Hollanders

“ Everywhere in the little terrestrial triangle of this newest of republics there was the activity of men who had just escaped destruction by the narrowest of margins. They had faith in their own destiny. Any one who can go through an open rebellion against the mightiest of monarchs and come out successfully deserves the commendation of the Almighty. The Hollanders had succeeded. Their harbors, the lungs of the country, were free once more, and could breathe the fresh air of the open sea and of commercial prosperity. ”

“ In the great melting pot of the Bonapartistic empire all Hollanders at last become equal in the real sense of the word. They all have the same chance at promotion, at riches, and the pursuit of happiness. Devotion to the master, and devotion to him alone, will bring recognition from the new divinity who issues orders signed with a single gigantic N. Old Republic of the United Netherlands, enlightened Republic of the Free Batavian Proconsulate, Kingdom of Holland, it's all the same to the man who regards this little land as so much mud, deposited by his own, his French, rivers. ”

“ But the list of contemporary Dutch writers is long and brilliant, and the time to speak critically of them must be postponed.
Nothing impresses the visitor to Holland more than the vast dikes or dams which restrain the sea from overwhelming the country. They have to be constantly watched and renewed, and to those unused to the idea of dwelling in the presence of such constant peril, the phlegm of the Hollanders is remarkable. ”

“ The common people did not then distinguish between us and the Hollanders, calling both of us English, because the Hollanders had usurped our name on first coming here for trade, in which they did us much wrong, as we used often to hear the people in the streets railing against the English, when they actually meant the Hollanders; so that, fearing some of our men might be stabbed instead of them, we endeavoured to fall upon some plan to make ourselves be distinguished from them. ”

“ The Hollanders resisted him, defeated him, and gave the first precedent for civil and religious liberty.
Their success was the stimulant to similar efforts in other countries. These efforts were not always successful; sometimes, indeed, they were defeated, and governments were apparently all the stronger by reason of the failure in the attempt to control them. But the example of the Dutch was never forgotten, and the prosperity of free Holland was always a stimulant to those other races which struggled for freedom. ”

“ The natives in the southern part of the continent were not like the ordinary Indian with whom the Hollanders were familiar. They were very strong and brave and caused the Hollanders much difficulty. They handled bows and arrows well, and their coats, made of skin, gave them a general appearance of greater civilization than anybody had expected to find in this distant part of the world. When the Dutch sailors rowed to the shore of the strait, the Indians attacked them at once. ”

“ Others, an annex of the old continent, the China of Europe, the end of the earth and the beginning of the ocean, a measureless raft of mud and sand; and Philip II. called it the country nearest to hell.
But they all agreed upon one point, and all expressed it in the same words:--Holland is a conquest made by man over the sea; it is an artificial country: the Hollanders made it; it exists because the Hollanders preserve it; it will vanish whenever the Hollanders shall abandon it. ”

“ They are a most filthy race, and will feed upon any thing, however foul. When the Hollanders kill a beast, these people get the guts, and having squeezed out the excrements, without washing or scraping, they lay them upon the coals, and eat them before they are well heated through. If even a slave of the Hollanders wish to have one of their women, he has only to give her husband a piece of tobacco. ”

“ The Dutch ambassadors endeavored to enter into negotiation with this parliament; but though Protestants, and even Presbyterians, they met with a bad reception from those who pretended to a sanctity so much superior. The Hollanders were regarded as worldly-minded men, intent only on commerce and industry; whom it was fitting the saints should first extirpate, ere they undertook that great work, to which they believed themselves destined by Providence, of subduing Antichrist, the man of sin, and extending to the uttermost bounds of the earth the kingdom of the Redeemer. ”

“ Goldsmith’s second embarkation was for Holland direct, and in nine days he arrived at Rotterdam, whence he proceeded, without any more deviations, to Leyden. He gives a whimsical picture, in one of his letters, of the appearance of the Hollanders. “The modern Dutchman is quite a different creature from him of former times; he in everything imitates a Frenchman but in his easy, disengaged air. He is vastly ceremonious, and is, perhaps, exactly what a Frenchman might have been in the reign of Louis XIV. Such are the better bred. But the downright Hollander is one of the oddest figures in nature. ”

“ These people represent a higher type of humanity than the inhabitants of Marken: their intelligence and refinement are more marked, but they have the sunny temperaments and contented dispositions characteristic of the Hollanders, and though ignorant of the customs of the outside world, and limited in their lives to a narrow sphere, they are a happy and satisfied people. ”

“ These and other circumstances make me often wonder, when I hear the Dutch vain-gloriously to brag, and many English simply to believe, that the United Provinces are our Forts, Bulwarks, Walls, out-works, and I know not what, without which we cannot long subsist against the Spanish forces;The Hollanders main importance is Englands good Alliance. when in truth, we are the main fountain of their happiness, both for war and peace ”

“ The Hollander who thus emigrates is probably a man of no family, whereas the old Colonist can go back with his pedigree at least for two centuries and who thinks very much of his ancestors. The Hollander is educated and is said to be pedantic and priggish before those who speak his own language. And in the matter of language these new Dutchmen or Hollanders complain much of the bad Dutch they hear in the Colony and give great offence by such complaints. ”

“ As there is no work of this kind brought to perfection at once I intended especially to observe what inhabitants I should meet with, and to try to win them over to somewhat of traffic and useful intercourse, as there might be commodities among any of them that might be fit for trade or manufacture, or any found in which they might be employed. Though as to the New Hollanders hereabouts, by the experience I had had of their neighbours formerly, I expected no great matters from them. ”

“ Those, as a rule, bestowed great attention to their children's education, and in many cases sent them to Holland to complete their studies. The greatest factor of the educated Dutch element in South Africa consists of the mass of Hollanders itself, who have made their way to the Republics, and especially to the Transvaal, during the past eighteen years, among whom are many of highest European attainments, so that altogether a big muster is made up of well-instructed people, comparing well enough with other nations, and ample to meet all the exigencies of the two rapidly developing Republics. ”

“ For the Hollanders have nothing growing in their own land for that business; but they are compelled to fetch all their wood, timber, and plank, wherewith they build and make all their ships of, out of divers countries: their iron out of other places; their hemp and cordage out of the Eastern [Baltic] Countries; the hoops and barrel-boards out of Norway and Sprucia [Prussia] ; their bread-corn out of Poland and the East Parts ”

“ Neither is there any such mean man among the Dutch as that man who was so economical in regard to meat that he cut off a dog's [Pg 1132] tail and roasted it and ate the meat, and then gave the bone back to the dog. Or that other mean man I heard of, who was so economical that he used a wart on the back of his neck for a collar-button. I have so much faith in Holland blood, that I declare the more Hollanders come to this country the better we ought to like it. Wherever they try to land, let them land on our American soil; for all this continent is going to be after a while under one government. ”

“ The Hollanders are seldom Husbandmen or Foot Soldiers.I might here add many more particulars, but being the same as have already been noted by others, I shall conclude only with adding one observation which I take to be of consequence, viz. That the Hollanders do rid their hands of two Trades, which are of greatest turmoil and danger, and yet of least profit ”

“ Holland, indeed, compared to other countries, is like a cabinet-picture by one of its native artists. It is wonderfully exact, highly finished, thoroughly worked up ― nothing left to be done that labor can supply. Go where you will, the canals and barges, windmills and quaint gable-ended houses, the tree-planted quays, and comfortable but stolid-looking people, follow you remorselessly. Be you in Delft, Leyden, Enkhuysen, or Nimeguen, it is much the same. ”

“ By the mere surface-seer the Hollander is apt to be misjudged. His rotund, unctuous form, his full, round face, his small, rather sleepy-looking eyes, and his imperturbable manner, make him appear stupid to a person more vivacious and nervous in organization. ”

“ Gerard was in the shop. His eldest and youngest sons were abroad. Catherine and her little crippled daughter had long been anxious about Gerard, and now they were gone a little way down the road, to see if by good luck he might be visible in the distance; and Giles was alone in the sitting-room, which I will sketch, furniture and dwarf included.
The Hollanders were always an original and leading people. At different epochs they invented printing (wooden type) , oil-painting, liberty, banking, gardening, &c.; above all, years before my tale, they invented cleanliness. ”

“ Among the New Hollanders whom we were thus engaged with, there was one who by his appearance and carriage, as well in the morning as this afternoon, seemed to be the chief of them, and a kind of prince or captain among them. ”

“ The Holland maiden or housewife can sit in her chamber with her knitting or sewing ― to be idle in Holland is deemed the blackest of sins ― without losing precious moments in looking out of the window. ”

“ The resistance which Holland made to the Spanish king was infinitely more heroic, far more desperate, much more successful, and infinitely more significant, because it was a war in which the highest principles were vindicated, and vindicated irreversibly. In those principles, secured by the efforts of a small and, at first sight, of a feeble people, lies the very life of modern liberty. The debt which rational and just government owes to the seven provinces is incalculable. To the true lover of liberty, Holland is the Holy Land of modern Europe, and should be held sacred. ”

“ It is true that towards the end of the eighteenth century, Holland was assailed by jealous rivals, into whose hands their own chief magistrate played. But it is also true that after sixty years of humiliation, the Dutch have reasserted themselves, and though a small people, hemmed in by large military governments, they hold a considerable place among nations. Some scribbler, the other day, who knows little of what they were, and nothing of what they are, has called them an effete nation. Nothing can be more untrue. ”

“ The country is essentially Dutch, and the dissatisfaction of the Dutch settlers with the English Government has led to secession, revolt, and war, under circumstances which has conferred no credit on the intrusive government, and have been no particular honour to English arms. And though in our time Holland cannot, even if she had her old spirit and resources, vie with the great military Powers of Europe, as she once did, her reputation is still high, and her energy is renewed. ”

“ No boy or girl who has read Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates can ever think of Holland with indifference. No man or woman who has read Motley's stirring history of the heroic little republic in the Rhine delta can ever enter the Netherlands without a feeling of the liveliest interest. No lover of liberty who recalls the sufferings and services of the Dutch Calvinists in the cause of freedom, and the glorious victory they achieved against tremendous odds, can set foot on that sacred soil without a thrill of reverent gratitude. ”

“ The day may come when, where once Holland was, will be outspread the serene waters of the sea, hiding beneath them the records of the stupendous struggle of so many centuries. Or, perhaps, some mysterious shifting of the ocean bottom may not only lift Holland out of peril, but uncover mighty tracts of land which, in the prehistoric past, belonged to Europe. Meanwhile it is easy to understand that the people who can wage this ceaseless war for their homes and lives, are the sons of those heroes who curbed the might of Spain, and taught the world the lessons of freedom and independence. ”

“ THE Dutch nation is happy to-day, in spite of its past history, which constitutes a wonderful record, not only of its everlasting fight against the encroachments of the sea, but of its struggle with some of the greatest of the Great Powers. It is sufficient, within the limits of this book, to give only a brief summary of Holland's history, dating it from the abdication of Margarethe, wife of Louis of Bavaria, in favour of her son, William of Bavaria, whereupon the dynasty of Bavaria ruled in the land. ”

“ No historical study could be of greater interest to clubs than that of Holland. The story of the rise of the Dutch Republic is more stirring than any romance. Her army was small, but unconquerable; her navy successfully fought the navies of far greater nations. Her commerce was unrivaled; her colonies were planted in unknown countries; her artists were the greatest of the world at the time. But, most of all, Holland was wonderful for her great struggle for liberty when liberty was unknown, and the effects of her victory were world-wide. ”