAND.

If a teacher of geography had stopped me at
some street-corner, before I had decided to visit
Holland, and abruptly asked me, "Where is
Zealand?" I should have had nothing to say;
and I believe I am not mistaken in the supposition
that a great number of my fellow-citizens, if asked
the same question, would find it difficult to
answer. Zealand is somewhat mysterious even to
the Dutch themselves ; very few of them have seen
it, and of those few the greater part have only
passed through it by boat; hence it is mentioned
only on rare occasions, and then as if it were a far-
off" country. From the few words I heard spoken by
my fellow-voyagers, I learned that they had never
been to the province; so we were all equally
curious, and the ship had not weighed anchor ere
we entered into conversation, and were exciting
each other's curiosity by questions which none of
us could answer.
The ship started at sunrise, and for a time we
enjoyed the view of the spire of Antwerp Cathedral,
wrought of Mechlin lace, as the enamoured Na
poleon said of it. 31

32 ZEALAND.
After a short stop at the fort of Lillo and the vil
lage of Doel, we left Belgium and entered Zealand,
In passing the frontier of a country for the first
time, although we know that the scene will not
change suddenly, we always look round curiously as
if we expect it to do so. In fact, all the passengers
leaned over the rail of the boat, that they might be
present when the apparition of Zealand should sud
denly be revealed.
For some time our curiosity was not gratified:
nothing was to be seen but the smooth green shores
of the Scheldt, wide as an arm of the sea, dotted
with banks of sand, over which fiew flocks of
screaming sea-gulls, while the pure sky did not seem
to be that of Holland,
We were sailing between the island of South
Beveland and the strip of land forming the left bank
of the Scheldt, which is called Flanders of the States,
or Flemish Zealand,
The history of this piece of land is very curious.
To a foreigner the entrance of Holland is like the
first page of a great epic entitled, The Struggle with
the Sea, In the Middle Ages it was nothing but a
wide gulf with a few small islands. At the beginning
of the sixteenth century this gulf was no longer in
existence ; four hundred years of patient labor had
changed it into a fertile plain, defended by embank
ments, traversed by canals, populated by villages,
and known as Flemish Zealand. When the war of

ZEALAND. 33
independence broke out the inhabitants of Flemish
Zealand, opened their dykes rather than yield their
land to the Spanish armies : the sea rushed in, again
forming the gulf of the Middle Ages, and destroy
ing in one day the work of four centuries. When
the war of independence was ended they began to
drain it, and after three hundred years Flemish Zea
land once more saw the light, and was restored
to the continent like a child raised from the dead.
Thus in Holland lands rise, sink, and reappear, like
the realms of the Arabian Nights at the touch of a
magic wand. Flemish Zealand, which is divided
from Belgian Flanders by the double barrier of pol
itics and religion, and from Holland by the Scheldt,
preserves the customs, the beliefs, and the exact im
press of the sixteenth century. The traditions of
the war with Spain ai'e still as real and living as
the events- of our own times. The soil is fertile, the
inhabitants enjoy great prosperity, their manners
are severe ; they have schools and printing-presses,
and live peacefully on their fragment of the earth
which appeared but yesterday, to disappear again on
that day when the sea shall demand it for a third
burial. One of my fellow-travellers, a Belgian lady,
who gave me this information, drew my attention to
the fact that the inhabitants of Flemish Zealand were
still Catholics when they inundated their land,
although they had already rebelled against the
Spanish dominion, and consequently it occurred.

34 ZEALAND.
strangely enough, that the province went down Cath
olic and came up Protestant.
Greatly to my surprise, the boat, instead of con
tinuing down the Scheldt, and so making the circuit
of the island of South Beveland, entered the island,
when it reached a certain point, passing through a
narrow canal that crosses or rather cuts the island
apart, and so joins the two branches of the river that
encircles it. This was the first Dutch canal through
which I had passed : it was a new experience. The
canal is bordered on either side by a dyke which
hides the country. The ship glided on stealthily, as
if it had taken some hidden road in order to spring
out on some one unawares. There was not a single
boat in the canal nor a living soul on the dykes, and
the silence and solitude strengthened the impression
that our course had the hidden air of a piratical in
cursion. On leaving the canal we entered the east
ern branch of the Scheldt.
We were now in the heart of Zealand. On the
right was the island of Tholen ; on the left, the island
of North Beveland ; behind, South Beveland ; in
front, Schouwen, Excepting the island of Wal
cheren, we could now see all the principal islands of
the mysterious archipelago.
But the mystery consists in this — the islands are
not seen, they must be imagined. To the right and
left of the wide river, before and behind the ship,
nothing was to be seen but the straight line of the

ZEALAND, 35
embankments, like a green band on a level with the
water, and beyond this streak, here and there, were
tips of trees and of steeples, and the red ridges of roofs
that seemed to be peeping over to see us pass. Not
one hill, not one rise in the ground, not one house,
could be discovered anywhere : all was hidden, all
seemed immersed in water ; it seemed that the
islands were on the point of sinking into the river,
and we glanced stealthily at each other to make sure
we were still there. It seemed like going through a
country during a fiood, and it was an agreeable, thought
that we were in a ship. Every now and then the
vessel stopped and some passengers for Zealand got
into a boat and went ashore. Although I was eager
to visit the province, I nevertheless regarded them
with a feeling of compassion, imagining that those
unreal islands were only monster whales about to
dive into the water at the approach of the boats.
The captain of our ship, a Hollander, stopped
near me to examine a small map of Zealand which
he held in his hand. I immediately seized the
opportunity and overwhelmed him with questions.
Fortunately, I had hit upon one of the few
Dutchmen who, like us Italians, love the sound of
their own voices.
" Here in Zealand, even more than in other prov
inces," said he, as seriously as if he were a master
giving a lesson, " the dykes are a question of
life and death. At high tide all Zealand is below sea-
VOL. I.— 3

36 ZEALAND.
level. For every dyke that were broken, an island
would disappear. The worst of it is, that here the
dykes have to resist not only the direct shock of the
waves, but another power which is even more danger
ous. The rivers fling themselves toward the sea, — the
sea casts itself against the rivers, and in this contin
ual struggle undercurrents are formed which wash
the foundations of the embankments, until they
suddenly give way like a wall that is under
mined. The Zealanders must be continually on
their guard. When a dyke is in danger, they make
another one fartlier inland, and await the assault
of the water behind it. Thus they gain time, and
either rebuild the first embankment or continue
to recede from fortress to fortress until the current
changes and they are saved."
"Is it not possible," I asked, introducing the ele
ment of poetry, " that some day Zealand may no
longer exist ?"
" On the contrary," he replied, to my sorrow: "the
day may come in which Zealand will no longer be an
archipelago, but terra firma. The Scheldt and the
Meuse continually bring down mud, which is
deposited in the arms of the sea, and, rising little
by little, enlarges the islands, thus enclosing the
towns and villages that were ports on the coast.
Axel, Goes, Veer, Arnemuyden, and Middelburg
were maritime towns, and are now inland cities.
Hence the day will surely come in which the waters

ZEALAND. 37
of the rivers will no longer pass between the
islands of Zealand, and a network of railways will
extend over the whole country, which will be joined
to the continent, as has already happened in the
island of South Beveland. Zealand grows in its
struggle with the sea, The sea may gain the
victory in other parts of Holland, but here it will be
worsted. Are you familiar with the arms of Zealand :
a lion in the act of swimming, above which is written,
' Luctor et emergo ' ?"
After these words he remained silent for some mo
ments, while a passing glance of pride enlivened his
face : then he continued with his former gravity :
" Emergo, but he did not always emerge. All
the islands of Zealand, one after the other, have slept
under the waters for longer or shorter periods of
time. Three centuries ago the island of Schouwen
was inundated by the sea, when all the inhabitants
and cattle were drowned and it was reduced to a
desert. The island of North Beveland was completely
submerged shortly after, and for several years nothing
was to be seen but the tips of the church-steeples
peeping out of the water. The island of South
Beveland shai'cd the same fate toward the middle of
the fourteenth century, — the island of Tholen suf
fered in the year 1825 of our century, — the island
of Walcheren in 1808, and in the capital of Middel
burg, although it is several miles distant from the
coast, the water was up to the roofs."

38 ZEALAND.
As I listened to these stories of the water, of in
undations and submerged districts, it seemed strange
to me that I myself was not drowned. I asked the
captain what sort of people lived in those invisible
countries, with water underfoot and overhead,
"Farmers and shepherds," he answered. "We
call Zealand a group of forts defended by a garrison
of farmers and shepherds. Zealand is the richest
agricultural province in the Netherlands, The al
luvial soil of these islands is a marvel of fertility.
Few countries can boast such wheat, colza, fiax, and
madder as it produces. Its people raise prodigious
cattle and colossal horses, which are even larger than
those of the Flemish breed. The people are strong
and handsome ; they preserve their ancient customs,
and live contentedly in prosperity and peace. Zea
land is a hidden paradise."
While the captain was speaking the ship en
tered the Keeten Canal, which divides the island of
Tholen from the island of Schouwen, and is famous
for the ford across which the Spanish made their w.ay
in 1575, just as the eastern side of the Scheldt is
famous for the passage they forced in 1572. All
Zealand is full of memories of that war. Because
of its intimate connection with William of Oranse,
the hereditary lord of a great part of the land in the
islands, and by reason of the impediments of every
kind that it could oppose to invaders, this little
archipelago of sand, half buried in the sea, became

ZEALAND. 39
the theatre of war and heresy, and the duke of Alva
longed to possess it. Consequently terrible struggles
raged on its shores, signalised by all the horrors of
battles by land and sea. The soldiers forded the
canals by night in a dense throng, the water up to
their throats, menaced by the tide, beaten by the
rain, with volleys of musketry pouring down the
banks, their horses and artillery swallowed in the
mud, the wounded swept away by the current or
buried alive in the quagmires. The air resounded
with German, Spanish, Italian, and Flemish voices.
Torches illuminated the great arquebuses, the pomp
ous plumes, the strange, blanched faces. The battles
seemed to be fantastic funerals. They were, in fact,
the funerals of the great Spanish monarchy, which
was slowly drowned in Dutch waters, smothered with
mud and curses. One who is weak enough to feel an
excessive tenderness for Spain need only go to Hol
land if he wishes to do penance for this sin. Never,
perchance, have there been two nations which have
had better reasons than these to hate each other with
all their strength, or which tried with greater fury
to establish those reasons, I remember, to mention
one alone of a thousand contrasts, how it impressed
me to hear Philip II. spoken of in tprms so difi'erent
from those used in the Pyrenees a few months before.
In Spain his lowest title was ihe great hing : in Hol
land they called him a coxvardly tyrant.
The ship passed between the island of Schouwen

40 ZEALAND.
and the little island of St. Philipsland, and a few
moments later entered the wide branch of the Meuse
called Krammer, which divides the island of Over-
flakkee from the continent. We seemed to be sailing
through a chain of large lakes. The distant banks
presented the same appearance as those of the
Scheldt. Dykes stretched as far as the eye could
see, and behind the dykes appeared the tops of trees,
the tips of steeples, and the roofs of houses, which
were hidden from view, all lending the landscape an
air of mystery and solitude. Only on some projection
of the banks which formed a gap in the immense
bulwarks of the island peeped forth, as it were, a
sketch of a Dutch landscape — a painted cottage, a
windmill, a boat — which seemed to reveal a secret
created to arouse the curiosity of travellers, and to
delude it directly it was aroused.
Suddenly, on approaching the prow of the ship,
where were the third-class passengers, I made a most
agreeable discovery. Here was a group of peas
ants, men and women, dressed in the costume of
Zealand — I do not remember of which island, for the
costume differs in each, like the dialect, which is
a mixture of Dutch and Flemish, if one may so
speak of two languages that are almost identical.
The men were all dressed alike. They wore round felt
hats trimmed with wide embroidered ribbons; their
jackets were of dark cloth, close fitting, and so short
as hardly to cover their hips, and left open to show

ZEALAND. 41
a sort of waistcoat striped with red, yellow, and green,
which was closed over the chest by a row of silver
buttons attached to one another like the links of a
chain. Their costume was completed by a pair of
short breeches of the same color as the jacket, tied
round the waist by a band ornamented by a large stud
of chiselled silver, — a red cravat, and woollen stock
ings reaching to the knee. In short, below the waist
their dress was that of a priest, and above it, that of
a harlequin. One of them had coins for buttons, and
this is not an unusual practice. The women wore very
high straw hats in the form of a broken cone, which
looked like overturned buckets, bound round with long
blue ribbons fiuttering in the wind ; their dresses were
dark-colored, open at the throat, revealing white
embroidered chemisettes ; their arms were bare to
the elbow ; and two enormous gold earrings of the
of the most eccentric shape projected almost over
their cheeks. Although in my voyage I tried to
imitate Victor Hugo in admiring everything as a
savage, I could not possibly persuade myself that
this was a beautiful style of dress. But I was
prepared for incongruities of this sort. I knew
that we go to Holland to see novelty rather than
beauty, and good things rather than new ones, so
I was predisposed to observe rather than to be
enthusiastic. If that first impression was not very
pleasant to my artistic taste, I consoled myself by
the thought that doubtless all those peasants could

42 ZEALAND,
read and write, and that pcssibly on the previous
evening they had learned by heart a poem of their
great poet, Jacob Catz, and that they were probably
on their way to some agricultural convention of which
the programme was in their pockets, where with
arguments drawn from their modest experience they
would confute the propositions of some scientific
farmer from Goes or Middelburg. Ludovico
Guicciardini, a Florentine nobleman, the author
of an excellent work on the Netherlands printed
in Antwerp in the sixteenth century, says that
there was hardly a man or woman in Zealand who
did not speak French or Spanish, and that a great
many spoke Italian. This statement, which was per
haps an exaggeration in his day, would now be a
fable, but it is certain that amongst the rural in
habitants of Zealand there exists an extraordinary
intellectual culture, far superior to that of the
peasants of France, Belgium, Germany, and many
other provinces of Holland,
The ship rounded the island of Philipsland, and
we found ourselves outside of Zealand.
Thus this province, mysterious before we entered
it, seemed doubly so when we had quitted it. We
had traversed it and had not seen it, and we left it
with our curiosity ungratified. The only thing
we had perceived was that Zealand is a country
hidden from view. But one is deceived who thinks it
is mysterious for the sole reason that it is invisible

ZEALAND, 43
— everything in Zealand is a mystery. First of
all, — How was it formed ? Was it a group of
tiny alluvial islands, uninhabited and separated only
by canals, which, as some believe, met and formed
larger islands ? Or was it, as others think, terra
firma when the Scheldt emptied itself into the
Meuse? But, even leaving its origin out of the
question, in what other country in the world do
things happen as they happen in Zealand? In
what other country do the fishermen catch in their
nets a siren whose husband, after vain prayers to
have her restored, in vengeance throws up a
handful of sand, prophesying that it will bury
the gates of the town — and lo his prophecy is
fulfilled ? In what other country do the souls of those
lost at sea come as they come to Walcheren, and
awaken the fishermen with the demand that they be
conducted to the coasts of England ? In what other
country do the sea-storms fling, as they do on the
banks of the island of Schouwen, carcasses borne
from the farthest north — monsters half men, half
boats, mummies bound in the floating trunks of
trees, of which an example is still to be seen at
the guildhall of Zierikzee ? In what country, as at
Wemeldingen, does a man fall head foremost into a
canal, where, remaining under water an hour, he sees
his dead wife and children, who call to him from
Paradise, and is then drawn out of the water alive,
whereupon he relates this miracle to Victor Hugo,

44 ZEALAND,
who believes it and comments on it, concluding that
the soul may leave the body for some time and then
return to it ? Where, as near Domburg, at low water
is it possible to draw up ancient temples and statues of
unknown deities ? In what other place does the sword
of a Spanish captain, Mondragone, serve as a light
ning-conductor, as at Wemeldingen ? In what other
country are unfaithful women made to walk naked
through the streets of the town with two stones hung
round the neck and a cylinder of iron on the head, as
in the island of Schouwen? Now, really, this last
marvel is no longer seen, but the stones still exist,
and any one can see them in the guildhall at Brau-
wershaven. Our ship now entered that part of the southern
branch of the Meuse called Volkerak, The scene was
just the same — dykes upon dykes, the tips of houses
and church-steeples, a few boats here and there.
One thing only was changed, the sky. I then saw
for the first time the Dutch sky as it usually appears,
and witnessed one of those battles of light peculiar
to the Netherlands — battles which the great Dutch
landscape-artists have painted with insuperable pow
er. Previously the sky had been serene. It was a
beautiful summer day: the waters were blue, the
banks emerald green, the air warm, with not a breath
of wind stirring. Suddenly a thick cloud hid the
sun, and in less time than it takes to tell it every
thing was as different as if the season, the hour, and

ZEALAND. 45
the latitude had all been changed in a moment. The
waters became dark, the green of the banks grew
dull, the horizon was hidden under a gray veil ;
everything seemed shrouded in a twilight which
made all things lose their outline. An evil wind
arose, chilling us to the bone. It seemed to be De
cember ; we felt the chill of winter and that rest
lessness which accompanies every sudden menace on
the part of nature. All round the horizon small
leaden-colored clouds began to collect, scudding rapid
ly along, as though searching impatiently for a direc
tion and a shape. Then the waters began to ripple,
and became streaked with rapid luminous reflections,
with long stripes of green, violet, white, ochre, black.
Finally this irritation of nature ended in a violent
downpour, which confused sky, water, and earth in
one gray mass, broken only by a lighter tone caused
by the far-off banks, and by some sailing ships, which
came into view here and there like upright shadows
on the waters of the river.
"Now we are really in Holland," said the captain
of the ship, approaching a group of passengers who
were contemplating the spectacle. " Such sudden
changes of scene," he continued, "are never seen
anywhere else."
Theji, in answer to a question from one of us, he
ran on :
" Holland has a meteorology quite her own. The
winter is long, the summer short, the spring is only

46 ZEALAND.
the end of the winter, but nevertheless, you see, every
now and then, even during the summer, we have a
touch of winter. We always say that in Holland
the four seasons may be seen in one day. Our sky
is the most changeable in the world. This is the
reason why we are always talking of the weather, for
the atmosphere is the most variable spectacle we
have. If we wish to see something that will entertain
us, we must look upward. But it is a dull climate.
The sea sends us rain on three sides : the winds
break loose over the country even on the finest days ;
the ground exhales vapors that darken the horizon ;
for several months the air has no transparency.
You should see the winter. There are days when
you would say it would never be fine again : the
darkness seems to come from above like the light ; the
north-east wind brings us the icy air from the North
Pole, and lashes the sea with such fury and roaring
that it seems as though it would destroy the coasts."
Here he turned to me and said, smiling, "You are
better off in Italy." Then he grew serious and
added, " However, every country has its good and
bad side."
The boat left the Volkerak, passed in front of the
fortress of Willemstadt, built in 1583 by the Prince
of Orange, and entered Hollandsdiep, a wide branch
of the Meuse which separates South Holland from
North Brabant. All that we saw from the ship was
a wide expanse of water, two dark stripes to the

ZEALAND. 47
right and left, and a gray sky, A French lady,
breaking the general silence, exclaimed with a yawn,
" How beautiful is Holland !"
All of us laughed excepting the Dutch passengers,
"Ah, captain," began a little old Belgian, one of
those pillars of the coffee-house who are always thrust
ing their politics in the faces of their fellows, " there
is a good and a bad side to every country, and we
Belgians and Dutchmen ought to have been per
suaded of this truth, and then we should have been
indulgent toward each other and have lived in har
mony. When one thinks that we are now a nation
of nine millions of inhabitants, — we with our indus
tries and you with your commerce, with two such
capitals as Amsterdam and Brussels, and two com
mercial towns like Antwerp and Rotterdam, we
should count for something in this world, eh,
captain?" The captain did not answer. Another Dutchman
said: " Yes, with a religious war twelve months in the
year." The little old Belgian, somewhat put out, now
addressed his remarks to me in a low tone: "It is
a fact, sir. It was stupid, especially on our pai't.
You will see Holland. Amsterdam is certainly not
Brussels ; it is as flat and wearisome a country as can
well be; but as to prosperity it is far beyond us.
Assure yourself that they spend a florin, which is

48 ZEALAND.
two and a half francs, where we spend a franc.
You will see it in your hotel bills. They are twice as
rich as we are. It was all the fault of William the
First, who wished to make a Dutch Belgium and has
pushed us to extremes. You know how it happened "
— and so on.
In Hollandsdiep we began to see big barges,
small-fishing-boats, and some large ships that had
come from Hellevoetsluis, an important maritime
port on the right bank of the Haringvliet, a branch
of the Meuse, near its mouth, where nearly
every vessel from India stops. The rain ceased.
The sky, gradually, unwillingly, became serene, and
on a sudden the waters and the banks were
clothed once more in fresh glowing colors : it was
summer again.
In a little while the vessel reached the village of
Moerdyk, where one of the largest bridges in the
world is to be seen.
It is an iron structure a mile and a half long, over
which passes the railway to Dordrecht and Rotter
dam. From a distance it looks like fourteen enormous
edifices put in line across the river : each one of the
fourteen high arches supporting the tracks is in truth
a huge edifice. In passing over it, as I did a few
months later on my return to Holland, I saw nothing
but sky and water, so wide is the river at this point,
and I felt almost afraid the bridge might suddenly
come to an end, and plunge the train into the water.

Dor&recbt— Canal witb CatbeSral in
tbe Distance.

lih

ZEALAND, 49
The boat turned to the left, passing in front of the
bridge, and entered a very narrow branch of the
Meuse called Dordsche Kil, which had dykes on
either side, and hence looked more like a canal than
a river. It was already the seventh turn we had
made since we crossed the frontier.
Passing down the Dordsche Kil, we began to see
signs of the proximity of a large town. There were
long rows of trees on the banks, bushes, cottages,
canals to the right and left, and much moving of
boats and barges. The passengers became more ani
mated, and here and there were heard exclamations
of "Dordrecht! we shall see Dordrecht," All seemed
preparing themselves for some extraordinary scene.
The spectacle was not long delayed, and was ex
traordinary indeed.
The boat turned for the eighth time, to the right,
and entered the Oude Maas or Old Meuse.
In a few moments the first houses of the
suburbs around Dordrecht came into view. It was
a sudden apparition of Holland, a gratification of our
curiosity immediate and complete, a revelation of
all the mysteries which were tormenting our
brains : we seemed to be in a new world.
Immense windmills with revolving arms were to
be seen on every side ; houses of a thousand extraor
dinary shapes were dotted along the banks : some
were like villas, others like pavilions, kiosks,
cottages, chapels, theatres, — their roofs red, their

60 ZEALAND.
walls black, blue, pink, and gray, their doors and
windows encircled with white borders like drifts of
snow. Canals little and big were leading in every
direction ; in front of the houses and along the canals
were groups and rows of trees ; ships glided among
the cottages and boats were moored before the doors ;
sails shone in the streets — masts, pennons, and the
arms of windmills projected in confusion above the
trees and roofs. Bridges, stairways, gardens on the
water, a thousand corners, little docks, creeks, open
ings, crossways on the canals, hiding-places for the
boats, men, women, and children passing each other
on the ways from the river to the bank, from the
canals to their houses, from the bridges to the barges,
— all these made the scene one of motion and variety.
Everywhere was water, — color, new forms, childish
figures, little details, all glossy and fresh, — an in
genuous display of prettiness — a mixture of the prim
itive and the theatrical, of grace and absurdity, which
was partly European,, partly Chinese, partly belong
ing to no land, — and over all a delightful air of peace
and innocence.
So Dordrecht fiashed upon me for the first time,
the oldest and at the same time the freshest and
brightest town of Holland, the queen of Dutch com
merce in the Middle Ages — the mother of painters
and scholars. Honored in 1572 by the first meeting
within its walls of the deputies of the United Prov
inces, it was also at difi'erent times the seat of

ZEALAND, 51
memorable synods, and was particularly famous for
that meeting of the protestant theologians in 1618,
the Ecumenical Council of the Reformation, which
decided the terrible religious dispute between Ar-
minians and Gomarists, established the form of
national worship, and gave rise to that series of
disturbances and persecutions which ended with the
unfortunate murder of Barneveldt and the sanguinary
triumph of Maurice of Orange. Dordrecht, because
of its easy communication with the sea, with Belgium,
and with the interior of Holland, is still one of the
most flourishing commercial towns of the United
Provinces. To Dordrecht come the immense sup
plies of wood which are brought down the Rhine
from the Black Forest and Switzerland — the Rhine
wines, the lime, the cement and the stone ; in its
little port there is a continual movement of snowy
sails and of smoking steamers, while little flags
bring greetings from Arnhem, Bois-le-Duc, Nime-
guen, Rotterdam, Antwerp, and from all their mys
terious sisters in Zealand.
The boat stopped for a few minutes at Dordrecht,
and I unexpectedly observed near by a number of
fresh little cottages which were purely Dutch, and
which aroused in me the greatest desire to land and
make their acquaintance. But I conquered my curi
osity by the thought that at Rotterdam I should
see many such sights. The boat started, turned to
the left (it was the ninth turning), and entered a
Vol. I.— 4

52 ZEALAND.
narrow branch of the Meuse called De Noord, one
of the numerous threads of that inextricable network
of the waters which covers Southern Holland.
The captain approached me as I was looking for
him to explain the position of Dordrecht on the map,
for it seemed to me very singular. In fact, it is
singular. Dordrecht is situated at the extremity
of a piece of ground separated from the continent,
and forming in the midst of the land an island
crossed and recrossed by numerous streams, some of
which are natural, some the work of man, rivers
made half by man, half by nature — a bit of Hol
land encircled and imprisoned by the waters, like a
battalion overcome by an army. It is bounded on the
four sides by the river Merwede, the ancient Mosa,
the Dordsche Kil, and the archipelago of Bies-Bosch,
and is crossed by the New Merwede, a large
artificial water-course. The imprisonment of this
piece of land on which Dordrecht lies is an
episode in one of the great battles fought by
Holland with the waters. The archipelago of Bies-
Bosch did not exist before the fifteenth century. In
its place there was a beautiful plain covered with
populous villages. During the night of the 18th of
November, 1431, the waters of the Waal and the
Meuse broke the dykes, destroyed more than seventy
villages, drowned almost a hundred thousand souls,
and broke up the plain into a thousand islands,
leaving in the midst of this ruin one upright tower

ZEALAND, 53
called Merwede House, the ruins of which are
still visible. Thus was Dordrecht separated from
the continent, and the archipelago of Bies-Bosch made
its appearance, which, as though to show its right of
existence, provides hay, reeds, and rushes to a little
village which hangs like a swallow's nest on one of
the neighboring dykes. But this is not all that is
remarkable in the history of Dordrecht, Tradition
relates, many believe, and some uphold, that at
the time of this remarkable inundation Dordrecht
— yes, the whole town of Dordrecht, with its
houses, mills, and canals — made a short journey,
like an army moving camp ; that is to say, it was
transported from one place to another with its foun
dations intact : in consequence whereof the inhab
itants of the neighboring villages, coming to the
town after the catastrophe, found nothing where
it had been. One can imagine their consternation.
This prodigy is explained by the fact that Dor
drecht is founded on a stratum of clay, which had
slipped on to the mass of turf which forms the basis
of the soil. Such is the story as I heard it.
Before the vessel left the Noord Canal the hope of
seeing my first Dutch sunset was disappointed by
another sudden change in the weather. The sky
was obscured, the waters became livid, and the hori
zon disappeared behind a thick veil of mist.
The ship entered the Meuse, and turned for the
tenth time, to the left. At this point the Meuse is

54 ZEALAND.
very wide, as it carries away and imprisons the
waters of the Waal, the largest branch of the Rhine,
and the waters of the Leek and Yssel also empty
themselves into it. Its banks are fianked on either
side by long rows of trees, and are dotted with
houses, workshops, manufactories, and arsenals,
which grow thicker as Rotterdam is approached.
However little acquainted one may be with the
physical history of Holland, the first time one sees
the Meuse and thinks of its memorable overflowings,
of the thousand calamities and innumerable victims
of that capricious and terrible river, one regards it
with a sort of uneasy curiosity, much as one looks at
a famous brigand. The eye rests on the dykes with a
feeling almost of satisfaction and gratitude, as on the
brigand when he is safely handcuffed and in the hands
of the police.
While my eyes were roving in search of Rotter
dam, a Dutch passenger told how, when the Meuse
is frozen, the currents, coming unexpectedly from
warmer regions, strike the ice that covers the river,
break it, upheave enormous blocks with a terrific
crash, and hurl them against the dykes, piling them
in immense heaps which choke the course of the
river and make it overfiow. Then begins a strange
battle. The Dutch answer the threats of the ISIeuse
with cannonade. The artillery is called out, volleys
of grape-shot break the towers and barricades of
ice which oppose the current, into a storm of splinters

ZEALAND. 55
and briny hail. "We Hollanders," concluded the
passenger, " are the only people who have to take up
arms against the rivers."
When we came in sight of Rotterdam it was
growing dark and drizzling. Through the thick mist
I could barely see a great confusion of ships, houses,
windmills, towers, trees, and moving figures on
dykes and bridges. There were lights everywhere,
It was a great city different in appearance from any
I had seen before, but fog and darkness soon hid
it from my view. By the time I had taken leave
of my fellow-travellers and had gathered my lug
gage together, it was night. " So much the better,"
I said getting into a cab. " I shall see for the
first time a Dutch city by night ; this must indeed
be a novel spectacle." In fact, Bismarck, when at
Rotterdam, wrote to his wife that at night he saw
"phantoms on the roofs."

ROTTERDAM.

ROTTERDAM.

One cannot learn much about Rotterdam by en
tering it at night. The cab passed directly over a
bridge that gave out a hollow sound, and while I
believed myself to be — and, in fact, was — in the city,
to my surprise I saw on either side a row of ships
which were soon lost in the darkness. When we had
crossed the bridge we drove along streets brightly
lighted and full of people, and reached another
bridge, to find ourselves between other rows of ships.
So we went on for some time, from bridge to
street, from street to bridge. To increase the confu
sion, there was everywhere an illumination such as
I had never seen before. There were lamps at the
corners of the streets, lanterns on the ships, beacons
on the bridges, lights in the windows, and smaller
lights under the houses, — all of which were refiected
by the water. Suddenly the cab stopped in the
midst of a crowd of people, I put my head out of
the window, and saw a bridge suspended in mid-air,
I asked what was the matter, and some one answered
that a ship was passing. In a moment we were
again on our way, and I had a peep at a tangle of
59

60 EOTTEEDAM.
canals crossing and recrossing each other, and of
bridges that seemed to form a large square full of
masts and studded with lights. Then, at last, we
turned a corner and arrived at the hotel.
The first thing I did on entering my room was to
examine it to see if it sustained the great fame of
Dutch cleanliness. It did indeed ; and this was the
more to be admired in a hotel, almost always
occupied by a profane race, which has no reverence
for what might be called in Holland the worship of
cleanliness. The linen was white as snow^, the win
dows were transparent as air, the furniture shone
like crystal, the walls were so clean that one could
not have found a spot with a microscope. Besides
this, there was a basket for waste paper, a little tablet
on which to strike matches, a slab for cigar-ashes,
a box for cigar-stumps, a spittoon, a boot-jack, in
short, there was absolutely no excuse for soiling any
thing. When I had surveyed my room, I spread the map
of Rotterdam on the table, and began to make my
plans for the morrow.
It is a singular fact that the large towns of Hol
land have remarkably regular forms, although they
were built on unstable land and with great
difficulty. Amsterdam is a semicircle, the Hague
is a square, Rotterdam an equilateral triangle.
The base of the triangle is an immense dyke,
protecting the town from the Meuse, and known

EOTTEEDAM. 61
as the Boompjes, which in Dutch means little
trees, — the name being derived from a row of elms
that were planted when the embankment was built,
and are now grown to a great size. Another large
dyke, dividing the city into two almost equal parts,
forms a second bulwark against the inundations of
the river, extending from the middle of the left side
of the triangle to the opposite angle. The part of
Rotterdam which lies between the two dykes consists
of large canals, islands, and bridges : this is the mod
ern town ; the other part, lying beyond the second
dyke, is the old town. Two large canals extend along
the other two sides of the city up to the vertex,
where they join and meet a river called the Rotte,
which name, prefixed to the word dam, meaning
dyke, gives Rotterdam.
When I had thus performed my duty as a conscien
tious traveller, and had observed a thousand precau
tions against defiling, even with a breath, the spotless
purity of that jewel of a room, I entered my first
Dutch bed with the timidity of a country bumpkin.
Dutch beds — I am speaking of those to be found in
the hotels — are usually short and wide, with an
enormous eider-down pillow which would bury the
head of a cyclops. In order to omit nothing, I must
add that the light is generally a copper candlestick
as large as a plate, which might hold a torch, but
contains instead a short candle as thin as the little
finger of a Spanish lady.

62 EOTTEEDAM.
In the morning I dressed in haste, and ran rapidly
down stairs.
What streets, what houses, what a town, what a
mixture of novelties for a foreigner, — a scene how
different from any to be witnessed elsewhere in
Europe !
First of all, I saw Hoog-Straat, a long straight
roadway running along the inner dyke of the city.
Most of the houses are built of unplastered
brick, ranging in color through all the shades of red
from black to pink. They are only wide enough to
give room for two windows, and are but two stories
in height. The front walls overtop and conceal the
roofs, running up and terminating in blunted tri
angles surmounted by gables. Some of them have
pointed fa9ades, some are elevated in two curves, and
resemble a long neck without a head; others are
indented step-fashion, like the houses children build
with blocks ; others look like conical pavilions ; others
like country churches ; others, again, like puppet-
shows. These gables are generally outlined with
white lines and ornamented in execrable taste; many
have coarse arabesques painted in relief on plaster.
The windows, and the doors too, are bordered with
broad white lines ; there are other white lines between
the different stories of the houses ; the spaces between
the house- and shop-doors are filled in with white
woodwork ; so all along the street white and dark
red are the only colors to be seen. From a distance all

EOTTEEDAM. 63
the houses produce an effect of black trimmed with
strips of linen, and present an appearance partly
festal, partly funereal, leaving one in doubt whether
they enliven or depress. At first sight I felt in
clined to laugh : it seemed impossible that these
houses were not playthings and that serious people
could live inside them, I should have said that
after the fete for which they had been constructed
they must disappear like paper frames built for a
display of fireworks.
While I was vaguely regarding the street I saw a
house which amazed me. I thought I must be mis
taken : I looked at it more closely, — looked at the
houses near it, compared them with the first house
and then with each other, and even then I believed
that it was an optical illusion. I turned hastily
down a side street, and still I seemed to see the
same thing. At last I was persuaded that the fault
was not with my eyes, but with the entire city.
All Rotterdam is like a city that has reeled and
rocked in an earthquake, and has still remained stand
ing, though apparently on the verge of ruin.
All the houses — the exceptions in each street are
so few they can be counted on one's fingers — are in
clined more or less, and the greater number lean so
much that the roof of one projects half a meter
beyond that of the next house if it happens to be
straight or but slightly inclined. The strangest part
of it all is, that adjoining houses lean in different

64 EOTTEEDAM.
directions ; one will lean forward as if it were going
to topple over, another backward, some to the right,
others to the left. In some places, where six or seven
neighboring houses all lean forward, those in the mid
dle being most inclined, they form a curve, like a rail
ing that is bent by the pressure of a crowd. In some
places two houses which stand close together bend
toward each other, as if for mutual support. In cer
tain streets for some distance all the houses lean
sideways, like trees which the wind has blown one
against the other ; then again, they all lean in the
opposite direction, like another row of trees bent by
a contrary wind. In some places there is a regularity
in the inclination, which makes the effect less notice
able. On certain crossways and in some of the
smaller streets there is an indescribable confusion,
a real architectural riot, a dance of houses, a disorder
that seems animated. There are houses that appear
to fall forward, overcome by sleep ; others that throw
themselves backward as if in fright; some lean
toward each other till their roofs almost touch, as
if they were confiding secrets ; some reel against
each other as though tipsy ; a few lean backward
between others that lean forward, like malefactors
being dragged away by policemen. Rows of houses
seem to be bowing to church-steeples ; other groups
are paying attention to one house in their centre,
and seem to be plotting against some palace. I will
soon let you into the secret of all this.

In 1Rottert)am»

EOTTEEDAM, 65
But it is neither the shape of the houses nor their
inclination that seemed to me the most curious thing
about them.
One must observe them carefully, one by one,
from top to bottom, and in their diversity they are
as interesting as a picture.
In some of the houses, in the middle of the gable,
at the top of the fa9ade, a crooked beam projects,
fitted with a pulley and a piece of cord to raise and
lower buckets or baskets. In others, a stag's, sheep's,
or goat's head looks down from a little round win
dow. Under this head there is a line of white
washed stones or a wooden beam which cuts the
fagade in two. Below the beam there are two large
windows, shaded by awnings like canopies, under
which hang little green curtains, over the upper
panes of the window. Under the green curtain are
two white curtains, draped back to reveal a swinging
bird-cage or a hanging basket full of fiowers. Below
this fiower-basket screening the lower window-panes
there is a frame with a very fine wire netting, which
prevents pedestrians from looking into the rooms. Be
hind the wire netting, in the divisions between the
netting and the framework of the window, there are
tables ornamented with china, glass, flowers, statuettes
and other trifles. On the stone sills of windows
which open into the street there is a row of little
fiower-pots. In the middle or at one side of the
window-sill there is a curved iron hook which sup-

66 EOTTEEDAM.
ports two movable mirrors joined like the backs of
a book, surmounted by a third movable glass, so
arranged that from within the house one can see
everything that happens in the str,eet without one's
self being seen. In some houses a lantern projects
between the windows. Below the windows is the
house-door or shop-door. If it be a shop-door,
there will be carved above it either a negro's head
with the mouth wide open or the smirking face of a
Turk. Sometimes the sign is an elephant, a goose,
a horse's head, a bull, a serpent, a half-moon, a wind
mill, and sometimes an outstretched arm holding
some article that is for sale in the shop. If it be a
house-door — in which case it is always kept closed —
it bears a brass plate on which is written the name
of the tenant, another plate with an opening for
letters, and a third plate on the wall holding the bell-
handle. The plates, nails, and locks are all kept
shining like gold. Before the door there is fre
quently a little wooden bridge — for in many houses
the ground floor is made lower than the street — and
in front of the bridge are two small stone pillars
surmounted by two balls ; below these stand other
pillars united by iron chains made of large links in
the shape of crosses, stars, and polygons. In the
space between the street and the house are pots of
flowers. On the window-seats of the basement,
hidden in the hollow, are more fiowers and curtains.
In the less frequented streets there are bird-cages

EOTTEEDAM. 67
on either side of the windows, boxes full of grow
ing plants, clothes and linen hung out to dry. In
deed, innumerable articles of varied colors dangle
and swing about, so that it all seems like a great
fair. But without quitting the old town one need only
walk toward its outskirts in order to see novel
sights at every step.
In passing through certain of the straight, nar
row streets one suddenly sees before him, as it were,
a curtain that has fallen and cut off the view. It is
immediately withdrawn, and one perceives that it
is the sail of a ship passing down one of the
canals. At the foot of other streets a network
of ropes seems to be stretched between the two end
houses to stop the passage. This is the rigging of
a ship that is anchored at one of the docks. On
other streets there are drawbridges surmounted by
long parallel boards, presenting a fantastic appear
ance, as though they were gigantic swings for the
amusement of the light-hearted people living in these
peculiar houses. Other streets have at the foot
windmills as high as a steeple and black as an
ancient tower, turning and twisting their arms
like large wheels revolving over the roofs of the
neighboring houses. Everywhere, in -short, among
the houses, over the roofs, in the midst of
the distant trees, we see the masts of ships, pen
nons, sails, and what not, to remind us that we
Vol, 1,-5

68 EOTTEEDAM,
are surrounded by water, and that the city is built in
the very middle of the port.
In the mean time, the shops have opened and the
streets have become animated.
There is a great stir of people, who are busy,
but not hurried : this absence of hurry distinguishes
the streets of Rotterdam from those of certain
parts of London, which, from the color of the
houses and the serious faces of the citizens, remind
many travellers of the Dutch city. Faces white and
pale — faces the color of Parmesan cheese — faces
encircled by hair flaxen, golden, red, and yellowish —
large shaven faces with beards below the chin
— eyes so light that one has to look closely
to see the pupil — sturdy women, plump, pink-
cheeked, and placid, wearing white caps and earrings
shaped like corkscrews, — such are the first things one
observes in the crowd.
But my curiosity for the present was not aroused
by the people, I crossed Hoog-Straat and found
myself in new Rotterdam,
One cannot decide whether it is a city or a harbor,
whether there is more land than water, or whether
the ships are more numerous than the houses.
The town is divided by long, wide canals into
many islands, which are united by drawbridges,
turning bridges, and stone bridges. From both sides
of each canal extend two streets, with rows- of trees
on the side next to the water and lines of houses on

EOTTEEDAM. 69
the opposite side. Each of these canals forms a port
where the water is deep enough to float the largest ves
sels, and every one of them is full of shipping tKrouo-h-
out its length, a narrow space being kept clear in the
middle which serves as a thoroughfare for the vessels.
It seems like a great fleet imprisoned in a town,
I arrived at the hour of greatest activity, and
took my stand on the highest bridge of the principal
crossway. Thence I could see four canals, four forests of
ships, flanked on either side by eight rows of trees.
The streets were encumbered with people and mer
chandise. Droves of cattle passed over the bridges,
which were being raised and swung to let the ships
pass. The moment they closed or lowered again
fresh crowds of people, carriages, and carts passed
over them. Ships as fresh and shining as the models
in a museum passed in and out of the canals, carry
ing on their decks the wives and children of the
sailors, while smaller boats glided rapidly from ship
to ship. Customers thronged the shops. Servants
were washing the walls and windows. This busy
scene with all its movement was made yet more
cheerful by its reflection in the water, — by the green
of the trees, the red of the houses, by the high wind
mills, whose black tops and white wings were outlined
against the blue sky, and still more by an air of
repose and simplicity never seen in any other
northern town.

70 EOTTEEDAM.
I examined a Dutch ship attentively.
Almost all of the vessels which are crowded in the
canals 'of Rotterdam sail only on the Rhine and in
Holland, They have only one mast, and are broad
and strongly built. They are painted in various
colors like toy boats. The planks of the hull are
generally of a bright grass green, ornamented at the
edge by a white or bright-red stripe, or by several
stripes which look like broad bands of different col
ored ribbons. The poop is usually gilded. The
decks and the masts are varnished and polished like
the daintiest drawing-room floor. The hatches, the
buckets, the barrels, the sailyards and the small
planks are all painted red, and striped with white
or blue. The cabin in Avhich the families of the
sailors live is also colored like a Chinese joss-house;
its windows are scrupulously clean, and are hung with
white embroidered curtains tied with pink ribbons.
In all their spare moments the sailors, the women,
and the children are washing, brushing, and scrub
bing everything with the greatest care ; and when
their vessel makes its exit from the port, all bright
and pompous like a triumphal car, they stand proud
ly erect on the poop and search for a mute com
pliment in the eyes of the people who are gathered
along the canal.
Passing from canal to canal, from bridge to bridge,
I arrived at the dyke of the Boompjes, in front of
the Meuse, where is centred the whole life of

EOTTEEDAM, 71
this great commercial town. To the left extends a
long line of gay little steamers, which leave every
hour of the day for Dordrecht, Arnhem, Gouda,
Schiedam, Briel, and Zealand, They are continu
ally filling the air with the lively sound of their
bells and with clouds of white smoke. To the right
are the larger vessels that run between the dif
ferent European ports, and among them are to be
seen the beautiful three-masted ships that sail to and
from the East Indies, with their names, Java, Su
matra, Borneo, Samarang, written on them in letters
of gold, bringing to the imagination those far-off
ports and savage nations like the echo of far-off
voices. In front, the Meuse is crowded by numbers
of boats and barges, while its opposite bank is cov
ered with a forest of beech trees, windmills, and
workshop chimneys. Above this scene is a restless
sky, with fiashes of light mingling with ominous
darkness, with scudding clouds and changing forms,
which seemed to be trying to reproduce the busy
activity of the earth,
Rotterdam, with the exception of Amsterdam, is
the most important commercial city in Holland. It
was a flourishing commercial town as early as the
thirteenth century. Ludovico Guicciardini, in his
work on the Netherlands which I have already men
tioned, tells, in proof of the riches of the town, that
in the sixteenth century within a year it rebuilt nine
hundred houses which had been destroyed by fire.

72 EOTTEEDAM,
Bentivoglio, in his history of the war of Flanders,
calls it " the greatest and the most important com
mercial town that Holland possesses." But its
greatest prosperity dates only from 1830 ; that is to
say, after the separation of Holland from Belgium,
which brought to Rotterdam all that prosperity of
which it deprived her rival, Antwerp, Her situation
is most advantageous. By means of the Meuse she
communicates with the sea, and this river can carry
the largest merchantmen into her ports in a few
hours ; through the same river she communicates
with the Rhine, which brings her whole forests from
the mountains of Switzerland and Bavaria — an im
mense quantity of timber, which in Holland is
changed into ships, dykes, and villages. More than
eighty splendid ships come and go between Rotter
dam and India in the space of nine months. From
every port merchandise pours in with such abun
dance that it has to be divided among the neigh
boring towns. Meanwhile, Rotterdam increases
in size : the citizens are now constructing vast
new store-houses, and are now working on a huge
bridge which will span the Meuse and cross the
entire town, thus extending the railway, which now
stops on the left bank of the river, as far as the
gate of Delft, where it will join the railway of the
Hague, In short, Rotterdam has a more brilliant future
than Amsterdam, and for a long time has been feared

EOTTERDAM. 73
as a rival by her elder sister. She does not possess
the great riches of the capital, but she is more indus
trious in using what wealth she has ; she risks, dares,
and undertakes, after the manner of a young and
adventurous city. Amsterdam, like a wealthy mer
chant who has grown cautious after a life of daring
speculations, has begun to doze and to rest on her
laurels. To briefiy characterize the three Dutch
cities, it may be said that one makes a fortune at
Rotterdam, one consolidates it in Amsterdam, and
one spends it at the Hague,
One understands from this why Rotterdam is
i-ather looked down upon by the other two cities, and
is regarded as a parvenu. But there is yet another
reason for this : Rotterdam is a merchant city pure
and simple, and is exclusively occupied with her own
affairs. She has but a small aristocracy, which is
neither wealthy nor proud. Amsterdam, on the con
trary, holds the fiower of the old merchant princes.
Amsterdam has great picture-galleries, — she fosters
the arts and literature ; she unites, in short, distinc
tion and wealth. Notwithstanding their peculiar
advantages, these sister cities are mutually jealous ;
they antagonize and fret each other : what one does
the other mu^t do ; what the government grants to
one, the other insists upon having. At the present
moment (m 187 Jj), they are opening to the sea two
canals which may not prove serviceable ; but that
is of no consequence : the government, like an

74 EOTTEEDAM,
indulgent father, must satisfy both his elder and his
younger daughter.
After I had seen the port, I went along the
Boompjes dyke, on which stands an uninterrupted
line of large new houses built in the Parisian and
London style — houses which the inhabitants greatly
admire, but which the stranger regards with disap
pointment or neglects altogether; I turned back,
re-entered the city, and went from canal to canal,
from bridge to bridge, until I reached the angle
formed by the union of Hoog-Straat with one of
the two long canals which enclose the town
toward the east.
This is the poorest part of the town.
I went down the first street I came to, and took
several turns in that quarter to observe how the
lower classes of the Dutch live. The streets were
extremely narrow, and the houses were smaller and
more crooked than those in any other part of the
city ; one could reach many of the roofs with one's
hand. The windows were little more than a span
from the ground; the doors were so low that one
was obliged to stoop to enter them. But neverthe
less there was not the least sign of poverty.
Even there the windows were provided with looking-
glasses — spies, as the Dutch call them ; on the win
dow-sills there were pots of flowers protected by
green railings ; there were white curtains, — the doors
were painted green or blue, and stood wide open, so

EOTTEEDAM. 75
that one could see the bed-rooms, the kitchens, all
the recesses of the houses. The rooms were like
little boxes; everything was heaped up as in an old-
clothes shop, but the copper vessels, the stoves, the
furniture, were all as clean and bright as those in a
gentleman's house. As I passed along these streets, I
did not see a bit of dirt anywhere, — I met with no bad
Smells, nor did I see a rag, or a hand extended for
alms ; one breathes cleanliness and well-being, and
thinks with shame of the squalid quarters in
which the lower classes swarm in our cities, and
not in ours only, for Paris too has its Rue
Mouffetard. Turning back to my hotel, I passed through the
square of the great new market. It is placed in the
centre of the city, and is not less strange than all
that surrounds it.
It is an open square suspended over the water,
being at the same time a square and a bridge. The
bridge is very wide and unites the principal dyke —
the Hoog-Straat — with a section of the town sur
rounded by canals. This aerial square is enclosed on
three sides by venerable buildings, between which
runs a street long, narrow, and dark, entirely filled
by a canal, and reminding one of a highway in
Venice. On the fourth side is a sort of dock
formed by the widest canal in the city, which leads
directly to the Meuse, In this square, surrounded
by carts and stalls, in the midst of heaps of vege-

76 EOTTEEDAM,
tables, oranges and earthenware, encircled by a
crowd of hucksters and peddlers, enclosed by a rail
ing covered with matting and rags, stands the statue
of Desiderius Erasmus, the first literary celebrity of
Rotterdam, This Gerrit Gerritz — for, like all the great writers
of his time, he assumed the Latin name — this Gerrit
Gerritz belonged by his education, by his literary
attainments, and by his convictions to the circle of
the Italian humanists and literati. An elegant,
learned, and indefatigable writer on literature and
science, he filled all Europe with his fame between
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries ; he was over
whelmed with favor by the popes, sought after and
feted by princes. Of his innumerable works, all of
which were written in Latin, the "Praise of Folly,"
dedicated to Sir Thomas More, is still read. The
bronze statue, erected in 1622, represents Erasmus
dressed in a fur cloak and cap. The figure is slightly
bent forward as if he were walking, and he holds
in his hand a large open book, from which he is
reading. There is a double inscription on the
pedestal in Latin and Dutch, which calls him rir
soeeuli sui primarius et civis omnium prcestantissimus.
Notwithstanding this pompous eulogy, poor Erasmus,
stood in the centre of the market-place like a munici
pal guard, excites our compassion. There is not, I
believe, on the face of the earth another statue of a
scholar that is so neglected by those who pass it, so de-

EOTTEEDAM. 77
spised by those who surround it, and so pitied by those
who look at it. However, who knows but that Erasmus,
subtle professor that he was and will ever be, is con
tented with his corner, if indeed, as tradition tells,
it be not far from his house ? In a little street
near the square, in the wall of a small house which
is now used as a tavern, there is to be seen in a
niche a bronze statuette of the great writer, and
under it runs the inscription : Hcee est parva domus
magnus qua natus Erasmus. Eight out of ten of the
inhabitants of Rotterdam have probably never seen
nor read it.
In an angle of the same square is a small house
called "The House of Fear," where upon the wall is
a picture whose subject I have forgotten. According
to the tradition it is called "The House of Fear,"
because the most prominent people of the city took
shelter in it when Rotterdam was sacked by the
Spaniards, and were imprisoned in it three days with
out food. This is not the only record of the Span
iards to be found in Rotterdam. Many buildings,
erected during the time of their dominion suggest
the style of architecture then fashionable in Spain,
and many still bear Spanish inscriptions. In the
cities of Holland inscriptions on the houses are very
common. The buildings, like old wine, glory in their
antiquity and declare the date of their construction
in large letters on the facades.
In the market square I had every opportunity of

78 EOTTEEDAM.
observing the earrings of the women, which deserve
to be minutely described.
At Rotterdam, I saw only the earrings which are
worn in South Holland, but even in this province
alone the variety is very great. However, they are
all alike in this respect, — instead of hanging from
the ears, they are attached to a gold, silver, or gilded
copper semicircle, which girds the head like a half
diadem, its extremities resting on the temples. The
commonest earrings are in the form of a spiral with
five or six circles ; they are often very wide, and are
attached to the two ends of the semicircle. They
project in front of the face like the frames of a pair
of spectacles. Many of the women wear another pair
of ordinary earrings attached to the spirals. These
are very lai'ge and reach almost to the bosom,
dangling in front of the cheeks like the head-gear of
Italian oxen. Some women wear golden circles which
gird the forehead also, and are chased and ornament
ed in relief with leaves, studs, and buttons. They
nearly all dress their hair smooth and tight, and
wear white caps embroidered and trimmed with lace.
These fit the head closely like a night-cap, and cover
the neck and shoulders, descending in the form of a
veil, which is also embroidered and trimmed with
lace. These fiowing veils, resembling those of the
Arabs, and the peculiar and enormous earrings,
give these women an appearance partly regal and
partly barbarous. If they were not so fair as they

EOTTEEDAM. 79
are, one would take them for women of some savage
land who had still preserved the ornaments of their
native dress. I am not surprised that some travel
lers, seeing these earrings for the first time, have
thought that they were at once an ornament and
an instrument, and have asked their use. One
might suppose that they are made thus for another
purpose than that of beautifying the wearer — that
they may serve as a defence to female modesty. For
if any impertinent person should attempt to salute a
cheek so guarded, he would encounter these obstacles
and be kept at bay some distance from the coveted
object. These earrings, which are worn chiefiy by
the peasant-women, are nearly all made of gold, and
because of the size of the spirals and of the other
accessories they cost a large sum. But I saw signs
of even greater riches amongst the Dutch peasantry
during my country rambles.
Near the market square stands the cathedral, which
was founded toward the end of the fifteenth century
at the time of the decadence of Gothic architecture.
It was then a Catholic church consecrated to St,
Lawrence ; now it is the first Protestant church in
the city. Protestantism, with religious vandalism,
entered the ancient church with a pickaxe and a
whitewash brush, and with bigoted fanaticism broke,
scraped, rasped, plastered, and destroyed all that was
beautiful and splendid, and reduced it to a bare,
white, cold edifice, such as ought to have been devot-

80 EOTTEEDAM,
ed to the Goddess of Ennui in the time of the False
and Lying Gods. In the cathedral there is an im
mense organ with nearly five thousand pipes, which
gives, besides other sounds, the effect of the echo.
There are also the tombs of a few admirals, decorated
with long epitaphs in Dutch and Latin. Besides
these I saw nothing but a great many benches, some
boys with their hats on, a group of women who were
chattering loudly, and an old man with a cigar in his
mouth. This was the first Protestant church I had
entered, and I must confess I felt a disagreeable sen
sation, partly of sadness, partly of scandal. I com
pared the dismantled appearance of this church with
the magnificent cathedrals of Italy and Spain, where
a soft and mysterious light shines from the walls, and
where one meets the loving looks of angels and saints
through the clouds of incense directing one's gaze
toward heaven ; where one sees so many pictures of
innocence that calm one, so many images of pain that
help one to suffer, that inspire one with resignation,
peace, and the sweetness of pardon ; where the poor,
without food or shelter, spurned from the rich man's
gate, may pray amid marble and gold, as if in a
palace, — where, surrounded by a pomp and splendor
that do not humiliate, but rather honor and comfort
their misery, they are not despised ; — those cathe
drals, finally, where as children we knelt beside our
mothers, and felt for the first time a sweet assurance
that we should some day live afresh in those deep

IFnterior of tbe Cburcb of St* Xawrence,
IRotterbam.

EOTTEEDAM. 81
azure spaces that we saw painted in the dome sus
pended above us. Comparing this church with
those cathedrals, I perceived that I was more of a
Catholic than I had believed myself to be, and I felt
the truth of those words of Castelar : "Well,
yes, I am a free-thinker, but if some day I were
to return to a religion, I would return to the
splendid one of my fathers, and not to this squalid
and nude doctrine that saddens my eyes and my
heart." From the top of the tower one gets a bird's-eye
view of the whole city of Rotterdam with its steep
little red roofs, its wide canals, its ships stand
ing out against the houses, and all around the
city a boundless plain of vivid green traversed by
canals, fringed with trees, dotted with windmills and
villages hidden in masses of verdure and showing
only the points of their steeples. At that moment the
sky was clear, and it was possible to see the gleam
ing waters of the Meuse from Bois-le-Duc almost to
its mouth, I distinguished the steeples of Dor
drecht, Leyden, Delft, the Hague, and Gouda; but
nowhere, either near or far off, was there a hill,
a rise in the ground, or a curve to break the straight
even line of the horizon. It was like a sea, green
and motionless, on which the steeples were the masts
of anchored ships. The eye wandered over that
vast plain with a sense of repose, and for the first
time I experienced that indefinable feeling which the

82 EOTTEEDAM.
Dutch landscape inspires. It is a feeling neither of
sadness, of pleasure, nor of weariness, yet it embraces
them all, and holds one for a long time motionless,
without knowing at first what one is looking at or of
what one is thinking. I was suddenly aroused by
strange music ; at first I could not tell whence it came.
Bells were ringing a lively chime with silvery notes,
now breaking slowly on the ear, as if they could scarce
ly detach themselves from each other ; now blending in
groups, in strange flourishes ; now trilling, and swell
ing sonorously. The music was merry and fantastic,
although of a somewhat primitive character, it is true,
like the many-colored town over which it poured its
notes like a fiight of birds ; indeed, it seemed to harm
onize so well with the character of the city that it ap
peared to be its natural voice, an echo of the quaint
life of the people, reminding me of the sea, the soli
tude, and the cottages, and at the same time it amused
me and touched my heart. All at once the music
stopped and the hour struck. At the same moment
other steeples fiung on the air other chimes, of which
only the highest notes reached me, and when their
chimes were ended they likewise struck the hour.
This aerial concert, as I was told when its mechanism
was explained to me, is repeated at every hour in the
day and night by all the steeples of Holland, and the
chimes are national airs, psalms, Italian .ind German
melodies. Thus in Holland the hour sin2;s, as though
to draw the mind from contemplating the fiight of

EOTTEEDAM. 83
time, and it sings of country, of religion, and of love,
with a harmony surpassing all the sounds of earth.
Now, to continue in order my story of what I saw
and did, I must conduct my readers to a coffee
house and beg them to sit beside me at my first
Dutch dinner.
The Dutch are great eaters. Their greatest
pleasure, as Cardinal Bentivoglio has said, is to be
at a feast or at some repast. But they are not
epicures ; they are voracious : they prefer quantity
to quality. Even in ancient times they were famous
among their neighbors, not only for the roughness
of their habits, but for the simplicity of their diet.
They were called eaters of milk and cheese. They
usually eat five times a day. When they rise they
take tea, coffee, milk, bread, cheese, butter; shortly
before noon comes a good breakfast ; before dinner
they partake of some light nourishment, such as a
glass of wine and biscuits ; then follows a heavy
dinner; and late in the evening, to use their own
words, some trifle, so as not to go to bed with an
empty stomach. They eat in company on many oc
casions. I do not mean on the occasions of christen
ings or marriages, as in other countries, but, for
example, at funerals. It is the custom that the
friends and relatives who have accompanied the fu
neral procession shall go home with the family of the
deceased, where they are then invited to eat and
drink, and they generally do great honor to their
Vol, I.— 6

84 EOTTEEDAM.
hosts. If there were no other witnesses, the Dutch
paintings are there to testify to the great part eat
ing has always played in the life of this people. Be
sides the infinite number of domestic subjects, in which
we might say that dishes and bottles are the protago
nists, nearly all the large pictures representing his
torical personages, burgomasters, and national guard,
show them seated at table in the act of eating, carving,
or pouring out wine. Even their hero, William
the Silent, the incarnation of New Holland, shared
this national love of the table. He had the first
cook of his time, who was so great an artist
that the German princes sent beginners to per
fect themselves at his school, and Philip IL, in
one of those periods of apparent reconciliation with
his mortal enemy, begged for him as a present.
But, as I said, the principal characteristic of the
Dutch kitchen is abundance, not delicacy. The
French, who are hon-vivants, find much to criticise.
I remember a writer of certain Memoires sur la Hol-
lande who inveighs with lyrical fervor against the
Dutch cuisine, saying, " What style of eating is this ?
They mix soup and beer, meat and comfits, and
devour quantities of meat without bread." Other
writers of books about Holland have spoken of
their dinners in that country as if they were domes
tic misfortunes. It is superfluous to say that all
these statements are exaggerations. Even a fastidi
ous palate can in a very short time accustom itself

EOTTEEDAM. 85
to the Dutch style of cooking. The substantial part
of the dinner is always a dish of meat, with which
four or five side dishes of salt meat and vegetables
are served. These every one mixes according to his
taste and eats with the principal dish. The meats
are excellent, the vegetables, which are cooked in a
thousand different ways, are even better. Those
which they cook in an especially worthy manner are
potatoes and cabbages, and their way of making ome
lets is admirable, I do not speak of game, fish, milk-
foods, and butter, because their praises need not be
repeated, and I am silent for fear of being too enthusi
astic about that celebrated cheese into which, when
once one has plunged one's knife, one continues with
a sort of increasing fury, thrusting and gashing and
abandoning one's self to every style of slashing and
gouging until the rind is empty, and desire still
hovers over the ruins,
A stranger who dines for the first time in a Dutch
restaurant sees a number of strange things. In the
first place, the plates are very large and heavy, in pro
portion to the national appetite ; in many places the
napkins are of very thin white paper, folded at three
corners, and ornamented with a printed border of fiow
ers, with a little landscape in the corner, and the name
of the restaurant, or Bon appetit, printed on them in
large blue letters. The stranger, to be sure of hav
ing something he can eat, orders roast beef, and they
bring him half a dozen great slices as large as a

86 EOTTEEDAM.
cabbage leaf; or a steak, and they bring him a lump
of very rare meat which would suffice for a family ;
or fish, and they set before him an animal as long
as the table ; and each of these dishes is accom
panied by a mountain of mashed potatoes and a pot
of strong mustard. They give him a slice of bread
a little larger than a dollar and as thin as a wafer.
This is not pleasant for us Italians, who eat bread
like beggars, so that in a Dutch restaurant, to the
great surprise of the waiters, we are obliged to ask
for more bread every moment. On any one of these
three dishes and a glass of Bavarian or Amsterdam
beer a man may venture to say he has dined. Any one
who has a lean pocket-book need not dream of wine
in Holland, for it is frightfully dear; but, as the
people's purses there are generally well filled, nearly
all the Dutch, from the middle class up, drink wine, and
there are few other countries where there is so great
an abundance and variety of foreign wines, partic
ularly of those from French and Rhenish vineyards.
Those who like liqueurs after dinner are well
served in Holland. There is no need to mention
that the Dutch liqueurs are famous the world
over. The most famous of them all is " Schie
dam," an extract of juniper-berries that takes its
name from the little town of Schiedam, only a few
miles from Rotterdam, where there are more than
two hundred distilleries. To give an idea of
the quantity made, it is sufficient to say that

EOTTEEDAM. 87
thirty thousand pigs are fed annually on the dregs of
the distilled material. The first time one tastes this
renowned Schiedam he swears he will never take
another drop of it if he lives to be a hundred years
old ; but, as the French proverb says, " Who has
drunk will drink again," and one begins to try it with
a great deal of sugar, — then with a little less, —
then with none at all, until, horrihile dictu I under the
excuse of the damp and the fog one tosses down two
small glasses with the freedom of a sailor. Next on
the list comes Curagoa, a fine feminine liqueur, not
nearly so strong as Schiedam, but much stronger than
that nauseating sweetened stuff that is sold in other
countries under the recommendation of its name.
After Curagoa there are many others liqueurs, of
every gradation of strength and flavor, with which an
expert winebibber can indulge in every style of
intoxication, slight, heavy, noisy, or stupid, and
whereby he can dispose his brain to see the
world in the manner most pleasing to his humor,
much as one would do with an optical instrument by
changing the color of the lens.
The first time one dines in Holland a curious sur
prise awaits one when the bill is paid. I had eaten
a dinner which would have been scanty for a
Batavian, but was ample for an Italian, and,
knowing how very dear everything is in Holland, I
was waiting for one of those bills to which Th^ophile
Gautier says the only reasonable answer is a pistol-

88 EOTTEEDAM.
shot. I was therefore pleasantly surprised when
the waiter said I was to pay forty sous, and, as all
kinds of money circulate in the large Dutch cities,
I put on the table forty sous in silver francs, and
waited to give my friend time to correct me if he
had made a mistake. But he looked at the
money without giving any sign of correcting him
self, and said with the greatest gravity, "Forty
sous more." Springing from my chair, I demand
ed an explanation. The explanation, alas ! was
simple. The monetary unit in Holland is the florin,
which is equal to two francs four centimes in our
money, so that the Dutch centime and sou are
worth more than double the Italian centime and
sou ; hence the mistake and its correction.
Rotterdam at night presents to the stranger
an unexpected appearance. In other northern towns
at a certain hour the life is gathered within doors;
in Rotterdam at the corresponding hour it over
flows into the street. A dense crowd passes through
the Hoog-Straat until late at night. The shops are
open, for then the servants make their purchases and
the coffee-houses are crowded. The Dutch coffee
houses are of a peculiar shape. They usually consist
of one long saloon, divided in the middle by a green
curtain, which is drawn at night, like the curtain
of a theatre, hiding all the back part of the room.
This part only is lighted. The front part, separated
from the street by a large window, remains in the

EOTTEEDAM, 89
dark, so that from the outside one can see only dim
forms and the glowing ends of cigars, which look
like fire-flies, and among these shadowy forms appears
the uncertain proflle of some woman, to whom
light would be unwelcome.
After the coffee-houses, the tobacco-shops attract the
attention, not only in Rotterdam, but in all other Dutch
cities. There is one at almost every step, and they
are beyond comparison the finest in Europe, not ex
cepting even the great Havana tobacco-stores in
Madrid. The cigars are kept in wooden boxes, on
each of which is a printed portrait of the king or
queen or of some illustrious Dutch citizen. These
boxes are arranged in the high shop-windows in a
thousand architectural styles, — in towers, steeples,
temples, winding staircases, beginning on the floor
and reaching almost to the ceiling. In these shops,
which are resplendent with lights like the stores of
Paris, one may find cigars of every shape and fiavor.
The courteous tobacconist puts one's purchase into
a special tissue-paper envelope after he has cut off
the end of one of the cigars with a machine made for
the purpose.
The Dutch shops are brilliantly illuminated, and,
although in themselves they do not differ materially
from stores of other large European cities, they pre
sent at night a very unusual appearance, because of
the contrast between the ground fioor and the upper
part of the house. Below, all is glass, light, color.

90 EOTTEEDAM.
and splendor; above, the gloomy facades with their
steep sharp lines, steps, and curves. The upper part
of the house is plain, dark, and silent — in a word
ancient Holland ; the ground fioor is the new life 
fashion, luxury, and elegance. Moreover, the houses
are all very narrow, so the shops occupy the whole
ground floor, and are generally so close together
that they touch each other. Consequently at night,
in streets like Hoog-Straat, one sees very little wall
below the second floor. The houses seem to rest
on glass, and in the distance the windows become
blended into two long flaming stripes like gleaming
hedges, flooding the streets with light, so that one
could find a pin in them.
As one walks along the streets of Rotterdam in the
evening, one sees that it is a city overfiowing with life
and in the process of expansion — a city, so to speak, in
the flush of youth, in the time of growth, which, from
year to year, outgrows its streets and houses, as a boy
outgrows his clothes. Its one hundred and fourteen
thousand inhabitants will be two hundred thousand at
no distant time. The smaller streets swarm with chil
dren ; indeed, they are filled to overflowing with them,
so that it gladdens one's eyes and heart. An air of
happiness breathes through the streets of Rotterdam,
The white and ruddy faces of the servants, whose
spotless caps are popping out everywhere, the serene
faces of the tradespeople, who slowly sip their great
mugs of beer, the peasants with their large golden

EOTTEEDAM. 91
earrings, the cleanliness, the flowers in the win
dows, the quiet hard-working crowd, — all give to
Rotterdam an appearance of health and peaceful con
tent which brings the Te heata to our lips, not with a
cry of enthusiasm, but with a smile of sympathy.
Re-entering the hotel, I saw an entire French
famUy in a corridor gazing in admiration at the nails
on a door which shone like so many silver buttons.
In the morning, as soon as I arose, I went to my
window, which was on the second floor, and on look
ing at the roofs of the opposite houses, I confessed
with surprise that Bismarck was excusable for believ
ing he saw phantoms on the roofs at Rotterdam, Out
of the chimney-pots of all the ancient houses rise
curved or straight tubes, one above the other, cross
ing and recrossing like open arms, or forks, or
immense horns, in such impossible positions that it
seems as though they must understand each other
and be speaking a mysterious language from house
to house, and that at night they must move about
with some purpose.
I walked down Hoog-Straat, It was Sunday and
few shops were open. The Dutch told me that some
years ago even those few would have been closed :
the observance of the Sabbath, which used to be
very strict, is becoming slack. I saw the signs of
holiday chiefly in the people's clothes, in the dress
of the men particularly. The men, especially
those of the lower classes (and this I observed in

92 EOTTEEDAM.
other towns also), have a decided taste for black
clothes, which they wear proudly on Sundays — black
cravats, black breeches, and certain black over
coats that reach almost to their knees. This
costume, together with their leisurely gait and
solemn faces, gives them the air of village syn
dics going to assist at an official Te Deum.
But what most surprised me was to see at that hour
almost every one I met, gentry and peasantry, men
and boys, with cigars in their mouths. This unfor
tunate habit of " dreaming awalce," as Emile Girardin
called it when he made war on smokers, occupies such
a large part of the life of the Dutch people that it
is necessary to say a few words about it.
The Dutch probably smoke more than any other
northern nation. The humidity of the climate
makes it almost a necessity, and the cheapness of
tobacco puts it in everybody's power to satisfy this
desire. To show how inveterate is this habit, it will
suffice to say that the boatmen of the treschkuit (the
stage-coach of the canals) measure distance by smoke.
From here to such and such a town they say it is so
many pipes, not so many miles. When you enter a
house, the host, after the usual greetings, gives you a
cigar ; when you leave he gives you another, some
times he fills your pocket. In the streets one sees men
lighting fresh cigars with the stumps they have just
smoked, with a hurried air, without stopping for a
moment, as if it were equally disagreeable to them to

EOTTEEDAM, 93
lose a moment of time and a mouthful of smoke, A
great many men go to bed with their cigars in their
mouths, light them if they awake in the night, and
relight them in the morning before leaving their
beds. "The Dutchman is a living alembic," writes
Diderot; and it does really seem as though smoking
is to him one of the necessary functions of life. Many
say that much smoking clouds the brain. But, not
withstanding, if there is a people whose intelligence is
clear and precise in the highest degree, that people is
the Dutch. Moreover, smoking is no excuse for idle
ness among the Hollanders, — they do not smoke " to
dream awake." Every one does his work while puff
ing white clouds of smoke from his mouth as if he
were the chimney of a factory, and, instead of the
cigar being a distraction, it is a stimulus and a help
to labor. " Smoke is our second breath," said a
Dutchman to me, and another defined the cigar as
"the sixth finger of our hand."
Apropos of tobacco, I must tell of the life
and death of a famous Dutch smoker, but I am
rather afraid my Dutch friends who told me the story
will shrug their shoulders, for they lamented that
strangers who write on Holland pass over important
things which do honor to the country, and mention
only trifies such as this. However, this is such a
remarkable trifle that I cannot resist the temptation
of putting it down.
Once upon a time there was a wealthy gentle-

94 EOTTEEDAM.
man who lived in the suburbs of Rotterdam. His
name was Van Klaes, but he was nicknamed Papa
Big Pipe, for he was a fat old fellow and a great
smoker. He was a man of simple habits and
kindly heart, who, as the story runs, had made
a great fortune in India by honest trade. On
his return from India he built himself a beau
tiful mansion near Rotterdam, and in this home
he collected and arranged in order every im
aginable kind of pipe. There were pipes of every
country and of every period, from those used by an
cient barbarians to smoke hemp, to the splendid meer
schaum and amber pipes ornamented with carved
figures and bands of gold like those seen in the finest
stores of Paris. The museum was open to visitors,
to each of whom, after he had aired his knowledge
on the subject of pipe-collecting, Mr Van Klaes gave
a pouch filled with tobacco and cigars, and a cata
logue of the museum in a velvet cover.
Every day Mr Van Klaes smoked a hundred and
fifty grammes of tobacco, and he died at the ripe old
age of ninety-eight years ; consequently, if we assume
that he began to smoke when he was eighteen years
old, he consumed in the course of his life four thou
sand three hundred and eighty-three kilogrammes. If
this quantity of tobacco could be laid down in a
continuous black line, it would extend twenty French
leagues. But, in spite of all this, Mr Van
Klaes showed that in death he was a far greater

©n tbe ^euse, near IRotterbam.

EOTTEEDAM. 95
smoker than he had been in life. Tradition has
preserved all the particulars of his end. He was
approaching his ninety-eighth birthday when it was
suddenly borne in upon him that the end of his life
was at hand. He summoned his notary, who was
also a notable smoker, and, "Notary," said he with
no unnecessary words, "fill my pipe and yours; I
am going to die." The notary filled and lighted the
pipes, and Mr Van Klaes dictated that will which
has become celebrated all over Holland.
After he had bequeathed the greater part of his
fortune to relatives, friends, and charities, he added
the following clauses :
" I wish every smoker in the kingdom to be invited
to my funeral in every way possible, by letter,
circular, and advertisement. Every smoker who
takes advantage of the invitation shall receive as
a present ten pounds of tobacco, and two pipes on
which shall be engraved my name, my crest, and
the date of my death. The poor of the neighbor
hood who accompany my bier shall receive every
year on the anniversary of my death a large pack
age of tobacco. I make the condition that all those
who assist at my funeral, if they wish to partake
of the benefits of my will, must smoke without
interruption during the entire ceremony. My body
shall be placed in a coffin lined throughout with the
wood of my old Havana cigar-boxes. At the foot
of the coffin shall be placed a box of the French

96 EOTTEEDAM.
tobacco called caporal and a package of our old
Dutch tobacco. At my side place my favorite pipe
and a box of matches, . . , for one never knows
Avhat may happen. When the bier rests in the vault,
all the persons in the funeral procession are requested
to cast upon it the ashes of their pipes as they pass
it on their departure from the grounds."
The last wishes of Mr Van Klaes were faithfully
fulfilled; the funeral went off splendidly, veiled
in a thick cloud of smoke. The cook of the deceased,
Gertrude by name, to whom in a codicil her mas
ter had left a considerable fortune on condition
that she should overcome her aversion to tobacco,
walked in the funeral procession with a cigarette
in her mouth. The poor blessed the memory of
the charitable gentleman, and all the country re
sounded with his praises as it now rings with his
fame. As I walked along one of the canals I saw under
different conditions one of those sudden changes in
the weather such as I had witnessed on the previous
day. In a moment the sun disappeared, the infinite
variety of cheerful colors was obscured, and a chill
ing wind began to blow. Then the subdued gayety
which existed a few moments before gave place every
where to a strange trepidation. The leaves of the
trees rustled, the flags on the ships fluttered, the
boats moored to the palisades tossed to and fro ; the
waters were troubled, a thousand articles suspended

EOTTEEDAM. 97
from the houses dangled about, — the arms of the wind
mills spun rapidly around; it seemed as though a
shiver of winter passed through everything, and that
the city was apprehensive of a mysterious danger. In
a few moments the sun shone out, and with it
returned color, peace, and cheerfulness. This scene
made me reflect that Holland is not really as som
bre a country as many believe ; it is rather very
sombre one moment, and very cheerful the next,
according to the weather. In everything it is a
country of contrasts. Beneath a most capricious
sky lives the least capricious people in the world,
and yet this orderly and methodical nation possesses
the tipsiest, most disordered architecture that eye
can see.
Before entering the museum at Rotterdam, I think
it will be opportune to make some observations on
Dutch painting, naturally not for those " who know,"
understand, but for those who have forgotten,
Dutch art possesses one quality that renders it par
ticularly attractive to us Italians : it is that branch
of the world's art which differs most from the Italian
school, — it is the antithesis, or, to use a phi-ase that
enraged Leopardi, " the opposite pole in art." The
Italian and the Dutch are the two most original
schools of painting, or, as some say, the only two
schools that can honestly lay claim to originality.
The others are only daughters or younger sisters,
which bear a certain resemblance to their elders. So

98 EOTTEEDAM.
Holland even in its art offers us that which we most
desire in travel and description — novelty.
Dutch art was born with the independence and
freedom of Holland. So long as the northern and
southern provinces of the Netherlands were united
under Spanish dominion and the Catholic faith, they
had only one school of painting. The Dutch artists
painted like the Belgians ; they studied in Belgium,
Germany, and Italy. Heemskerk imitated Michel
angelo ; Bloemaert copied Correggio ; De Moor fol
lowed Titian ; to mention a few instances. They were
pedantic disciples who united with all the affectations
of the Italian style a certain German coarseness, and
the outcome was a bastard style inferior to the earlier
schools — childish, stiff, and crude in color, with no
sense of light and shade. But, at any rate, it was
not a slavish imitation ; it was a faint prelude to
real Dutch art.
With the war of independence came liberty, re
form, and art. The artistic and religious traditions fell
together. The nude, the nymphs, the madonnas, the
saints, allegory, mythology, the ideal, — the whole
ancient edifice was in ruins. The new life which
animated Holland was revealed and developed in a
new way. The little country, which had suddenly be
come so glorious and formidable, felt that it must
tell its greatness. Its faculties, which had been
strengthened and stimulated in the grand enterprise
of creating a native land, a real world, — now that

EOTTERDAM, 99
this enterprise was achieved, expanded, and created an
imaginary world. The conditions of the people were
favorable to a revival of art. They had overcome
the supreme perils which threatened them : security,
prosperity, a splendid future, were theirs : their
heroes had done their part; the time had come
for artists. After so many sacrifices and disasters
Holland came forth victorious from the strife, turned
her face upon her people, and smiled, and that
smile was Art.
We could picture to ourselves what this art was
even if no example of it remained. A peaceable,
industrious, practical people, who, to use the words
of a great German poet, were continually brought
back to dull realities by the conditions of a vulgar
bourgeois life ; who cultivated their reason at the
expense of their imagination, living in consequence
on manifest ideas rather than beautiful images ; who
fled from the abstract, whose thoughts never rose
beyond nature, with which they waged continual war
fare — a people that saw only what exists, that enjoyed
only what it possessed, whose happiness consisted
in wealthy ease and an honest indulgence of the
senses, although without violent passions or inordinate
desires ; — such a people would naturally be phleg
matic in their art, — they would love a style that
pleased but did not arouse them, that spoke to the
senses rather than to the imagination — a school of
art placid, precise, full of repose, and thoroughly
Vol. 1,-7

100 EOTTEEDAM.
material like their life — an art, in a word, realistic
and self-satisfied, in which they could see them
selves reflected as they were and as they were con
tent to remain.
The first Dutch artists began by depicting that
which was continually before their eyes — the home.
The long winters, the stubborn rains, the humidity,
the continual changes in the climate, compel the
Hollander to spend a great part of the year and of
the day in the house. He loves his little home, his
nutshell, much more than we love our houses, because
it is much more necessary to him, and he lives in it
much more ; he provides it with every comfort, ca
resses it, adorns it; he delights in looking at the falling
snow and drenching rain from its tight windows, and
in being able to say, " Let the storms rage — I am safe
and warm." In his little nest, beside his good wife and
surrounded by his children, he passes the long even
ings of autumn and winter, eating much, drinking
much, smoking much, and amusing himself witt hon
est mirth after the fatigues of the day. Dutch artists
paint these little houses and this home-life in little
pictures adapted in size to the little walls they must
adorn ; bedrooms which make one drowsy ; kitchens
with tables ready spread ; the fresh, kindly fiices of
mothers of families ; men basking in the warmth of
the hearth ; and, as they are conscientious realists who
omit nothing, they add blinking cats, gaping dogs,
scratching hens, brooms, vegetables, crockery, and

EOTTEEDAM, 101
plucked chickens. This life is painted in every class
of society and under every circumstance; evening-
parties, dances, orgies, games, holidays, all are repre
sented, and thus Ter Borch, Metsu, Netscher, Dou,
Mieris, Steen, Brouwer, and Ostade became famous.
From home-life they turned to the country. The
hostile climate gave them a very short time in which
to admire nature, and for this reason the Dutch
artists admire it only the more and salute the spring
with greater joy. The fleeting smiles of the heavens
are strongly impressed on their imagination. The
country is not beautiful, but it is doubly dear to them
because it has been wrested from the sea and from the
hands of strangers. They painted it with affection,
making their landscapes simple, ingenuous, and full
of an intimacy with nature that neither the Italian
nor the Belgian landscapes of this time possess.
Their country, flat and monotonous, presented to their
appreciative eyes a marvellous variety. They noted
every change in the sky, and revealed the water in
its every appearance, its reflection, its grace and
freshness, and its power of diffusing light and color
everywhere. There are no mountains, so they put
the downs in the background of their pictures ; and,
lacking forests, they saw and expressed the mysteries
of a forest in a group of trees, and animated all with
noble animals and sails. The subjects of their pic
tures are poor indeed — a windmill, a canal, a gray
sky — but how much they suggest ! Some of

102 EOTTEEDAM.
them, not content with their native land, came to
Italy in search of hills, bright skies, and great ruins,
and became a circle of choice artists, such as Both,
Swanevelt, Pijnacker, Breenbergh, Van Laer, and
Asselin ; but the palm remains with the true Dutch
landscape painters — with Wynants, the painter of
morning ; Van der Neer, the painter of night ; Ruys-
dael, the painter of melancholy; Hobbema, the
painter of windmills, cottages, and kitchen-gardens;
and with others who contented themselves with ex
pressing the charm of the modest scenes of their
native land.
Side by side with landscape painting arose another
branch of art, which was peculiar to Holland — the
painting of animals. Cattle are the riches of the
country, and the splendid breed of Holland is un-
e(jualled in Europe for its beauty and fecundity.
The Dutch, Avho owe so much to their cattle, treat
them, so to speak, as a part of the population ; they
love them, wash them, comb them, dress them.
They are to be seen everywhere ; they are reflected
in the canals, and the country is beautified with their
innumerable black and white spots dotting the wide
meadows, giving every place an air of peace and
repose, and inspiring one with a feeling of Arcadian
sweetness and patriarchal serenity. The Dutch
artists studied the diff'erences and the habits of these
animals; they divined, one may say, their thoughts
and feelings, and enlivened the quiet beauty of

EOTTEEDAM, 103
the landscapes with their figures, Rubens, Sny-
ders, Paul de Vos, and many other Belgian artists
had painted animals with wonderful ability, but they
are surpassed by the Dutch painters. Van de Velde,
Berchem, Karel du Jardin, and Paul Potter, the
prince of animal painters, whose famous "Bull" in
the gallery at the Hague deserves to be hung in the
Louvre opposite Raphael's "Transfiguration."
The Dutch have become pre-eminent in another
branch of art also — marine painting. The ocean,
their enemy, their power, and their glory, overhang
ing their land, ever threatening and alarming them,
enters into their life by a thousand channels and in
a thousand forms. That turbulent North Sea, full of
dark color, illuminated by sunsets of infinite gloom,
and ever lashing its desolate banks, naturally domin
ated the imagination of the Dutch artists. They
passed long hours on the shore contemplating the
terrible beauties of the sea ; they ventured from the
land to study its tempests ; they bought ships and
sailed with their families, observing and painting ; they
followed their fieets to war and joined in the naval
battles. Thus a school of marine artists arose, boast
ing such men as William Van de Velde the father
and William the son, Bakhuisen, Dubbels, and Stork,
Another school of painting naturally arose in Hol
land as the expression of the. character of the people
and of republican customs, A nation that with
out greatness had done so many great things, as

104 EOTTEEDAM.
Michelet says, required an heroic style of painting, if
it may be so called, destined to illustrate its men and
achievements. But simply because the nation was
without greatness, or, to speak more accurately, with
out the outward form of greatness — because it was
modest, and inclined to consider all alike equal in
face of the fatherland, because all had done their
duty, yet each abhorred that adulation and apotheosis
which glorify in one person the virtues and triumphs
the mass, — this style of painting was needed, not to
extol a few eminent men or extraordinary events,
but to represent all classes of citizens by occurrences
of the most ordinary and peaceful moments of bour
geois life. Hence those large pictures representing
groups of five, ten, or even thirty persons, gunners,
syndics, officials, professors, magistrates, men of
affairs, seated or standing round tables, feasting or
arguing, all life-size and faithful portraits, with
serious open countenances, from which shines the
quiet expression of a tranquil conscience, from which
one divines, rather than sees, the nobility of lives
devoted to their country, the spirit of that laborious
and dauntless epoch, the manly virtues of that rare
generation. All this is relieved by the beautiful
costumes of the Renaissance, which so admirably
combined grace with dignity, — those ruffs, jerkins,
black cloaks, silken scarfs, ribbons, arms, and ban
ners. Van der Heist, Hals, Govert, Flink, and Bol
were masters in this style of art.

EOTTERDAM, 105
To leave the consideration of the different branches
of painting, and to inquire into the particular
methods which the Dutch artists adopted and the
means they employed to accomplish their results,
one chief feature at once presents itself as the dis
tinctive trait of Dutch painting — the light.
The light, because of the peculiar conditions under
which it manifests itself in Holland, has naturally
given rise to a peculiar style of painting, A pale
light, undulating with marvellous changes, playing
through an atmosphere heavy with vapor, a misty
veil which is repeatedly and abruptly penetrated, a
continual struggle between sunshine and shadow, —
these were the phenomena that necessarily attracted
the attention of artists. They began by observing
and reproducing all this restlessness of the sky, this
struggle which animates the nature of Holland with
a varied and fantastic life, and by the act of repro
ducing it the struggle passed into their minds, and
then, instead of imitating, they created. Then they
themselves made the two elements contend ; they
increased the darkness to startle and disperse it with
every manner of luminous effects and flashes of light ;
sunbeams stole through the gloom and then gradually
died away ; the reflections of twilight and the mellow
light of lamps were delicately blended into mysterious
shadows, which were animated with confused forms
which one seems to see and yet cannot distinguish.
So under their hands the light presents a thousand

106 EOTTEEDAM.
fancies, contrasts, enigmas, and effects of shine and
shade as unexpected as they are curious. Prominent
in this field, among many others, were Gherard Dou,
tlie painter of the famous picture of the four candles,
and Rembrandt, the great wonder-working superhu
man enlightener.
Another of the most striking characteristics of
Dutch painting is naturally color. It is generally
recognized that in a country where there are no
distant mountains, no undulating views, no prominent
features to strike the eye — in short, no general forms
that lend themselves to design — the artist is strongly
influenced by color. This is especially true in the case
of Holland, where the uncertain light and the vague
shadows which continually veil the air soften and
obscure the outlines of objects until the eye neglects
the form it cannot comprehend, and flxes itself on
color as the chief quality that nature possesses. But
there are yet other reasons for this : a country as
flat, monotonous, and gray as Holland is has need
of color, just as a southern country has need of
shadow. The Dutch artists have only followed the
dominant taste of the people, who paint their houses,
their boats, their palisades, the fences of the fields, and
in some places the very trunks of the trees, in the
brightest colors ; who dress themselves as of yore in
clothes of the gayest hues ; who love tulips and hya
cinths to distraction. Hence all tlie Dutch painters
were great colorists, Rembrandt being the first.

EOTTEEDAM, 107
Realism, favored by the calm and sluggish na
ture of the Dutch, which enables their artists to
restrain their impetuosity, and further aided by the
Dutch character, which aims at exactness and refuses
to do things by halves, gave to the paintings of the
Hollanders another distinctive trait — finish. This
they carried to the last possible degree of perfection.
Critics say truthfully that in Dutch paintings one
may discover the first quality of the nation — patience.
Everything is portrayed with the minuteness of a
daguerreotype : the furniture with all the graining
of the wood, the leaf with all its veins, a thread in a
bit of cloth, the patch with all the stitches showing,
the animal with every hair distinct, the face with all
its wrinkles, — everything is finished with such micro
scopic precision that it seems to be the work of a
fairy's brush, for surely a painter would lose his sight
and reason in such a task. After all, this is a defect
rather than a virtue, because painting ought to re
produce not what exists, but rather what the eye sees,
and the eye does not see every detail. However, the
defect is brought to such a degree of excellence that
it is to be admired rather than censured, and one
does not even dare to wish that it should not be there.
In this respect, Dou, Mieris, Potter, Van der Heist,
and indeed all the Dutch painters in greater or less
degree, were famous as prodigies of patience.
On the other hand, realism, which imparts to Dutch
painting such an original character and such ad-

108 EOTTEEDAM.
mirable qualities, is, notwithstanding, the root of its
most serious defects. The Dutch painters, solicitous
to copy only material truth, give to their figures the
expression of merely physical sentiments. Sorrow,
love, enthusiasm, and the thousand subtle emotions
that are nameless, or that take different names from
the different causes that give them birth, are rarely
or never expressed. For them the heart does not
beat, the eye does not overflow with tears, nor does
the mouth tremble. In their pictures a whole part
of the life is lacking, and that the most powerful and
noble part, the human soul. Nay more, by so faith
fully copying everything, the ugly especially, they
end in exaggerating even that. They convert defects
into deformities, portraits into caricatures; they
slander the national type ; they give every human
figure an ungraceful and ludicrous appearance. To
have a setting for figures they are obliged to select
trivial subjects ; hence the excessive number of can
vases depicting taverns and drunken men with gro
tesque, stupefied faces, in sprawling attitudes ; low
women and old men who are despicabh^ ridiculous ;
scenes in which we seem to hear the low yells and
obscene words. On looking at these pictures one
would say that Holland is inhabited by the most
deformed and ill-mannered nation in the world.
Some painters permit themselves even greater license,
Steen, Potter, Brouwer, and the great Rembrandt him
self often pandered to a low and depraved taste, and

EOTTERDAM, 109
Torrentius sent forth such shameless pictures that the
provinces of Holland collect and burn them. But,
overlooking these excesses, there is scarcely anything
to be found in a Dutch gallery which elevates the
soul, which awakens in the mind high and noble
sentiments. One enjoys, one admires, one laughs,
and sometimes one is silent before some landscapes,
but on leaving one feels that one has not felt a real
pleasure — that something was lacking. There comes
a longing to look upon a beautiful face or to read in
spired poetry, and sometimes, unconsciously, one
catches one's self murmuring, " 0 Raphael !"
In conclusion, we must note two great merits in
this school — its variety and its value as an expression,
as a mirror, of the country. If Rembrandt and his
followers are excepted, almost all the other painters
are quite different from each other. Perhaps no
other school presents such a number of original
masters. The realism of the Dutch painters arose
from their common love for nature, but each of them
has shown in his work a different manifestation of a
love all his own ; each has given the individual im
pression that he has received from nature. They all
set out from the same point — the worship of material
truth, but they each arrived at a different goal.
Their realism impelled them to copy everything, and
the consequence is that the Dutch school has succeeded
in representing Holland much more faithfully than
any other school has illustrated any other country. It

110 EOTTEEDAM.
has been said that if every other visible testimony to
the existence of Holland in the seventeenth century —
its great century — excepting the work of its artists
were to disappear, everything would be found again
in the pictures — the towns, the country, the ports,
the fieets, the markets, the shops, the dress, the uten
sils, the arms, the linen, the merchandise, the pottery,
the food, the amusements, the habits, the religion,
and the superstitions. The good and the bad qual
ities of the nation are all alike represented, and this,
which is a merit in the literature of a country, is no
less a merit in its art.
But there is one great void in Dutch painting, for
which the peaceful and modest character of the people
is not a sufficient reason. This school of painting,
which is so essentially national, has, with the excep
tion of some great naval battles, passed over all of the
grand exploits of the war of independence, among
which the sieges of Leyden and Haarlem would have
been sufficient to inspire a legion of artists. Of this
war, almost a century in duration, filled with strange
and terrible events, there is not a single memorable
painting. This school, so varied and so conscientious
in reproducing its country and its life, has not rep
resented one scene of that great tragedj% as William
the Silent prophetically called it, which aroused in the
Hollanders such diverse emotions of fear and grief,
rage, joy, and national pride.
The splendor of Holland's art faded with its polit-

XTbe Steiger, IRotterbam.

EOTTEEDAM. Ill
ical greatness. Nearly all the great painters were
born during the first thirty years of the seventeenth
or during the last years of the sixteenth century;
none of them were living after the first ten years of
the eighteenth century, and no others appeared to
take their places. Holland had exhausted its pro
ductiveness. Already toward the end of the seven
teenth century the sentiment of patriotism had com
menced to weaken, taste had become depraved, the
painters lost their inspiration with the decline of the
moral energies of the country. In the eighteenth
century the artists, as though surfeited with nature,
returned to mythology, classicism, and convention
ality ; their imagination was weakened, their style was
impoverished, and every spark of their former genius
was extinguished. Dutch Art showed the world the
marvellous fiowers of Van Huysum, the last great
lover of nature, then folded her weary hands and the
flowers fell on his tomb.
The present gallery at Rotterdam contains but a
small number of paintings, among which there are
very few works of the best artists and none of the
c'hefs d'oeuvre of the Dutch School. Three hundred
paintings and thirteen hundred drawings were de
stroyed by fire in 1864, and most of the works that
are now there were bequeathed to the city of Rotter
dam by Jacob Otto Boymans. Hence the gallery is
a place to see examples of some particular artist,
rather than to study Dutch painting.

112 EOTTEEDAM.
In one of the first rooms are some sketches of
naval battles, signed by William van de Velde, who
is considered the greatest marine painter of his time.
He was the son of William the elder, who was also a
marine painter. Both father and son were fortunate
enough to live at the time of the great naval wars
between Holland, England, and France, and were
able to see the battles with their own eyes. The
States of Holland placed a frigate at the disposal
of Van de Velde the elder ; his son accompanied him.
Both made their sketches in the midst of the battle-
smoke, sometimes advancing so far among the fighting
ships that the admirals were obliged to order them to
withdraw. The younger Van de Velde surpassed
his father. He painted small pictures — for the most
part a gray sky, a calm sea, and some sails — but so
naturally are they done that when one looks at them
one seems to smell the salt air of the sea, and mis
takes the frame for a window. This Van de Velde
belongs to that group of Dutch painters who loved
the water with a sort of madness, and who painted,
one may say, on the water. Of these was Bakhuisen,
a marine painter who had a great vogue in his day,
whom Peter the Great chose as his master during his
visit to Amsterdam, This Bakhuisen, it is said, used
to risk himself in a small boat in the midst of a storm
at sea that he might be able to observe more closely
the movements of the waves, and he often placed his
own life and the lives of his boatmen in such danger

EOTTEEDAM. 113
that the men, caring more for their skins than for
his paintings, sometimes took him back to land against
his will. John Griffier did more. He bought a little
ship in London, furnished it like a house, installed
his wife and children in it, and sailed about on his
own responsibility in search of subjects, A storm
dashed his vessel to pieces against a sandbank and
destroyed all he possessed ; he and his family were
saved by a miracle, and settled in Rotterdam. But
he soon grew weary of a life on land, bought a shat
tered boat and put to sea again ; he nearly lost his
life a second time near Dordrecht, but still continued
his voyages.
The Rotterdam gallery affords very few examples
of marine paintings, but landscape painting is
worthily represented by two pictures by Ruysdael,
the greatest of the Dutch painters of rural scenes.
These two paintings represent his favorite subjects —
leafy, solitary spots, which, like all his works,
inspire a subtle feeling of melancholy. The great
power of this artist is sentiment. He is eminent
in the Dutch school for a gentleness of soul and a
singular superiority of education. It has been most
truly said of him that he used landscape as an ex
pression of his suffering, his weariness, his fancies,
and that he contemplated his country with a bitter
sadness, as if it were a place of torment, and that he
created the woods to hide his gloom in their shade.
The soft light of Holland is the image of his soul ;

114 EOTTEEDAM.
none felt more exquisitely than he its melancholy
sweetness, none represented more feelingly than he,
with a ray of languid light, the smile of a suffering
fellow-creature. Because of the exceptional delicacy
of his nature he was not appreciated by his fellow-
citizens until long after his death.
Beside a painting by Ruysdael hangs a picture of
fiowers by a female artist, Rachel Ruysch, the wife
of a famous portrait-painter, who was born toward
the close of the sixteenth century, and died, brush in
hand, in the eightieth year of her age, after she had
shown to her husband and to the world that a sensible
woman can passionately cultivate the fine arts and
yet find time to rear and educate ten children.
And as I have spoken of the wife of a painter, I
simply mention that it is possible to write an enter
taining book on the wives of Dutch artists, both
because of the variety of their adventures and the
important part they play in the history of art. The
faces of a number are known already, because many
artists painted their wives' portraits, as well as their
own and those of their children, their cats, and their
hens. Biographers speak of most of them, confirming
or contradicting reports which have been circulated
in regard to their conduct. Some have hazarded the
opinion that the larger number of them were a serious
drawback to their husbands. It seems to me there is
something to be said on the other side. As for Rem
brandt, it is known that the happiest part of his life

EOTTEEDAM. 115
was the time between his first marriage and the death
of his wife, who was the daughter of a burgomaster of
Leeuwarden, and to whom posterity owes a debt of
gratitude. It is also known that Van der Heist at an
advanced age married a beautiful girl, for whom there
is nothing but praise, and posterity should be grateful
to her for having brightened the old age of a great
artist. It is true that we cannot speak of all in the
same terms. Of the two wives of Steen, for example,
the first was a featherhead, who allowed the tavern
at Delft that he had inherited from his father to go
to ruin ; and the second, from all accounts, was un
faithful. Heemskerk's second wife was so dishonest
that her husband was obliged to go about excusing
her peculations. De Hondecoeter's wife was an eccen
tric and troublesome woman, who forced her husband
to pass his evenings in a tavern in order to rid him
self of her company. The wife of Berghem was so
intolerably avaricious that if she found him dozing
over his brushes she awoke him roughly to make him
work and earn money, and the poor man was obliged
to resort to subterfuges to purchase engravings when
he was paid for his pictures. On the other hand,
one could never end reciting the misdeeds of the
husbands. The artist Griffier compelled his wife to
travel about the world in a boat ; Veen begged his
wife's permission to spend four months in Rome, and
stayed there four years. Karel du Jardin married a
rich old woman to pay his debts, and deserted her
Vol. L— 8

116 EOTTEEDAM.
when she had paid them. Molyn, another artist, had
his wife assassinated that he might marry a Genoese.
I doubt whether poor Paul Potter, as the story runs,
was betrayed by the wife whom he blindly loved ; and
who knows whether Huysum, the great fiower-painter,
who was consumed by jealousy in the midst of riches
and glory for a wife who was neither young nor
beautiful, had real grounds for his doubts, or whether
he was not induced by the reports of his envious
rivals to believe what was untrue ? In conclusion,
I must mention with due honor the three wives of
Eglon Van der Neer, who crowned him with twenty-
five children — a family which, however, did not keep
him from painting a large number of pictures in
every style, from making several voyages, and from
cultivating tulips.
There are several small paintings by Albert Cuyp
in the Rotterdam gallery, a landscape, horses, fowls,
and fruit — that Albert Cuyp who holds a unique place
in Dutch art, who in the course of a prolonged
life painted portraits, landscapes, animals, fiowers,
winter pieces, moonlight scenes, marine subjects,
figures, and in each style left an imprint of original
ity. But nevertheless, like most of the Dutch paint
ers of his time, he was so unfortunate that until 1750,
more than fifty years after his death, his paintings
sold for a hundred francs, whereas they now would
bring a hundred thousand francs — not in Holland,
but in England, where most of his works are owned.

EOTTEEDAM, 117
Heemskerk's " Christ at the Sepulchre" would not
be worth mentioning if it were not an excuse for
introducing the artist, who was one of the most curi
ous creatures that ever walked the face of the earth.
Van Veen — such is his real name — was born in the
village of Heemskerk at the end of the fifteenth
century, and flourished at the period of Italian imi
tation. He was the son of a peasant, and, although
he had an inclination toward art, he was intended for
a peasant. He became a painter by chance, like
many other Dutch artists. His father had a furious
temper, and the son was very much afraid of him.
One day poor Van Veen dropped the milk-jug ; his
father flew at him, but he ran out of the house and
spent the night somewhere else. The next morning
his mother found him, and, thinking it would be un
safe for him to face the paternal anger, she gave him
a small quantity of linen, a little money, and com
mended him to the care of God. The lad went to
Haarlem, and, obtaining an entrance to the studio of
a famous artist, he studied, succeeded, and then went
to Rome to perfect himself He did not become a
great artist, for the imitation of the Italian school
spoiled him : his treatment of the nude was stiff
and his style full of mannerisms, but he painted a
great deal and was well paid, and did not regret his
early life. But herein consisted his peculiarity : he
was, as his biographers assert, a man incredibly, mor
bidly and ridiculously timid. When he knew that

118 EOTTEEDAM.
the arquebusiers were to pass he climbed the roofs
and steeples, and trembled with fear when he saw
their arms in the street. If any one thinks this an
idle story, there is a fact which serves to prove it
true : he was in the town of Haarlem when the
Spaniards besieged it, and the magistrates, who knew
his weakness, permitted him to flee from the city
before they began to flght, doubtless foreseeing that
otherwise he would have died of fright. He took
advantage of the permission and fled to Amsterdam,
leaving his fellow-citizens in the lurch.
Other Dutch painters — for we are speaking of the
men, not of their pictures — like Heemskerk, owed
their choice of a profession to accident, Everdingen,
of the first order of landscape-painters, owed his
choice to a tempest which wrecked his ship on the
shore of Norway, where he remained, was inspired
by the grand natural scenery and created an original
style of landscape art, Cornelisz Vroom also owed
his fortune to a shipwreck : he was on his way to
Spain with some religious pictures ; when the vessel
was wrecked near the coast of Portugal, the poor
artist saved himself with others on an uninhabited
island, where they remained two days without food.
They considered themselves as good as lost, when
they were unexpectedly relieved by some monks from
a monastery on the coast, whither the sea had borne
the hulk of the vessel with the pictures, which were
unharmed. These the monks considei-ed admirable.

.EOTTERDAM, 119
Thus was Cornelisz sheltered, welcomed, and stimu
lated to paint, and the profound emotions occasioned
by the wreck gave his genius such a new and power
ful impulse that he became a real artist. Another,
Hans Fredeman, the famous trick painter who painted
some columns on the frame of a drawing-room door so
cleverly that Charles V, turned round to look as soon
as he had entered, and thought that the walls had
suddenly closed behind him by enchantment, — this
Hans Fredeman, who painted palisades that made
people turn back, doors which people attempted to
open, owed his fortune to a book on architecture by
Vitruvius which he obtained by chance from a car
penter. There is a good little picture by Steen which rep
resents a doctor pretending to operate on a man who
imagines himself to be sick : an old woman is holding
a basin, the invalid is shrieking desperately, and a
few curious neighbors, convulsed with laughter, look
on from a window.
When one says that this picture makes one break
into an irresistible peal of laughter, one has said all
¦that is necessary. After Rembrandt, Steen is the
most original figure-painter of the Dutch school ; he
is one of those few artists whom, when once known,
whether they are or are not congenial to our taste,
we must perforce admire as great painters, and even
if we consider them worthy of only secondary honors,
it matters not, they remain indelibly impressed on

120 EOTTEEDAM,.
our minds. After one has seen Steen's pictures it is
impossible to see a drunkard, a buffoon, a cripple, a
dwarf, a deformed face, a ridiculous smirk, a grotesque
attitude, without remembering one of his figures.
All the degrees of stupidity and of drunkenness, all
the grossness and mawkishness of orgies, the frenzy
of the lowest pleasures, the cynicism of the vulgarest
vice, the buffoonery of the wildest rabble, all the
most brutal emotions, the basest aspects of tavern
and alehouse life, have been painted by him with the
brutality and insolence of an unscrupulous man, and
with such a sense of the comic, such an impetuosity,
such an intoxication of inspiration, one might say
that words cannot express the effect produced.
Writers have devoted many volumes to him, and
have advanced many different opinions about him.
His warmest admirers have attributed to him a moral
purpose — that of making debauchery hateful by
painting it as he did in repulsive colors, for the same
reason that the Spartans showed drunken Helots to
their sons. Others see in his paintings only the
spontaneous and thoughtless expression of the spirit
and taste of the artist, whom they represent as a
vulgar debauchee. However this may be, there is
no doubt that in the effects produced Steen's painting
may be considered a satire on vice, and in this he is
superior to almost all the Dutch painters, who re
stricted themselves to an external realism. Hence
he was called the Dutch Hogarth, the jovial philoso-

EOTTEEDAM. 121
pher, the keenest observer of the habits of his
countrymen, and one among his admirers has said
that if Steen had been born at Rome instead of at
Leyden, and had Michelangelo instead of Van Goyen
been his master, he would have been one of the
greatest painters in the world. Another finds some
kind of analogy between him and Raphael. The
technical qualities of his paintings are much less
admired, his work has not the finish nor the strength
of the other artists, such as Ostade, Mieris, and Dou,
But, even taking into consideration its satirical cha
racter, one must say that Steen has often exceeded
his purpose if he really had a purpose. The fury
with which he pursued the burlesque often got the
better of his feeling for reality ; his figures, instead
of being merely ridiculous, became monstrous and
hardly human, often resembling beasts rather than
men, and he has exaggerated these figures until
sometimes he awakens, a feeling of nausea instead of
mirth, and a sense of indignation that nature should
be so outraged. The effect he produces is generally
a laugh, — a loud, irresistible laugh, which bursts from
one even when alone and calls the people away from
the neighboring pictures. It is impossible to carry
further than Steen did the art of fiaitening noses,
twisting mouths, shortening necks, making wrinkles,
rendering faces stupid, putting on humps, and making
his puppets seem as if they were roaring with laugh
ter, vomiting, reeling, or falling. By the leer of a

122 EOTTEEDAM.
half-closed eye he expressed idiocy and sensuality;
by a sneer or a gesture he revealed the brutality of a
man. He makes one smell the odor of a pipe, hear
the coarse laughter, guess at the stupid or foul dis
courses — to understand, in a word, tavern-life and the
dregs of the people; and I maintain that it is im
possible to carry this art to a higher point than that
to which Steen has carried it.
His life has been and still is a vexed question.
Volumes have been written to prove that he was a
drunkard, and volumes to prove that he was a sober
man; and, as is always the case, both sides exaggerate.
He kept an alehouse at Delft, but it did not pay ; then
he set up a tavern and things went worse. It is said
that he was its most assiduous frequenter, that he
would drink up all the wine, and that when the
cellar was empty he would take down the sign,
close the door, and begin to paint furiously, and
when he had sold his pictures he would buy more
wine and begin life again. It is even said that he
paid for everything with his pictures, and that con
sequently all his paintings were to be found in wine-
merchants' houses. It is really difficult to explain
how he could have painted such a large number of
admirable works if he was always intoxicated, but
it is no less difficult to understand why he had a taste
for such subjects if he led a steady, sober life. It is
certain that, especially during the last years of his
life, he committed every sort of extravagance. He

EOTTERDAM, - 123
at first studied under the famous landscape painter
Van Goyen, but genius worked in him more power
fully than study ; he divined the rules of his art, and
if it sometimes seems that he has painted too black,
as some of his critics have said, it was the fault of
an extra bottle of wine at dinner,
Steen is not the only Dutch painter who, whether
deservedly or not, won a reputation for drunk
enness. At one time nearly all the artists passed
the greater part of their day in the taverns, where
they became famously drunk, fell to fighting, and
whence they came out bruised and bleeding. In a poem
upon painting by Karel van Mander, who was the first
to write the history of the painters of the Netherlands,
there occurs a passage directed against drunkenness
and the habit of fighting, part of which runs as fol
lows : " Be sober and live so that the unhappy
proverb ' As debauched as a painter ' may become
As temperate as an artist,' " To mention a few
among the most famous artists, Mieris was a notable
Avinebibber, Van Goyen a drunkard, Franz Hals, the
master of Brouwer, a winesack, Brouwer an incor
rigible tippler ; William Cornells, and Hondecoeter
were on the best terms with the bottle. Many of the
humbler painters are said to have died intoxicated.
Even in death the history of the Dutch painters
presents a thousand incongruities. The great Rem
brandt expired in misery almost without the know
ledge of any ; Hobbema died in the poor quarter of

124 EOTTEEDAM.
Amsterdam ; Steen died in poverty ; Brouwer died
at a hospital ; Andrew Both and Henry Verschuringh
were drowned ; Adrian Bloemaert met his death in
a duel ; Karel Fabritius was killed by the explosion
of a powder-magazine ; Johann Schotel died, brush
in hand, of a stroke of apoplexy ; Potter died of
consumption; Lucas of Leyden was poisoned. So,
what with shameful deaths, debauchery, and jealousy,
one may say that a great part of the Dutch painters
have had an unhappy fate.
In the gallery at Rotterdam there is a beautiful
head by Rembrandt ; a scene of brigands by Wou-
verman, a great painter of horses and battles ; a land
scape by Van Goyen, the painter of dead shores
and leaden skies ; a marine painting by Bakhuisen,
the painter of storms ; a painting by Berghem, the
painter of smiling landscapes ; one by Everdingen,
the painter of waterfalls and forests ; and other
paintings belonging to the Italian and Flemish
schools. On leaving the museum I met a company of sol
diers, the first Dutch soldiers I had seen. Their uni
form was dark colored, without any showy ornaments,
and they were all fair from first to last, and wore
their hair long, and almost all of them had a peaceful,
happy look, which seemed in strange contrast with
the arms they bore, Rotterdam, a city of more than
a hundred thousand inhabitants, has a garrison of
three hundred soldiers ! And it is said that Rotter-

EOTTEEDAM. 125
dam has the name of being the most turbulent and
unruly city in Holland ! In fact, some time ago
there was a popular demonstration against the muni
cipality, which had no consequences but a few broken
windows. But in a country like this, which runs by
clockwork, it must have seemed, and did truly seem,
a great event ; the cavalry was sent from the Hague,
the country was in commotion. One must not think,
however, that this people is all sugar ; the citizens
of Rotterdam confess that "the holy rabble," as
Carducci calls it, is stoutly licentious, as is the case
in other towns of worse reputation ; the lack of
police is rather an incentive to license than a proof,
as some might think, of public discipline.
Rotterdam, as I have already said, is a city neither
artistic nor literary ; on the contrary, it is one of the
few Dutch cities that have not given birth to some
great painter — an unproductiveness shared by the
whole of Zealand. Erasmus, however, is not its only
man of letters. In a little park that extends to the
right of the town on the bank of the Meuse there
is a marble statue raised by the inhabitants of Rot
terdam to honor the poet Tollens, who was born at
the end of last century and died a few years ago.
This Tollens, whom some dare to call the Bdranger
of Holland, was (and in this alone he resembles Bd-
ranger) one of the most popular poets of the country
— one of those poets of which there were so many in

126 EOTTEEDAM.
Holland, simple, moral, and full of common sense,
having, in fact, more good sense than inspiration ;
who treated poetry as if it were a business; who
never wrote anything that could displease their pru
dent relatives and judicious friends ; who sang of
their good God and their good king, and expressed
the tranquil and practical character of the people,
always taking care to say things that were exact
rather than great, and, above all, cultivating poetry
in old age, and like prudent fathers of families not
stealing a moment from the pursuit of their business.
Like many other Dutch poets (who, however, had more
genius and different natures), he had another profes
sion besides that of an author. Vondel, for instance,
was a hatmaker ; Hooft was the governor of Muyden ;
Van Lennep was a fiscal lawyer; Gravenswaert was
a state counsellor ; Bogaers, an advocate ; Beets, a
shepherd; so Tollens also, besides being a man of
letters, was an apothecary at Rotterdam, and passed
every day, even in his old age, in his drug-store.
He had a family and loved his children tenderly — so
at least one would conclude from the different pieces
of poetry he wrote on the appearance of their first,
second, and third teeth. He wrote ballads and odes
on familiar and patriotic subjects. Among these is
the national hymn of Holland, a mediocre production
which the people sing about the streets and the boys
chant at school. There is a little poem, perhaps the
best of his works, on the expedition which the Dutch

statue of Uollens.

EOTTEEDAM, 127
sent to the Polar Sea toward the end of the sixteenth
century. The people learn his poetry by heart,
adore him, and prefer him as their most faithful in
terpreter and most affectionate friend. But, for all
this, Tollens is not considered in Holland as a first-
class poet, many do not even rank him in the second
class, while not a few disdainfully refuse to give him
the sacred laurels.
After all, if Rotterdam is not a centre of literature
and art, she has as compensation an extraordinary
number of philanthropic institutions, splendid clubs,
and all the comforts and diversions of a city of wealth
and refinement.
The observations that I have had occasion to make
on the character and life of the inhabitants will be more
to the purpose at the Hague. I will only mention that
in Rotterdam, as in other Dutch cities, no one, in speak
ing of their country's affairs, showed the least national
vanity. The expressions, "Isn't it beautiful?" "What
do you think of that?" — which one hears every mo
ment in other countries, are never heard in Holland,
even when the inhabitants are speaking of things
that are universally admired. Every time that I told
a citizen of Rotterdam that I liked the town he made
a gesture of surprise. In speaking of their commerce
and institutions they never let a vain expression
escape them, nor even a boastful or complacent word.
They always speak of what they are going to do, and
never of what they have done. One of the first

128 EOTTEEDAM,
questions put to me when I named my country was,
"What about its finances?" As to their own country,
I observed that they know all that it is useful to
know, and very little that it is simply a pleasure to
know, A hundred things, a hundred parts of the
city, which I had observed when I had been twenty-
four hours at Rotterdam, many of the citizens had
never seen ; which proves that they are not in the
habit of rambling about and looking at everything.
When I took my leave my acquaintances filled my
pockets with cigars, counselled me to eat good nour
ishing dinners, and gave me advice on the subject of
economical travelling. They parted from me quietly.
There was no clamorous "What a pity you are
going!" "Write soon!" "Come back quickly!"
" Don't forget us !" which rang in my ears on leaving
Spain. Here there was nothing but a hearty shake
of the hand, a look, and a simple good-bye.
On the morning when I left Rotterdam I saw in
the streets through which I passed to get to the Delft
railway-station a novel spectacle, purely Dutch — the
cleaning of the houses, which takes place twice a
week in the early morning hours. All the servants
in the city, dressed in fiowered lilac-colored wrappers,
white caps, white aprons, white stockings, and white
wooden shoes, and with their sleeves turned up, were
busily washing the doors, the walls, and the windows.
Some sat courageously on the window-sills while
they washed the panes of the windows with sponges,

EOTTEEDAM. 129
turning their backs to the street with half their bodies
outside ; others were kneeling on the pavement clean
ing the stones with rough cloths ; others were standing
in the middle of the street armed with syringes,
squirts, and pumps, with long rubber tubes, like
those used for watering gardens, and were sending
against the second-floor windows streams of water
which were pouring down again into the street;
others were mopping the windows with sponges and
rags tied to the tops of long bamboo canes ; others
were burnishing the door-knobs, rings, and door-
plates ; some were cleaning the staircases, some the
furniture, which they had carried out of the houses.
The pavements were blocked with buckets and pitch
ers, with jugs, watering-pots, and benches; water ran
down the walls and down the street ; jets of water
were gushing out everywhere. It is a curious thing
that while labor in Holland is so slow and easy in all
its forms, this work presented an appearance alto
gether different. All those girls with glowing faces
were bustling indoors and hurrying out again, rushing
up stairs and down, tucking up their sleeves hastily,
assuming bold acrobatic attitudes and undergoing
dangerous contortions. They took no notice of
those who passed by except when with jealous eyes
it was necessary to keep the profane race away from
the pavement and walls. In short, it was a furious
rivalry of cleanliness, a sort of general ablution of
the city, which had about it sornething childish and

130 EOTTEEDAM.
festive, and which made one fancy that it was some
rite of an eccentric religion which ordered its follow
ers to cleanse the town from a mysterious infection
sent by malicious spirits.

DELFT.

DELFT.

On my way from Rotterdam to Delft I saw for the
first time the plains of Holland.
The country is perfectly flat — a succession of
green and flower-decked meadows, broken by long
rows of willows and clumps of alders and poplars.
Here and there appear the tops of steeples, the turn
ing arms of windmills, straggling herds of large
black and white cattle, and an occasional shepherd ;
then, for miles, only solitude. There is nothing to
attract the eye, there is neither hill nor valley.
From time to time the sail of a ship is seen in the
distance, but as the vessel is moving on an invisible
canal, it seems to be gliding over the grass of the
meadows as it is hidden for a moment behind the
trees and then reappears. The wan light lends a
gentle, melancholy influence to the landscape, while
a mist almost imperceptible makes all things appear
distant. There is a sense of silence to the eye, a
peace of outline and color, a repose in everything, so
that the vision grows dim and the imagination sleeps.
Not far from Rotterdam the town of Schiedam
comes into view, surrounded by very high windmills, 133

134 delft:
which give it the appearance of a fortress crowned
with turrets ; and far away can be seen the towers of
the village of Vlaardingen, one of the principal sta
tions of the herring-fisheries.
Between Schiedam and Delft I observed the wind
mills with great attention. Dutch windmills do not
at all resemble the decrepit mills I had seen in the
previous year at La Mancha, which seemed to be ex
tending their thin arms to implore the aid of heaven
and earth. The Dutch mills are large, strong, and
vigorous, and Don Quixote would certainly have
hesitated before running atilt at them. Some are
built of stone or bricks, and are round or octagonal
like mediaeval towers ; others are of wood, and look
like boxes stuck on the summits of pyramids. Most
of them are thatched. About midway between the
roof and the ground they are encircled by a wooden
platform. Their windows are hung with white cur
tains, their doors are painted green, and on each door
is written the use which it serves. Besides drawing
water, the windmills do a little of everything : they
grind grain, pound rags, crumble lime, crush stones,
saw wood, press olives, and pulverize tobacco. A
windmill is as valuable as a farm, and it takes a
considerable fortune to build one and provide it with
colza, grain, fiour, and oil to keep it working, and to
sell its products. Consequently, in many places the
riches of a proprietor are measured by the number
of mills he owns ; an inheritance is counted by mills,

IRear tbe arsenal, Delft

DELFT, 135
and they say of a girl that she has so many wind
mills as dowry, or, even better, so many steam-mills ;
and fortune-hunters, who are to be found everywhere,
sue for the maiden's hand to marry the mill. These
countless winged towers scattered through the country
give the landscape a singular appearance ; they ani
mate the solitude. At night in the midst of the
trees they have a fantastic appearance, and look
like fabulous birds gazing at the sky. By day
in the distance they look like enormous pieces of
fireworks ; they turn, stop, curb and slacken their
speed, break the silence by their dull and monotonous
tick-tack, and when by chance they catch fire — which
not infrequently happens, especially in the case of
flour-mills — they form a wheel of flame, a furious
rain of burning meal, a whirlwind of smoke, a tumult,
a dreadful magnificent brilliance that gives one the
idea of an infernal vision.
In the railway-carriage, although it was full of
people, I had no opportunity of speaking or of hear
ing a word spoken. The passengers were all middle-
aged men with serious faces, who looked at each other
in silence, puffing out great clouds of smoke at reg
ular intervals as if they were measuring time by their
cigars. When we arrived at Delft I greeted them as
I passed out, and some of them responded by a slight
movement of the lips.
"Delft," says Lodovico Guicciardini, "is named
after a ditch, or rather the canal of water which

136 DELFT,
leads from the Meuse, since in the vulgar tongue a
ditch is generally called delft. It is distant two
leagues from Rotterdam, and is a town truly great and
most beautiful in every part, having goodly and noble
edifices and wide streets, which are lively withal. It
was founded by Godfrey, surnamed the Hunchback,
duke of Lorraine, he who for the space of four years
occupied the country of Holland,"
Delft is the city of disaster. Toward the middle
of the sixteenth century it was almost entirely de
stroyed by fire ; in 1654 the explosion of a powder-
magazine shattered more than two hundred houses ;
and in 1742 another catastrophe of the same kind
occurred. Besides these calamities, William the Si
lent was assassinated there in the year 1584, More
over, there followed the decline and almost the
extinction of that industry which once was the
glory and riches of the city, the manufacture of
Delft ware. In this art at first the Dutch artisans
imitated the shapes and designs of Chinese and
Japanese china, and finally succeeded in doing ad
mirable work by uniting the Dutch and Asiatic
styles, Dutch pottery became famous throughout
Northern Europe, and it is now-a-days as much sought
after by lovers of this art as the best Italian products.
At present Delft is not an industrial or commercial
city, and its twenty-two thousand inhabitants live in
profound peace. But it is one of the prettiest and
most characteristic towns of Holland. The wide

DELFT, 137
streets are traversed by canals shaded by double rows
of trees. On either side are red, purple, and pink
cottages with white pointing, which seem content in
their cleanliness. At every crossway two or three
corresponding bridges of stone or of wood, with
white railings, meet each other; the only thing
to be seen is some barge lying motionless and ap
parently enjoying the delight of idleness ; there are
few people stirring, the doors are closed, and all is
still, I took my way toward the new church, looking
around to see if I could discover any of the famous
storks' nests, but there were none visible. The tra
dition of the storks of Delft is still alive, and no trav
eller writes about this city without mentioning it.
Guicciardini calls it " a memorable fact of such a
nature that peradventure there is no record of a like
event in ancient or modern times," The circum
stance took place during the great fire which de
stroyed nearly the whole city. There were in Delft
a countless number of storks' nests. It must be re
membered that the stork is the favorite bird of Hol
land, the bird of good augury, like the swallow.
Storks are much in demand, as they make war on
toads and rats, and the peasants plant perches sur
mounted by large wooden disks to attract them to
build their nests there. In some toWns they are to
be seen walking through the streets. Well, at Delft
there were innumerable nests. When the fire began.

138 DELFT.
on the 3d of May, the young storks were well grown,
but they could not yet fiy. When they saw the fire
approaching, the parent storks tried to carry their
little ones into a place of safety, but they were too
heavy, and after every sort of desperate effort the
poor birds, worn and terrified, had to abandon the
attempt. They might yet have saved themselves by
leaving the young to their fate, as human beings
generally do under similar circumstances. But, in
stead, they remained on their nests, pressing their
little ones round them, and shielding them with their
wings, as though to delay their destruction for at
least a moment. Thus they awaited their death, and
were found lifeless in this attitude of love and devo
tion. Who knows whether during the horrible terror
and panic of the fire the example of that sacrifice,
the voluntary martyrdom of those poor mothers, may
not have given courage to some weaker soul about to
abandon those who had need of him ?
In the great square, where stands the new church,
I again saw some shops like those I had seen in Rot
terdam, in which all the articles which can be strung
together are hung up either outside the door or in the
room, so forming wreaths, festoons, and curtains — of
shoes, for example, or of earthen pots, watering-cans,
baskets, and buckets — which dangle from the ceiling
to the ground, and sometimes almost hide the fioor.
The shop signs are like those at Rotterdam — a bottle
of beer hanging from a nail, a paint-brush, a box, a

DELFT. 139
broom, and the customary huge heads with wide-open
mouths. The new church, founded toward the end of the
fourteenth century, is to Holland what Westminster
Abbey is to England. It is a large edifice, sombre
without and bare within — a prison rather than a
house of God. The tombs are at the end, behind the
enclosure of the benches.
I had scarcely entered before I saw the splendid
mausoleum of William the Silent, but the sexton
stopped me before the very simple tomb of Hugh
Grotius, the prodigium Europce, as the epitaph calls
him, the great jurisconsult of the seventeenth cen
tury — that Grotius who wrote Latin verses at the age
of nine, who composed Greek odes at eleven, who at
fourteen indited philosophical theses, who three years
later accompanied the illustrious Barneveldt in his
embassy to Paris, where Henry IV. presented him to
his court, saying, " Behold the miracle of Holland !"
that Grotius who at eighteen years of age was illus
trious as a poet, as a theologian, as a commentator,
as an astronomer, who had written a poem on the town
of Ostend which Casaubon translated into Greek
measures and Malesherbes into French verse; that
Grotius who when hardly twenty-four years old occu
pied the post of advocate-general of Holland and
Zealand, and composed a celebrated treatise on the
Freedom of the Seas ; who at thirty years of age was
an honorary councillor of Rotterdam, Afterward,

140 DELFT,
when, as a partisan of Barneveldt, he was persecuted,
condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and shut up
in the castle of Lbwestein, he wrote his treatise on
the Rights of Peace and War, which for a long time
was the code of all the publicists of Europe. He
was rescued in a marvellous way by his wife, who
managed to be can-ied into the prison inside a chest
supposed to be full of books, and sent back the chest
with her husband inside, while she remained in prison
in his place. He was then sheltered by Louis XIII.,
was appointed ambassador to France by Christina of
Sweden, and finally returned in triumph to his native
land, and died at Rostock crowned with glory and a
venerable old age.
The mausoleum of William the Silent is in the
middle of the church. It is a little temple of black
and white marble, heavy with ornament and supported
by slender columns, in the midst of which rise four
statues representing Liberty, Prudence, Justice, and
Religion. Above the sarcophagus is a recumbent
statue of the prince in white marble, and at his feet
the effigy of the little dog that saved his life at
Mechlin by barking one night, when he was sleeping
under a tent, just as two Spaniards were advancing
stealthily to kill him. At the foot of this statue
rises a beautiful bronze figure, a Victory, with out
spread wings, resting lightly on her left foot. At
the opposite side of the little temple is another bronze
statue representing William seated. He is clad in

/iDonument to abmiral Dan XTromp,
Delft.

^iiiiiiiiii"Bi f )
liiliVV.'ti'fliUMMMMMilAll

DELFT. 141
armor, with his head uncovered and his helmet at
his feet. An inscription in Latin tells that this
monument was consecrated by the States of Holland
" to the eternal memory of that William of Nassau
whom Philip II., the terror of Europe, feared, yet
whom he could neither subdue nor overthrow, but
whom he killed by execrable fraud," William's
children are laid by his side, and all the princes of
his dynasty are buried in the crypt under his tomb.
Before this monument even the most frivolous and
careless visitor remains silent and thoughtful.
It is well to recall the tremendous struggle of which
the hero lies in that tomb.
On one side was Philip II. , on the other William
of Orange. Philip II. , shut up in the dull solitude
of the Escurial, lived in the midst of an empire which
included Spain, North and South Italy, Belgium,
and Holland, and, in Africa, Oran, Tunis, the archi
pelagoes of the Cape Verde and Canary Islands ; in
Asia the Philippine Islands ; and the Antilles,
Mexico, and Peru in America, He was the husband
of the queen of England, the nephew of the emperor
of Germany, who obeyed him as if he were a vassal ;
he was the lord, one may say, of all Europe, for the
neighboring states were all weakened by political and
religious disorders ; he had at his command the best
disciplined soldiers in Europe, the greatest generals
of the age, American gold, Flemish industries, Italian
science, an army of spies scattered through all the

142 DELFT,
courts — men chosen from all countries fanatically
devoted to him, conscious or unconscious tools of his
will. He was the most sagacious, most mysterious
prince of his age ; he had everything that enchains,
corrupts, alarms, and attracts the world — arms,
riches, glory, genius, religion. While every one else
was bowing low before this formidable man, William
of Orange stood erect.
This man, without a kingdom and without an army,
was nevertheless more powerful than the king. Like
him, he had been a disciple of Charles V., and had
learned the art of elevating thrones and hurling them
down ; like him, he was cunning and inscrutable, and
yet he divined the future with keener intellectual vis
ion than Philip. Like his enemy, he had the power
of reading men's souls, but he also had the ability to
win their hearts. He had a good cause to uphold,
but he was acquainted with all the artifices that are
used to maintain bad causes. Philip II. , who spied
into every one's affairs, was spied on in his turn and
had his purposes divined by William. The designs
of the great king were discovered and thwarted before
they were put into execution ; mysterious hands ran
sacked his drawers and pockets and investigated his
secret papers. William in Holland read the mind of
Philip in the Escurial ; he anticipated, hindered, and
embroiled all his plots ; he dug the ground from be
neath his feet, provoked him, and then escaped, only
to return before his eyes like a phantom which he

DELFT, 143
saw and could not seize, which he seized and could
not destroy. At last William died, but even when
dead the victory was his, and the enemy who sur
vived was defeated, Holland remained for a short
time without a head, but the Spanish monarchy had
received such a blow that it was not able to rise
again. In this wonderful struggle the figure of the Great
King gradually dwindles until it entirely disappears,
while that of William of Orange becomes greater
and greater by slow degrees until it grows to be
the most glorious figure of his age. From the day
when, as a hostage to the king of France, he discov
ered Philip's design of establishing the Inquisition
in the Netherlands he devoted himself to defend the
liberty of his country, and throughout his life he
never wavered for a moment on the road he had
entered. The advantages of his noble birth, a regal
fortune, peace, and the splendid life which by habit
and nature were dear to him, all these he sacrificed to
the cause ; he was reduced to poverty and exiled, yet
in both poverty and exile he constantly refused the
offers of pardon and of favor that were made from
many sides and in many ways by the enemy who
hated and feared him. Surrounded by assassins,
made the target of the most atrocious calumnies,
accused of cowardice before the enemy, and charged
with the assassination of a wife whom he adored,
sometimes regarded with distrust, slandered, and at-

144 DELFT.
tacked by the very people he was defending, — he
bore it all patiently and in silence. He did not
swerve from the straight course to the goal, facing
infinite perils with quiet courage. He did not bend
before his people nor did he fiatter them ; he did not
permit himself to be led away by the passions of his
country ; it was he who always guided ; he was always
at the head, always the first. All gathered around
him ; he was the mind, the conscience, and the
strength of the revolution, the hearth that burned
and kept the warmth of life in his fatherland. Great
by reason alike of his audacity and prudence, he
continued upright in a time full of perjury and
treachery ; he remained gentle in the midst of violent
men ; his hands were spotless when all the courts of
Europe were stained with blood. With an army col
lected at random, with feeble or uncertain allies,
checked by internal discords between Lutherans and
Calvinists, nobles and commoners, magistrates and
the people, with no great general to aid him, he was
obliged to combat the municipal spirit of the prov
inces, Avhich would none of his authority and escaped
from his control ; yet he triumphed in a confiict which
seemed beyond human strength. He wore out the
Duke of Alva, Requesens, Don John of Austria, and
Alexander Farnese, He overthrew the conspiracies
of those foreign princes who wished to help his
country in order to subdue it. He gained friends
and obtained aid from every part of Europe, and,

DELFT. 145
after achieving one of the noblest revolutions in his
tory, he founded a free state in spite of an empire
which was the terror of the universe.
This man, who in the eyes of the world was so
terrible and so great, was an affectionate husband
and father, a pleasant friend and companion, who
loved merry social gatherings and banquets, and was
an elegant and polite host. He was a man of learn
ing, and spoke, besides his native language, French,
German, Spanish, Latin, and Italian, and conversed in
a scholarly manner on all subjects. Although called
the Silent (rather because he kept to himself the secret
discovered at the French court than from a habit of
silence), he was one of the most eloquent men of his
time. His manners were simple and his dress plain ;
he loved his people and was beloved by them. He
walked about the streets of the cities bareheaded and
alone, and chatted with workmen and fishermen, who
offered him drink out of their glasses ; he listened to
their discourses, settled their quarrels, entered their
homes to restore domestic concord. Every one called
him "Father William," and, in fact, he was the father
rather than a son of his country. The feeling of
admiration and gratitude which still lives for him in
the hearts of the Hollanders has all the intimacy and
tenderness of filial affection; his reverend name is still
in every mouth ; his greatness, stripped of every
ornament and veil, remains entire, spotless, and
steadfast like his work.

146 DELFT.
After seeing the tomb of the Prince of Orange I
went to look upon the place where he was assassinated.
In 1580, Philip II, published an edict in which he
promised a reward of twenty-five thousand golden
pieces and a title of nobility to the man who would
assassinate the Prince of Orange, This infamous
edict, which stimulated covetousness and fanaticism,
caused crowds of assassins to gather from every side,
who surrounded William under false names and with
concealed weapons, awaiting their opportunity. A
young man from Biscay, Jaureguy by name, a fervent
Catholic, who had been promised the glory of martyr
dom by a Dominican friar, made the first attempt.
He prepared himself by prayer and fasting, went to
Mass, took the communion, covered himself with
sacred relics, entered the palace, and, drawing near
to the prince in the attitude of one presenting a pe
tition, fired a pistol at his head. The ball passed
through the jaw, but the wound was not mortal.
The Prince of Orange recovered. The assassin was
slain in the act by sword and halberd thrusts, then
quartered on the public square, and the parts were
hung up on one of the gates of Antwerp, where they
remained until the Duke of Parma took possession
of the town, when the Jesuits collected them and
presented them as relics to the faithful.
Shortly after this another plot against the life of
the Prince was discovered. A French nobleman, an
Italian, and a Walloon, who had followed him for

DELFT, 147
some time with the intention of murdering him, were
suspected and arrested. One of them killed himself
in prison with a knife, another was strangled in
France, and the third escaped, after he had confessed
that the movements of all three had been directed
by the Duke of Parma.
Meanwhile Philip's agents were overrunning the
country instigating rogues to perpetrate this deed
with promises of treasures in reward, while priests
and monks were instigating fanatics to the same end
by the assurance of help and reward from Heaven.
Other assassins made the attempt. A Spaniard was
discovered, arrested, and quartered at Antwerp ; a
rich trader called Hans Jansen was put to death at
Flushing, Many offered their services to Prince
Alexander Farnese and were encouraged by gifts of
money. The Prince of Orange, who knew all this,
felt a vague presentiment of his approaching death,
and spoke of it to his intimate friends, but he refused
to take any precautions to protect his life, and replied
to all who gave him such counsel, " It is useless :
God has numbered my years. Let it be according to
His will. If there is any wretch who does not fear
death, my life is in his power, however I may guard
it." Eight attempts were made upon his life before an
assassin fired the fatal shot.
When the deed was at last committed, in 1584,
four scoundrels, an Englishman, a Scotchman, a
Vol. I.— 10

148 DELFT.
Frenchman, and a man of Lorraine, unknown to each
other, were all awaiting at Delft their opportunity to
assassinate him.
Besides these, there was a young conspirator,
twenty-seven years of age, from Franche-Comt^, a
Catholic, who passed himself off as a Protestant,
Guyon by name, the son of a certain Peter Guyon
who was executed at Besan§on for embracing Cal
vinism. This Guyon, whose real name was Balthazar
Gerard, was believed to be a fugitive from the perse
cutions of the Catholics. He led an austere life and
took part in all the services of the Evangelical
Church, and in a short time acquired a reputation
for especial piety. Saying that he had come to Delft
to beg for the honor of serving the Prince of Orange,
he was recommended and introduced by a Protestant
clergyman : he inspired the Prince with confidence,
and was sent by him to accompany Herr Van Schone-
walle, the envoy of the States of Holland to the
court of France. In a short time he returned to
Delft, bringing to William the tidings of the death
of the Duke of Anjou, and presented himself at the
convent of St. Agatha, where the Prince was staying
with his court. It was the second Sunday in July.
William received him in his chamber, being in bed.
They were alone, Balthazar Gerard was probably
tempted to assassinate him at that moment, but he
was unarmed and restrained himself Disguising his
impatience, he (juietly answered all the questions he

DELFT, 149
was asked, William gave him some money, told him to
prepare to return to Paris, and ordered him to come
¦back the next day to get his letters and passport.
With the money he received from the Prince, Gerard
bought two pistols from a soldier, who killed himself
when he knew to what end they had been used, and
the next day, the 10th of July, he again presented
himself at the convent of St, Agatha, William,
accompanied by several ladies and gentlemen of his
family, was descending the staircase to dine in a
room on the ground floor. On his arm was the Prin
cess of Orange, his fourth wife, that gentle and un
fortunate Louisa de Coligny, who had seen her father,
the admiral, and her husband, Seigneur de Teligny,
killed at her feet on the eve of St. Bartholomew.
Balthazar stepped forward, stopped the Prince, and
asked him to sign his passport. The Prince told him
to return later, and entered the dining-room. No
shade of suspicion had passed through his mind,
Louisa de Coligny, however, grown cautious and sus
picious by her misfortunes, became anxious. That
pale man, wrapped in a long mantle, had a sinister
look ; his voice sounded unnatural and his face was
convulsed. During dinner she confided her suspi
cions to William, and asked him who that man was
"who had the wickedest face she had ever seen."
The Prince smiled, told her it was Guyon, reassured
her, and was as gay as ever during the dinner.
When he had finished he quietly left the room to go

150 DELFT.
up stairs to his apartments. Gerard was waiting for
him at a dark turning near the staircase, hidden in
the shadow of a door. As soon as he saw the Prince
approaching he advanced, and leaped upon him just
as he was placing his foot on the second step. He
fired his pistol, which was loaded with three bullets,
straight at the Prince's breast, and fied. William
staggered and fell into the arms of an equerry. All
crowded round. " I am wounded," said William in
a feeble voice, ..." God have mercy on me and on
my poor people !" He was all covered with blood.
His sister, Catherine of Schwartzburg, asked, " Dost
thou commend thy soul to Jesus Christ?" He
answered, in a whisper, "I do." It was his last
word. They placed him on one of the steps and
spoke to him, but he was no longer conscious. They
then bore him into a room near by, where he died.
Gerard had crossed the stables, had fled from the
convent, and reached the ramparts of the town, from
which he hoped to leap into the moat and swim across
to the opposite bank, where a horse ready saddled
was awaiting him. But in his flight he let fall his
hat and a pistol. A servant and a halberdier in the
Prince's service, seeing these traces, rushed after him.
Just as he was in the act of jumping he stumbled,
and his two pursuers overtook and seized him. " In
fernal traitor!" they cried, "I am no traitor," he
answered calmly ; " I am a faithful servant of my
master." — " Of what master ?" they asked. " Of

stairway wbere Milliam, tbe Silent, was
assassinateb, in tbe prinsenbof.
Delft.

DELFT. 151
my lord and master the King of Spain," answered
Gerard. By this time other halberdiers and pages
had come up. They dragged him into the town,
beating him with their fists and with the hilts of their
swords. The wretch, thinking from the words of the
crowd that the Prince was not dead, exclaimed with
an evil composure, " Cursed be the hand whose blow
has failed !"
This deplorable peace of mind did not desert him
for a moment. When brought before the judges,
during the long examination in the cell where he
was thrown laden with chains, he still maintained
the same remarkable tranquillity. He bore the tor
ments to which he was condemned without letting a
cry escape him. Between the various tortures to
which he was subjected, while the officers were rest
ing, he conversed quietly and in a modest manner.
While they were lacerating him every now and then
he raised his bloody head from the rack and said,
"Ecce homo." Several times he thanked the judges
for the nourishment he had received, and wrote his
confessions with his own hand.
He was born at Villefranche in the department of
Burgundy, and studied law with a solicitor at D61e,
and it was there that he for the first time manifested
his wish to kill William. Planting a dagger in a
door, he said, " Thus would I thrust a sword into the
breast of the Prince of Orange !" Three years later,
hearing of the proclamation of Philip II. , he went

152 DELFT.
to Luxembourg, intending to assassinate the Prince,
but was stopped by the false report of his death which
had been spread after Jaurequy's attempted assassi
nation. Soon after, learning that William still lived,
he renewed his design, and went to Mechlin to seek
counsel from the Jesuits, who encouraged him, prom
ising him a martyr's crown if he lost his life in the
enterprise. He then went to Tournay, and presented
himself to Alexander Farnese, who confirmed the
promises of King Philip, He was approved and en
couraged by the confidence of the Prince and by the
priests ; he fortified himself by reading the Bible, by
fasting and prayer, and then, full of religious exalta
tion, dreaming of angels and of Paradise, he left for
Delft, and completed his " duty as a good Catholic
and faithful subject,"
He repeated his confessions several times to the
judges, without one word of remorse or penitence.
On the contrary, he boasted of his crime, and said
he was a new David, who had overthrown a new
Goliath ; he declared that if he had not already killed
the Prince of Orange, he should still wish to do the
deed. His courage, his calmness, his contempt of
life, his profound belief that he had accomplished a
holy mission and would die a glorious death, dismayed
his judges ; they thought he must be possessed by the
devil. They made inquiries, they questioned him,
but he always gave the same answer that his conver
sation was with God alone.

DELFT. 153
He was sentenced on the 14th of July. His pun
ishment has been called a crime against the memory
of the great man whose death it was intended to
avenge — -a sentence to turn faint any one who had
not superhuman strength.
The assassin was condemned to have his hand en
closed and seared in a tube of red-hot iron, to have
his arms, legs, and thighs torn to pieces with burning
pincers, his bowels to be quartered, his heart to be
torn out and thrown into his face, his head to be dis
severed from his trunk and placed on a pike, his body
to be cut in four pieces, and every piece to be hung
on a gibbet over one of the principal gates of the city.
On hearing the enumeration of these horrible tor
tures the miserable wretch did not fiinch ; he showed
no sign of terror, sorrow, or surprise. He opened
his coat, bared his breast, and, fixing his dauntless
eyes on his judges, he repeated with a steady voice
his customary words, " Ecce homo !"
Was this man only a fanatic, as many believed, or
a monster of wickedness, as others held, or was he
both of these inspired by a boundless ambition ?
On the next day the sentence was carried into
effect. The preparations for the execution were
made before his eyes ; he regarded them with indif
ference. The executioner's assistant began by pound
ing into pieces the pistol with which he had perpe
trated the crime. At the first blow the head of the
hammer fell off and struck another assistant on the

154 DELFT.
ear. The crowd laughed, and Gerard laughed too.
When he mounted the gallows his body was already
horrible to behold. He was silent while his hand
crackled and smoked in the red-hot tube; during
the time when the red-hot tongs were tearing his
fiesh he uttered no cry ; when the knife penetrated
into his entrails he bowed his head, murmured a few
incomprehensible words, and expired.
The death of the Prince of Orange filled the coun
try with consternation. His body lay in state for
a month, and the people gathered round his last bed
kneeling and weeping. The funeral was worthy of a
king : there were present the States General of the
United Provinces, the Council of State, and the
Estates of Holland, the magistrates, the clergy, and
the princes of the house of Nassau. Twelve noblemen
bore the bier, four great nobles held the cords of the
pall, and the Prince's horse followed splendidly ca
parisoned and led by his equerry. In the midst of
the train of counts and barons there was seen a young
man, eighteen years of age, who was destined to in
herit the glorious legacy of the dead, to humble the
Spanish arms, and to compel Spain to sue for a truce
and to recognize the independence of the Netherlands,
That young man was Maurice of Orange, the son of
William, on whom the Estates of Holland a short
time after the death of his father conferred the dignity
of Stadtholder, and to whom they afterward entrusted
the supreme command of the land and naval forces.

DELFT. 155
While Holland was mourning the death of the
Prince of Orange, the Catholic priesthood in all the
cities under Spanish rule were rejoicing over the
assassination and extolling the assassin. The Jesuits
exalted him as a martyr, the University of Louvain
published his defence, the canons of Bois-le-Duc
chanted a Te Deum, After a few years the King of
Spain bestowed on Gerard's family a title and the
confiscated property of the Prince of Orange in
Burgundy. The house where William was murdered is still
standing : it is a dark-looking building with arched
windows and a narrow door, and forms part of the
cloister of an old cathedral consecrated to St. Agatha,
It still bears the name of Prinsenhof, although it is
now used for artillery barracks, I got permission
to enter from the officer on guard. A corporal who
understood a little French accompanied me. We
crossed a courtyard full of soldiers, and arrived at
the memorable place. I saw the staircase the Prince
was mounting when he was attacked, the dark corner
where Gerard hid himself, the door of the room
where the unfortunate William dined for the last
time, and the mark of the bullets on the wall in a
little whitewashed space which bears a Dutch inscrip
tion reminding one that here died the father of his
country. The corporal showed me where the assassin
had fled. While I was looking round, with that pen
sive curiosity that one feels in places where great

156 DELFT,
crimes have been committed, soldiers were ascending
and descending; they stopped to look at me, and
then went away singing and whistling; some near
me were humming; others were laughing loudly in
the courtyard. All this youthful gayety was in sharp
and moving contrast to the sad gravity of those mem
ories, and seemed like a festival of children in the
room where died a grandparent whose memory we
cherish. Opposite the barracks is the oldest church in Delft.
It contains the tomb of the famous Admiral Tromp,
the veteran of the Dutch navy, who saw thirty-two
naval battles, and in 1652, at the battle of the Downs,
defeated the English fleet commanded by Blake, He
re-entered his country with a broom tied to the mast
head of the admiral's ship to indicate that he had
swept the English off the seas. Here also is the
tomb of Peter Heyn, who from a simple fisherman rose
to be a great admiral, and took that memorable net
ful of Spanish ships that had under their hatches more
than eleven million fiorins; also the tomb of Leu-
wenhoek, the father of the science of the infinitely
small — who, with the " divining-glass," as Parini
says, " saw primitive man swimming in the genital
wave." The church has a high steeple surmounted
by four conical turrets. It is inclined like the Tower
of Pisa, because the ground has sunk beneath it.
Gerard was imprisoned in one of the cells of this
tower on the night of the assassination.

IRefectors of tbe Convent of St.
agatba, Delft.

DELPT. 157
At Rotterdam I had been given a letter to a citizen
of Delft asking him to show me his house. The letter
read: "He desires to penetrate into the mysteries of
an old Dutch house ; lift for a moment the curtain
of the sanctuary." The house was not hard to find,
and as soon as I saw it I said to myself, " That is the
house for me !"
It was a red cottage, one story in height, with a
long peaked gable, situated at the end of a street
which stretched out into the country. It stood almost
on the edge of a canal, leaning a little forward, as if it
wished to see its refiection in the water. A pretty
linden tree grew in front which spread over the win
dow like a great fan, and a drawbridge lay before the
door. Then there were the white curtains, the green
doors, the fiowers, the looking-glasses — in fact, it was
a perfect little model of a Dutch house.
The road was deserted. Before I knocked at the
door I waited a little while, looking at it and thinking.
That house made me understand Holland better than
all the books I had read. It was at the same time
the expression and the reason of the domestic love, of
the modest desires, and the independent nature of the
Dutch people. In our country there is no such thing
as the true house; there are only divisions in barracks,
abstract habitations, which are not ours, but in which
we live hidden, but not alone, hearing a thousand
noises made by people who are strangers to us, who
disturb our sorrows with the echo of their joys and

158 DELFT.
interrupt our joys with the echo of their sorrows.
The real home is in Holland — a house of one's own,
quite separate from others, modest, circumspect, and,
by reason of its retirement, unknown to mysteries
and intrigues. When the inhabitants of the house
are merry, everything is bright; when they are sad,
all is serious. In these houses, with their canals and
drawbridges, every modest citizen feels something
of the solitary dignity of a feudal lord, and might
imagine himself the commander of a fortress or the
captain of a ship ; and indeed, as he looks from his
windows, as from those of an anchored vessel, he sees
a boundless level plain, which inspires him with just
such sentiments of freedom and solemnity as are
awakened by the sea. The trees that surround his
house like a green girdle allow only a delicate broken
light to enter it; boats freighted with merchandise
glide noiselessly past his door ; he does not hear the
trampling of horses or the cracking of whips, or
songs or street-cries ; all the activities of the life that
surrounds him are silent and gentle : all breathes of
peace and sweetness, and the steeple of the church
hard by tells the hour with a fiood of harmony as
full of repose and constancy as are his affections and
his work.
I knocked at the door, and the master of the house
opened it. He read the letter which I gave him,
regarded me critically, and bade me enter. It is
almost always thus. At the first meeting the Dutch

DELFT. 159
are apt to be suspicious. We open our arms to any
one who brings us a letter of introduction as if he
were our most intimate friend, and very often do
nothing for him afterward. The Dutch, on the con
trary, receive you coldly — so coldly, indeed, that
sometimes you feel mortified — but afterward they do
a thousand things for you with the best will in the
world, and without the least appearance of doing you
a kindness. Within, the house was in perfect harmony with its
outside appearance ; it seemed to be the inside of a
ship. A circular wooden staircase, shining like pol
ished ebony, led to the upper rooms. There were
mats and carpets on the stairs, in front of the doors,
and on the fioors. The rooms were as small as cells,
the furniture was as clean as possible, the door-plates,
the knobs, the nails, the brass and the other metal
ornaments were as bright as if they had just left the
hands of the burnisher. Everywhere there Avas a
profusion of porcelain vases, of cups, lamps, mirrors,
small pictures, bureaus, cupboards, knicknacks, and
small objects of every shape and for every use. All
were marvellously clean, and bespoke the thousand
little wants that the love of a sedentary life creates
— the careful foresight, the continual care, the taste
for little things, the love of order, the economy of
space ; in short, it was the abode of a quiet, domestic
woman. The goddess of this temple, who could not or did

160 DELFT.
not dare speak French, was hidden in some inmost
recess which I did not succeed in discovering.
We went down stairs to see the kitchen ; it was
one gleam of brightness. When I returned home I
described it, in my mother's presence, to the servant
who prided herself on her cleanliness, and she was
annihilated. The walls were as white as snow ; the
saucepans reflected everything like so many looking-
glasses ; the top of the chimney-piece was ornamented
by a sort of muslin curtain like the curtains of a bed,
bearing no trace of smoke; the wall below the chimney
was covered with square majolica tiles which were as
clean as though the fire had never been lighted ; the
andirons, shovel, and tongs, the chain of the spit, all
seemed to be of burnished steel. A lady dressed for
a ball could have gone round the room and into all
the corners and touched everything without getting
a speck of dirt on her spotless attire.
At this moment the maid was cleaning the room,
and my host spoke of this as follows : " To have an
idea of what cleanliness means with us," he said, " one
ought to watch the work of these women for an hour.
Here they scrub, wash, and brush a house as if it were
a person. A house is not cleaned ; it has its toilette
made. The girls blow between the bricks, they rum
mage in the corners with their nails and with pins,
and clean so minutely that they tire their eyes no
less than their arms. Really it is a national passion.
These girls, who are generally so phlegmatic, change

DELFT. 161
their character on cleaning day and become frantic.
That day we are no longer masters of our houses.
They invade our rooms, turn us out, sprinkle us, turn
everything topsy-turvy ; for them it is a gala day ;
they are like bacchantes of cleanliness ; the madness
grows as they wash." I asked him to what he at
tributed this species of mania for which Holland is
famous. He gave me the same reasons that many
others had given; the atmosphere of their country,
which greatly injures wood and metals, the damp,
the small size of the houses and the number of
things theycontain, which naturally makes it difficult
to keep them clean, the superabundance of water,
which helps the work, a something that the eye seems
to require, until cleanliness ends by appearing beau
tiful, and, lastly, the emulation that everywhere
leads to excess. "But," he added, "this is not the
cleanest part of Holland ; the excess, the delirium of
cleanliness, is to be seen in the northern provinces."
We went out for a walk about the town. It was
not yet noon ; servants were to be seen everywhere
dressed just like those in Rotterdam, It is a singular
thing, all the servant-maids in Holland, from Rotter
dam to Groningen, from Haarlem to Nimeguen, are
dressed in the same color — light mauve, fiowered
or dotted with stars or crosses — and while engaged
in cleaning they all wear a sort of invalid's cap and
a pair of enormous white wooden shoes. At first I
thought that they formed a national association re-

162 DELFT.
quiring uniformity in dress. They are generally very
young, because older women cannot bear the fatigue
they have to endure ; they are fair and round, with
prodigious posterior curves (an observation of Di
derot) ; in the strict sense of the word they are not
at all pretty, but their pink and white complexions
are marvellous, and they look the picture of health,
and one feels that it would be delightful to press
one's cheek to theirs. Their rounded forms and
fine coloring are enhanced by their plain style
of dress, especially in the morning, when they have
their sleeves turned up and necks bare, revealing
fiesh as fair as a cherub's.
Suddenly I remembered a note I had made in my
book before starting for Holland, and I stopped and
asked my companion this question: "Are the Dutch
servants the eternal torment of their mistresses ?"
Here I must make a short digression. It is well
known that ladies of a certain age, good mothers and
good housekeepers, whose social position does not
allow them to leave their servants to themselves —
who, for instance, have only one servant, who has to
be both cook and lady's maid, — it is well known that
such ladies often talk for hours on this subject. The
conversations are always the same — of insupportable
defects, insolence that they have had to endure, im
pertinent answers, dishonesty in buying the things
needed for the kitchen, of waste, untruthfulness, im
mense pretensions, of discharges, of the annoyance

DELFT, 163
of searching for new servants, and other such calam
ities; the refrain always being that the honest and
faithful servants, who became attached to the family
and grew old in the same service, have ceased to
exist ; now one is obliged to change them continually,
and there is no way of getting back to the old order.
Is this true or false ? Is it a result of the liberty
and equality of classes, making service harder to
bear and the servants more independent? Is it an
effect of the relaxation of manners and of public
discipline, which has made itself felt even in the
kitchen ? However it may be, the fact remains that
at home I heard this subject so much discussed that
one day, before I left for Spain, I said to my mother,
" If anything in Madrid can console me in being so
far from my family, it will be that I shall hear no
more of this odious subject." On my arrival at
Madrid I went into a hostelry, and the first thing
the landlxidy said was that she had changed her maids
three times in a month, and was driven to despera
tion : she did not know which saint to pray to : and
so long as I remained there the same lamentation
continued. On my return home I told my family
about it ; they all laughed, and my mother concluded
that there must be the same trouble in every country.
" No," said I, " in the northern countries it must be
different." — "You will see that I am right," my
mother answered. I went to Paris, and of the first
housekeeper with whom I became acquainted I asked
Vol. I.— 11

164 DELFT,
the question, " Are the servants here the everlasting
torment of their mistresses, as they are in Italy and
Spain?" — '¦'Ah! mon cher monsieur," she answered,
clasping her hands and looking above her, "we me
parlezpas de ga !" Then followed a long story of quar
rels, and discharging of servants, and of trials which
mistresses have to endure. I wrote the news to my
mother, and she answered, " We shall see in London."
I went to London, and on the ship which was
bearing me to Antwerp I entered into conversation
with an English lady. After we had exchanged a
few words, and I had explained the reason of my
curiosity, I asked the usual question. She turned
away her head, put her hand to her forehead, and
then replied, emphasizing each word, " They are the
jlagellum Dei!"
I wrote home in despair, suggesting however, that
I still trusted in Holland, which was a peaceful coun
try, where the houses were so tidy and clean and the
home-life so sweet. My mother answered that she
thought we might possibly make an exception of
Holland. But we were both rather doubtful. My
curiosity was aroused, and she was expecting the
news from me ; for this reason, therefore, I put the
question to my courteous guide at Delft. It may
be imagined with what impatience I awaited his
reply. "Sir," answered the Dutchman after a moment's
reflection, " I can only give you this reply : in Hoi-

DELFT. 165
land we have a proverb which says that the maids
are the cross of our lives."
I was completely discouraged.
"First of all," he continued, "the annoyance of
living in a large house is, that we are obliged to keep
two servants, one for the kitchen and one for clean
ing, since it is almost impossible, with the mania they
have of washing the very air, that one servant can
do both things. Then they have an unquenchable
thirst for liberty : they insist on staying out till
ten in the evening and on having an entire holiday
every now and then. Moreover, their sweethearts must
be allowed in the house, or they come to fetch them ;
we must let them dance in the streets, and they are
up to all sorts of mischief during the Kirmess festi
val. Moreover, when they are discharged we are
obliged to wait until they choose to go, and some
times they delay for months. Add to this account,
wages amounting to ninety or a hundred florins a
year, as well as the payment of a certain percentage
on all the bills the master pays, tips from all invited
guests, and all sorts of especial presents of dress-
goods and money from the master, and, above all and
always, patience, patience, patience !"
I had heard enough to speak with authority to my
mother, and I turned the conversation to a less dis
tressing subject.
On passing a side street I observed a lady approach
a door, read a piece of paper attached to it, make a

166 DELFT.
gesture of distress, and pass on. A moment later
another woman who was passing, also paused, read it,
and went on. I asked my companion for an expla
nation, and he told me of a very curious Dutch cus
tom. On that piece of paper was written the notice
that a certain sick person was worse. In many towns
of Holland, when any one is ill, the family posts such
a bulletin on the door every day, so that friends and
acquaintances are not obliged to enter the house to
learn the news. This form of announcement is adopted
on other occasions also. In some towns they an
nounce the birth of a child by tying to the door a
ball covered with red silk and lace, for which the
Dutch word signifles a proof of birth. If the child
is a girl, a piece of white paper is attached ; if twins
are born, the lace is double, and for some days after
the appearance of the symbol a notice is posted to
the effect that the mother and child are well and
have passed a good night, or the contrary if it is
otherwise. At one time, when there was the an
nouncement of a birth on a door the creditors of the
family were not allowed to knock for nine days ; but
I believe this custom has died out, although it must
have had the beneficent virtue of promoting an in
crease in the population.
In that short walk through the streets of Delft I
met some gloomy figures like those I had noticed at
Rotterdam, without being able to determine whether
they were priests, magistrates, or gravediggers, for

©lb Delft.

DELPT, 167
in their dress and appearance they bore a certain
resemblance to all three. They wore three-cornered
hats, with long black veils which reached to the
waist, swallow-tailed black coats, short black breeches,
black stockings, black cloaks, buckled shoes, and
white cravats and gloves, and they held in their
hands sheets of paper bordered with black. My
companion explained to me that they were called
aanspreckers, an untranslatable Dutch word, and that
their duty was to bear the information of deaths
to the relatives and friends of the defunct and to
make the announcement through the streets. Their
dress differs in some particulars in the various prov
inces and also according to the religious faith of the
deceased. In some towns they wear immense hats
a la Don Basilic. They are generally very neat,
and are sometimes dressed with a care that contrasts
strangely with their business as messengers of death,
or, as a traveller defines them, living funeral letters.
We noticed one of these men who had stopped in
front of a house, and my companion drew my atten
tion to the fact that the shutters were partly closed,
and observed that there must be some one dead there.
I asked who it was. "I do not know," he replied,
" but, to judge from the shutters, it cannot be any
near relative to the master of the house." As this
method of arguing seemed rather strange to me, he
explained that in Holland when any one dies in
a family they shut the windows and one, two, or

168 DELFT,
three of the divisions of the folding shutters accord
ingly as the relationship is near or distant. Each sec
tion of shutter denotes a degree of relationship. For
a father or mother they close all but one, for a cousin
they close one only, for a brother two, and so on.
It appears that the custom is very old, and it still
continues, because in that country no custom is dis
continued for caprice ; nothing is changed unless the
alteration becomes a matter of serious importance,
and unless the Hollanders have been more than per
suaded that such a change is for the better.
I should like to have seen at Delft the house
where was the tavern of the artist Steen, where
he probably passed those famous debauches which
have given rise to so many questions among his
biographers. But my host told me that nothing was
known about it. However, apropos of painters, he
gave me the pleasing information that I was in the
part of Holland, bounded by Delft, the Hague, the
sea, the town of Alkmaar, the Gulf of Amsterdam,
and the ancient Lake of Haarlem, which might be
called the fatherland of Dutch painting, both because
the greatest painters were born there, and because it
presented such singularly picturesque effects that the
artists loved and studied it devotedly. I was there
fore in the bosom of Holland, and when I left Delft,
I was going into its very heart.
Before leaving I again glanced hastily over the
military arsenal, which occupies a large building, and

DELFT. 169
which originally served as a warehouse to the East
India Company. It is in communication with an
artillery workshop and a great powder-magazine out
side of the town. At Delft there still remains the
great polytechnic school for engineers, the real mili
tary academy of Holland, for from it come forth the
officers of the army that defends the country from
the sea, and these young warriors of the dykes and
locks, about three hundred in number, are they who
give life to the peaceful town of Grotius,
As I was stepping into the vessel which was to
bear me to the Hague, my Dutch friend described
the last of those students' festivals at Delft which
are celebrated once in five years. It was one of
those pageants peculiar to Holland, a sort of histor
ical masquerade like a refiection of the magnificence
of the past, serving to remind the people of the
traditions, the personages, and illustrious events of
earlier times, A great cavalcade represented the en
trance into Arnheim, in 1492, of Charles of Egmont,
Duke of Gelderland, Count of Zutphen, He be
longed to that family of Egmont which in the person
of the noble and unfortunate Count Lamoral gave
the first great martyr of Dutch liberty to the axe of
the Duke of Alva, Two hundred students on richly
caparisoned horses, clothed in armor, decorated with
mantles embroidered with coats of arms, with waving
plumes and large swords proudly brandished, formed
the retinue of the Duke of Gelderland. Then came

170 DELFT.
halberdiers, archers, and foot-soldiers dressed in the
pompous fashion of the fifteenth century; bands
played, the city blazed with lights, and through its
streets fiowed an immense crowd, which had come
from every part of Holland to enjoy this splendid
vision of a distant age.

THE HAGUE.

THE HAGUE.

The boat that was to carry me to the Hague was
moored near a bridge, in a little basin formed by the
canal which leads from Delft to the Hague, and
shaded by trees on the bank like a garden lake.
The boats that carry passengers from town to town
are called in Dutch trekschuiten. The trekschuit is
the traditional boat, as emblematic of Holland as is
the gondola of Venice. Esquires defined it as " the
genius of ancient Holland fioating on the waters ;"
and, in fact, any one who has not travelled in a
trekschuit is not acquainted with Dutch life under its
most original and poetic aspect.
It is a large boat, almost entirely covered with a
cabin shaped like a stage-coach and divided into two
compartments — the division near the prow being for
second-class passengers, and that near the poop for
first-class. An iron pole with a ring at the end is
fastened to the prow, through which a long rope is
passed ; this is tied at one end near the rudder and
at the other end is fastened a tow-horse, which is rid
den by a boatman. The windows of the cabin have
white curtains ; the walls and doors are painted. In
173

174 THE HAGUE.
the compartment for first-class passengers there are
cushioned seats, a little table with books, a cupboard,
a mirror ; everything is neat and bright. In putting
down my valise I allowed some ashes from my cigar
to fall under the table ; a minute later, when I re
turned, these had disappeared.
I was the only passenger, and did not have to wait
long ; the boatman made a sign, the tow-boy mounted
his horse, and the trekschuit began to glide gently
down the canal.
It was about an hour past noon and the sun was
shining brightly, but the boat passed along in the
shade. The canal is bordered by two rows of linden
trees, elms, willows, and high hedges on either side,
which hide the country. It seemed as though we were
sailing across a forest. At every curve we saw green
enclosed views in the distance, with windmills here
and there on the bank. The water was covered with
a carpet of aquatic plants, and in some parts strewn
with white fiowers, with iris, water-lilies, and the water-
lentil. The high green hedge bordering the canal
was broken here and there, allowing a glimpse, as if
through a window, of the far-off horizon of the cham
paign ; then the walls would close again in an instant.
Every now and then we encountered a bridge. It
was pleasant to see the rapidity with which the man
on horseback and another man, who was always on
guard, handled the cords to let the trekschuit pass,
and how the two conductors made room for each other

®n tbe Canal, near Delft.

THE HAGUE. 175
when two trekschuiten met, the one passing his rope
under that of the other without speaking a word,
without greeting each other even with a smile, as if
gravity and silence were obligatory. All along the
way the only sound to be heard was the whirring of
the arms of the windmills.
We met barges laden with vegetables, peat, stones,
and barrels, and drawn with a long tow-rope by men,
who were sometimes aided by large dogs with cords
round their necks. Some were towed by a man, a
woman, and a boy, one behind the other, with the
rope tied to a sort of girth made of leather or linen.
All three would be leaning forward so far that it
was hard to understand how they managed to keep
their feet, even with the help of the rope. Other
boats were towed by old women alone. On many, a
woman with a child at her breast would be seen at
the rudder ; other children were grouped around, and
one might see a cat sitting on a sack, a dog, a hen,
pots of flowers, and bird-cages. On some women sat
knitting stockings and rocking the cradle at the same
time ; on others they were cooking ; sometimes all the
members of the family, excepting the one who was
towing, were eating in a group. The look of peace
that beams from the faces of those people and the
tranquil appearance of those aquatic houses, of those
animals which in a certain measure have become
amphibious, the serenity of that floating life, the air
of security and freedom of those wandering and soli-

176 THE HAGUE.
tary families, — these are not to be described. Thus
in Holland live thousands of families who have no
other houses but their boats. A man marries, and
the wedded couple buy a boat, make it their home,
and carry merchandise from one market to another.
Their children are born on the canals ; they are bred
and grow up on the water; the barge holds their house
hold goods, their small savings, their domestic mem
ories, their affections, their past, and all their present
happiness and hopes for the future. They work,
save, and after many years buy a larger boat, and
sell their old house to a poorer family or give it to
their eldest son, who from some other boat takes
a wife, at whom he has glanced for the first time in
an encounter on the canal. Thus from barge to
barge, from canal to canal, life passes silently and
peacefully, like the wandering boat which shelters it
and the slow water that accompanies it.
For some time I saw only small peasants' houses
on the banks ; then I began to see villas, pavilions,
and cottages half hidden among the trees, and in the
shadiest corners fair-haired ladies dressed in white,
seated book in hand, or some fat gentleman envel
oped in a cloud of smoke with the contented air of
a wealthy merchant. All of these little villas are
painted rose-color or azure ; they have varnished
tile roofs, terraces supported by columns, little
yards in front or around them, with tidy flower
beds and neatly-kept paths ; miniature gardens.

THE HAGUE. 177
clean, closely trimmed, and well tended. Some
houses stand on the brink of the canal with their
foundations in the water, allowing one to see the
flowers, the vases, and the thousand shining trifles
in the rooms. Nearly all have an inscription on the
door which is the aphorism of domestic happiness,
the formula of the philosophy of the master, as —
" Contentment is Riches," "Pleasure and Repose;"
" Friendship and Society ;" " My Desires are Satis
fied;" "Without Weariness;" "Tranquil and Con
tent;" "Here we Enjoy the Pleasures of Horticul
ture." Now and then a fine black-and-white cow,
lying on the bank on a level with the water, would
raise her head quietly and look toward the boat.
We met fiocks of ducks, which paddled off to let us
pass. Here and there, to the right and left, there
were little canals almost covered by two high hedges,
with branches intertwining overhead which formed a
green archway, under which the little boats of the
peasants darted and disappeared in the shadows. From
time to time, in the midst of all this verdure, a group
of houses would suddenly come into view, a neat
many-colored little village, with its looking-glasses
and its tulips at the windows, and without a sign of
life. This profound silence would be broken by a
merry chime from an unseen steeple. It was a pas
toral paradise, a landscape of idyllic beauty breath
ing freshness and mystery — a Chinese Arcadia, with
quaint corners, little surprises, and innocent artifices

178 THE HAGUE.
of prettiness, all which seemed like so many low
voices of invisible beings murmuring, " We are con
tent." At a certain point the canal divides into two
branches, of which one hides itself amongst the
trees and leads to Leyden, and the other turns to the
left and leads to the Hague. After we passed this
point the trekschuit began to stop, first at a house,
then at a garden-gate, to receive parcels, letters, and
verbal messages to be carried to the Hague.
An old gentleman came on board from a villa and
took a seat near me. He spoke French, and we
entered into conversation. He had been in Italy,
knew some words of Italian, and had read " I Pro-
messi Sposi." He asked me for particulars in regard
to the death of Alessandro Manzoni. After ten
minutes I adored him. He gave me an account of
the trekschuit. To appreciate the poetry of this
national boat it is necessary to take long journeys in
company with some Dutch people. Then they all
live just as if they were at home ; the women work,
the men smoke on the roof; they dine all together,
and after dinner they loiter about on the deck to see
the sun set ; the conversation grows very intimate,
and the company becomes a family. Night comes
on. The trekschuit passes like a shadow through
villages steeped in silence, glides along the canals
bathed in the silver light of the moon, hides itself in
the thickets, reappears in the open country, grazes

THE HAGUE. 179
the lonely houses from which beams the light of the
peasant's lamp, and meets the boats of fishermen,
which dart past like phantoms. In that profound
peace, lulled by the slow and equal motion of the
boat, men and women fall asleep side by side, and
the boat leaves nothing in its wake save the confused
murmur of the water and the sound of the sleepers'
breathing. As we went on our way gardens and villas became
more frequent. My travelling companion showed
me a distant steeple, and pointed out the village of
Ryswick, where in 1697 was signed the celebrated
treaty of peace between France, England, Spain,
Germany, and Holland. The castle of the Prince
of Orange, where the treaty was signed, is no longer
standing. An obelisk has been erected on its site.
Suddenly the trekschuit emerged from the trees,
and I saw before me an extended plain, a large
woodland, and a city crowned with towers and wind
mills. It was the Hague,
The boatman asked me to pay my fare, and re
ceived the money in a leather bag. The driver
urged on the horse, and in a few minutes we were in
town. After a quarter of an hour I found myself in
a spotless room in the H6tel du MarSchal de Turenne.
Who knows ? It may have been the very room in
which the celebrated Marshal slept as a young man
when he was in the service of the house of Orange.
Vol. I.— 12

180 THE HAGUE.
The Hague — in Dutch 'SGravenhage or 'SHage —
the political capital, the Washington of Holland,
whose New York is Amsterdam — is a city that is
partly Dutch and partly French, It has wide streets
without canals, vast wooded squares, grand houses,
splendid hotels, and a population composed in great
part of wealthy citizens, nobles, public officers, men
of letters, and artists ; in a word, a much more re
fined populace than that of any of the other cites of
Holland. What most impressed me in my first walk round
the city were the new quarters where dwells the
fiower of the moneyed aristocracy. In no other city,
not even in the Faubourg St. Germain in Paris, had
I ever felt myself such a poor devil as in those
streets. They are wide and straight, with small
palaces on either side : these are artistic in design and
harmonious in coloring, with large windows without
blinds, through which one can see the carpets, vases
of flowers, and the sumptuous furniture of the rooms
on the ground floor. All the doors were closed, and
not a shop was to be seen, not an advertisement on
the walls, not a stain nor a straw could be found, if
one had a hundred eyes. When I passed through
the streets there was a profound silence. Now
and then an aristocratic carriage rolled past me
almost noiselessly over the brick pavement, or I
saw some stiff lackey standing at a door, or the fair
head of some lady behind a curtain. As I walked

THE HAGUE. 181
close to the windows, I could see out of the corner of
my eye my shabby travelling-clothes reflected clearly
in the large panes of glass, and I repented not having
brought my gloves, and felt a certain sense of humil
iation because I was not at least a knight by birth. It
seemed to me that now and then I could hear soft
voices saying, "Who is that beggar?"
The most noteworthy part of the old town is the
Binnenhof, a group of old buildings in different styles
of architecture, which overlook two wide squares on
two sides and a large pool on the third side. In the
midst of this group of palaces, towers, and monu
mental doors, of a gloomy mediaeval appearance, is a
spacious courtyard which may be entered by three
bridges and three doors. In one of those buildings the
Stadtholders lived. It is now the Second Chamber
of the States General ; opposite to it are located the
First Chamber, the rooms of the Ministry, and the
other offices of public administration. The Minister
of the Interior has his office in a little, low, black,
gloomy tower which leans slightly toward the water
of the pool.
The Binnenhof, the Buitenhof (a square extend
ing to the west), and the Plaats (another square
on the other side of the pool, which is reached by
passing under an old door that once formed part of a
prison) were the scenes of the most bloody events in
the history of Holland.
In the Binnenhof the venerable Van Olden Barne-

182 THE HAGUE.
veldt was beheaded. He was the second founder of
the republic, the most illustrious victim of the long
struggle between the patrician burghers and the
Stadtholders, between the republican and monarchical
principles, which so terribly afflicted Holland. The
scaffold was erected in front of the building where
sat the States General. Opposite was the tower
from which, they say, Maurice of Orange, unseen,
assisted at the execution of his enemy. In the prison
between the two squares was tortured Cornelius de
Witt, who was unjustly accused of plotting against
the life of the Prince of Orange. The furious pop
ulace dragged Cornelius and John de Witt, the Grand
Pensionary, into the Plaats all wounded and bleeding,
and there they were spit upon, kicked, and slaugh
tered with pike and pistol, and afterward their corpses
were mutilated and defiled. In the same square
Adelaide de Poelgeest, the mistress of Albert, Count
of Holland, was stabbed on the 22d of September
in the year 1392, and the stone on which she expired
is still shown.
These sad memories and those heavy low doors,
that irregular group of dark buildings, which at
night, when the moon lights up the stagnant pool,
have the appearance of an enormous inaccessible
castle standing in the midst of the joyous and cul
tured city, — arouse a feeling of awful sadness. At
night the courtyard is lighted only by an occasional
lamp ; the few people who pass through it quicken

THE HAGUE, 183
their pace as if they are afraid. There is no sound
of steps to be heard, no lighted windows to be seen ;
one enters it with a vague restlessness, and leaves it
almost with pleasure.
With the exception of the Binnenhof, the Hague
has no important monuments ancient or modern.
There are several mediocre statues of the Princes of
Orange, a vast, naked cathedral, and a royal palace
of modest proportions. On many of the public
buildings storks are carved, the stork being the her
aldic animal of the city. Many of these birds walk
about freely in the fish-market — they are kept at the
expense of the municipality, like the bears of Berne
and the eagles of Geneva.
The greatest ornament of the Hague is its forest,
which is one of the wonders of Holland and one of
the most magnificent parks in the world.
It is composed of alders, oaks, and the largest
beech trees to be found in Europe. It is more than
a French league in circumference, and is situated to
the east of the city, only a few steps from the last
houses. It is a really delightful oasis in the midst
of the depressing Dutch plains. When one has en
tered the wood and passed beyond the fringe of pav
ilions, little Swiss cottages, and summer houses dotted
about among the first trees, one seems to have lost
one's self in a lonely interminable forest. The trees
are as thick as a canebrake, the avenues are lost in
the dusk ; there are lakes and canals almost hidden

184 THE HAGUE.
by the verdure of the banks ; rustic bridges, the
crossways of unfrequented bridle-paths, shady re
cesses ; and over all a cool, refreshing shade in which
one seems to breathe the air of virginal nature and
to be far removed from the turmoil of the world.
They say that this wood, like that of the town of
Haarlem, is the remnant of an immense forest which
in olden times covered almost the whole of the coast
of Holland, and the Dutch respect it as a monument
of their national history. Indeed, in the history of
Holland there are many references to it, proving that
at all times it was preserved with a most jealous care.
Even the Spanish generals respected this national
worship and shielded the sacred wood from the hands
of the soldiers. On more than one occasion of seri
ous financial distress, when the government was dis
posed to decree the destruction of the forest for the
purpose of selling the wood, the citizens exorcised
the danger by a voluntary offering. This beloved
forest is connected with a thousand memories — rec
ords of terrible hurricanes, of the amours of princes,
of celebrated fStes, of romantic adventures. Some
of the trees bear the names of kings and emperors,
others of German electors ; one beech tree is said to
have been planted by the grand pensionary and poet
Jacob Catz, three others by the Countess of Holland,
Jacqueline of Bavaria, and they still point out the
place where she used to rest after her walks. Vol
taire also left a record of some sort of gallant ad-

Ube 3Binnenbof, tibe Ibague.

THE HAGUE. 185
venture which he had with the daughter of a hair
dresser. In the centre of the forest, where the underbrush
seems determined to conquer everything and springs
up, piling itself into heaps, climbing the trees, creep
ing across the paths, extending over the water, re
straining one's steps and hiding the view on every
side, as if it wished to conceal the shrine of some
forgotten sylvan divinity, — at this spot is hidden a
small royal palace, called the House-in-the-Wood, a
sort of Oasa del Labrador ofthe Villa Aranjuez. It was
erected in 1647 by Princess Amalia of Solms, in honor
of her husband, Frederick Henry, the Stadtholder.
When I went to visit this palace, while my eyes
were busy searching for the visitors' door, I saw a
lady with a noble and benevolent face come out and
get into her carriage. I took her for some English
traveller who had brought her visit to a close. As
the carriage passed near me, I raised my hat ; the
lady bowed her head and disappeared,
A moment later one of the ladies in waiting at the
palace told me that this " traveller " was no one less
than Her Majesty the Queen of Holland,
I felt my blood flow faster. The word queen, in
dependently of the person to whom it referred, has
always had this effect on me, although I cannot ex
plain the reason of it. Perhaps because it reminds
me of certain bright, confused visions of my youth.
The romantic imagination of a boy of fifteen is some-

186 THE HAGUE,
times content to tread the ground, and sometimes it
climbs with eager audacity to a giddy height. It
dreams of supernatural beauty, of intoxicating per
fumes, of consuming love, and imagines th^at all these
are comprised in the mysterious and inaccessible
creatures that fortune has placed at the summit of
the social scale. And among the thousand strange,
foolish, and impossible fancies that enter his mind
he dreams of scaling towering walls in the dark with
youthful agility, of passing formidable gates and
deep ditches, of opening mysterious doors, threading
interminable corridors amidst people overcome with
sleep, of stepping silently through immense saloons,
of ascending aerial staircases, mounting the stones of
a tower at the risk of his life, reaching an immense
height over the tall trees of moonlit gardens, and at
last of arriving, fainting and bleeding, beneath a bal
cony, and hearing a superhuman voice speak in ac
cents of deep pity, of answering with equal tender
ness, of bursting into tears and invoking God, of
leaning his forehead on the marble and covering with
desperate kisses a foot flashing with gems, of aban
doning his face in the perfumed silks, and of feeling
his reason flee and life desert him in an embrace
more than human.
In this palace, called the House-in-the-Wood, be
sides other remarkable things, is an octagonal room,
the walls of which from floor to ceiling are covered
with paintings by the most celebrated artists of the

THE HAGUE, 187
school of Rubens, among which is a huge allegorical
painting by Jordaens which represents the apotheosis
of Frederick Henry. There is a room filled with
valuable presents from the Emperor of Japan, the
Viceroy of Egypt, and the East India Company ;
and an elegant little room decorated with designs in
chiaroscuro, which even when closely examined are
taken for bas-reliefs. These are the work of Jacob
de Wit, a painter who at the beginning of the last
century won great fame in this art of delusion. The
other rooms are small, and handsome without display ;
they are full of the treasures of a refined taste, as
becomes the great and modest house of Orange,
The custom of allowing strangers to enter the
palace the moment after the queen came out seemed
strange to me, but it did not surprise me when I
learned of other customs and other popular traits,
and in a word the character of the royal family of
Holland, In Holland the sovereign is considered as a stadt
holder rather than as a king. He has in him, as a
certain Spanish republican said of the Duke of Aosta,
the least quantity possible in a king. The sentiment
of the Dutch nation toward their royal family is not
so much a feeling of devotion to the family of the
monarch as affection for the house of Orange, which
has shared its triumphs and taken part in its misfor
tunes — which has lived its life for three centuries. At
bottom, the country is republican, and its monarchy

188 THE HAGUE,
is a sort of crowned presidency void of regal pomp.
The king makes speeches at the banquets and at the
public festivals as the ministers do with us, and he
enjoys the fame of an orator because his speeches
are extemporary : his voice is very powerful, and his
eloquence has a martial ring, which arouses great
enthusiasm among the people. The crown prince,
William of Orange, studied at the University of
Leyden, passed the public examinations, and took
his degree as a lawyer ; Prince Alexander, the second
son, is now studying at the same university. He is
a member of the Students' Club, and invites his
professors and fellow-students to dinner. At the
Hague, Prince William enters the caf^s, converses
with his neighbors, and walks about the streets with
his young gentlemen friends. In the wood the queen
will seat herself on a bench beside any poor old
woman, nor can one say she does this, like other
princes, to acquire popularity ; for that the house
of Orange can neither gain nor lose, since there
is not in the nation (although it is republican by
nature and tradition) the least sign of a faction that
desires a republic or even pronounces its name. On
the other hand, the people, who love and venerate
their king, who at the festivals celebrated in his
honor will remove the horses and themselves draw
his carriage, who insist on every one wearing an
orange-colored cockade in homage to the name of
Orange, — in ordinary times do not occupy themselves

THE HAGUE. 189
at all about his affairs and family. At the Hague I
had some trouble to learn what grade the crown
prince holds in the army. One of the first librarians
in the town, to whom I put my question, was as
tonished at my curiosity, which to him seemed child
ish, and he told me that probably I could not have
found a hundred people in the Hague who would have
been able to answer my question.
The seat of the court is at the Hague, but the king
passes a large part of the summer in one of his cas
tles in Gelderland, and every year spends some days
in Amsterdam. The people say there is a law which
obliges the king to spend ten days during the year at
Amsterdam, and the municipality of that town are
obliged to pay his expenses during those ten days.
After midnight of the tenth day even a match that
he may strike to light his cigar is at his own expense.
On returning from the royal villa at the Hague I
found the wood enlivened by the Sunday promenade
— music, carriages, a crowd of ladies, restaurants
full of people, and swarms of children everywhere.
Then for the first time I saw the fair sex of Hol
land. Beauty is a rare flower in Holland, as in all
other countries ; notwithstanding, in a walk of a hun
dred steps in the wood at the Hague I saw many
more beautiful women than I had seen in all the pic
tures in the Dutch galleries. These ladies do not
possess the statuesque beauty of the Romans, the

190 THE HAGUE,
splendid color of the English, nor the vivacity of the
Andalusians ; but there is about them a refinement,
a delightful innocence and grace, a tranquil beauty,
a pleasing countenance ; they have, as a French writer
has rightly said, the attraction of the valerian flower
which ornaments their gardens. They are plump,
and tall rather than short, they have regular features,
and smooth brilliant complexions of a beautiful white
and delicate pink — colors which seem to have been
suffused by the breath of an angel ; they have high
cheek-bones; their eyes are light blue, sometimes
very light, and sometimes of a glassy appearance,
which gives them a vague, wandering look. It is said
that their teeth are not good, but this I could not
confirm, as they seldom laugh. They walk more
heavily than the French and not so stiffiy as the Eng
lish ; they dress in the Parisian mode, and the ladies
at the Hague display better taste than those at Amster
dam, although they do not dress so richly : they all
display their masses of fair hair with considerable
pride, I was astonished to see girls who appeared to be
fully grown, who in our country would have had the
airs and attire of women, still dressed like children,
with short skirts and white pantalettes. In Holland,
where life is easy and impatience an unknown experi
ence, the girls are in no hurry to leave off the ways and
appearance of childhood, and, on the other h.and, they
seem naturally to enter at a comparatively late age

THE HAGUE. 191
that period of life when, as Alessandro Manzoni says
in his ever-admirable way, it seems as though a mys
terious power enters the soul, which soothes, adorns,
and invigorates all its inclinations and thoughts.
Here a girl very rarely marries before her twentieth
year. I need not speak of the children of the Dec-
can, who, it is said, are married at eight years of age,
but in Holland the Italian and Spanish girls, who
marry at fourteen or fifteen, are regarded as unac
countable persons. There, girls of fifteen years are
going to school with their hair down their backs, and
nobody thinks of looking at them. I heard a young
man of the Hague spoken of with horror by his
friends because he was enamoured of a maiden of
this age, for to their minds she was considered as an
infant. Another thing one notices instantly in every Dutch
city, excepting Amsterdam, is the absence of that
lower stratum of society known as the demi-monde.
There is nothing in dress or manner to indicate the
existence of such a class. "Beware," said some
freethinking Dutchmen to me; " you are in a Protest
ant country, and there is a great deal of hypocrisy,"
This may be true, but the sore that can be hidden
cannot be very large. Equivocal society does not
exist among the Hollanders ; there is no shadow of it
in their life nor any hint of it in their literature ;
the very language rebels against translating any of
those numberless expressions which constitute the

192 THE HAGUE.
dubious, flashy, easy speech of that class of society
in the countries where it is found. On the other
hand, neither fathers nor mothers close their eyes to
the conduct of their unmarried sons, even if they be
grown men; family discipline makes no exception of
long beards ; and this strict discipline is aided by
their phlegmatic nature, their habits of economy, and
their respect for public opinion.
It would be a presumption more ridiculous than
impertinent to speak of the character and life of
Dutch women with an air of experience, when I have
been only a few months in Holland ; so I must con
tent myself with letting my Dutch friends speak for
themselves. Many writers have treated Dutch women discourt
eously. One calls them apathetic housekeepers ;
another, who shall be nameless, carried impertinence
so far as to say that, like the men, they are in the
habit of choosing their lovers from among the serv
ant class, and that their aspirations are necessarily
low. But these are judgments dictated by the rage
of some rejected suitors, Daniel Stern (Comtesse
d'Agoult), who as a woman speaks with particular
authority on this subject, says the women of Holland
are noble, loyal, active, and chaste. A few authors
venture to doubt their much-talked-of calmness in
affection. " They are still waters," wrote Esquiros,
and all know what is said of still waters. Heine
said they were frozen volcanoes, and that when they

THE HAGUE. 193
thaw — But, of all the opinions I have read, the most
remarkable seems to me that of Saint Evremont —
namely, that Dutch women are not lively enough to
disturb the repose of the men, that some of them are
certainly amiable, and that prudence or the coldness
of their nature stands them in stead of virtue.
One day, in a group of young men at the Hague,
I quoted this opinion of Saint Evremont, and
bluntly demanded: "Is it true?" They smiled,
looked at each other, and one answered, "It is:"
another, " I think so ;" and a third, " It may be."
In short, they all admitted its truth. On another
occasion I collected evidence proving that matters
stand just as they wei'e at the time of the French
writer. A group of people were discussing an odd
character. "Yet," said one, "that little man who
seems so quiet in his manner is a great ladies' man."
" Does he disturb the repose of families ?" I asked.
They all began to laugh, and one answered : "What !
Disturb the repose of families in Holland ? It would
be one of the twelve labors of Hercules," — " We
Hollanders," a friend once said to me, "do not take
the ladies by storm ; we cannot do so, because we
have no school of this art. Nothing is so false in
Holland as the famous deflnition, matrimony is like
a besieged fortress ; those who are outside wish to
enter, while those who are inside wish they were out.
Here those who are inside are very happy, and those
who are outside do not think of entering." Another

194 THE HAGUE,
said to me, " The Dutch woman does not marry the
man; she espouses matrimony." This, which is true
of the Hague, an elegant city to which there comes
a great influx of French civilization, is even truer of
the other towns, where the ancient customs have
been more strictly adhered to. Yet gallant travel
lers write that the Hollanders are a sleepy people,
and that their domestic happiness is "un bonheur
un peu gros." The woman who seldom goes out, who
dances little and laughs less, who occupies herself
only with her children, her husband, and her flowers,
who reads her books on theology, and surveys the
street with the looking-glass, so that she need not
show herself at the window, how much more poetical
is she than — But pardon me, Andalusia ! I was
about to say something rather hard on you.
Hitherto, some readers may think that I have been
pretending to know the Dutch language. I hasten to
say that I do not know it, and to excuse my ignor
ance. A people like the Dutch, serious and tactiturn,
richer in hidden qualities than in brilliant showy
ones — a people who are, if I may so express myself,
self-contained rather than superficial, who do much
and talk little, who do not pass for more than they
are worth — may be studied without a knowledge of
their language. On the other hand, the French lan
guage is generally known in Holland. In the large
cities there is scarcely an educated person who does
not speak French correctly, scarcely a shopman who

THE HAGUE. 195
cannot make himself understood in good or bad
French, and there is scarcely a boy who is not ac
quainted with ten or twenty words which suffice to
help a stranger out of a dilemma. This diffusion of a
language so different from that of the country is the
more to be admired when one refiects that it is not
the only foreign language generally spoken in Hol
land, English and German are almost as widely
known as French. The study of these three lan
guages is obligatory in the secondary schools. Cul
tured people, like those who in Italy think it a neces
sity to know French, in Holland generally read Eng
lish, German, and French with equal facility. The
Dutch have an especial talent for learning languages,
and an incredible courage in. speaking them. We
Italians before we attempt to speak a foreign language
require to know enough about it to avoid making
great mistakes ; we blush when we do make them ; we
avoid the opportunities of speaking until we are sure
of speaking well enough to be complimented, and in
this way we continue to lengthen the period of our
philological novitiate. In Holland one often meets
people who speak French with great effort, with a
vocabulary of perhaps a hundred words and twenty
sentences ; but notwithstanding they talk, hold long
conversations, and do not seem to be at all worried
about what one may think of their blunders and their
audacity. Waiters, porters, and boys, when asked
if they know French, answer with the greatest assur-
VoL. I.— 13

196 THE HAGUE.
ance, '¦'¦Qui" or " Un peu," and they try in a
thousand ways to make themselves understood, laugh
ing themselves sometimes at the eccentric contortion
of their speech, and ending every answer with " S'il
vous plait" or a '¦' Pardon, monsieur ;" which are
often said so prettily and yet are so out of place that
they make one laugh even against one's will. It is
considered such a common thing to know French that
when any one is obliged to answer that he doesn't
speak French, he hesitates, ashamed, and if he is
interrogated in the street he will pretend to be busy
and hurry on.
As for the Dutch language, it is a mystery to those
who do not know German, and even when one knows
German and can read Dutch books with a little study,
one cannot understand Dutch when it is spoken. If
I were asked to say what impression it makes on those
who do not understand it, I should say that it seems
like German spoken by people with a hair in their
throats. This effect is produced by the frequent
repetition of a guttural aspirate which is like the
sound of the Spanish jota. Even the Dutch them
selves do not consider their language euphonious, I
was often asked, playfully, "What impression does
it make on you ?" as if they understood that the im
pression could not be altogether agreeable. Yet
some one has written a book proving that Adam and
Eve spoke Dutch in the Garden of Eden. But,
although the Dutch speak so many foreign languages,

THE HAGUE. 197
they hold to their own, and grow indignant when
any ignorant stranger shows that he believes Dutch
to be a German dialect, this being, in truth, a theory
held by many who only know the language by name.
It is almost superfluous to repeat the history of the
language. The first inhabitants of the country spoke Teu
tonic in its different dialects. These dialects were
blended and formed the ancient speech of the
Netherlands, which in the Middle Ages, like the
other European languages, passed through the dif
ferent Germanic, Norman, and French phases, and
ended in the present Dutch language, in which there
is still a foundation of the primitive idiom and the
evidence of a slight Latin influence. Certainly,
there is a striking similarity between Dutch and
German, and, above all, there are a number of root-
words common to the two ; but there is, however, a
great difference in the grammar, that of the Dutch
being much simpler in construction, and the pronun
ciation also is very different. This very likeness is
the reason that the Dutch generally do not speak
German so well as they speak English or French ;
perhaps the difficulty may be caused by the ambiguity
of words, or because it costs them so little effort to
understand the language and to speak it for their
own use that they stop there, as we often do with
French, which we speak at ten years of age and
have forgotten at forty.

198 THE HAGUE,
Now it is time to go and visit the art gallery, which
is the greatest ornament of the Hague,
On entering we find ourselves at once before the
most celebrated of all painted animals, Paul Potter's
"Bull " — that immortal bull which, as has been said,
was honored at the Louvre, when the mania arose of
classifying these pictures in a sort of hierarchy of
celebrity, by being placed near the " Transfiguration "
of Raphael, the " St Peter the Martyr " of Titian,
and the " Communion of St, Jerome " by Domeni-
chino ; that bull for which England would pay a
million francs, and Holland would not sell for double
that sum ; the bull on which more pages have been
written than the strokes of the artist on the canvas,
and about which critics still write and dispute as if
it were a real living creation of a new animal instead
of a picture.
The subject of the picture is very simple — a life-
size bull, standing with his head turned toward the
spectator, a cow lying on the ground, some sheep, a
shepherd, and a distant landscape.
The supreme merit of this bull may be expressed
in one word : it is alive. The serious wondering eye,
which gives the impression of vigorous vitality and
savage pride, is painted with such truth that at the
first sight one feels inclined to dodge to the right or
left, as one does in a country road when one meets
such animals. His moist black nostrils seem to be
smoking, and to be drawing in the air with a pi'o-

Paul potter's BulL

THE HAGUE, 199
longed breath. His hide is painted with all its folds
and wrinkles ; one can see where the animal has
rubbed himself against the trees and the ground ; the
hairs look as though they are stuck on the canvas.
The other animals are equally fine : the head of the
cow, the fieece of the sheep, the files, the grass, the
leaves and fibres of the plants, the moss, — everything
is rendered with extraordinary fidelity. Although
the infinite care the artist must have taken is appar
ent, the fatigue and patience of the copy do not ap
pear ; it seems almost an inspired, impetuous work,
in which the painter, impelled by a thirst for truth,
has not felt a moment of hesitation or weariness.
Infinite criticisms were made on this " incredible
stroke of audacity by a young man of twenty-four."
The large size of the canvas was censured, the com
monplace nature of the subject, the poverty of the
light effects, for the light is equally diffused and
everything is placed in relief without the contrast of
shadow, — the stiffness of the legs of the bull, the
crude coloring of the plants and animals in the back
ground; the mediocrity of the shepherd's figure.
But, for all this, Paul Potter's bull was crowned with
glory as one of the noblest examples of art, and
Europe considers it as the greatest work of the
prince of animal-painters. An illustrious critic very
rightly said that " Paul Potter with his bull has
written the true idyl of Holland."
Herein is the great merit of the Dutch animal-

200 THE HAGUE.
painters, and of Potter above all, that they have not
only depicted animals, but have revealed, and told in
the poetry of color, the delicate, attentive, almost ma
ternal love with which this Dutch agricultural people
cherish their cattle. Potter's animals interpret the
poetry of rural life. By them he has expressed the
silence and the peace of the meadows, the pleasure
of solitude, the sweetness of repose, and the satis
faction of patient toil. One might almost say that
he had succeeded in making himself understood by
them, and that they must have put themselves in
positions to be copied. He has given them the
variety and attractiveness of human beings. The
sadness, the quiet content which follows the satisfac
tion of physical needs, the sensations of health and
strength, of love and gratitude toward mankind, all
the glimmerings of intelligence and the stirrings of
affection, all the variety of nature — all these he has
understood and expressed with loving fidelity, and
he has further succeeded in communicating to us
the feelings by which he was animated. As we look
at his pictures a strange primitive instinct of a rural
life is gradually roused in us — an innocent desire to
milk, to shear, to drive these gentle patient animals
that delight the eye and heart. In this art Paul
Potter is unsurpassed, Berghem is more refined,
but Potter is more natural ; Van de Velde is more
graceful, but Potter is more vigorous ; Du Jardin is
more amiable, but Potter is more profound.

THE HAGUE. 201
And to think that the architect who afterward
became his father-in-law would not at first give him
his daughter, because he was only a painter of ani
mals I and if we may believe tradition his celebrated
bull served as a sign to a butcher's shop and sold for
twelve hundred and sixty francs.
Another masterpiece in the Hague Gallery is a
small painting by Gerard Dou, the painter of the
celebrated " Dropsical Woman," which hangs in the
Louvre between pictures by Raphael and Murillo.
He is one of the greatest painters of the home-life
of the Dutch, and the most patient of the patient
artists of his country. The picture simply represents
a woman seated near a window, with a cradle by her
side ; but in this humble scene there is such a sweet
and holy air of domestic peace, a repose so profound,
a love so harmonious, that the most obstinate bachelor
on earth could not look on it without feeling an irre
sistible desire to be the one for whom the wife is
waiting in that quiet, clean room, or at least to enter
it secretly for a moment, even though he remain
hidden in the shadow, if so he might breathe the
perfume of the innocent happiness of this sanctuary.
This picture, like all the works of Dou, is painted
with that wonderful finish which he carries almost
to excess, which was certainly carried to excess by
Slingelandt, who worked three years continuously in
painting the Meerman family. This style afterward
degenerated into that smooth, affected, painful man-

202 THE HAGUE,
nerism where the figures are like ivory, the skies
enamel, and the fields velvet, of which Van der
Werff is the best known representative. Among
other things to be seen in this picture by Dou is a
broom-handle, the size of a pen-holder, on which
they say the artist worked assiduously for three days.
This does not seem strange when we refiect that every
minute filament, the grain, the knots, spots, dents,
and finger-marks are all reproduced. Anecdotes of
his superhuman patience are recounted which are
scarcely credible. It is said he was five days in
copying the hand of a Madam Spirings whose por
trait he painted. Who knows how long he was
painting her head ? The unhappy creatures who
wished to be painted by him were driven to madness.
It is believed that he ground his colors himself, and
made his own brushes, and that he kept everything
hermetically closed, so that no particle of dust could
reach his work. When he entered his studio he
opened the door slowly, sat down with great deliber
ation, and then remained motionless until the least
sign of agitation produced by the exercise had ceased.
Then he began to paint, using concave glasses to
reduce the objects in size. This continual effort
ended by injuring his sight, so that he was obliged
to work with spectacles. Nevertheless, his color
ing never became weakened or less vigorous, and his
pictures are equally strong whether one looks at them
near by or far off. They have been very justly com-

THE HAGUE, 203
pared to natural scenes reduced in photographs, Dou
was one of the many disciples of Rembrandt who
divided the inheritance of his genius. From his mas
ter he learned finish and the art of imitating light,
especially the effects of candle-light and of lamps.
Indeed, as we shall see in the Amsterdam Gallery,
he equalled Rembrandt in these respects. He pos
sessed the rare merit among the painters of his school
in that he took no pleasure in painting ugliness and
trivial subjects.
In the gallery at the Hague home-life is represented
by Dou, by Adriaen van Ostade, by Steen, and by
Van Mieris the elder.
Van Ostade — called the Rembrandt of home-life,
because he imitated the great master in his powerful
effects of chiaroscuro, of delicate shading, of trans
parency in shadows, of rich coloring — is represented
by two small pictures which depict the inside and
outside of a rustic house. Both are full of poetry,
notwithstanding the triviality of the subjects which
he has chosen in common with other painters of his
school. But he has this peculiarity, that the remark
ably ugly girls in his pictures are taken from his own
family, which, according to tradition, was a group of
little monstrosities, whom he held up to the ridicule
of the world. Thus nearly all the Dutch painters
chose to paint the least handsome of the women whom
they saw, as if they had agreed to throw discredit on
the feminine type of their country. Rembrandt's

204 THE HAGUE.
" Susanna," to cite a subject which of all others
required beauty, is an ugly Dutch servant, and the
women painted by Steen, Brouwer, and others are
not worth mentioning. And yet, as we have seen,
models of noble and gracious beauty were not wanting
among them.
There are three fine paintings by Frans van Mieris
the elder, the first disciple of Dou, and as finished
and minute a painter as his master. He together with
Metsu and Terburg, two artists eminent for finish
and coloring, belonged to that group of painters of
home-life who chose their subjects from the higher
classes of society. One of these canvases portrays
the artist with his wife.
Among other paintings, Steen is represented by
his favorite subject, a doctor feeling the pulse of a
lovesick girl in the presence of her duenna. It is an
admirable study of expression, of piquant, roguish
smiles. The doctor's face seems to say, " I think I
understand ;" the invalid's, " Something more than
your prescriptions are needed;" the duenna's, "I
know what she wants." Other pictures of home-life
by Schaleken, Tilborch, Netscher, William van Mieris
represent kitchens, shops^ dinners, and the families
of the artists.
Landscape and marine painting are represented by
beautiful gems from the hands of Ruysdael, Berghem,
Van de Velde, Van der Neer, Bakhuisen, and Ever
dingen. There are also a large number of works by

THE HAGUE. 205
Philips Wouverman, the painter of horses and battle-
pieces. There are two pictures by Van Huysum, the great
fiower-painter, who was born at a time when Holland
was possessed with a mad love of flowers and culti
vated the most beautiful flowers in Europe. He cele
brated this passion with his brush and created it afresh
in his pictures. No one else has so marvellously
rendered the infinite shades, the freshness, the transpa
rency, the softness, the grace, the modesty, the languor,
the thousand hidden beauties, all the appearances of
the noble and delicate life of the pearl of vegetation,
of the darling of nature, the fiower. The Hollanders
brought to him all the miracles of their gardens that
he might copy them ; kings asked him for flowers ; his
pictures were sold for sums that in those days were
fabulous. Jealous of his wife and his art, he worked
alone, unseen by his fellow-artists, lest they should
discover the secret of his coloring. Thus he lived
and died, glorious and melancholy, in the midst of
petals and fragrance.
But the greatest work in the gallery is the cele
brated "Lesson in Anatomy" by Rembrandt,
This picture was inspired by a feeling of gratitude
to Doctor Tulp, Professor of Anatomy at Amsterdam,
who protected Rembrandt in his youth, Rembrandt
portrays Tulp and his pupils grouped round a table
on which is stretched a naked corpse, whose arm has
been dissected by the anatomist's knife. The profes-

206 THE HAGUE.
sor, who wears his hat, stands pointing out the mus
cles of the arm with his scissors, and explaining them
to his pupils. Some of the scholars are seated,
others stand, others lean over the body. The light
coming from left to right illuminates their faces and
a part of the dead man, leaving their garments, the
table, and the walls of the room in obscurity. The
flgures are life-size.
It is difficult to describe the effect produced by this
picture. The flrst sensation is a feeling of horror
and disgust of the corpse. Its forehead is in shadow,
its open eyes are turned upward, its mouth half shut
as if in amazement ; the chest is swollen, its legs and
feet are rigid, the flesh is livid and looks as if it
would be cold to the touch. In great contrast to
this stiffened corpse are the living attitudes of the stu
dents, the youthful faces, the bright eyes, intent and
full of thought, revealing, in different degrees, eager
ness to learn, the joy of comprehension, curiosity,
astonishment, the effort of the intellect, the activity
of the mind. The face of the master is calm, his
eye is serene, and his lips seem smiling with the
satisfaction of intimate knowledge of his subject.
The whole group is surrounded by an air of gravity,
mystery, and scientific solemnity which imposes rev
erence and silence. The contrast between the light
and shade is as marvellous as that between death and
life. Everything is painted with infinite pains; it
is possible to count the little folds of the ruff, the

THE HAGUE. 207
wrinkles in the face, the hairs of the beard. It is
said that the foreshortening of the corpse is incorrect,
and that in some places the finish degenerates into
hardness, but universal approval places the " Lesson
in Anatomy " among the greatest works of art in the
world. Rembrandt was only twenty-six years old when he
painted this picture, which consequently has the
mark of his early work. The impetuosity, audacity,
and unequalled assurance of his genius, which shine
forth in his maturer works, are not yet seen, but his
immense power of painting light, his marvellous
chiaroscuro, his fascinating magic of contrast, the
most original features of his genius, are all to be
found here.
However little we may know about art, and
however much we may have resolved not to sin by
excess of enthusiasm, when we come face to face with
Rembrandt van Rijn, we cannot help opening the
fiood-gates of language, as the Spanish say. Rem
brandt exerts an especial fascination. Fra Angelico
is a saint, Michelangelo is a giant, Raphael is an
angel, Titian a prince, Rembrandt is a spectre. What
else can this miller's son be called ? Born in a wind
mill, he arose unexpectedly without a master, without
example, without any instruction from the schools, to
become a universal painter, who depicted life in every
aspect, who painted figures, landscapes, sea-pieces,
animals, saints, patriarchs, heroes, monks, riches and

208 THE HAGUE.
poverty, deformity, decrepitude, the ghetto, taverns,
hospitals, and death ; who in short, reviewed heaven
and earth, and enveloped everything in a light so
mysterious that it seems to have issued from his
brain. His work is at the same time grand and mi
nute. He is at once an idealist and a realist, a paint
er and an engraver, who transforms everything and
conceals nothing — who changes men into phantoms,
the most ordinary scenes of life into mysterious
apparitions ; I had almost said who changes this
world into another that does not seem to be and yet
is the same. Whence has he drawn that undefinable
light, those flashes of electric rays, those reflections
of unknown stars that like an enigma fill us with
wonder ? What did this dreamer, this vision
ary, see in the dark ? What is the secret that tor
mented his soul ? What did this painter of the air
mean to tell us in this eternal conflict of light and
shadow ? It is said that the contrasts of light and
shade corresponded in him to moods of thought.
And truly it seems that as Schiller, before beginning
a work, felt within himself an indistinct harmony of
sounds which were a prelude to his inspiration, so
also Rembrandt, when about to paint a picture, beheld
a vision of rays and shadows which had some meaning
to him before he animated them with his figures. In
his paintings there is a life, a dramatic action, quite
distinct from that of human figures. Flashes of
brilliant light break across a sombre surface like

THE HAGUE, 209
cries of joy; the frightened darkness files away,
leaving here and there a melancholy twilight, trem
bling refiections that seem to be lamenting, profound
obscurity gloomy and threatening, fiashes of dancing
sunlight, ambiguous shadows, shadows uncertain and
transparent, questionings and sighs, words of a su
pernatural language like music heard but not under
stood, which remains in the memory like a dream.
Into this atmosphere he plunged his figures, some of
them enveloped by the garish light of a theatrical
apotheosis, others veiled like ghosts, others revealed
by a single ray of light darting across their faces.
Whether they be clothed with pomp or in rags, they
all are alike strange and fantastic. The outlines are
not clear ; the figures are loaded with powerful colors,
and are painted' with such bold strokes of the brush
that they stand out in sculpturesque relief, while
over all is an expression of impetuosity and of inspi
ration, that proud, capricious, profound imprint of
genius that knows neither restraint nor fear.
After all, every one likes to give his opinion : but
who knows, if Rembrandt could read all the pages
that have been written to explain the secret meanings
of his art, whether he would not burst out laughing ?
Such is the fate of men of genius : every one holds
that he has understood them better than his neighbor,
and restores them in his own way. They are like a
beautiful theme given by God which men distort into
a thousand different meanings — a canvas upon which

210 THE HAGUE,
the imagination of man paints and embroiders after
its own manner.
I left the Hague Gallery with one desire ungrati
fied : I had not found in it any picture by Jerom
Bosch, a painter born at Bois-le-Duc in the fifteenth
century. This madcap of mischief, this scarecrow
of bigots, this artistic sorcerer, had made my flesh
creep first in the gallery at Madrid with a work rep
resenting a horrible army of living skeletons scattered
about an immense space, in confiict with a motley
crowd of desperate and confused men and women,
whom they were dragging into an abyss where Death
awaited them. Only from the diseased imagination
of a man alarmed by the terrors of damnation could
such an extravagant conception have issued. When
you look at it, however long it may be since you
were afraid of phantoms, you feel a confused reawak
ening dread. Such were the subjects of all his
pictures — the tortures of the accursed, spectres, fiery
chasms, dragons, uncanny birds, loathsome monsters,
diabolical kitchens, sinister landscapes. One of these
frightful pictures was found in the cell were Philip
II, died ; others are scattered throughout Spain and
Italy. Who was this chimerical painter ? How did
he live? What strange mania tormented him? No
one knows ; he passed over the earth wrapped in a
cloud, and disappeared like an infernal vision.
On the first fioor of the museum there is a " Royal
Cabinet of Curiosities," which contains some very

THE HAGUE. 211
precious historical relics, besides a great number of
different objects from China, Japan, and the Dutch
colonies. Amongst other things there is the sword
of that Ruyter who began life as a rope-maker at
Vlissingen, and became the greatest admiral of Hol
land ; Admiral Tromp's cuirass perforated by bul
lets ; a chair from the prison of the venerated Barne
veldt ; a box containing a lock of hair from the head
of that Van Speyk who in 1831, on the Schelde,
blew up his vessel to preserve the honor of the Dutch
fiag. Here, too, is the complete suit of clothes worn
by William the Silent when he was assassinated at
Delft — the blood-stained shirt, the jacket made of
buffalo skin pierced by bullets, the wide trousers, the
large felt hat; and in the same glass case are also
preserved the bullets and pistols of the assassin and
the original copy of his death-warrant.
This modest, almost rough dress, that was worn at
the zenith of his power and glory by William, the
head ofthe Republic ofthe Netherlands, is a noble tes
timony to the patriarchal simplicity of Dutch manners.
There is perhaps no other modern nation, equally
prosperous, that has been less given to vanity and pomp.
It is related that when the Earl of Leicester, who was
commissioned by Queen Elizabeth, arrived in Holland,
and when Spinola came to sue for peace in the name
of the King of Spain, their magnificence was consid
ered almost infamous. It is further said that the
Spanish ambassadors who came to the Hague in 1608
Vol. I.— 14

212 THE HAGUE.
to negotiate the famous truce saw some deputies of
the Dutch States seated in a field, meanly clad and
breakfasting on a little bread and cheese which they
had carried in their saddle-bags. The Grand Pen
sionary, John De Witt, the adversary of Louis XIV.,
kept only one servant. Admiral Ruyter lived at
Amsterdam in the house of a poor man and swept
out his own bedroom.
Another very curious object in the museum is a
cabinet which opens in front like a book-case, repre
senting in all its most minute details the inside of a
luxurious Amsterdam house at the beginning of the
eighteenth century. The Czar, Peter the Great,
during his stay in Amsterdam, commissioned a rich
citizen of that town to make for him this toy house,
in order that he might take it back to Russia as a
souvenir of Holland. The rich citizen, whose name
was Brandt, executed the order like an honest Dutch
man, slowly and well. The best cabinet-makers in
Holland made the furniture, the cleverest silver
smiths the plate, the most accurate printers printed
the tiny books, the finest miniature-painters painted
the pictures ; the linen was prepared in Flanders, the
hangings were made at Utrecht, After twenty-five
years of work all the rooms were ready. In the
nuptial chamber everything was prepared for the
confinement of the young mistress ; in the dining-
room stood a microscopic tea service on a table which
was the size of a crown ; the picture-gallery, which

THE HAGUE. 213
was seen through a magnifying glass, was complete ;
in the kitchen was everything needful to prepare a
savory dinner for a group of Liliputians ; there was
a library, and a cabinet of Chinese objects, birdcages
full of birds, prayer-books, carpets, linen for a whole
family trimmed with lace and fine embroidery : there
were lacking only a married couple, a lady's maid,
and a cook rather smaller than ordinary marionettes.
But there was one drawback: the house cost a hundred
and twenty thousand francs, and the Czar, who as
all know, was an economical man, refused it, and
Brandt, to shame the imperial avarice, presented it
to the Museum of the Hague,
In the streets of the Hague, from the first day, I
had met women dressed in such a peculiar manner
that I had followed them to observe every particular
of their costume. At first sight I thought that they
must belong to some religious order or that they were
hermits, pilgrims, or women of some nomadic tribes
which were passing through Holland, They wore
immense straw hats lined with flowered calico, short
chocolate-colored monk's cloaks made of serge and
lined with red cloth ; their petticoats were also of
serge, short and puffed out as though they wore
crinolines ; they wore black stockings and white
wooden shoes. In the morning they might be seen
going to market bearing on their heads baskets full
of fish or driving carts drawn by dogs. They
usually went alone or in pairs, without any men.

214 THE HAGUE,
They walked in a peculiar manner, taking long
strides, with a certain air of despondency, like those
who are accustomed to walking on the sand ; there was
a sadness in their expression and appearance which
harmonized with the monastic austerity of their attire.
I asked a Dutchman who they were, and the only
answer he gave me was, " Go to Scheveningen."
Scheveningen is a village two miles from the
Hague, and connected with it by a straight road bor
dered along its whole length by several rows of beau
tiful elms, which form a perfect shade. On either
side of the road, beyond the elms, there are small
villas, pavilions, and cottages with roofs that look
like the kiosks of the gardens, and with fagades of a
thousand fantastic shapes, all bearing the usual in
scriptions inviting to repose and pleasure. This road
is the favorite promenade of the citizens of the Hague
on Sunday evenings, but on the other days of the
week it is almost always deserted. One meets only
a few women from Scheveningen, and now and then
a carriage or the coaches that come and go between
the town and the village. As one walks along it
seems as though the road must lead to some royal
palace surrounded by a large garden or a wide park.
The luxuriant vegetation, the shadow and silence,
call to mind the forests of Andalusia and Granada.
One no longer remembers Scheveningen and forgets
that he is in Holland,
When the end of the road is reached the change

©n tbe 1Roab to Scbeveningen.

THE HAGUE. 215
of scene is so sudden that it seems unreal. The
vegetation, the shade, the likeness to Granada, — all
have disappeared, and one stands in the midst of
dunes, sand, and desert ; one feels the salt wind blow
and hears its dull confused sound. From the summit
of one of the dunes one may see the North Sea.
One who has seen only the Mediterranean is im
pressed by a new and profound feeling at sight of
that sea and shore. The beach is formed of very
fine, light-colored sand, over which the outermost
edges of the waves flow up and down like a carpet
which is being continually folded and unfolded.
This sandy sea-shore extends to the foot of the first
dunes, which are steep, broken, corroded mounds
deformed by the eternal beating of the waves. Such
is the Dutch coast from the mouth of the Meuse to
the Helder. There are no mollusks, no star-fish, no
shells or crabs; there is not a single bush or blade of
grass. Nothing is seen but sand, waste, and solitude.
The sea is no less mournful than the coast. It
corresponds closely to one's ideas of the North Sea,
formed by reading about the superstitious terrors of
the ancients, who believed it to be driven by eternal
winds and peopled by gigantic monsters. Near the
shore its color is yellowish, farther out a pale green,
and still farther out a dreary blue. The horizon is
usually veiled by the mist, which often descends even
to the shore and hides all the waters with its thick
curtain, which is raised to show only the waves that

216 THE HAGUE.
come to die on the sand and some shadowy fisher
man's boat close to land. The sky is almost always
gray, overcast with great clouds which throw dense
changeable shadows on the waters : in places these
are as black as night, and bring to mind images of
tempests and horrible shipwrecks ; in other parts the
sky is lighted up by patches and wavy streaks of
bright light, which seem like motionless lightning or
an illumination from mysterious stars. The ceaseless
waves gnaw the shore in wild fury, with a prolonged
roar which seems like a cry of defiance or the wail
ing of an infinite crowd. Sea, sky, and earth regard
each other gloomily, as though they were three im
placable enemies. As one contemplates this scene
some great convulsion of nature seems imminent.
The village of Scheveningen is situated on the
dunes, which ward off the sea, and hide it so entirely
that from the shore nothing is to be seen but the
cone-shaped church-steeple rising like an obelisk in
the midst of the sand. The village is divided into two
parts, one of which is composed of elegant houses
representing every kind of Dutch shapes and Colors,
and built for the use of strangers, with " to let "
posted on them in various languages. The other part,
in which the natives live, consists of black cottages,
little streets, and retreats which foreigners never
think of entering.
The population of Scheveningen, which numbers
only a few thousands, is almost entirely composed of

THE HAGUE. 217
fishermen, the greater number of whom are very poor.
The village is still one of the principal stations of
the herring fishery, where are cured those celebrated
fish to which Holland owes her riches and power.
But the profits of this industry go to the captains of
the fishing vessels, and the men of Scheveningen,
who are employed as sailors, hardly earn a livelihood.
On the beach, in front of the village, many of those
wide staunch boats with a single mast and a large
square sail may always be seen ranged in line on the
sand one beside the other, like the Greek galleys on
the coast of Troy : thus they are safe from the gusts
of wind. The flotilla, accompanied by a steam sloop,
starts early in June, directing its course toward the
Scottish coast. The first herrings taken are at once
sent to Holland, and conveyed in a cart ornamented
with fiags to the king, who in exchange for this
present gives five hundred fiorins. These boats
make catches of other fish as well, which are in part
sold at auction on the sea-shore, and in part are
given to the Scheveningen fishermen, who send their
wives to sell them at the Hague market.
Scheveningen, like all the other villages of the
coast, Katwijk, Vlaardingen, Maassluis, is a village
that has lost its former prosperity in consequence of
the decline of the herring fishery, owing, as every
one knows, to the competition of England and the
disastrous wars. But poverty, instead of weakening
the character of this small population, beyond doubt

218 THE HAGUE,
the most original and poetical in Holland, has
strengthened it. The inhabitants of Scheveningen in
appearance, character, and habits seem like a foreign
tribe in comparison with the people of their own
country. They dwell but two miles from a large
city, and yet preserve the manners of a primitive
people that has always lived in isolation. As they
were centuries ago, so are they now. No one leaves
their village, and no one who is not a native ever
enters it : they intermarry, they speak a language of
their own, they all dress in the same style and in the
same colors, as did their fathers' fathers. At the
time of the fishing only the women and children
remain in the village ; the men all go to sea. They
carry their Bibles with them on their departure. On
board they neither drink nor swear nor laugh.
When the stormy seas toss their little boats on the
crests of the waves, they close all the apertures and
await death with resignation. At the same moment
their wives are singing psalms, shut in their cottages
rocked by the wind and beaten by the rain. Those
little dwellings, which have witnessed so many mortal
griefs, which have heard the sobs of so many widows,
which have seen the sacred joys of happy return and
the disconsolate departure of many husbands, with
their cleanliness, their white curtains, with the clothes
and shirts of the sailors hanging at the windows, —
tell of the free and dignified poverty of their inmates.
No vagabonds nor fallen women come out of these

THE HAGUE. 219
homes ; no inhabitant of Scheveningen has ever de
serted the sea, and none of her daughters has ever
refused the hand of a sailor. Both men and women
show by their carriage and the expression of their
faces a serious dignity that commands respect.
They greet you without bending their heads, and
look you in the face as much as to say, " We have no
need of any one,"
In this little village there are two schools, and it
is a curious sight to see a swarm of fair-haired children
with slates under their arms and pencils in their
hands disperse at certain hours among these poverty-
stricken streets.
Scheveningen is not only a village famous for the
originality of its inhabitants which all foreigners
visit and all artists paint. There are, besides, two
great bathing establishments, where English, Rus
sians, Germans, and Danes meet in the summer.
The fiower of the Northern aristocracy, princes and
ministers, indeed half the Almanach de Gotha, come
here ; then there are balls, fantastic illuminations,
and fireworks on the sea. The two establishments
are placed on the dunes, and at all hours of the day
certain carriages which look like gypsy caravans,
drawn by strong horses, are driven from the shore
into the sea, where they turn round. Whereupon
ladies step out from them and bathe in the water,
letting their fair hair blow about in the wind. At
night the band plays, the visitors walk out, and the

220 THE HAGUE,
beach is enlivened by an elegant, festive, ever-chang
ing crowd, in which every language is heard and the
beauty of every country is represented, A few steps
distant from this gayety the misanthrope can find
solitude and seclusion on the dunes, where the music
faintly strikes his ear like a far-off echo, and the
houses of the fishermen show him their lights, direct
ing his thoughts to domestic life and peace.
The first time I went to Scheveningen I took a
walk on those dunes which have been so often painted
by artists, the only heights on the immense Dutch
plain that intercept the view — rebellious children of
the sea, whose progress they oppose, being at the
same time the prisoners and the guardsmen of Hol
land, There are three tiers of these dunes, forming
a triple bulwark against the ocean : the outer is the
most barren, the centre the highest, and the inner
the most cultivated. The medium height of these
mountains of sand is not greater than fifteen metres,
and all together they do not extend into the land for
more than a French league. But as there are no
higher elevations near or remote, they produce the
false impression of a vast mountainous region. The
eye sees valleys, gorges, precipices, views that appear
distant and are close at hand — the tops of neighboring
dunes on which we imagine a man ought to appear
as large as a child, and on which instead he seems a
giant. Viewed from a height, this region looks like
a yellow sea, tempestuous yet motionless. The drear-

THE HAGUE. 221
iness of this desert is increased by a wild vegetation,
which seems like the mourning of the dead and
abandoned nature — thin, fragile grass, flowers with
almost transparent petals, juniper, sweet-broom, rose
mary, through which every now and then skips a
rabbit. Neither house, tree, nor human being is to
be seen for miles. Now and then ravens, curlews,
and sea-gulls fly past. Their cries and the rustling
of the shrubs in the wind are the only sounds that
break the silence of the solitude. When the sky is
black the dead color of the earth assumes a sinister
hue, like the fantastic light in which objects appear
when seen through colored glass. It is then, when
standing alone in the midst of the dunes, that one
feels a sense almost of fear, as if one were in an un
known country hopelessly separated from any inhab
ited land, and one looks anxiously at the misty horizon
for the shadow of a building to reassure him.
In the whole of my walk I met but one or two
peasants. The Dutch peasants usually speak to the
people they meet on the road — a rare thing in a
Northern country. Some pull off their caps at the
side with a curious gesture, as if they did it for a
joke. Usually they say " Good-morning " or " Good-
evening " without looking at the person they are
greeting. If they meet two people, they say, " Good-
evening to you both," or if more than two, "Good-
evening to you all," On a pathway in the middle of
the first dunes I saw several of those poor fishermen

222 THE HAGUE.
who spend the whole day up to their waists in water,
picking up the shells that are used to make a peculiar
cement or to spread over garden-paths instead of
sand. It must cost them at least half an hour of
hard labor to take off the enormous leather boots
that they wear to go into the sea ; this would give
an excuse to an Italian sailor for swearing by all the
saints. But these men, on the contrary, perform the
task with a composure that makes one sleepy, without
giving way to any movement of impatience, nor
would they raise their heads until they had finished
even if a cannon were to be fired off.
On the dunes, near a stone obelisk recording the
return of William of Orange from England after the
fall of the French dominion, I saw for the first time
one of those sunsets which awaken in us Italians a
feeling of wonder no less than that awakened in
people from the North by the sunsets at Naples and
Rome. The sun, because of the refraction of light
by the mists which always fill the air in Holland, is
greatly magnified, and diffuses through the clouds
and on the sea a veiled and tremulous splendor like
the reflection of a great fire. It seemed as if another
sun had unexpectedly appeared on the horizon, and
was setting, never again to show itself on earth. A
child might well have believed the words of a poet
who said, "In Holland the sun dies," and the most
cold-blooded man must have allowed a farewell to
escape his lips.

THE HAGUE. 223
As I have spoken of my walk to Scheveningen, I
will mention two other pleasant excursions that I
made from the Hague last winter.
The first was to the village of Naaldwijk, and from
this village to the sea-coast, where they were opening
the new Rotterdam canal. At Naaldwijk, thanks to
the politeness of an inspector of schools who was
with me, I gratified my desire to see an elementary
school, and I will state at once that my great expec
tations were more than realized. The house, built
expressly for the school, was a separate building one
story in height. We first went into a little vestibule,
where there were a number of wooden shoes, which
the inspector told me belonged to the pupils, who
place them there on their entrance into school and
put them on again when they go out. In school the
boys wear only stockings which are very thick, con
sequently their feet do not suffer from cold, especially
as the rooms are as hot as if they were a minister's
cabinet. On our entrance the pupils stood up and
the master advanced toward the inspector. Even
that poor village master spoke French, and so we
were able to enter into conversation. There were in
the school about forty pupils, both boys and girls,
who sat on opposite sides of the room ; all were fair
and fat, with plump, good-natured faces ; they had
the precocious air of little men and women, which I
could not observe without laughing. The building was
divided into five rooms, each separated from the other

224 THE HAGUE,
by a large glass partition, which enclosed all the space
like a wall, so that if a master were absent from one
class the teacher of the next class could overlook
the pupils of his colleague without leaving his post.
All the rooms are large and have high windows
which reach from the floor to the ceiling, so that it is
almost as light inside as it is outside. The benches,
walls, floors, windows, and stoves were as clean as if
they had been in a ball-room. Having a lively re
collection of certain unpleasant places in the schools
I attended as a boy, I asked to see the closets, and
found them such as few of the best hotels can boast.
Afterward on the school-room walls I saw a great
many things that I remember to have wished for
when I sat at the desks, such as small pictures of
landscapes or figures, to which the master referred
in his stories and instruction, so that they should
be stamped the better on the memory; representa
tions of common objects and animals; geographical
maps purposely made with large names and painted
in bright colors; proverbs, grammatical rules, and
precepts very plainly printed. Only one thing seemed
to me lacking — personal cleanliness.
I will not repeat what many have written and some
Dutchmen affirm, that in Holland cleanliness of the
skin is generally neglected — that the women are dirty,
and that the legs of the tables are cleaner than those
of the citizens. But it is certain the cleanliness of
inanimate objects is infinitely greater than personal

THE HAGUE. 225
cleanliness, and the deficiency in the last respect
is made more apparent by excellence in the first.
In an Italian school perhaps those boys might have
seemed clean, but, comparing them with the marvel
lous purity of their surroundings, and reflecting that
they were the children of the very women who take
half a day to wash the doors and shutters, they
seemed to me, and in fact were, rather dirty. In
some schools in Switzerland there are lavatories
where the boys are obliged to wash upon entering
and leaving the school. I should have been pleased
to see such lavatories in the Dutch schools too ; then
all would have been perfect.
I said "that poor master," but I found out after
ward that he had a salary of more than two thousand
two hundred francs and an apartment in a nice house
in the village. In Holland the masters of elementary
schools — the principals, that is, for there are assistant
masters — never receive less than eight hundred francs
a year. This the minimum that the commune can
legally give. No commune keeps to this sum, and
some masters have the same salaries as our university
professors. It is true that it costs more to live in
Holland than in Italy, but it is also true that the
salaries which seem large to us are there considered
small, and yet they propose to increase them. It
must also be considered that, owing to the difference
of national character, the Dutch masters are not
obliged to expend as much of their breath, their

226 THE HAGUE,
patience, and good-humor as are our Italian masters,
which is a consideration if it be true that health
counts for something.
From Naaldwijk we went toward the coast. On
the road my courteous companion explained to me
clearly the point which the question of instruction
has reached in Holland. In Latin countries persons
when questioned by a stranger answer him with a
view toward airing their knowledge and showing their
conversational powers. In Holland they try rather
to make you understand the subject, and if you do
not comprehend directly, they impress it upon you
until it is flxed in your mind as clearly and as well
as it is in their own.
The question of instruction, in Holland as in most
countries, is a religious question, which in its turn is
the most serious, indeed the only great, question that
now agitates the country.
Of the three and a half millions of inhabitants in
Holland, a third, as I have remarked, are Catholics,
about a hundred thousand are Jews, and the rest are
Protestants. The Catholics, who chiefly inhabit the
southern provinces of Limbourg and Brabant, are
not divided politically as they are in other countries,
but form one solid clerical legion, — Papists, Ultra-
montanists, the most faithful legion of Rome, as the
Dutch themselves say — who buy the very straw that
the pontiff is supposed to sleep on, and who thunder
Italy from the pulpit and the press. This Catholic

THE HAGUE. 227
party, which would have no great strength of itself,
gains a certain advantage from the fact that the
Protestants are divided into a great many religious
sects. There are orthodox Calvinists ; Protestants
who believe in the revelation, but do not accept
certain doctrines of the Church ; others who deny
the divinity of Christ, without, however, separating
themselves from the Protestant Church; others, again,
who believe in God, but do not believe in any Church ;
others — and amongst these are many of the cleverest
men — who openly profess atheism. In consequence
of this state of things, the Catholic party has a nat
ural ally in the Calvinists, who as fervent believers
and inflexible conservers of the religion of their
fathers, are much less widely separated from the
Catholics than from a large party of those of their
own co-religionists. These form, in a certain sense,
the clerical wing of Protestantism, Hence in the
Netherlands there are Catholics and Calvinists on
one side, and on the other a liberal party, while
between the two there hovers a vacillating legion
that does not allow either side to gain an absolute
supremacy. The chief point of contention between
the extreme sections is the question of primary in
struction, and this reduces itself, on the part of the
Catholics and Calvinists, to insistence that so-called
mixed schools, in which no special religious instruc
tion is given (so that Catholics and Protestants of all
doctrines may support them), shall be superseded by
Vol, 1,-15

228 THE HAGUE,
others in which dogmatic instruction is to be given,
and that these shall be also supported by the com
mune under the direction of the state. It is easy to
foresee the grave consequences that such a division
in the popular educational system would produce —
the germs of discord and religious animosity that
would be sown, the trouble that would in time arise
from separating young people into groups professing
different faiths. Up to the present time the prin
ciple of mixed schools has prevailed, but the victories
of the Liberals have been costly. The Catholics
and the Calvinists successively obtained various con
cessions, and are prepared to obtain yet others. The
Catholic party is, in a word, more powerful than the
Calvinist party : the one, united and aggressive,
gains ground day by day, and it is not unlikely that
it will succeed in gaining a victory which, though
not lasting, will provoke a violent reaction in the
country. Things have come to such a pass that in
that very Holland which fought for eighty years
against Catholic despotism there are now serious
reasons to fear the outbreak of a religious war.
Notwithstanding this state of things, which to the
present time has prevented the institution of obliga
tory instruction demanded by the Liberals, and keeps
a great number of Catholic children away from the
schools, the education of the lower classes in Holland
is in a condition that any European state might envy.
In proportion, Holland contains less people who do

jfisberman's Cbilbren, Scbeveningen.

THE HAGUE. 229
not know their alphabet than does Prussia, " Of
all Europe," as a Dutch writer has said with just
pride, although he judges his country severely on
other points, " Holland is the land where all such
knowledge as is indispensable to civilized man is
most widely diffused," I was once greatly surprised,
on asking a Dutchman if there were any women-
servants who could not read, to hear myself answered,
" Well, yes. I remember twenty years ago that my
mother had a servant who did not know her alphabet,
and we thought it a very strange thing." It is a
great satisfaction to a stranger who does not know
the language to be sure that if he shows a name on
his guide-book to the first street-urchin he meets, the
boy will understand it and will try to direct him by
gestures. Talking of Catholics and Calvinists, we arrived at
the dunes, and, although we were near the coast, we
could not see the ocean, " Holland is a strange
country," I said to my friend, "in which everything
plays at hide and seek. The facades hide the roofs,
the trees hide the houses, the city hides the ships,
the banks hide the canals, the mist hides the fields,
the dunes hide the sea," "And some day," answered
my friend, " the sea will hide everything and all will
be ended."
We crossed the downs and advanced toward the
coast, where the preparatory works for the opening
of the Rotterdam Canal were in progress.

230 THE HAGUE.
Two dykes, one more than a thousand two hundred
meters in length, the other more than two thousand
meters long, separated from each other by the
space of a kilometer, project into the sea at right
angles to the coast. These two dykes, which are
built to protect vessels entering the canal, are formed
by several rows of enormous palisades made of huge
blocks of granite, of fagots, stones, and earth ;
they are as wide as ten men drawn up in a line.
The ocean, which continually washes against them,
and at high tide overflows them in many parts, has
covered everything, — stones, beams, and fagots, with
a stratum of shells as black as ebony, which from a
distance seems like a velvet coverlet, giving to these
two gigantic bulwarks a severe and magnificent ap
pearance, as if they were a warlike banner unfolded by
Holland to celebrate her victory over the waves. At
that moment the tide was coming in, and the battle
round the extreme end of the dykes was at its height.
With what rage did the livid waves avenge themselves
for the scorn of those two huge horns of granite that
Holland has plunged into the bosom of her enemy !
The palisades and the rock foundations were lashed,
gnawed, and buffeted on every side ; disdainful waters
dashed over them and spat upon them with a drizzling
rain that hid them like a cloud of dust ; then again the
waves would flow back like furious writhing serpents.
Even the sections far from the struggle were sprinkled
by unexpected showers of spray, the advance guard

THE HAGUE. 231
of that endless army, and meanwhile the water kept
rising and advancing, forcing the foremost workmen
to retire step by step.
On the longest dyke, not very far from shore, they
were planting some piles. Workmen with great
labor were raising blocks of granite by means of
derricks, and others, in groups of ten or fifteen,
were removing old beams to make room for new ones.
It was glorious to see the fury of the waves lashing
the sides of the dyke, and the impassive calm of the
workmen, who seemed almost to despise the sea. It
crossed my mind that they must be saying in their
hearts, as the sailor said to the monster of the Com-
prachicos in Victor Hugo's romance : " Roar on, old
fellow 1" A wind which chilled us to the bone blew
the long, fair curls of the good Dutchmen into their
eyes, and every now and then threw the spray at
their feet or on their clothes — vain provocations to
which they did not deign to reply even by a frown.
I saw a pile driven into the dyke. It was the
trunk of a great tree pointed at one end and sup
ported by two parallel beams, between which a steam-
engine drove an enormous iron hammer up and down.
The pile had to be driven through several very thick
strata of fagots and stones ; yet at every blow from
the heavy hammer it sunk into the ground, breaking,
tearing, and splintering, while it entered the dyke
more than a hand's length, as if it were merely a
mud hole. Nevertheless, what with adjusting and

232 THE HAGUE.
driving the pile, the operation lasted almost an hour.
I thought of the thousands that had been driven, of
the thousands still to be driven, of the interminable
dykes that defend Holland, of the infinite number
that have been overturned and rebuilt, and for the
first time my mind conceived the grandeur of the
undertaking, and a feeling of dismay crept over me
as I stood motionless and speechless.
Meanwhile, the waters had risen almost to the
level of the dyke, with a sound of panting and
breathlessness like tired-out voices that seemed to
murmur secrets of distant seas and unknown shores ;
the wind blew colder, it was growing dark, and I
felt a restless desire to withdraw from those front
bastions into the interior of the fortress. I pulled
the coat-tail of my companion, who had been standing
for an hour on a boulder, and we returned to the
shore and drank a glass of delicious Schiedam at one
of those shops which are called in Dutch " Oome and
ask," where they sell wines, salt meats, cigars, shoes,
butter, clothes, biscuits — in fact, a little of every
thing. Then we started on the road back to the
Hague. My next excursion was the most adventurous that
I made in Holland. A very dear friend of mine
who lived at the Hague invited me to go and dine
with him at the house of one of his relatives who
had shown a courteous desire to make my acquaint
ance, I asked where his relative lived, and he an-

THE HAGUE. 233
swered, "Far from the Hague." I asked in what
direction, but he would not tell me; he told me to meet
him at the railway-station the next day, and left me.
On the next morning we met at the station : my
friend bought tickets for Leyden. When we arrived
at Leyden we alighted, but, instead of entering the
town, we took a road across country, I besought
my companion to reveal the secret to me. He an
swered that he could not do so, and as I knew that
when a Dutchman does not mean to tell you any
thing, no power on earth will make him do it, I
resigned myself It was a disagreeable day in Feb
ruary ; there was no snow, but a strong cold wind
was blowing which soon made our faces purple. As
it was Sunday, the country was deserted. We went
on and on, passing windmills, canals, meadows,
houses half hidden by trees, with very high roofs of
stubble mixed with moss. Finally we arrived at a
village. The Dutch villages are closed by a palisade :
we passed through the gate, but not a living soul
was to be seen ; the doors were shut, the window
curtains were drawn, and not a voice, nor a foot
step, nor a breath was heard. We crossed the
village, and paused in front of a church which was
all covered with ivy like a summer-house; look
ing through an aperture in the door, we saw a
Protestant clergyman with a white cravat preach
ing to some peasants whose faces were striped
with gold, green, and purple, the reflection of the

234 THE HAGUE.
stained-glass windows. We passed through a clean
street paved with bricks, and saw stakes put for the
storks' nests, posts planted by the peasants for the
cows to rub against, fences painted sky blue, small
houses with many-colored tiles forming letters and
words, ponds full of boats, bridges, kiosks for
unknown uses, little churches with great gilded
cocks on the top of their steeples ; and not a living
soul near or far : still we went on. The sky cleared
a little, then darkened again ; here the sunshine
gleamed on a canal, there it made a house sparkle
or gilded a distant steeple. Then again it hid itself,
reappeared, and so on with a thousand coquetries,
while on the horizon there appeared oblique lines
denoting rain. We began to meet countrywomen
with circles of gold round their heads, on which
veils were fastened, the whole surmounted by hats ;
these were trimmed with bunches of flowers and wide
fluttering ribbons. We also met some country car
riages of the antique Louis XV. style, with a gilded
box ornamented with carved work and mirrors,
peasants with thick black clothes and large wooden
shoes, children with stockings of every color in the
rainbow. We arrived at another village, which was
clean, shining, and brightly colored, with its streets
paved with bricks and its windows adorned with
curtains and flowers. Here we took a carriage and
went on our way. A fine icy rain which penetrated
to our bones began to fall as soon as we started. Muf-

THE HAGUE. 235
fied up in the wet frozen covers, we reached the bank
of a large canal, A man came out of a cottage, led
the horse on to a barge, and landed us safe and sound
on the opposite bank. The carriage turned down a
wide street, and we found ourselves on the bed of
the ancient Sea of Haarlem, Our horse trotted
along where the fish once swam through the water ;
our coachman smoked where at one time the smoke
of naval battles had rolled; we saw glimpses of
canals, of villages, of cultivated fields, of a new
world of which only thirty years ago there had not
been a trace. After we had driven about a mile
the rain stopped, and it began to snow as I had never
seen it snow before : it was a real whirlwind of heavy,
thick snow, which the strong wind blew into our
faces. We unfolded the waterproof covering, opened
our umbrellas, tucked ourselves in, and bundled our
selves up, but the wind broke through all our defences
and the snow sifted over us, enveloping us in white
and covering our heads and feet with ice. After a long
turn we left the lake ; the snow ceased, we arrived
at another village of toy houses, where we left our
carriage and proceeded on foot. We went on and
on, seeing bridges, windmills, closed cottages, lonely
streets, wide meadows, but no human beings. We
crossed another branch of the Rhine, and arrived at
another village barricaded and silent ; we continued
on our way, occasionally seeing some face looking at
us from behind the windows. We then left the vii-

236 THE HAGUE.
lage and found ourselves opposite the dunes. The
sky looked threatening, and I became alarmed.
"Where are we going?" I demanded of my friend.
" Where fortune takes us," he replied.
We proceeded through the dunes, along narrow,
winding, sandy roads, seeing no sign of habitation
anywhere ; we went up hill and down dale ; the wind
drove the sand into our faces ; at every step our feet
sank in it, and the country grew more and more
desolate, gloomy, and foreboding.
"But who is your relative?" I said to my com
panion. "Where does he live? what is his business?
There is some witchcraft about this ; he cannot be a
man like other men : tell me where you are leading
me." My friend did not answer : he stopped and stared
in front of him. I stared too, and far away saw
something that looked like a house, alone in the
midst of the desert, almost hidden by a rise in the
ground. We hastened on ; the house seemed to ap
pear and disappear like a shadow. Round about we
saw stakes which looked like gibbets. My friend
tried to persuade me that they were only stakes for
storks' nests. We were about a hundred feet away
from the house. Along a wall we saw a wooden pipe
which seemed bathed in blood, but my friend assured
me it was only red paint. It was a little house en
closed by a paling ; the doors and windows were shut.
"Don't go in," I said. "There is yet time.

THE HAGUE, 237
There is something uncanny in that house; take
care what you are doing. Look up ; I have never
seen such a black sky."
My friend did not hear me ; he pressed on cour
ageously, and I followed. Instead of going toward
the door, he took a short cut. Behind us we heard
a ferocious barking of dogs. We broke into a run,
crossed a thicket of underbrush, jumped over a low
wall, and knocked at a little door.
" There is yet time !" I exclaimed.
"It is too late," answered my friend.
The door opened, but nobody was to be seen. We
mounted a winding staircase and entered a room.
Oh pleasant surprise ! The hermit, the sorcerer, was
a merry, courteous young man, and the diabolical
house was a villa full of comfort and warmth, spark
ling with light, the dwelling of a sybarite — a real
fairy palace to which our host retired some months
in the year to study and to make experiments on the
fertilization of the dunes. How delightful it was to
look at the cold desert without through a window
draped with curtains and decorated with fiower-pots !
We went into the dining-room and sat down at a
table glittering with silver and glass, in the midst of
which, surrounded by gilded and blazoned bottles,
was a hot dinner fit for a prince. The snow was
beating against the windows, the sea was moaning,
the wind blew furiously round the house, which
seemed like a ship in a terrible storm. We drank

238 THE HAGUE,
to the fertilization of the dunes, to the victors of
Achen, to the prosperity of the colonies, to the mem
ory of Nino Bixio, to the elves. Nevertheless, I was
still a little uneasy. Our host when he needed the
servant touched a hidden spring ; to tell the coach
man to get the carriage ready he spoke some words
into a hole in the wall; and these tricks did not
please me,
" Tell me," I said, " tell me that this house really
exists; promise me that it is not all a joke and that
it will not disappear, leaving nothing but a hole in
the ground and a smell of sulphur in the air. Assure
me that you say your prayers every evening."
I cannot describe the laughter, the merriment, the
absurd speeches that succeeded each other until the
middle of the night, accompanied by the clinking of
glasses and the roaring of the tempest. At last the
moment of departure arrived : we went down and
were rolled away in a roomy carriage which dashed
rapidly across the desert. The ground was covered
with snow, the dunes were outlined in white on the
dark sky, the carriage glided noiselessly in the midst
of strange indistinct forms, which succeeded each
other rapidly in the light of the lantern and seemed
to melt into each other. In that vast solitude a dead
silence reigned which robbed us of speech. After a
time we began to see dwellings and arrived at a vil
lage. We crossed two or three deserted streets, with
snow-covered houses on either side, with a few lighted

THE HAGUE. 239
windows showing human shadows. At last we came
to a railway-station, and reached the Hague in a few
minutes, although we had been deluded to think we
had taken a long journey and crossed an imaginary
country. Must I tell the truth ? If I were asked
to swear at the moment I am writing that the house
in the midst of the dunes was a reality, I should
request ten minutes for refiection. It is true that
the master was polite enough to come and bid me
good-bye at the station the day I left the Hague, and
that when I saw him clearly by daylight he did not
seem to have anything strange about him; but we
all know the various forms, the simulations, the
thousand arts which a certain gentleman and his
servants assume.
At last I saw a Dutch winter, not as I had hoped
to see it on leaving Italy, for it was very mild ; but
still Holland was presented to me as we are in the
habit of picturing it to ourselves in the south of
Europe. Early in the morning the first thing that attracts
the eye in the silent white streets is the print of in
numerable wooden shoes left in the snow by the boys
on their way to school, and so large are the wooden
shoes that they look like the tracks of elephants.
These footsteps generally go in a straight line, show
ing that the boys take the shortest cut to school, and,
like steady, zealous Dutchmen, do not play and lose
time on the road. One can see long rows of children

240 ' THE HAGUE.
wrapped up in large scarfs, with their heads half
hidden between their shoulders — little bundles arm
in arm, walking two by two, or three by three, or
pressed together in groups like a bunch of asparagus,
out of which peep only the tips of their noses and
the ends of books. When the boys have disappeared
the streets are deserted for a short time, for the
Dutch do not rise early, especially in the winter.
One can walk some distance without meeting any one
or hearing any sound. The snow seems whiter sur
rounding those rose-colored houses, which have all
their projections outlined with a pure white line, and
the wooden heads outside of the shops wear white cot
ton wigs ; the chains of the railings look like ermine ;
everything presents a strange appearance. When it
freezes and the sun shines, the fagades seem covered
with silver sparks, the ice heaped upon the banks of
the canals shines with all the colors of the rainbow,
and the trees glitter with thousands of little pearls,
like the plants in the enchanted gardens of the Ara
bian Nights. It is then that it is beautiful to walk
in the forest at the Hague at sunset, treading on the
hardened snow, which crackles under one's feet like
powdered marble, in the avenues of large, white,
leafless beech trees, which look like one gigantic
crystallization, and cast blue and violet shadows,
dotted with myriads of points which glisten like
diamonds in the paths dyed pink by the setting sun.
But nothing compares with the sight of the Dutch

THE HAGUE, 241
country seen from the top of a steeple at morning
after a heavy fall of snow. Beneath the gray and
lowering sky one looks over that vast white plain,
from which, roads, houses, and canals have disap
peared, and nothing is seen but elevations and de
pressions, which, like the folds of a sheet, give a
vague idea of the forms of hidden houses. The
boundless white is unstained save by the clouds of
smoke that rise almost timidly from the distant dwell
ings, as if to assure the spectator that beneath the
desert of snow human hearts are still beating.
It is impossible to speak of the winter in Holland
without mentioning what constitutes the originality
and the attraction of winter life in that country —
the skating.
Skating in Holland is not only a recreation ; it is
the ordinary means of transportation. To cite a
well-known example, all know the value of it to the
Dutch in the memorable defence of Haarlem. When
there is a hard frost the canals are transformed into
streets, and sabots tipped with iron take the place of
boats. The peasants skate to market, the workmen
to their work, the small tradespeople to their busi
ness ; entire families skate from the country to the
town with their bags and baskets on their shoulders
or drive in sledges. Skating to them is as habitual
and easy as walking, and they skim along so rapidly
that one can scarcely follow them with the eye. In
past years bets were commonly made between the

242 THE HAGUE,
best Dutch skaters that they would skate down the
canals on either side of the railway as fast as the
train could go ; and usually the skaters not only kept
abreast of the engine, but even beat it. There are
people who skate from the Hague to Amsterdam and
back again on the same day ; university students
leave Utrecht in the morning, dine at Amsterdam,
and return home before the evening ; and a bet has
been made and won several times of going from
Amsterdam to Leyden in little more than an hour.
Persons who have been drawn by sticks held by
skaters have told me that the speed with which they
skim over the ice is enough to turn one giddy ; but
this rapidity is not the only remarkable thing about
it : another point very much to be admired is the se
curity with which they traverse great distances.
Peasants will go from one town to another at night.
Young men go from Rotterdam to Gouda, where
they buy very long clay pipes, and return to Rotter
dam carrying them unbroken in their hands. Some
times as one is walking along a canal one sees a figure
fiit by like an arrow, to disappear immediately in the
distance. It is a peasant-girl carrying milk to a
house in the city.
There are sledges of every size and shape, some
pushed by skaters, others drawn by horses, others
propelled by means of two iron-tipped sticks which
are worked by the person seated in the sledgo. One
sees carts and carriages taken off of their wheels

THE HAGUE. 243
and mounted on two boards, on which they glide
with the same rapidity as the other sleds. On holi
day occasions the boats from Scheveningen have been
seen to glide over the snow through the streets of
the Hague. Sometimes ships in full sail are seen
skimming over the ice of the large rivers, going so
fast that the faces of the few who dare to make this
experiment are terribly cut by the wind.
The most beautiful f§tes in Holland are given on
the ice. When the Meuse is frozen, Rotterdam be
comes a place of reunions and amusements. The
snow is brushed away until the ice is made as clean
as a crystal fioor ; restaurants, coffee-houses, pavilions,
and benches for spectators are set up, and at night
all is illuminated. During the day a swarm of skaters
of every age, sex, and class crowds the river. In
other towns, especially in Friesland, which is the
classical land of the art, there are clubs of men- and
women-skaters who institute public races for prizes.
Stakes and flags are set up all along the canals, rail
ings and stands are raised; immense crowds come
from the villages and the country-side. Bands play ;
the ^lite of the town are present. The skaters
present themselves dressed in a peculiar costume,
the women wearing pantaloons. There are races for
men and races for women; then both men and women
race together. The names of the winners are en
rolled in the annals of the art and remain famous
for many years.
Vol, I.— 16

244 THE HAGUE.
In Holland there are two different schools of skat
ing, the so-called Dutch school and the Frieslander
school, each of which uses a peculiar kind of skate.
The Frieslander school, which is the older, aims only
at speed ; the Dutch school cultivates grace as well.
The Frieslanders are stiff in their motions ; they
throw their bodies forward, and hold themselves very
straight, looking as though they were starched, and
keeping their eyes fixed on the goal. The Dutch skate
with a zigzag movement, swaying from left to right
and from right to left with an undulating motion of
the body. The Frieslander is an arrow, the Dutch
man a rocket.
The women prefer the Dutch school. The ladies
of Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and the Hague are, in
fact, the most fascinating skaters in the Netherlands.
They begin to skate as children, continue as girls
and wives, reaching the height of beauty and the
summit of art at the same time, while their skates
strike out sparks from the ice which kindle many
fires. It is only on the ice that Dutch women appear
light-heeled. Some attain a marvellous perfection.
Those who have seen them say that it is impossible
to imagine the grace of movement, the bows, the
glides, the thousand pretty delicate arts that are
displayed. They fiy and return like swallows and
butterfiies, and in this exercise they grow animated
and their placid beauty is transformed. But all are
not so skilled : many dare not show themselves in

THE HAGUE, 245
public, for those who would be considered prodigies
with us are scarcely noticed there, to such perfection
has the art been carried. The men, too, perform all
kinds of tricks and feats, some writing words of love
and fantastic figures in their twirls, others making
rapid pirouettes, then gliding backward on one leg
for a long distance ; others twist about, making num
bers of dizzy turns in a small space, sometimes bend
ing down, then leaning to one side, then skating
upright or crouching like india-rubber figures moved
by a secret spring.
The first day that the canals and small docks are
covered with ice strong enough to bear the skaters is
a day of rejoicing in the Dutch towns. Skaters who
have made the experiment at break of day spread
the news abroad ; the papers announce it ; groups of
boys about the streets burst into shouts of delight ;
men and women-servants ask permission to go out
with the determined air of people who have decided
to rebel if refused ; old ladies forget their age and
ailments and hurry off to the canal to emulate their
friends and daughters. At the Hague the basin,
which is in the middle of the city, near to the Bin
nenhof, is invaded by a mingling crowd of people,
who interlace, knock against each other, and form a
confused giddy mass. The fiow*r of the aristocracy
skates on a pond in the middle of the wood, and
there in the snow may be seen a winding and whirl
ing maze of officers, ladies, deputies, students, old

246 THE HAGUE.
men, and boys, among whom the crown prince is
sometimes to be seen. Thousands of spectators crowd
around the scene, music enlivens the festival, and the
enormous disk of the Dutch sun at sunset sends its
dazzling salutation through the gigantic beech trees.
When the snow is packed hard the turn of the sleigh
comes. Every family has a sleigh, and at the hour
the world goes out walking they appear by hundreds.
They fiy past in long rows two or three abreast.
Some are shaped like shells, others like swans,
dragons, boats, or chariots. All are gilded and
painted in various colors; the horses which draw
them are covered with handsome furs and magnificent
trappings, their heads ornamented with plumes and
tassels, and their harness studded with glittering
buttons. In the sleighs sit ladies clothed in sable,
beaver, and blue fox. The horses toss their heads,
enveloped in a cloud of steam which rises from them,
while their manes are covered with ice-drops. The
sleighs dart along, the snow flying about them like
silver foam. The splendid uncurbed procession
passes and disappears like a silent whirlwind over
a field of lilies and jessamine. At night, when the
torches are lit, thousands of small fiames follow
each other and fiit about the silent town, casting lurid
flashes of light on the ice and snow, the whole scene
appearing to the imagination like a great diabolical
battle over which the spectre of Philip II, presides
from the top of the Binnenhof Tower.

/IDain Drive in tbe Boscb, Xtbe Ibague.

THE HAGUE. 247
But, alas ! everything changes, even the winter,
and with it the art of skating and the use of sleighs.
For many years the severe winters of Holland have
been followed by siich mild ones that not only the
large rivers, but even the small canals in the towns,
do not freeze. In consequence the skaters who have
been so long out of practice do not risk giving public
exhibitions when the occasion presents itself; and so,
little by little, their number becomes smaller, and
the women especially are forgetting the art. Last
winter they hardly skated at all, and this winter
(1873) there has not been a race, and not even a
sleigh has been seen. Let us hope that this deplor
able state of affairs will not last, and that winter
will return to caress Holland with its icy bear's
paw, and that the fine art of skating will once more
arise with its mantle of snow and its crown of icicles.
Let me announce meanwhile the publication of a
work called " Skating," upon which a Dutch legisla
tor has been employed for many years — a work that
will be the history, the epic, and code of this art,
from which all European skaters, male and female,
will be able to draw instruction and inspiration.
While I remained at the Hague I frequented the
principal club in the town, composed of more than
two thousand members. It is located in a palace
near the Binnenhof, and there it was that I made my
observations upon the Dutch character.
The library, the dining-room, and the card-room.

248 THE HAGUE.
the large drawing-room for conversation, and the
reading-room were as full as they could be from four
o'clock in the afternoon until midnight. Here one
met artists, professors, merchants, deputies, clerks,
and officers. The greater number come to drink a
small glass of gin before dinner, and return later to
take another comforting sip of their favorite liquor.
Nearly all converse, and yet one hears only a light
murmur, so that if one's eyes were shut one would say
that about half of the actual number was present.
One can go round the rooms many times without
seeing a gesture of excitement or hearing a loud
voice : at a distance of ten steps from the groups one
would not know that any one was speaking, except by
the movement of his lips. One sees many corpulent
gentlemen with broad, clean-shaven faces and bearded
throats, who talk without raising their eyes from the
table or lifting their hands from their glasses. It is
very rare to see among these heavy faces a lively,
piquant physiognomy like that of Erasmus, which
many consider the true Dutch type, though I am not
of their opinion.
The friend who opened the door of the club to me
presented me to several of its habitues. The differ
ence between the Dutch and the Italian character is
especially evident in introductions. On one occasion
I noticed that the person to whom I was introduced
scarcely bowed his head, and then remained silent
some moments, I thought my reverend face had not

THE HAGUE, 249
pleased him, and felt an echo of cordial dislike in
my heart. In a little while the person who had in
troduced me went away, leaving me tete-a-t§te with
my enemy. "Now," thought I, " I will burst before
I will speak a word to him." But my neighbor,
after some minutes of silence, said to me with the
greatest gravity, " I hope, if you have no other
engagement to-day, you will do me the honor of din
ing with me." I fell from the clouds. We then
dined together, and my Amphytrion placidly filled
the table with bottles of Bordeaux and champagne,
and did not let me depart until I had promised to
dine with him again. Others, when I would ask
information about various things, would hardly an
swer me, as if they were trying to show me that I was
troublesome, so that I would say to myself, " How
contemptible they are !" But the next day they
would send me all the details neatly and clearly writ
ten out, and minute in a higher degree than I desired.
One evening I asked a gentleman to point out to me
something in that ocean of figures that goes by the
name of Guide to European Raihvays. For some
moments he did not answer, and I felt mortified.
Then he took the book, put on his spectacles, turned
over the leaves, read, took notes, added and sub
tracted for half an hour, and when he had finished
he gave me the written answer, putting his spec
tacles back into their case without speaking a
word.

250 THE HAGUE.
Many of those with whom I passed the evening
used to go home at ten o'clock to work, and to return
to the club at half-past eleven, after which they would
remain until one o'clock. When they had said, "I
must go," there was no possibility of changing their
minds. As the clock struck ten they left the door ;
at half-past eleven they stepped over the threshold.
It is not surprising that with this chronometrical pre
cision they find time to do so many things, without
doing anything in haste ; even those who do not
depend on their studies for their livelihood have
read entire libraries. There is no English, German,
or French book, however unimportant, with which
they are unacquainted. French literature especially
they have at their fingers' ends. And what is said
of literature can be said with more reason of politics.
Holland is one of the European countries in which
the greatest number of foreign papers are to be
found, particularly those that deal principally with
national affairs. The country is small and peaceful,
and the news of the day is soon exhausted ; conse
quently it frequently happens that after ten minutes
the conversation has passed beyond the Rhine and
deals with Europe. I remember the astonishment
with which I heard the fall of the ministry of Scialoia
and other Italian matters discussed as if they were
domestic affairs.
One of my first cares was to sound the religious
sentiment of the people, and here I found, to my

THE HAGUE, 251
surprise, great confusion. As a learned Dutchman
most justly wrote a short time ago, "Ideas subversive
of every religious dogma have made much way in
this land." It is quite a mistake, however, to be
lieve that where faith decreases indifference enters.
Such men as appeared to Pascal monstrous creatures
— men who live without giving any thought to re
ligion, of whom there are numbers in our country —
do not exist in Holland. The religious question,
which in Italy is merely a question, in Holland is a
battle in which all brandish their arms. In every
class of society, men and women, young and old,
occupy themselves with theology and read or listen
to the disputes of the doctors, besides devouring a
prodigious number of polemical writings on religion.
This tendency of the country is shown even in Par
liament, where the deputies often confute their op
ponents with biblical quotations read in Hebrew, or
translated and commentated, the discussion degener-,
ating into very disquisitions on theology. All these
confiicts, however, take place in the mind rather
than in the heart; they are devoid of passion, and
one proof of this is that Holland, which of all the
countries in Europe is divided into most sects, is also
the country in which these sects live in the greatest
harmony and where there is the greatest degree of
tolerance. If this were not the case, the Catholic
party would not have made such strides as it has
made, protected from the first by the Liberals against

252 THE HAGUE.
the only intolerant party in the country, the orthodox
Calvinists. I did not make the acquaintance of any Calvinists,
and I was sorry on that account. I never believed
all that is recounted of their extreme rigour; for
example, that there are among them certain ladies
who hide the legs of the tables with covers, for fear
that they might suggest to the minds of visitors the
legs of the mistress of the house. But there is no
doubt that they live with extreme austerity. Many
of them never enter a theatre, a ball-room, or a con
cert-hall. There are families who on the Sabbath
content themselves with eating a little cold meat, so
that the cook may rest on that day. Every morning
in many houses the master reads from the Bible in
the presence of the family and servants, and they all
pray together. But, nevertheless, this sect of ortho
dox Calvinists, whose followers are almost all amongst
the aristocracy and the peasantry, does not exert a
great influence in the country. This is proved by
the fact that in Parliament the Calvinists are inferior
in numbers to the Catholic party and can do nothing
without them.
I have mentioned the theatre. At the Hague, as
in the other large Dutch cities, there are no large
theatres nor great performances. They generally
produce German operas sung by foreign singers, and
French comedies and operettas. Concerts are the great
attraction. In this Holland is faithful to its tradi-

THE HAGUE. 253
tions, for, as is well known, Dutch musicians were
sought after in all the Christian courts as early as the
sixteenth century. It has also been said that the Dutch
have great ability in singing in chorus. In fact, the
pleasure of singing together must be great if it is in
proportion to the aversion they have to singing alone,
for I do not ever remember hearing any one sing a
tune at any hour or in any part of a Dutch town,
excepting street urchins, who were singing in derision
at drunken men, and drunkards are seldom seen ex
cepting on public holidays.
I have spoken of the French operettas and come
dies. At the Hague not only the plays are French,
but public life as well. Rotterdam has an English
imprint, Amsterdam is German, and the Hague Paris
ian. So it may truthfully be said that the citizens
of the large Dutch towns unite and temper the good
qualities and the defects of the three great neighbor
ing nations. At the Hague in many families of the
best society they speak French altogether ; in others
they affect French expressions, as is done in some of
the northern towns of Italy. Addresses on letters
are generally written in French, and there is a small
branch of society, as is frequently the case in small
countries, that professes a certain contempt for the
national language, literature, and art, and courts an
adopted country beyond the Meuse and the Rhine,
The sympathies, however, are divided. The elegant
class inclines toward France, the learned class toward

264 THE HAGUE.
Germany, and the mercantile class toward England.
The zeal for France grew cold after the Commune.
Against Germany a secret animosity has arisen, gen
erated by the fear that in her acquisitive tastes she
might turn toward Holland, This feeling still fer
ments, though it is tempered by community of in
terest against clerical Catholicism.
When it is said that the Hague is partly a French
city, it must be understood that this relates to its
appearance only ; at bottom the Dutch characteristics
predominate. Although it is a rich, elegant, and
gay city, it is not a city of riot and dissipation, full
of duels and scandals. The life is more varied and
lively than that found in other Dutch towns, but not
less peaceful. The duels that take place in the
Hague in ten years may be counted on the five fin
gers of one's hand, and the aggressor in" the few that
take place is usually an officer. Notwithstanding,
to show how powerful in Holland is this " ferocious
prejudice that honor dwells on the point of the
sword," I recall a discussion between several Dutch
men which was raised by a question of mine. When
I asked whether public opinion in Holland was hos
tile to duels, they answered all together, " Exceed
ingly hostile." But when I wanted to know whether
a young man in good society who did not accept a
challenge would be universally praised, and would
still be treated and respected as before — whether, in
short, he would be supported by public opinion so

THE HAGUE. 255
that he would not repent his conduct — then they all
began discussing. Some weakly answered, " Yes ;"
others resolutely, "No." But the general opinion
was on the negative side. Hence I concluded that
although there are few duels in Holland, this does
not arise, as I thought, from a universal and absolute
contempt for the " ferocious prejudice," but rather
from the rarity of the cases in which two citizens
allow themselves to be carried by passion to the point
of having recourse to arms ; which is a result of
nature rather than of education. In public contro
versies and private discussions, however violent, per
sonal insults are very rare, and in parliamentary
battles, which are sometimes very vigorous, the
deputies are often exceedingly impertinent, but they
always speak calmly and without clamor. But this
impertinence consists in the fact rather than in the
word, and wounds in silence.
In the conversations at the club I was astonished
at first to note that no one spoke for the pleasure of
speaking. When any one opened his mouth it was
to ask a question or to tell a piece of news or to
make an observation. That art of making a period
of every idea, a story of every fact, a question of
every trifie, in which Italians, French, and Spaniards
are masters, is here totally unknown, Dutch con
versation is not an exchange of sounds, but a com
merce of facts, and nobody makes the least effort to
appear learned, eloquent, or witty. In all the time

256 THE HAGUE.
I was at the Hague I remember hearing only one
witticism, and that from a deputy, who speaking to
me of the alliance of the ancient Batavians with the
Romans, said, " We have always been the friends of
constituted authority," Yet the Dutch language
lends itself to puns : in proof of this there is the
incident of a pretty foreign lady who asked a young
boatman of the trekschuit for a cushion, and not pro
nouncing the word well, instead of cushion said kiss,
which in Dutch sounds almost the same ; and she
scarcely had time to explain the mistake, for the
boatman had already wiped his mouth with the
back of his hand. I had read that the Dutch are
avaricious and selfish, and that they have a habit of
boring people with long accounts of their ailments,
but as I studied the Dutch character I came to see
that these charges are untrue. On the contrary,
they laugh at the Germans for their complaining
disposition. To sustain the charge of avarice some
body has brought forward the very incredible state
ment that during a naval battle with the English the
officers of the Dutch fleet boarded the vessels of the
enemy, who had used all their ammunition, sold them
balls and powder at exorbitant prices, after which
they continued the battle. But to contradict this
accusation there is the fact of their comfortable life,
of their rich houses, of the large sums of money
spent in books and pictures, and still more of the wide
spread works of charity, in which the Dutch people

THE HAGUE. 257
certainly stand first in Europe, These philanthropic
works are not official nor do they receive any impulse
from the government ; they are spontaneous and volun
tary, and are carried on by large and powerful socie
ties that have founded innumerable institutes — schools,
prizes, libraries, popular reunions — helping and an
ticipating the government in the duty of public in
struction, — whose branches extend from the large
cities to the humblest villages, embracing every re
ligious sect, every age, every profession, and every
need ; in short, a beneficence which does not leave
in Holland a poor person without a roof or a workman
without work. All writers who have studied Holland
agree in saying that there probably is not another
state in Europe where, in proportion to the popu
lation, a larger amount is given in charity by the
wealthy classes to those who are in want.
It must not, however, be imagined that the Dutch
people have no defects. They certainly have them,
if one may consider as defects the lack of those
qualities which ought to be the splendor and nobility
of their virtues. In their firmness we might find
some obstinacy, in their honesty a certain sordidness ;
we might hold that their coldness shows the absence
of that spontaneity of feeling without which it seems
impossible that there can be affection, generosity, and
true greatness of soul. But the better one knows
them, the more one hesitaites to pronounce these
judgments, and the more one feels for them a grow-

258 THE HAGUE.
ing respect and sympathy on leaving Holland. \ ol-
taire was able to speak the famous words : " Adieu,
canaux, canards, canaille;" but when he had to
judge Holland seriously, he remembered that he had
not found in its capital " an idle person, a poor, dissi
pated, or insolent man," and that he had everywhere
seen " industry and modesty." Louis Napoleon pro
claimed that in no other European country is there
found so much innate good sense, justice, and reason
as there is in Holland ; Descartes gave the Holland
ers the greatest praise a philosopher can give to a
people when he said that in no country does one
enjoy greater liberty than in Holland ; Charles V.
pronounced upon them the highest eulogy possible to
a sovereign when he said that they were " excellent
subjects, but the worst of slaves." An Englishman
wrote that the Dutch inspire an esteem that never
becomes affection. Perhaps he did not esteem them
highly enough.
I do not conceal the fact that one of my reasons
for liking them was the discovery that Italy is much
better known in Holland than I should have dared
to hope. Not only did our revolution find a favorable
echo there, as was natural in a independent nation
free and hostile to the pope, but the Italian leaders
and the events of recent times are as familiarly
known as those of France and Germany. The best
newspapers have Italian correspondents and furnish
the public with the minutest details of our .affairs.

THE HAGUE, 259
In many places portraits of our most illustrious citi
zens are seen. Acquaintance with our literature is
no less extended than knowledge of our politics.
Putting aside the fact that the Italian language was
sung in the halls of the ancient counts of Holland,
that in the golden age of Dutch literature it was
greatly honored by men of letters, and that several
of the most illustrious poets of that period wrote
Italian verses or imitated our pastoral poetry, — the
Italian language is considerably studied nowadays,
and one frequently meets those who speak it, and it
is common to see our books on ladies' tables. The
" Divina Commedia," which came into vogue espe
cially after 1880, has been twice translated into
rhymed triplets. One version is the work of a cer
tain Hacke van Mijnden, who devoted all his life to
the study of Dante. " Gerusalemme Liberata " has
been translated in verse by a Protestant clergyman
called Ten Kate, and there was another version,
unpublished and now lost, by Maria Tesseescha'de, the
great poetess of the seventeenth century, the intimate
friend of the great Dutch poet Vondel, who advised
and helped her in the translation. Of the " Pastor
Fido " there are at least five translations by different
hands. Of " Aminta" there are several translations,
and, to make a leap, at least four of "Mie Prigioni,"
besides a very fine translation of the "Promessi
Sposi," a novel that few Dutch people have not read
either in their own language, in French, or in Italian.
Vol, I,— ir

260 THE HAGUE.
To cite another interesting fact, there is a poem en
titled "Florence," written for the last centenary of
Dante by one of the best Dutch poets of our day.
It is now in place to say something about Dutch
literature, Holland presents a singular disproportion between
the expansive force of its political, scientific, and
commercial life and that of its literary life. While
the work of the Dutch in every other field extends
beyond the frontier of the land, its literature is con
fined within its own borders. It is especially strange
that, although Holland possesses a most abundant
literature, it has not, as other little states, produced
one book that has become European, unless we class
among literary works the writings of Spinoza, the
only great philosopher of his country, or consider as
Dutch literature the forgotten Latin treatises of
Erasmus of Rotterdam. Yet if there be a country
which by its nature and history suggests subjects to
inspire the mind to the production of such poetical
works as appeal to the imagination of all nations, that
country is Holland. The marvellous transformations
of the land, the terrible inundations, the fabulous
maritime expeditions, — these ought to have given
birth to a poem powerful and original even when
stripped of its native form. Why did not this occur ?
The nature of the Dutch genius may be adduced as
a reason, which, aiming at utility in everything,
wished to turn literature also to a practical end.

THE HAGUE. 261
Another tendency, the opposite of this, though
perhaps derived from it, is that of soaring high
above human nature to avoid treading on the ground
with the mass ; a weariness of genius which gave to
judgment the ascendency over the imagination ; an
innate love of all that was precise and finished,
which resulted in a prolixity in which grand ideas
were diluted ; the spirit of the religious sects, which
enchained within a narrow circle talents created to
survey a vast horizon. But neither these nor other
reasons can keep one from wondering that there
should not be one writer of Dutch literature who
worthily represents to the world the greatness of his
country — a name to be placed between Rembrandt
and Spinoza,
However, it would be a mistake to overlook at
least the three principal figures of Dutch literature,
two of whom belong to the seventeenth and one to
the nineteenth century — three original poets who
differ widely from each other, but represent in them
selves Dutch poetry in its entirety : Vondel, Catz,
and Bilderdijk.
Vondel, the greatest poet Holland has produced,
was born in 1587 at Cologne, where his father, a hat-
maker, had taken refuge, having fled from Antwerp
to escape from the Spanish persecutions. While still
a child the future poet returned to his country on a
barrow, together with his father and mother, who
followed him on foot, praying and reciting verses

262 THE HAGUE.
from the Bible. His studies began at Amsterdam.
At fifteen years of age he was already renowned as
a poet, but his celebrated works date from 1620. At
the age of thirty he knew only his own language,
but later he learned French and Latin, and applied
himself with ardor to the study of the classics ; at
fifty he gave himself up to Greek. His first tragedy
(for he was chiefly a dramatist), entitled " The De
struction of Jerusalem," was not very successful.
The second, "Palamades," in which was delineated
the piteous and terrible tale of Olden Barneveldt, a
victim of Maurice of Orange, caused a criminal
action to be brought against the author. He fled,
and remained in concealment until the unexpectedly
mild sentence was given which condemned him to a
fine of three hundred florins. In 1627 he travelled
in Denmark and Sweden, where he was received
with great honors by Gustavus Adolphus. Eleven
years later he opened the theatre at Amsterdam with
a drama on a national theme, " Gilbert of Amstel,"
which is still performed once a year in his memory.
The last years of his life were very unhappy. His
dissipated son reduced him to poverty, and the
poor old man, tired of study and broken down
with sorrow, was obliged to beg for a miserable em
ployment at the city pawnbroker's. A few years
before his death he embraced the Catholic faith, and,
seized with fresh inspiration, composed the tragedy
of " The Virgin" and one of his best poems entitled

Zbc Dsver, Ube Ibague.

THE HAGUE. 263
" The Mysteries of the Altar." He died at a great
age, and was buried in a church at Amsterdam,
where a century afterward a monument was erected in
his honor. Besides tragedies he wrote martial songs
to his country, to illustrious Dutch sailors, and to
Prince Frederick Henry. But his chief glory was
the drama. An admirer of Greek tragedy, he
preserved the unities, the chorus, the supernatural,
substituting Providence for Destiny, and demons and
angels (the good and evil spirits of Christianity) for
the angry and propitious gods. He drew nearly all
his subjects from the Bible. His finest work is the
tragedy of "Lucifer," which, notwithstanding the
almost insuperable difficulties of stage setting, was
represented twice at the theatre in Amsterdam, after
which it was interdicted by the Protestant clergy.
The subject of the drama is the rebellion of Lucifer, and
the characters are the good and bad angels. In this
as in his other plays there abound fantastic descrip
tions full of splendid imagery, passages of powerful
eloquence, fine choruses, vigorous thought, solemn
phrases, rich and sonorous verse, while here and
there are gleams and fiashes of genius. On the
other hand, his work is pervaded by a mysticism
which is sometimes obscure and austere, by a discord
between Christian ideas and pagan forms. The lyri
cal element predominates over the dramatic, good
taste is often offended, and, above all, the thought
and feeling, though aiming at the sublime, rise too

264 THE HAGUE.
high above this earth, and elude the comprehension
of the human heart and mind. Nevertheless, his
torical precedence, originality, ardent patriotism, and
a noble and patient life have made Vondel a great
and venerated name in his country, where he is re
garded as the personification of national genius, and
is placed in the enthusiasm of affection next to the
first poets of other lands.
Vondel is the greatest, Jacob Catz is the truest,
personification of Dutch genius. He is not only the
most popular poet of his nation, but his popularity
is such that it may be affirmed that there is no other
writer of any land, not excluding even Cervantes in
Spain and Manzoni in Italy, who is more generally
known and more constantly read, while at the same
time there is perhaps no other poet in the world
whose popularity is more necessarily limited to the
boundaries of his own country. Jacob Catz was
born in 1577 of a noble family in Brouwershaven, a
town of Zealand. He studied law, became pension
ary of Middelburg, went as ambassador to England.
was Grand Pensionary of Holland, and, while he
performed the duties of these offices with zeal and
rectitude, he devotedly cultivated poetry. In the
evening, after he had transacted affairs of state with
the deputies of the provinces, he would retire to his
home to write verses. At seventy-five years of age
he asked to be released from further service, and
when the stadtholder told him with appreciative

THE HAGUE. 265
words that his request had been granted, he fell on
his knees in the presence of the Assembly of the
States and thanked God, who had always protected
him during the course of his long and exacting
political life. A few days later he retired to one
of his villas, where he enjoyed a peaceful and hon
orable old age, studying and writing up to the year
1660, when he died, in the eighty-first year of his
life, mourned by all Holland. His poems fill several
large volumes, and consist of fables, madrigals,
stories from history and mythology, abounding in
descriptions, quotations, sentences, and precepts.
His work is pervaded with goodness, honesty, and
sweetness, and he writes with frank simplicity and
delicate humor. His volume is the book of national
wisdom, the second Bible of the Dutch nation — a
manual which teaches how to live honestly and in
peace. He has a word for all — for boys as well as
old men, for merchants as well as princes, for mis
tresses as well as for maids, for the rich as well as for
the poor. He teaches how to spend, to save, to do
housework, to govern a family, and to educate chil
dren. He is at the same time a friend, a father, a
spiritual director, a master, an economist, a doctor,
and a lawyer. He loves modest nature, the gardens,
the meadows ; he adores his wife, does his work, and
is satisfied with himself and with other people, and
would like every one to be as contented as he is.
His poems are to be found beside the Bible in

266 THE HAGUE.
every Dutch house. There is not a peasant's cottage
where the head of the family does not read some of
his verses every evening. In days of sadness and
doubt all look for comfort and find it in their old
poet. He is the intimate fireside friend, the faithful
companion of the invalid; his is the first book over
which the faces of affianced lovers bend ; his verses
are the first that children lisp and the last that grand-
sires repeat. No poet is so loved as he. Every
Dutchman smiles when he hears his name spoken,
and no foreigner who has been in Holland can help
naming it with a feeling of sympathy and respect.
The last of the three, Bilderdijk, was born in 1756
and died in 1831 : his was one of the most marvellous
intellects that have ever appeared in this world. He
was a poet, historian, philologist, astronomer, chem
ist, doctor, theologian, antiquary, jurisconsult, design
er, engraver — a restless, unsettled, capricious man,
whose life was nothing but an investigation, a trans
formation, a perpetual battle with his vast genius.
As a young man, when he was already famous as a
poet, he abandoned the Muse and entered politics;
he emigrated with the stadtholder to England, and
gave lessons in London to earn a livelihood. ' He
tired of England and went to Germany ; bored by
German romanticism, he returned to Holland, where
Louis Bonaparte overwhelmed him with favors. When
Louis left the throne. Napoleon the Great deprived
the favorite of his pension, and he was reduced to

THE HAGUE. 267
poverty. Finally he obtained a small pension from
the government, and continued studying, writing, and
struggling to the last day of his life. His works
embrace more than thirty volumes of science, art,
and literature. He tried every style, and succeeded
in all excepting the dramatic. He enlarged historical
criticism by writing one of the finest national his
tories his country possesses. He wrote a poem, " The
Primitive World," an abstruse, gloomy composition
which is very much admired in Holland, He dealt
with every possible question, confounding luminous
truths with the strangest paradoxes. He even raised
the national literature, which had fallen into deca
dence, and left a phalanx of chosen disciples who fol
lowed in his steps in politics, art, and philosophy.
Holland regards him not only with enthusiasm, but
with fanaticism, and there is no doubt that after
Vondel he is the greatest poet of his country.
But he was possessed by a religious frenzy, a blind
hatred of new ideas, which caused him to make
poetry an instrument of sects : he introduces the
ology into everything, and consequently he could
not attain to that free serene region beyond which
genius cannot obtain enduring victories and uni
versal fame.
Round these three poets, who represent the three
vices of Dutch literature — of losing themselves in
the clouds, of creeping on the ground, of entangling
themselves in the meshes of mysticism — are grouped

268 THE HAGUE.
a number of epic, comic, satiric, and lyric poets,
most of whom fiourished in the seventeenth and a
few in the eighteenth century. Many of them are
renowned in Holland, but none possesses sufficient
originality to attract the attention of the passing
stranger. The present condition deserves a rapid glance.
Criticism by stripping from Dutch history the veil
of poetry with which the patriotism of writers had
clothed it, has placed it on the wider and more
productive plain of justice. Philological studies are
held in high honor in Holland, and almost all the
sciences are represented by men of European fame.
These are facts of which no scholar is ignorant, and a
bare mention of them is sufficient.
In pure literature the most fiourishing style is the
novel. Holland has had its national novelist, its
Walter Scott, in Van Lennep, who died a few years
ago, a writer of historical romances which were re
ceived with enthusiasm by all classes of society. He
was an effective painter of customs, a learned, witty
writer, and a master of the art of dialogue and de
scription, but, unfortunately, often prolix. He used
old artifices, adopted forced solutions, and often was
not sufficiently reticent. In his last book, " The Ad
ventures of Nicoletta Zevenster," while admirably de
scribing Dutch society at the beginning of this cen
tury, he had the unheard-of audacity to describe an
improper house at the Hague, All Holland was in

THE HAGUE, 269
an uproar. His book was discussed, criticised, con
demned, praised to the skies, and the battle still con
tinues. Other historical novels were written by a
certain Schimmel, a worthy rival of Van Lennep,
and by a Madame Rosboon Toussaint, an accom
plished author of deep study and real talent. Nev
ertheless, historical romance may be considered dead
even in Holland. The modern novels of social life and
the story meet with better fortune. Most prominent
in this field is Beets, a Protestant clergyman and a
poet, the author of a celebrated book entitled " The
Dark Chamber." Koetsweldt is another of this class,
and there are also some young men of great gifts
who have been prevented from rising to any height
by haste, the demon that persecutes the literature of
to-day. Holland has still another kind of romance which is
its own. It might be called Indian romance, since it
describes the habits and life of the people of the
colonies. Of late years several novels have been pub
lished in this style, which have been received in the
country with great applause and have been translated
into several languages. Among these is the " Beau
Monde of Batavia," by Professor Ten Brink, a
learned, and brilliant writer, of whom I should like
to be able to speak at length to attest in some degree
my gratitude and admiration. But apropos of Indian
romances, it is pleasant to notice how in Holland at
every step one hears and sees something that reminds

270 THE HAGUE.
one of the colonies, as if a ray of the Indian sun
penetrated the Dutch winter and colored the life.
The ships which bring a breath of wind from those
distant lands to the home ports, the birds, the fiowers,
the countless objects, like sounds mingled with faint
music, call up in the mind images of another nature
and another race. In the cities of Holland, among
the thousands of white faces, one often meets men
whose visages are bronzed by the sun, who have been
born or have lived for many years in the colo
nies — merchants who speak with unusual vivacity of
dark women, bananas, palm forests, and of lakes
shaded by vines and orchids ; young men who are
bold enough to risk their lives amid the savages of
the islands of Borneo and Sumatra; men of science
and men of letters; officers who speak of the tribes
which worship fish, of ambassadors who carry the
heads of the vanquished dangling from their girdles,
of bull and tiger fights, of the frenzy of opium-
eaters, of the multitudes baptized with pomp, of a
thousand strange and wonderful incidents which pro
duce a singular effect when related by the phlegmatic
people of this peaceful country.
Poetry, after it lost Da Costa, a disciple of Bilder
dijk, a religious poet and enthusiast, and Genestet, a
satirical poet who died very young, had few cham
pions in the last generation, and these are now silent
or sing with enfeebled voice. The stage is in a worse
condition. The untrained, ranting Dutch actors

THE HAGUE. 271
usually appear only in French or German dramas,
comedies which are badly translated, and the best
society does not go to see them. Writers of great
talent, like Hofdijk, Schimmel, and Van Lennep,
wrote comedies which were admirable in many ways,
but they never became popular enough to hold the
stage. Tragedy is in no better condition than comedy
and the drama.
From what I have said it would appear that there
is not at present any great literary movement in Hol
land ; but on the contrary, there is great literary ac
tivity. The number of books published is incredible,
and it is marvellous with what avidity they are read.
Every town, every religious sect, every society, has
its review or newspaper. Besides this, there is a mul
titude of foreign books : English novels are in the
hands of all ; French works of eight, ten, and twenty
volumes are translated into the national language.
This is the more remarkable in a country where all cul
tivated people can read the originals, and it proves how
customary it is not only to read, but to buy, although
books are a great deal more expensive in Holland
than elsewhere. But this superabundance of publi
cations and this thirst for reading are precisely those
elements which are injuring literature. Writers, in
order to satisfy the impatient curiosity of the public,
write in too great haste, and the mania for foreign
literature smothers and corrupts the national genius.
Nevertheless, Dutch literature has still a just claim

272 THE HAGUE.
to the esteem of the country : it has declined, but
has not become perverted; it has preserved its inno
cence and freshness ; what is lacking in imagination,
originality, and brilliancy is compensated by wisdom,
by the severe respect for good manners and good
taste, by loving solicitude for the poorer classes, by
the effective energy with which it advances charity
and civil education. The literatures of other lands
are great plants adorned with fragrant fiowers ; Dutch
literature is a little tree laden with fruit.
On the morning when I left the Hague, after my
second visit to the city, some of my good friends
accompanied me to the railway-station. It was rain
ing. When we were in the waiting-room, before the
train started, I thanked my kind hosts for the cour
teous reception they had given me, and, knowing that
perhaps I should never see them again, I could not
help expressing my gratitude in sad and affectionate
words, to which they listened in silence. Only one
interrupted me by advising me to guard against the
damp, " I hope at least some of you will come to Italy,"
I continued, " if only to give me the opportunity of
showing my gratitude. Do promise me this, so that
I may feel a little consoled at my departure. I will
not leave if some one does not say he will come to
Italy." They looked into each other's faces, and one an
swered laconically, "Perhaps." Another advised me

THE HAGUE. 273
not to change French gold in the shops. At that
moment the last bell rang.
" Well, then, good-bye," I said in an agitated
voice, pressing their hands. " Farewell : I shall
never forget the glorious days passed at the Hague ;
I shall always recall your names as the dearest re
membrance of my journey. Think of me sometimes."
" Good-bye," they all answered in the same tone,
as if they were expecting to see me the next day.
I leaped into the railway-carriage stricken at heart,
and looked out of the window until the train started,
and saw them all standing there, motionless, silent
with impassive faces, their eyes fixed on mine. I
waved a last farewell, and they responded with a
slight bend of the head, and then disappeared from
my sight for ever. Whenever I think of them I
see them just as they were when I left them, in
the same attitude, with their serious faces and fixed
eyes, and the affection that I feel for them has in it
something of austerity and sadness like their native
sky on the day when I last beheld them.

THE END OF VOLUME I,

1345