George Wharton Edwards

“ Here on the open gallery I gazed north, east, south, and west over the placid, flat, green-embossed meadows threaded with silver, ribbon-like waterways, upon which floated red-sailed barges. Below, as in the bottom of a bowl, lay Malines, its small red-roofed houses stretching away in all directions to the remains of the ancient walls, topped here and there with a red-sailed windmill, in the midst of verdant fresh fields wooded here and there with clumps of willows, where the armies [Pg 36] of the counts of Flanders, and the Van Arteveldes, fought in the olden days. ”

“ La Lys flows over the level fields of our beautiful country, its fecund waters reflecting the blue of our wondrous Flemish landscape. Active and diligent servant, it seems to work ever to our advantage, multiplying in its charming sinuosities its power for contributing to our prosperity, accomplishing our tasks, and granting our needs. It gives to our lives ammunition and power. The noise of busy mills and the movement of bodies of workmen in its banks is sweet music in our ears, in tune to the rippling of its waters. ”

“ In Malines dwelt the Primate of Belgium, the now celebrated Cardinal Mercier, whose courageous attitude in the face of the invaders has aroused the admiration of the whole civilized world. Malines, although near Brussels, had, up to the outbreak of the war and its subsequent ruin, perhaps better preserved its characteristics than more remote towns of Flanders. The market place was surrounded by purely Flemish gabled houses of grayish stucco and stone, and these were most charmingly here and there reflected in the sluggish water of the rather evil-smelling river Dyle. ”

“ But as warden of civic liberty it can, at the approach of domination from without, or autocracy uplifting its head within, awaken the threatened ones, and call them to arms in its own defence. The belfry is thus a symbol of a society expecting happiness from neither a dynasty nor from a military despotism, but solely from common institutions, from commerce and industry, from a citizen's life, budding in the shadow of the peaceful church, and borrowing its peaceful architecture from it. To the town halls of Flanders belonged the place of honor among the monuments of Belgian architecture. ”

“ Rombauld were played by a celebrated bell-ringer, while the square below the tower was black with people listening breathlessly to the songs of their forefathers, often joining in the chorus, the sounds of the voices carrying a long distance. On the opposite side of the square, in the center of which was a fine statue of Margaret of Austria, adjoining the recently restored "Halles," a fine building in the purest Renaissance was being constructed, certainly a credit to the town, and an honor to its architect, attesting as it did the artistic sense and prosperity of the people. ”

“ Without going into any details its attraction was in what might be called its venerable coquettishness,—bizarre, one might have styled it, but that the word conveys some hint of lack of dignity. One is at a loss just how to characterize its attractiveness. Against the sky its towers and minarets held one's fancy by their very lightness and airiness, the lanterns and fleches presupposing a like grace and proportion in the edifice below. The great square belfry at one side seemed to shoulder aside the structure with its beautiful Renaissance façade and portal and quite dominate it. ”

“ Following the long undulations of the dunes from Dunkerque, overgrown here and there with a rank coarse grass sown by the authorities to protect them from the wind and the encroachments of the ever menacing sea, dune succeeds dune, forming a landscape of most unique character. Passing the small hamlet of Zuitcote, marked by the sunken tower of its small church, which now serves as a sort of semaphore for the fishing boats off the coast, one reached the canal which crosses the plain picturesquely. ”

“ But for a moment or two before the pipe which is to convey the metal to the mold is opened, the smith stands and stirs the molten mass to see if all is melted. Then he casts in certain proportions of zinc and other metals which belong to the secrets of the trade; he knows how much depends upon these little refinements, which he has acquired by experience, and which perhaps he could not impart even if he would, so true is it that in every art that which constitutes success is a matter of instinct, and not of rule, or even science. ”

“ Martin, and the Old Belfry in the market place, the town is said to be "intact."
Whenever possible we traveled through the Flemish littoral on the small steam trams, "chemins-de-fer-vicinaux," as they are called in French, in the Flemish tongue "Stoomtram," passing through fertile green meadows dotted with fat, sleek, black and white cows, and embossed with shining silvery waterways connecting the towns and villages. We noticed Englishy cottages of white stucco and red tiled roofs, amid well kept fields and market gardens in which both men and women seemed to toil from dawn to dewy evening. ”

“ Peter that Mathias Van den Gheyn delighted to execute those wonderful "morceaux fugues" now at once the delight and the despair of the musical world, upon the fine chime of bells in the tower. This venerable tower was entirely destroyed in the terrible bombardment of the town in 1914. It is probable that no town in Belgium was more frequented by learned men of all professions, since its university enjoyed such a high reputation the world over, and certainly its library, likewise entirely destroyed, with its precious tomes and manuscripts, was considered second to none. ”

“ The Hall usually is a defenceless feudal castle without moats, without porticullis, without loopholes. It occupies the center of a market-place. It is a temple of peace, its windows are as numerous as those in the choirs of that consecrated to the worship of God.
"From the center of the building uprises an enormous mass, three, four, five stories high, as high as the cathedral, perhaps higher. It is the belfry, the transparent habitation of the alarm bell (as well as the chimes) . The belfry cannot defend itself, a military character is foreign to it. ”

“ Commines It was not hard to realize that here we were in the country of Bras-de-Fer, of Memling, of Cuyp, and Thierry d'Alsace, for, on descending from the halting, bumping train at the small brick station, we were face to face with a bizarre, bulbous-topped tower rising above the houses surrounding a small square, and now quite crowded with large, hollow-backed, thick-legged Flemish horses, which might have been those of the followers of Thierry gathered in preparation for an onslaught upon one of the neighboring towns. ”

“ In harvest time the banks of the Lys are thronged with movement, the harvesters in quaint costumes, their bodies moving rhythmically to the words of the songs they sing, swinging the heavy bundles of flax from the banks to the level platforms, where it is allowed to sleep in the water, and later the heavy wagons are loaded to the cadence of other songs appropriate to the work. Large picturesque colored windmills wave their brown velvety hued sails against the piled up masses of cloud, and over all is intense color, life and movement. ”

“ On either hand were small houses through the windows of which one could see old women sitting bowed over cushions rapidly moving the bobbins over the lace patterns. A heavy black door gave access to the Beguinage, a tiny retreat, Noyé de Silence, inaugurated, tradition says, in 1238, by Jean de Constantinople, who gave it as a refuge for the Sisters of St. Bogga. And here about a small grass grown square in which was a statue of the saint, dwelt a number of self-sacrificing women, bound by no vow, who had consecrated their lives to the care of the sick and needy. ”

“ All at once just before me a great hammer raised its [Pg 33] head, and then fell with a sounding clang upon the rim of a big bell; the half hour had struck. All about us the air resounded and vibrated with the mighty waves of sound. From the bells above finally came the hum of faint harmonics, and then followed silence like the stillness that ensues after a heavy clap of thunder.
Cerberus now beckoned me to accompany him amongst the bells, and showed me the machinery that sets this great marvel of sound in motion. ”

“ A silver ribbon starred with the blue corn-flower, the supple textile baptised in its soft waters is transformed by the hand of man into cloudy lace, into snowy linen, into fabrics of filmy lightness for my lady's wear, La Lys, name significant and fraught with poetry for us—giving life to the germ of the flax which it conserves through all its life better than any art of the chemist in the secret chambers of his laboratory. ”

“ Here, too, in Malines was a most quaint "Beguinage," or asylum, in an old quarter of the town, hidden away amid a network of narrow streets: a community of gentle-mannered, placid-faced women, who dwelt in a semi-religious retirement after the ancient rules laid down by Sainte Begga, in little, low, red-roofed houses ranged all about a grass-grown square. Here, after depositing a considerable sum of money, they were permitted to live in groups of three and four in each house, each coming and going as she pleased, without taking any formal vow. ”

“ In his acceptance he said: "Human destiny does not offer a nobler or more useful task than that of being called to found the independence of a nation, and to consolidate its liberties."
The people hailed and received him with great enthusiasm, and on July 21st he was crowned King of the Belgians, with most impressive ceremonies, at Brussels. The Dutch, however, viewed all this with much concern, and at once began hostilities, thinking that the powers would sustain them rather than permit France to occupy Belgium. At once Dutch troops were massed for attack on both Brussels and Louvain. ”

“ This history presents the picture of Ghent assisting an army of English soldiers to lay siege to Ypres. So the distrustful people dwelt amid perpetual quarreling, trade pitted against trade, town against town, fostering weakness of government and shameful submission in defeat. No town suffered as did Ypres during this distracted state of affairs in Flanders of the sixteenth century, which saw it reduced from a place of first importance to a dead town with the population of a village. And so it remained up to the outbreak of the world war in 1914. ”

“ Alas! we never die. There is plenty of room here for us, but we die hard. See, myotis, heliotrope, hare bells, and mignonette, a bed of perfume, and there lies my old servant. A restless old soul she was, and she took such a long time to die. She was eighty-five when she finally made up her mind."
I had a cup of wine with the old man in his small salle à manger. His house was indeed a mine of wealth for the antiquary and collector, more like a shop than a house. ”

“ The dim gray town with its silent streets, the one time home of romance and chivalry, the scene of deeds of knightly valor, is now done for forever. It is not likely that it can ever again be of importance, for its harbor is well-nigh closed by drifting sand. ”

“ Certainly these chimes of bells playing thus by day and night, day in, day out, year after year, must exercise a most potent influence upon the imagination and life of the people.
The Flemish peasant is born, grows up, lives his life out, and finally is laid away to the music of these ancient bells. ”

“ On Sundays when dressed in their holiday clothes these peasants going to or returning from mass, looked respectable and fairly prosperous, and it was certainly clear that although poor in worldly goods, these animated and laughing throngs were far from being unhappy or dissatisfied with life as they found it in West Flanders. ”

“ Some Carillons of Flanders It is worth noting that nearly all of the noble Flemish towers with their wealth of bells are almost within sight (and I had nearly written, sound) of each other. From the summit of the tower in Antwerp one could see dimly the cathedrals of Malines and Brussels, perhaps even those of Bruges and Ghent in clear weather. Haweis ("Music and Morals") says that "one hundred and twenty-six towers can be seen from the Antwerp Cathedral on a fair morning," and he was a most careful observer. ”

“ This latter is a sort of square "donjon" of great antiquity, crenelated, with towers at each corner and the whole construction forming an admirable specimen of Hispano-Flemish architecture.
The angle of the "Place" opposite the pavilion of the officers is occupied by the Hôtel de Ville and the "Palais de Justice," very different in style, for on one side is a massive façade of severe aspect and no particular period, while on the other is a most graceful Flemish Renaissance construction, reminding one of a Rubens opposed, in all its opulence, to a cold classic portrait by Gainsborough. ”

“ Catholicism was a most powerful factor here, and the struggle between Luther and Loyola, separating the ancient from the modern in Flemish architecture, was nowhere better exemplified than in Malines. It has been said that the modern Jesuitism succeeded to the ancient mysticism without displacing it, and the installation of the first in the very sanctuary of the latter has manifested itself in the ornamentation of the ecclesiastical edifices throughout Flanders, and indeed this fact is very evident to the travelers in this region. ”