Hooge

“ The fashionable hotels which are near the quay of landing, anticipate the claims of this more primitive house; and yet, to any one desirous of observing the ordinary routine of a Dutch family, it is well worth a visit. The buxsom Vrows who trudge about with short but voluminous petticoats, their heads ornamented by those gold or silver circlets, which no Dutch peasant seems ever to want, are exactly the very types of what you see in an Ostade or a Teniers. The very host himself, old Hoogendorp, is a study ”

“ The States of Holland are to assemble on the 15th January, at which a decision will certainly be taken for appointing judges. The preachers here at Leyden are despised, and men are speaking strongly of war. The tumult which lately occurred at Rotterdam may bring forth some good."
The quick-wited Grotius instantly discovered the device, read the intelligence thus communicated in the proofsheets of Secundus, and made use of the system to obtain further intelligence.
Hoogerbeets laid the book aside, not taking much interest at that time in the works of the Hague poet. ”

“ Geographers and travellers have persisted in calling the Hague a village, because it is not surrounded with walls or fortifications, which are necessary in their opinions to constitute a town or a city; but probably it is indebted for this humble appellation to the signification of its name in the Dutch language, s' Graven Haag, or the Count's Hedge, it forming some centuries ago a part of the domains of the counts of Holland. ”

“ Their physique is good, although, owing to the practice of purchasing a substitute, which has too lately ceased to allow of the change to come into full effect, the infantry contains an abnormal number of short men, which gives a misleading idea of the average height of the race. The minimum height of the infantry soldier is 5 ft. 11/2 ins., which is very low for a people whose general stature is quite on a level with our own. There is certainly one point in which the Dutch soldiers strike the observer as being different from their neighbours. ”

“ All his subjects are of the domestic Dutch life of the seventeenth century, but the arrangement in rooms, passages, courtyards, and enclosed gardens admitted of much variation. We never feel that the range of subjects is limited, for the light transforms each into a scene of that poetic beauty which it was Peter de Hoogh's great gift to discern, enjoy, and record. ”

“ Hence, so far as political importance goes, society has to do without it to a great extent. Nor is The Hague a centre of science. The universities of Leyden, Utrecht, and Amsterdam are very near, but, as the Dutch proverb judiciously says, 'Nearly is not half;' there is a vast difference between having the rose and the thing next to it. In consequence the leading scientific men of the Netherlands do not, as a rule, add the charm of their conversation to social intercourse at The Hague. ”

“ In short, how was it conceivable that a woman looking upon himself, a very type of the chivalry of Spain, silver-tongued, a follower--nay, a companion of the Muses, one to whom in every previous adventure of the heart to love had been to conquer, could still prefer that broad-faced, painfully commonplace, if worthy, young representative of the Dutch middle classes, Foy van Goorl? ”

“ The States General, as well as those of this Province, assemble here, and ’tis the Place of Residence for the foreign Ministers. Heretofore the Counts of Holland lived here. Since the Establishment of the Republic, the Stadtholders have kept their Court here; and the Hague, as much a Village as it is, may be reckoned for the Capital of the whole United Provinces. The Inhabitants are more genteel, more sociable, and in every respect more conversable than in the other Parts of Holland. The Nobility here are esteemed, and Merit does not go for nothing. ”

“ On the 7th of October 1722, Voltaire writes a very detailed letter from the Hague to the 'Présidente de Bernières' about his adventures in Holland, from which we borrow the following flattering description of the Dutch: —
Je partirai de la Haye lorsque les beaux jours fuiront. Il n'y a rien de plus agréable que la Haye, quand le soleil daigne s'y montrer. On ne voit ici que des prairies, des canaux, des arbres verts; c'est un paradis terrestre depuis la Haye jusqu'à Amsterdam. J'ai vu avec respect cette ville, qui est le magasin de l'univers. Il y a plus de mille vaisseaux dans le port. ”

“ Lulu bowed low before the King, and presented to him the White Cricket; which at once took its place under the shadow of the King. In a moment it had found a floating film of gossamer, the web of the Fairy spiders, and the King inclined his ear as he heard a voice far off chirping.
"That," said the King, "is the telephone to Fairy-land. And now a royal wish of our own: May the Fairies help a Monarch who wishes always to be wise and good. Zulena! Zulena!" ”

“ She is rather tall. Dutch men and women seem to have all sizes equally distributed amongst them; it cannot be said that they are a short people, like the French and the Belgians, nor can the indication of middle size be so rightly applied to them as to their German neighbours, whereas the taller Anglo-Saxons can frequently find their match in the Netherlands.
The room in which we are seated is furnished in so-called 'old Dutch style.' My friend and his wife have collected fine old wainscots, sideboards and cupboards of richly carved oak in Friesland and in the Flemish parts of Belgium. ”

“ No town in Holland possesses so many broad and handsome streets, lofty and substantial houses and spacious and imposing squares as the Hague. Hague.There is little or no commerce here but the Hague has been from the 16th century downwards the political capital of Holland as Amsterdam is its commercial capital, and hence its beauty and cleanliness. The king's palace is here, as well as the upper and lower houses of the Parliament of Holland and most of the head Government offices. ”

“ At the Hague, the basin in the middle of the city, near the Binnenhof, is invaded by a crowd of people who elbow each other and press and mingle as if they were all seized with dizziness; the flower of the aristocracy skates on a basin in the midst of the wood; and there, altogether in the snow, glide officers, ladies, deputies, students, old men, boys, and sometimes among them the hereditary prince, and around gathers a throng of spectators ”

“ It is the finest and [most] flourishing we have seen since Ghent and Antwerp. We saw the tomb of Hoche at a distance; went to it. There was inscribed "The army of the Sambre and the Moselle to its general-in-chief Hoche." The reliefs are torn off, the marble slabs broken, and it is falling. But—
"Glory of the fallen brave
Shall men remember though forgot their grave,"
and the enemies may launch malicious darts against it. After Andernach the Rhine loses much. The valley is wider, and the beautiful, after the almost sublime, palls, and man is fastidious. ”

“ Biggs had said that it produced good ones, and learned that two or three of his sons were very idle and bad, and made their mother and their neighbors a great deal of trouble. Mr. Biggs himself is a great deal in town, as he has opened a kind of office there for the sale of land, although I suspect that it is no more than an excuse to keep away from home. I hear from him frequently with reference to the management of children, for there have been several occasions to mention the subject; but for all that it is notorious that he has not the slightest control of his own. ”

“ I knew nothing of the settlement except the direction, which was north, and that the uncle with whom Agnes lived was named Biggs, but they said I could easily inquire the way. The distance was twenty miles, and by repeated inquiries I found that Mr. Biggs—who was called Little Biggs by those living near him—lived in the first white house after crossing the north fork of Bull River, and when I came in sight of the place I knew it as well as if I had lived within hailing distance all my life. ”

“ A black shadow was cast upon the floor by the strong sunlight which shone upon the figure of a leaning spectator.
“Look,” cried the King of Gee-Whiz. “He’s there! He’s there!” His eyes started in horror. He slipped and sank to the floor, rolling over into an utter insensibility.
The foreman put on his hat and stood looking down at him. “Sand, sunshine, and sheep-herdin’,” said he, “will do up any man in time. I’d ’a’ made a good cow-puncher out of this feller, too, if I’d got him in time.”
They turned over the King of Gee-Whiz gently, that he might rest more easily where he lay. ”

“ Society life in Holland is, as everywhere else, the gentle art of escaping self-confession of boredom. But society in Holland is far different from society abroad, because The Hague, the official residence of Queen Wilhelmina, is not only not the capital of her kingdom, but is only the third town of the country so far as importance and population go. The Hague is the royal residence and the seat of the Netherlands Government ”

“ He passed some years in the Dutch Indies, travelled all over Europe, knows more of Greek, Latin, and antiquities than anybody else, and is as thoroughly scientific as any University professer. But the Government will never give him a vacant chair, for his pedagogical powers surpass even his scientific abilities, and they cannot spare such men in such places. To some aristocratic people his noble simple-mindedness is downright appalling ”

“ The Hague is one of the best built and least Dutch towns in Holland. Paris has sensibly influenced it, as can be seen by the manners and customs, the arrangements of the shops, and the style of living among the upper classes. French is extensively spoken, as you will observe if you frequent the pleasant promenade of the Voorhout, the Vyverberg (a well-shaded square) , or the animated quarters known as Prinssengracht, Kneuterdyk, and Noordeende. Many of the streets are broad, brick-paved, and bordered with trees. The city has grown and is growing rapidly. ”

“ Martin Howe glances round and sees advancing down the road ranks and ranks of strange grey men whose mushroom-shaped helmets give an eerie look as of men from the moon in a fairy tale.
"Why, they're Germans," he says to himself; "I'd quite forgotten they existed."
"Ah, they're prisoners." The doctor gets [93] to his feet and glances down the road and then turns to his work again.
The tramp of feet marching in unison on the rough shell-pitted road, and piles and piles of grey men clotted with dried mud, from whom comes the new smell, the sordid, miserable smell of the enemy. ”

“ It will be noticed that these broadsides are all Dutch in their origin, a fact that is not surprising when we remember that they formed part of the propagandum which was soon to land William of Orange, the husband of James’s eldest daughter, on the throne of England.
The first that we reproduce is entitled “L’Europe Alarmée pour le Fils d’un Meunier.”
The artist is that remarkably clever Dutchman, {203} Romeyn de Hooghe, whose delicate and facile handling of the point is well exemplified in the seascape at the back of the picture. ”

“ Biggs was good enough to say, “I should be delighted to show you how we carry on a four hundred acre farm. Other great farmers have from four to a dozen hired men about them, but Big Adam and I do all the work here; and we are equal to it, though it keeps us very busy, as you will imagine. We have no time for the fine arts, you may be certain.”
He ran on gayly in this way, making himself out in ignorance and muscle the equal of one of our Fairview farmers, although he was really nothing else to my mind than a fop, until Agnes came in and said we were to walk out to supper. ”

“ In this he was curiously aided by the school of ripe and enthusiastic scholars who began to flourish at Leiden, such as Drusius, Vossius and Hugo Grotius, who themselves wrote little in Dutch, but who chastened the style of the rising generation by insisting on a pure and liberal Latinity. Out of that generation arose the greatest names in the literature of Holland—Vondel, Hooft, Cats, Huygens—in whose hands the language, so long left barbarous and neglected, took at once its highest finish and melody. ”

“ He stood for a time at an open space in the forest, with his ax resting on a stump, looking with pride on his shadow, which he thought was quite the most superior shadow he had ever seen. When he made a motion, the shadow made the same. He raised his hand to his head in royal salute, and the shadow did quite the same. "Even a shadow has reverence for the King," said he, and he felt very glad that he had been born a King, as the position carried with it many advantages of a very obvious nature. ”

“ Being a man of much erudition, he had made friends with some of the professors of Harvard University. They offered him assistance, which he declined, and it soon appeared that he was working in the gardens of Hovey & Co., in or near Cambridge. His new friends remonstrated with him, pleading that this work was unsuitable for a man of his rank and condition. He replied, "I am Gurowski; labor cannot degrade me." This independence of his position commended him much [p. 221] to the esteem of my husband, and he was more than once invited to our house. ”

“ For some time the principal advocate of confederation in the Maritime Provinces was the Hon. Joseph Howe, a man of such ability and force of character that on a wider stage he might have risen to eminence, and ranked amongst the world's great statesmen. [10] It is impossible indeed not to regret that so great a man, one so imperial in his instincts and views, should have been condemned to spend his life within the bounds of one small province. ”