1. I ,
10 'Cbe Conservative *
SOME DUTCH CHARACTERISTICS.
[ Written for THE CONSEHVATIVE. !
A study of Jan Stcen's pictures of
Dutch homo-life some two hundred
years ago proves that in his day the
noses of his countrymen were quite as
fantastic as they are now. "Without
their pendulous , heavy organs of smell ,
the artist's half-drunken fiddlers and
peasants would not make one smile half
so much as they do. It is well that the
average Dutchman is good-natured , for
if lie were naturally disposed to bo a
prey to his passions , there would be
something discordant in the broad come
dy of his face. '
Many of the country dames and maid
ens of Holland look as if they had been
brought up on soap * and water ; their
faces glisten quite preternaturally ; their
po.ts and pans , their tables and benches ,
all bear witness to their cleansing ardor.
A fly in the butter , or a footmark on a
floor just scrubbed would , I doubt not ,
cause them great annoyance. Winter
is a time of trial to them. The snow , at
least in the country , is so spotless that it
must put them out of conceit with the
results of their own domestic washing.
Of course , different standards of clean
liness prevail throughout the different
provinces of Holland. It is one thing to
be in the "homo" province , of which
Amsterdam is the capital ; quite another
to bo in Dronthe , the frontier province
bordering on Hanover , where the
peasants are very poor , and have to
wrept a livelihood from peat morasses ,
which , in this country' , would bo con
sidered irreclaimable. In Drenthe I
have been in more than .one house , the
floors of which were grimed with mud
that would have seriously disturbed the
mind of an American farmer's wife.
Moreover , in ono of these houses the
owner , his daughter and two sons were
drinking coffee out of cups that were
far from clean ; and the lace head-gear
which the women wore over- the silver
plates with which custom bids them
cover their foreheads would have been
improved by a hearty introduction to
the wash-tub. As a rule , however , it
may safely be said t'jat soap is in great
er demand in the laud of dikes than in
any other country which I have visited ;
and a well- known English laundry soap
is advertised , to suoh.an extent that the
placards weary one's eyes.
' An inscription on the little house at
Zaandam , in which Peter the Great
. lived for a time while ho was learning
the shipbuilding trade , will I think ,
bear excellent adaption to suit the
Dutch character. The inscription says :
. "Niets is den grooten man te klein. " -
1 ( Nothing is too -.trivial for the great
man. ) I propose to compliment the
Dutch people by changing the words to ,
"Nothing is too great for these small
- men * ; " and by applying them to the in
habitants of the Netherlands , to whom
j'
hi the past , the United States have been
so much indebted.
At first sight it may appear that the
mind of the Dutchman is more apt to be
engrossed by the care of little things
than of great. The Dutch domestic art
ist with an immense appreciation of de
tails is better known in America than
the Dutch artist with conceptions like
Raphael's or Michel Angelo's. But it
ought to be enough to hint at the history
of Holland to prove the contrary. Fur
ther , where else in the wide world can
we find such gigantic works of their
kind as the dikes with which the Dutch
men keep the sea from invading their
land ? Where is there such industrious
reclamation of square miles of country ,
which in other regions of the earth
would have been regarded as hopelessly
good-for-nothing to the end of time ?
The "polders" cultivated beds of
drained marshes or lakes are now
among the best lands in Holland. And
nothing more astounds a visitor to the
wilds of such provinces as Drenthe , than
to discover in the midst of vast expanses
of flat country which seems valueless ,
except for the stacks of peat which
stand upon it , settlements of hundreds ,
even thousands of men who have fought
with the barren laud and have con
quered it , in the same way that
their more inventive brethren have
compelled the sea to obey their com
mands.
I would draw attention , in this con
nection , to the penal institutions be
tween Meppel and Heerenveen. It
seems genuine wisdom in the authori
ties to make the state prisoners do for
the worst part of Holland what nature
seems to have neglected to do. Event
ually the whole country will be culti
vated ; and at no distant date one will
bo able to travel from one end of it to
the other without finding a barren spot
of any size.
In writing of the Dutch as "small"
men , I would limit the application of
the word to the men of Holland itself ;
for the Frieslanders and the people of
the neighboring provinces are as differ
ent from the dwellers between the
mouth of the Maas , and the town called
"The Holder , " as are the giants of Ken
tucky and the New Yorkers. They are
much taller and more stalwart , and
their faces have hardly anything of
that farcical cast which causes. one to
laugh at the plebeian Dutchman of Rot
terdam or Amsterdam. It is a dreadful
charge to make , but the love of truth
compels mo to say that the average
Dutchman has no legs to speak of , just
as his wife has no waist worthy of the
name , and his daughter no ankles.
When seated pater familias is not con
spicuously Lilliputian ; when he stands
up , you soon notice that nature has
played a wicked trick upon him in ab
breviating his thighs. Of course , how
ever , she has compensated him in other
ways. She has made him almost as
broad as he is long , and has given him
such a faculty of patience and long-
drawn industry as ensures him "as much
chance of happiness as the most ener
getic of tall men has at his disposal. Tea
a vast number of Dutchmen to' sit in a
"trekschuit , " or passenger canal-boat
and travel at the rate of about two and
a half miles an hour for twenty or thirty
miles , with a landscape that differs not
s
at all during the entire journey , is the
height of bliss ; and I , as a student of r\ \
racial pathology , venture to suggest ' 'V '
that this method of traveling , tedious as
tt'would be to most Americans , might
lessen the number of neurotics and dys
peptics , of whom the great republic has
so large a supply. The Dutchman
takes with him some tobacco to chew or
some cigars to smoke , and when the
craving for stimulants assails him , ho
will probably take a glass of gin. Final
ly , having apparently absolved himself
from all obligations to be polite , he has
succeeded in becoming what many great
men have failed to become a contented
man.
The Frieslander is not such a coma
tose individual. I refer to him espe
cially when he wears his winter humor.
In summer ho is enthusiasm itself , this
enthusiasm being of the agricultural
order , pivoting about the cheese and
butter which he makes and sends to the
English market , and the beef which he
fattens on the broad fields with which
nature has so liberally endowed his na
tive land. There is a picture in the
museum of Leenwarden , the capital of
Frieslaud , which shows that in 1480 A.
D. there was a certain amount of refine
ment in this remote corner of Europe.
It shows us a Friesland family eating
dinner is not that a subject after the
heart of a Dutchman ? and it is notice
able that the women of the house are * 'llj
sitting at the table , as if they were under . '
no obligation to wait upon their lords
and masters. The costumes and even
the details of the menage nro very much
less coarse than ono would have expect
ed them to be. There is a fine fat capon
upon the table , and from it one's
thoughts go to the many farm houses '
about the province , in one of the barns
of which it was probably fed through a
luxurious summer in the first and only .TV
year of its existence.
It is in winter , however , I feel sure
that the Frieslander is most apt to draw
himself up to his full height , and to
breathe with the greatest contentment.
Certainly , it is very likely to bo "rare
lusty" weather. Gone then for a while
are , all the green fields whence the honors
of his butter and cheeses which have
fetched such good prices in various
markets have proceeded. Bound rnd-
der and sail are then the chocolate and
black boats in which the Frieslander
passes BO many agreeable summer hours ,
whether in helping to convey his farm-
