The Mentor: Holland, v. 2, Num. 6, Serial No. 58

Aptly indeed has Holland been called “a land of untouched pictures.”

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC

J. L. Motley.

HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS

J. L. Motley.

Two justly famous and comprehensive historical works.

MOTLEY’S DUTCH NATION

W. E. Griffis.

A condensation of Motley’s works brought down to 1908.

DUTCH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY

P. M. Hough.

A well written and authoritative book.

THE AMERICAN IN HOLLAND

W. E. Griffis.

A book that cannot fail to interest.

HOLLAND

George Wharton Edwards.

A book delightfully written, and artistically illustrated by a well known painter.

THE OPEN LETTER

The travel impressions of an artist are always interesting. Mr. George Wharton Edwards in his book, “Holland of Today,” presents with brush and pencil a vivid and attractive picture of life and natural conditions in the Netherlands:

* * *

“The first impression that the traveler in Holland gets is in one respect similar to that given by the far western prairie regions, and the broad, wind-swept flat country with comparatively few trees, and lying open to the gales of the North Sea, has a little of the same bare aspect. But with this is mingled a most decided aspect of novelty. Here the fields are cultivated with the care of suburban market gardens, and are separated by long V-shaped ditches, through which the water runs sluggishly some feet below the surface of the ground. Looking across them, one sees broad, brown, velvety-hued sails moving in various directions among the growing crops; the roadway is on an embankment, running high above the land, frequently crossing canals lying far enough below for the brightly painted barges with lowered masts to pass freely, generally without the need of drawbridges.

* * *

“The passenger boats, once so common in the canals, are fast disappearing; like the diligences, they have been replaced by the system of tram-cars which now cross the country, but here and there this old-fashioned means of communication between the towns and villages still survives, and it is certainly a delightful experience to make a journey on market day in one of these arks. It is generally a long and rather narrow boat, low in the water, and usually painted green and white, with a low-roofed deck cabin divided into two compartments running the entire length, with clean board seats, and tiny lace-curtained windows, the floor scrubbed with sand until it is almost as white as snow. The roof is covered with a mixture of sand and pulverized shells, on a foundation of bitumen to hold it. It is most delightful to sail or be pulled along by ‘boy power’ through the country between the ‘pollarded green banks’ and look upon the changing landscape and the brown-armed mills in legions engaged in battle against the water enemy.

* * *

“The very laws of nature have here been reversed, for disregarding the injunction, every house is builded upon the sand, and the whole coast is held together practically by straws. There being little or no wood in the country whole forests have been brought hither in ships and buried as pile foundations for the cities. Save in the Island of Urk in the Züyder Zee there is not a stone to be found anywhere. Yet artificial mountains (almost) have been brought in vessels from Sweden and Norway and in masterful and ingenious manner erected as barriers against the sea.”

* * *

Concerning the people of Holland, Mr. Edwards has this to say: “The superficial observer will perhaps find that the people move more slowly and deliberately than his standard demands; that there are not enough of the quaint costumes, of which he has read so much, to be seen in the large centers, to satisfy his sense of the picturesque; but for him whose eyes are open to the glory of attainment and the greatness of art, whose mind is attuned to effects of environment upon the development of character, who can appreciate the brave and successful attempts of a people grown out of the very soil to ameliorate sorrow, poverty, and suffering, and who have succeeded in spite of adverse conditions and climate in establishing an almost ideal form of civilization and government, I say no land has so much to offer as little Holland. As the poet says:

“‘What land is this that seems to be
A mingling of the land and sea?
This land of sluices, dykes, and dunes?
This water-net that tesselates
The landscape? This unending maze
Of gardens, through whose latticed gates
The imprisoned pinks and tulips gaze;
Where in long summer afternoons
The sunshine, softened by the haze,
Comes streaming down as through a screen
Where over fields and pastures green
The painted ships float high in air,
And over all and everywhere
The sails of windmills sink and soar,
Like wings of sea-gulls on the shore?’”