This foreword is an afterthought. It was written when the first proofs
of the book had gone back to the printer. And this is how it took its
origin:
A few days ago I received a copy of a Dutch historical magazine
containing a violent attack upon one of my former books. The reviewer,
who evidently neither had taken the time to read my book nor had taken
the trouble to understand what I was trying to say, accused me among
other things of a haughty contempt for my forefathers during their time
of decline. Haughty contempt, indeed! Nay, Brother of the Acrid Pen, was
it not the truth which hurt thee so unexpectedly rather than my scornful
irony?
There are those who claim that reviews do not matter. There are those
who, when their work is talked about with supercilious ignorance, claim
that an author ought to forget what has been said about his work. Pious
wish! The writer who really cares for his work can no more forget an
undeserved insult to the product of his brain than he can forgive a
harsh word given unmerited to one of his children. The thing rankles.
And in my desire to see a pleasant face, to talk this hurt away, as soon
as I arrived this morning in New York I went to see a friend. He has an
office downtown. It overlooks the harbour. From its window one beholds
the Old World entering the new one by way of the Ellis Island ferryboat.
It was early and I had to wait. Over the water there hung a low, thin
mist. Sea-gulls, very white against the gray sky, were circling about.
And then suddenly, in the distance, there appeared a dark form coming
sliding slowly through the fog. And through a window, opened to get over
the suffocating effect of the steam-heat, there sounded the vibrating
tones of a hoarse steam-whistle--a sound which brought back to me my
earliest years spent among ships and craft of all sorts, and queer
noises of water and wind and steam. And then, after a minute, I
recognized by its green and white funnel that it was one of our own
ships which was coming up the harbour.
And at that instant everything upon which I had been brooding became so
clear to me that I took to the nearest typewriter, and there, in front
of that same open window, I sit and write what I have understood but a
moment ago.
Once, we have been a very great people. We have had a slow decline and
we have had a fall which we caused by our own mistakes and during which
we showed the worst sides of our character. But now all this has
changed. And at the present moment we have a better claim to a place on
the honour-list of nations than the mere fact that once upon a time,
some three centuries ago, our ancestors did valiant deeds.
For, more important, because more difficult of accomplishment, there
stands this one supreme fact: we have come back.
What I shall have to tell you in the following pages, if you are
inclined to regard it as such, will read like a mockery of one's own
people.
But who is there that has studied the events of those years between
1795-1815 who did not feel the utter indignation, the terrible shame, of
so much cowardice, of such hopeless vacillation in the hour of need, of
such indifference to civic duties? Who has ever tried to understand the
events of the year of Restoration who does not know that there was very
little glory connected with an event which the self-contented
contemporary delighted to compare to the great days of the struggle
against Spanish tyranny? And who that has studied the history of the
early nineteenth century does not know how for two whole generations
after the Napoleonic wars our country was no better than a negative
power, tolerated because so inoffensive? And who, when he compares what
was one hundred years ago with what is to-day, can fail to see what a
miracle of human energy here has happened? I have no statistics at hand
to tell you about our shipping, our imports and exports, or to show you
the very favourable place which the next to the smallest among the
nations occupies. Nor can I, without looking it up, write down for your
benefit what we have invented, have written, have painted. Nor is it my
desire to show you in detail how the old neglected inheritance of the
East India Company has been transformed into a colonial empire where not
only the intruding Hollander but where the native, too, has a free
chance to develop and to prosper.
But what I can say and will say with all emphasis is this: Look where
you will, in whatever quarter of the globe you desire, and you will find
Holland again upholding her old traditions for efficiency, energy, and
tenacity of purpose.
Pay a visit to the Hollander at home and you will find that he is trying
to solve with the same ancient industry of research the eternal problems
of nature, while with the utmost spirit of modern times he attempts to
reconstruct the relationship between those who have and those who have
not, until a basis mutually more beneficial shall have been established.
Then you will see how upon all sides there has been a return to a
renewed interest in life and to a desire to do cheerfully those tasks
which the country has been set to do.
And then you will understand how the year 1913, proud of what has been
achieved, though not content that the goal has been reached, can well
afford to tell the truth about the year 1813. For after a century and a
half of decline Holland once more has aspired to be great in everything
in which a small nation can be great.
_New York, N.Y., October 31, 1913._