Francis Hopkinson Smith

“ But the inns, quaint canals, and rain-washed streets are not Dort's only distinctions. There is an ancient Groote Kerk, overlaid with colors that are rarely found outside of Holland. It is built of brick, with a huge square tower that rises above the great elms pressing close about it, and which is visible for miles. The moist climate not only encrusts its twelfth-century porch with brown-and-green patches of lichen over the red tones, but dims the great stained-glass windows with films of mould, and covers with streaks of Hooker's green the shadow sides of the long sloping roofs. ”

“ His clothes are waterproof; they must be, for no matter how hard it rains, Peter is always dry. The water may pour in rivulets from off his cap, and run down his forehead and from the end of his gargoyle of a nose, but no drop ever seems to wet his skin. When it rains the fiercest, I, of course, retreat under the poke-bonnet awning made of cotton duck stretched over barrel hoops that protects the stern of my boat, but Peter never moves. This Dutch rain does not in any way affect him. It is like the Jersey mosquito—it always spares the natives. ”

“ Before the next raincloud spills over its edges, we must loosen the painter from the iron ring rusted tight in the square stone in the wharf, man the oars, and creep under the little bridge that binds Boudier's landing to the sidewalk over the way, and so set our course for the open Maas. For I am in search of Dutch boats to-day, as near like Clays's as I can find. I round the point above the old India warehouses, I catch sight of the topmasts of two old luggers anchored in midstream, their long red pennants flattened against the gray sky. ”

“ Yacob of the Arms was to attack weary travelers on alighting from the train, and acquaint them with the delights of the downstairs bath, and the dark-room for the kodakers, all free of charge. And Johan of the Bellevue was to give minute descriptions of the boats landing in front of the dining-room windows and of the superb view of the river.
It is always summer when I arrive in Dordrecht. I don't know what happens in winter, and I don't care. The groundhog knows enough to go into his hole when the snow begins to fly, and to stay there until the sun thaws him out again. ”

“ His dress was ragged and dingy, patched trousers, and shabby shoes, and a worn flannel shirt open at the throat, the skin darker than the flannel. On a chair beside him lay a crumpled slouch hat, grimed with dirt, the crown frayed and torn.
As I pressed my way farther into the throng toward the bench, the voice of the Judge rose, filling every part of the room, the words falling slowly, as earth drops upon a coffin:—
—"until you be dead, and may God have mercy on your soul!" ”

“ The world is an easy place for a painter to live and breathe in when he is sitting far from the madding crowd—of boys—protected from the wind and sun, watching a sky piled up in mountains of snow, and inhaling ozone that is a tonic to his lungs. When the outline of his sketch is complete and the colors flow and blend, and the heart is on fire ”

“ II
here are contrasts in life, sudden transitions from light to dark, startling as those one experiences in dropping from out the light of a spring morning redolent with perfume into the gloom of a coal mine choked with noxious vapors—out of a morning, if you will, all joy and gladness and the music of many birds; a morning when the wide, white sky is filled with cloud ships drifting lazily; when the trees wave in the freshening wind, and the lark hanging in mid-air pours out its soul for very joy of living! ”

“ I wanted to know something more of a man who was willing to fight the universe with one arm in defense of his country's good name, though I was still in the dark as to what had been the provocation. All I could gather from the young baron, in his broken English, was that the Englishman had maligned the motives of our government in helping the Cubans, and that the old man had flamed out, astounding the room with the power of his invective and thorough mastery of the subject, and compelling their admiration by the genuineness of his outburst. ”

“ These Dutch artists were, perhaps, not alone in this falsification. It is one of the peculiarities of modern art that many of its masters cater to the taste of a public who want something that is not in preference to something that is. Ziem, for instance, had, up to the time of my enlightenment, taught me to love an equally untrue and impossible Venice—a Venice all red and yellow and deep ultra-marine blue—a Venice of unbuildable palaces and blazing red walls. ”

“ If Peter knew of this rule he said not one word to me as I sat back out of the wet, hived under the poke bonnet, squeezing color-tubes and assorting my brushes. He rowed our craft toward the bath-house with the skill of a man-o'-war's-man, twisted the painter around a short post, and unloaded my paraphernalia on a narrow ledge or plank walk some three feet wide, and which ran around the edge of the floating bath-house.
It never takes me long to get to work, once my subject is selected. ”

“ A fat man with a good-natured face, tagged with a gray chin whisker, bareheaded, and without a coat—there was snow on the ground, too—and who said he was the landlord, lifted my yellow bag from one of the long chintz-covered stage cushions, and preceded me through a sanded hall into a low-ceiled room warmed by a red-hot stove, and lighted by windows filled with geraniums in full bloom. ”

“ Tyne is responsible for its cleanliness—or rather, that particular portion of Tyne which she bares above her elbows. Nobody ever saw such a pair of sledge-hammer arms as Tyne's on any girl outside of Holland. She is eighteen; short, square-built, solid as a Dutch cheese, fresh and rosy as an English milkmaid; moon-faced, mild-eyed as an Alderney heifer, and as strong as a three-year-old. Her back and sides are as straight as a plank; the front side is straight too. The main joint in her body is at the hips. ”

“ As Todd finished speaking, the daughter, with all tenderness and with a pleased glance into her father's eyes, arose, and putting her hand in his helped him to his feet, the baron standing at "attention." As the American started to leave the table, and his big shaggy head and broad shoulders reached their full height, the Doctor leaned forward, craning his head eagerly. Then he turned to Todd, and in his crisp, incisive way said: "Todd, the matter with you is that you never see any further than your nose. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. ”

“ It is all very artistic and full of "tone," but it is not Holland.
There is Clays, for instance. Of all modern painters Clays has charmed and wooed us best with certain phases of Holland life, particularly the burly brown boats lying at anchor, their red and white sails reflected in the water. I love these boats of Clays. They are superbly drawn, strong in color, and admirably painted; the water treatment, too, is beyond criticism. But where are they in Holland? I know Holland from the Zuyder Zee to Rotterdam, but I have never yet seen one of Clays's boats in the original wood. ”

“ The rooks—the same rooks, they never die—still swoop in and out of the weather-stained arches high up in the great tower of the Groote Kerk, the old twelfth-century church, the tallest in all Holland; the big-waisted Dutch luggers with rudders painted arsenic green—what would painters do without this green?—doze under the trees, their mooring lines tied to the trunks; the girls and boys, with arms locked, a dozen together, clatter over the cobbles, singing as they walk ”

“ If you had any common sense or anything that brought you in touch with your kind, Todd, and had met that man on his own level, instead of overawing him with your high-daddy airs, he would have told you that both the wife and he were determined that the little girl should have a better start in life than their own, and that this trip was part of her education. Do you know any other working people,"—and the Doctor faced him squarely,—"any Dutch, or French, or English, Esquimaux or Hottentots, who take their wives and children ten thousand miles to educate them? ”

“ The girl would always arrive late, and would sink into her revolving chair with a languid movement, as if the voyage had told upon her. Often her face was pale and her eyes were heavy and red, as if from want of sleep. The young German—a Baron von Hoffbein, the passenger list said—was one of those self-possessed, good-natured, pink-cheeked young Teutons, with blue eyes, blond hair, and a tiny waxed mustache, a mere circumflex accent of a mustache, over his "o" of a mouth. ”

“ The bed is the most remarkable of all its comforts. It is more of a box than a bed, and so high at head and foot, and so solid at its sides, that it only needs a lid to make the comparison complete. There is always at its foot an inflated eider-down quilt puffed up like a French soufflé potato; and there are always at its head two little oval pillows solid as bags of ballast, surmounting a bolster that slopes off to an edge. ”

“ Tell me something about the murder," and I turned to the young lawyer, a smooth-faced young man with long black hair tucked behind his ears and a frank, open countenance.
"You'd better ask the district attorney," he answered, with a slight shrug of his shoulders. "He is the only one about here who seems to know anything about the murder; my client, Crouch, didn't, anyhow. I was counsel for the defense."
He spoke with some feeling, and I thought with some irritation, but whether because of his chagrin at losing the case or because of real sympathy for the negro I could not tell. ”

“ I don't think he has so far lost his senses as to strike a man twice his age and with one arm. Now, sir, you will apologize to me, and to the room, and to your own friends, who must be heartily ashamed of your conduct."
At the bottom of almost every Anglo-Saxon is a bed rock of common sense that you reach through the shifting sands of prejudice with the probe of fair play. The young man in the check suit, who was now on his feet, looked the speaker straight in the eye, and, half drunk as he was, held out his hand. ”

“ Her sturdy little legs are covered by gray yarn stockings which she knits herself, the feet thrust into wooden sabots. These clatter over the cobbles as she scurries about with a crab-like movement, sousing, dousing, and scrubbing as she goes; for Tyne attacks the sidewalk outside with as much gusto as she does the hall and floors.
Johan the porter moves the chairs out of Tyne's way when she begins work, and, lately, I have caught him lifting her bucket up the front steps—a wholly unnecessary proceeding when Tyne's muscular developments are considered. ”

“ I confess that I have never yet outgrown my affection for the colored race: an affection at best, perhaps, born of the dim, undefined memories of my childhood and of an old black mammy—my father's slave—who crooned over me all day long, and sang me lullabies at night. ”

“ Here the cab stopped with so sudden a jerk that I had to catch him by the arms to steady him. Cabby opened the door.
"Morgan House, boss. Goin's awful, or I'd got ye here sooner."
The boy looked up into my face; not with any show of uneasiness, only a calm patience. If he was to walk now, he was ready.
"Cabby, how far is it to the asylum?" I asked.
"'Bout a mile and a half."
"Throw that trunk off and drive on. This boy can't walk."
"I'll take him, boss."
"No; I'll take him myself. Lively, now." ”

“ My father gave him to us. No, it is not the old house servants,—it is these new negroes, born since the war, that make all the trouble."
"You are right, madam. They are not like Mordecai," and the Judge held up the thin glass between his eye and the light. "God bless the day when Mordecai was born! I think this is the Amazon sherry, is it not, my dear madam?"
"Yes, Mordecai's sherry, as we sometimes call it. ”

“ Aunt Chloe's eyes were kindling with every word. I remembered Marny's warning and kept still. I had abandoned the sketch of the chain as an unnecessary incentive, and had begun again with my palette knife, pottering away, nodding appreciatingly, and now and then putting a question to clear up some tangled situation as to dates and localities which her rambling talk had left unsettled.
"Yes, suh, down in the blue grass country, near Lexin'ton, Kentucky, whar my ole master, Marse Henry Gordon, lived," she answered to my inquiry as to where this all happened. ”

“ A leaning mirror that hung over a washstand reflected his head and shoulders, and gave me every expression that flitted across his good-natured countenance.
His summing up was evidently favorable, for his scrutinizing look gave place to a benign smile which widened into curves around his mouth and lost itself in faint ripples under his eyes. Hitching his chair closer, he spread his fat knees, and settled his broad shoulders, lazily stroking his chin whisker all the while with his puffy fingers. ”