New Holland

“ In New York I should be a Little American; in Constantinople a Little Turk. But I wanted to talk about Holland. A holiday in Holland serves as a corrective to exaggerated Imperialistic notions.
There are no poor in Holland. They may be an unhappy people, knowing what a little country it is they live in; but, if so, they hide the fact. To all seeming, the Dutch peasant, smoking his great pipe, is as much a man as the Whitechapel hawker or the moocher of the Paris boulevard. I saw a beggar once in Holland—in the townlet of Enkhuisen. ”

“ A Dutchman with his variegated goods and chattels is an odd sight. I have noticed him and his wife, with four, six, eight, and even ten children, hardly more than a year between their ages, driving their poultry, pigs, and cattle on board the boat, and, after distributing themselves as pilots, draggers, feeders, cooks, cleaners, and general directors, glide off on the canals as if they were sailing on purple seas to the Islands of the Blessed.
The foundations of Amsterdam no longer rest on herring bones. ”

“ Our readers will, no doubt, be interested by the few particulars we have been able to collect of the late wonderful discovery, in the interior of New Holland, of a civilized nation of European origin, which had, in so remarkable a manner, been kept separate hitherto from the rest of the civilized world. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is a curious fact that almost every stream of the least consequence in New Holland, appears to have its peculiar features, and a character and scenery of its own, which continue throughout its course, so that it could often be recognised by travellers coming upon it a second time, and at a different part of its career towards the sea. ”

“ From Holland came the new agriculture, which has done so much for social life, horticulture and floriculture. The Dutch taught modern Europe navigation. They were the first to explore the unknown seas, and many an island and cape which their captains discovered has been renamed after some one who got his knowledge by their research, and appropriated the fruit of his predecessor's labors. They have been as much plundered in the world of letters as they have been in commerce and politics. Holland taught the Western nations finance—perhaps no great boon. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The description which Dampier and some others have given of New Holland, leads us to suspect that this part of the globe is perhaps a part of the southern lands, and is a country less ancient than the rest of this unknown continent. New Holland is a low country, without water or mountains, but thinly inhabited, and the natives without industry; all this concurs to make us think that they are in this continent nearly what the savages of Amaconia or Paraguais are in America. ”

“ Holland, more than any region under the sun, illustrates the power of industry and perseverance. It shows, from the first to the last, that to the active hand and steady will nothing is impossible.
Such a land as Holland exists nowhere else. It is not merely the most singular of kingdoms ― it is the only one of its kind. You may travel the world over, and yet be unable to form any conception of the Netherlands. You may live there your life long, and have no adequate idea of the remainder of the globe. Nature is responsible for the planet, but man created Holland ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The keels of its ships arc above the chimneys of its buildings, and the frogs that croak in the bulrushes of its ditches look down upon the swallows twittering on its house-tops. The entire country swarms with incongruities. Canals are employed in the place of roads; windmills are used instead of steam-engines; and people live as much on the water as on land. What is commonly known as scenery hardly exists in Holland; and yet the kingdom is picturesque from its peculiarity, having furnished to Paul Potter, Ruysdael, Vanderheyden, Backhuysen, and other of its painters subjects without end. ”

“ From what I have said of the Natives of New Holland they may appear to some to be the most wretched People upon Earth; but in reality they are far more happier than we Europeans, being wholy unacquainted not only with the Superfluous, but with the necessary Conveniences so much sought after in Europe; they are happy in not knowing the use of them. They live in a Tranquility which is not disturbed by the Inequality of Condition. The earth and Sea of their own accord furnishes them with all things necessary for Life. They covet not Magnificient Houses, Household-stuff, etc.; ”

“ 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 North Holland women are reckoned very handsome—their faces are as placid as those of their ancestry; while those dwelling in the sea-towns possess eyes that are the reflex of the infinite, but are not the reflex of their thoughts. Like all fisher-folk, they have the eyes of the seer. All in all, the women have a doll-like appearance. To them is applicable the Horatian
Stereo Copyright, Underwood & U.
London & New York.
IN ZUID BEVELAND.
Goes dairymaids in their neat and picturesque costume. ”

“ They have their coarse fun, laugh, and get back to business again. Judged by that new short-cut to a nation’s moral tone, the picture postcard, the Dutch are quite sound. There is a shop in the high-spirited Nes Straat at Amsterdam where a certain pictorial ebullience has play, but I saw none other of the countless be-postcarded windows in all Holland that should cause a serious blush on any cheek ”

“ Amsterdam’s Old Church, on the other side of Warmoes Straat, dates from 1300. The visitor to the New Church is handed a brief historical leaflet in exchange for his twenty-five cents, and is left to his own devices; but the Old Church has a koster who takes a pride in showing his lions and who deprecates gifts of money. An elderly, clean-shaved man with a humorous mouth, he might be taken for Holland’s leading comedian. ”

“ But when the war was all over, the whole province of the New Netherlands was given up to the English. New Amsterdam's name was changed to New York (1664) , and Holland never again claimed any part of our country. But the Dutch settlers continued to occupy their farms, and there are many people now in America who proudly claim descent from the early settlers of the New Netherlands. Interesting stories are told about the Dutch settlers, the most famous of all being Washington Irving's tales of Sleepy Hollow and of Rip Van Winkle. ”

“ What he does he does thoroughly, and, above every thing else, he is methodical and systematic. He is trained from his earliest years to some kind of calling or occupation. The formation and history of the land, as well as his daily experience, show him in the clearest light the benefit of money-getting and the value of independence. ”

“ Such a wonder-worker was Napoleon. The man who bridled the Revolution and remoulded the life of France, who laid broad and deep the foundations of a new life in Italy, Switzerland, and Germany, who rolled the West in on the East in the greatest movement known since the Crusades and finally drew the yearning thoughts of myriads to that solitary rock in the South Atlantic, must ever stand in the very forefront of the immortals of human story. ”

“ The nestling cottages, the busy shops, the fresh-looking spires, the distant woods, the more distant mountain, the old Seven Oaks upon the Western plateau and the beautiful residence behind them, are the same to-day that they were when we first looked upon them; but a new life and a new influence inform them all. Nature holds her unvarying frame, but the life upon the canvas is what we paint from year to year. ”

“ Marriage is freedom: only when
The husband turns the prison-key
Knows she herself; nor even then
Knows she more wisely well than he,
Who finds himself least wise of men.
New duties bring new powers to birth,
And new relations, new surprise
Of depths of weakness or of worth,
Until he doubt if her disguise
Mask more of heaven, or more of earth.
Tears spring beneath a careless touch;
Endurance hardens with a word ”

“ Purify yourself as He bids you Who is pure. Then the old will drop away from you, and the new wonder will begin. You will find yourself already passed from death to life, and far ahead strange possibilities will open out beyond the power of your heart to conceive. ”

“ Today a New South may be said to be everywhere apparent. The Old South still exists in nooks and corners of many States, it is true: there are communities, counties, groups of counties, which cling to the old ideas. In the hearts of thousands of men and women the Old South is enshrined, and there is no room for the new; but the South as a whole is a New South, marked by a spirit of hopefulness, a belief in the future, and a desire to take a fuller part in the life of the nation. To trace the development of the new spirit and to discuss its manifestations is the purpose of this book. ”

“ Descendants of the men who half a century or so ago, at the darkling of the moon, made their way up the silent stretch of water, with boats loaded to the gunwales with contraband spirits, tea, and silks (after surreptitious visits to French luggers in the offing off Eaglehurst) , and who, upon safe landing at dead of night, melted away with their packhorse trains into the solitudes and thickets of the New Forest.
There still hangs a romantic flavour around old-world Hythe which places it in sharp contrast to its big, up-to-date, bustling neighbour across the water. ”

“ The South of today is not the South of 1860 or even of 1865. There is a New South, though not perhaps in the sense usually understood, for no expression has been more often misused in superficial discussion. Men have written as if the phrase indicated a new land and a new civilization, utterly unlike anything that had existed before and involving a sharp break with the history and the traditions of the past. ”

“ The Old South was never quite so aristocratic as the North believed, and today the white South is much more nearly a democracy than New England. Even in 1860 this was true of some parts of the South, as compared with some parts of New England. The rural South was always democratic except in comparatively limited areas, and it is so everywhere today. In those communities which have felt the new industrial spirit the question of birth plays little part. Any presentable young man can go where he chooses. ”

“ Richardson never saw any of the bird groups of the British Museum, and the work he has produced is as much his own as though the British Museum collection had never existed. Going as he did from the National Museum, the group idea was by no means new to him, and the seventy beautiful groups he has since produced stand as a lasting monument to his skill as a taxidermist, his artistic conception in designing, and his energy as a collector. No other feature in the entire Museum of Natural History at New York is so attractive and pleasing to the general public as are the groups of mounted birds. ”

“ There is much more Puritanism in the South today than remains in New England. The Sabbath is no longer observed so strictly as twenty years ago, perhaps, but only recently has it been considered proper to receive visits on Sunday or to drive into the country. As for Sunday golf or tennis, the average community would stand horror-struck at such a spectacle. Sermons are frequently preached against dancing, card-playing, and theater-going, and members have been dismissed from Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches for indulging in these forbidden amusements. ”

“ A war of almost a century in duration, full of strange and terrible vicissitudes, has not been recorded in one single memorable painting. Art, so varied and so conscientious in its records of the country and its people, has represented no scene of that great tragedy, as William the Silent prophetically named it, which cost the Dutch people, for so long a time, so many different emotions of terror, of pain, of rage, of joy, and of pride!
The splendor of art in Holland is dimmed by that of political greatness. ”