silent white streets is the print of innumerable wooden shoes left in
the snow by the boys on their way to school, and so large are the
wooden shoes that they look like the tracks of elephants. These
footsteps generally go in a straight line, showing that the boys take
the shortest cut to school, and, like steady, zealous Dutchmen, do not
play and lose time on the road. One can see long rows of children
wrapped up in large scarfs, with their heads half hidden between their
shoulders--little bundles arm in arm, walking two by two, or three by
three, or pressed together in groups like a bunch of asparagus, out of
which peep only the tips of their noses and the ends of books. When
the boys have disappeared the streets are deserted for a short time,
for the Dutch do not rise early, especially in the winter. One can
walk some distance without meeting any one or hearing any sound. The
snow seems whiter surrounding those rose-colored houses, which have
all their projections outlined with a pure white line, and the wooden
heads outside of the shops wear white cotton wigs; the chains of the
railings look like ermine; everything presents a strange appearance.
When it freezes and the sun shines, the facades seem covered with
silver sparks, the ice heaped upon the banks of the canals shines with
all the colors of the rainbow, and the trees glitter with thousands of
little pearls, like the plants in the enchanted gardens of the Arabian
Nights. It is then that it is beautiful to walk in the forest at the
Hague at sunset, treading on the hardened snow, which crackles under
one's feet like powdered marble, in the avenues of large, white,
leafless beech trees, which look like one gigantic crystallization,
and cast blue and violet shadows, dotted with myriads of points which
glisten like diamonds in the paths dyed pink by the setting sun. But
nothing compares with the sight of the Dutch country seen from the
top of a steeple at morning after a heavy fall of snow. Beneath the
gray and lowering sky one looks over that vast white plain, from
which, roads, houses, and canals have disappeared, and nothing is seen
but elevations and depressions, which, like the folds of a sheet, give
a vague idea of the forms of hidden houses. The boundless white is
unstained save by the clouds of smoke that rise almost timidly from
the distant dwellings, as if to assure the spectator that beneath the
desert of snow human hearts are still beating.
It is impossible to speak of the winter in Holland without mentioning
what constitutes the originality and the attraction of winter life in
that country--the skating.
Skating in Holland is not only a recreation; it is the ordinary means
of transportation. To cite a well-known example, all know the value of
it to the Dutch in the memorable defence of Haarlem. When there is a
hard frost the canals are transformed into streets, and sabots tipped
with iron take the place of boats. The peasants skate to market, the
workmen to their work, the small tradespeople to their business;
entire families skate from the country to the town with their bags and
baskets on their shoulders or drive in sledges. Skating to them is as
habitual and easy as walking, and they skim along so rapidly that one
can scarcely follow them with the eye. In past years bets were
commonly made between the best Dutch skaters that they would skate
down the canals on either side of the railway as fast as the train
could go; and usually the skaters not only kept abreast of the engine,
but even beat it. There are people who skate from the Hague to
Amsterdam and back again on the same day; university students leave
Utrecht in the morning, dine at Amsterdam, and return home before the
evening; and a bet has been made and won several times of going from
Amsterdam to Leyden in little more than an hour. Persons who have been
drawn by sticks held by skaters have told me that the speed with which
they skim over the ice is enough to turn one giddy; but this rapidity
is not the only remarkable thing about it: another point very much to
be admired is the security with which they traverse great distances.
Peasants will go from one town to another at night. Young men go from
Rotterdam to Gouda, where they buy very long clay pipes, and return to
Rotterdam carrying them unbroken in their hands. Sometimes as one is
walking along a canal one sees a figure flit by like an arrow, to
disappear immediately in the distance. It is a peasant-girl carrying
milk to a house in the city.
There are sledges of every size and shape, some pushed by skaters,
others drawn by horses, others propelled by means of two iron-tipped
sticks which are worked by the person seated in the sledge. One sees
carts and carriages taken off of their wheels and mounted on two
boards, on which they glide with the same rapidity as the other sleds.
On holiday occasions the boats from Scheveningen have been seen to
glide over the snow through the streets of the Hague. Sometimes ships
in full sail are seen skimming over the ice of the large rivers, going
so fast that the faces of the few who dare to make this experiment are
terribly cut by the wind.
The most beautiful fetes in Holland are given on the ice. When the
Meuse is frozen, Rotterdam becomes a place of reunions and amusements.
The snow is brushed away until the ice is made as clean as a crystal
floor; restaurants, coffee-houses, pavilions, and benches for
spectators are set up, and at night all is illuminated. During the day
a swarm of skaters of every age, sex, and class crowds the river. In
other towns, especially in Friesland, which is the classical land of
the art, there are clubs of men-and women-skaters who institute public
races for prizes. Stakes and flags are set up all along the canals,
railings and stands are raised; immense crowds come from the villages
and the country-side. Bands play; the elite of the town are present.
The skaters present themselves dressed in a peculiar costume, the
women wearing pantaloons. There are races for men and races for women;
then both men and women race together. The names of the winners are
enrolled in the annals of the art and remain famous for many years.
In Holland there are two different schools of skating, the so-called
Dutch school and the Frieslander school, each of which uses a peculiar
kind of skate. The Frieslander school, which is the older, aims only
at speed; the Dutch school cultivates grace as well. The Frieslanders
are stiff in their motions; they throw their bodies forward, and hold
themselves very straight, looking as though they were starched, and
keeping their eyes fixed on the goal. The Dutch skate with a zigzag
movement, swaying from left to right and from right to left with an
undulating motion of the body. The Frieslander is an arrow, the
Dutchman a rocket.
The women prefer the Dutch school. The ladies of Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and
the Hague are, in fact, the most fascinating skaters in the Netherlands.
They begin to skate as children, continue as girls and wives, reaching the
height of beauty and the summit of art at the same time, while their
skates strike out sparks from the ice which kindle many fires. It is only
on the ice that Dutch women appear light-heeled. Some attain a marvellous
perfection. Those who have seen them say that it is impossible to imagine
the grace of movement, the bows, the glides, the thousand pretty delicate
arts that are displayed. They fly and return like swallows and
butterflies, and in this exercise they grow animated and their placid
beauty is transformed. But all are not so skilled: many dare not show
themselves in public, for those who would be considered prodigies with us
are scarcely noticed there, to such perfection has the art been carried.
The men, too, perform all kinds of tricks and feats, some writing words of
love and fantastic figures in their twirls, others making rapid
pirouettes, then gliding backward on one leg for a long distance; others
twist about, making numbers of dizzy turns in a small space, sometimes
bending down, then leaning to one side, then skating upright or crouching
like india-rubber figures moved by a secret spring.
The first day that the canals and small docks are covered with ice
strong enough to bear the skaters is a day of rejoicing in the Dutch
towns. Skaters who have made the experiment at break of day spread the
news abroad; the papers announce it; groups of boys about the streets
burst into shouts of delight; men and women-servants ask permission to
go out with the determined air of people who have decided to rebel if
refused; old ladies forget their age and ailments and hurry off to the
canal to emulate their friends and daughters. At the Hague the basin,
which is in the middle of the city, near to the Binnenhof, is invaded
by a mingling crowd of people, who interlace, knock against each
other, and form a confused giddy mass. The flower of the aristocracy
skates on a pond in the middle of the wood, and there in the snow may
be seen a winding and whirling maze of officers, ladies, deputies,
students, old men, and boys, among whom the crown prince is sometimes
to be seen. Thousands of spectators crowd around the scene, music
enlivens the festival, and the enormous disk of the Dutch sun at
sunset sends its dazzling salutation through the gigantic beech trees.
When the snow is packed hard the turn of the sleigh comes. Every
family has a sleigh, and at the hour the world goes out walking they
appear by hundreds. They fly past in long rows two or three abreast.
Some are shaped like shells, others like swans, dragons, boats, or
chariots. All are gilded and painted in various colors; the horses
which draw them are covered with handsome furs and magnificent
trappings, their heads ornamented with plumes and tassels, and their
harness studded with glittering buttons. In the sleighs sit ladies
clothed in sable, beaver, and blue fox. The horses toss their heads,
enveloped in a cloud of steam which rises from them, while their manes
are covered with ice-drops. The sleighs dart along, the snow flying
about them like silver foam. The splendid uncurbed procession passes
and disappears like a silent whirlwind over a field of lilies and
jessamine. At night, when the torches are lit, thousands of small
flames follow each other and flit about the silent town, casting lurid
flashes of light on the ice and snow, the whole scene appearing to the
imagination like a great diabolical battle over which the spectre of
Philip II. presides from the top of the Binnenhof Tower.
[Illustration: Main Drive in the Bosch, The Hague.]
But, alas! everything changes, even the winter, and with it the art of
skating and the use of sleighs. For many years the severe winters of
Holland have been followed by such mild ones that not only the large
rivers, but even the small canals in the towns, do not freeze. In
consequence the skaters who have been so long out of practice do not
risk giving public exhibitions when the occasion presents itself; and
so, little by little, their number becomes smaller, and the women
especially are forgetting the art. Last winter they hardly skated at
all, and this winter (1873) there has not been a race, and not even a
sleigh has been seen. Let us hope that this deplorable state of
affairs will not last, and that winter will return to caress Holland
with its icy bear's paw, and that the fine art of skating will once
more arise with its mantle of snow and its crown of icicles. Let me
announce meanwhile the publication of a work called "Skating," upon
which a Dutch legislator has been employed for many years--a work that
will be the history, the epic, and code of this art, from which all
European skaters, male and female, will be able to draw instruction
and inspiration.
While I remained at the Hague I frequented the principal club in the
town, composed of more than two thousand members. It is located in a
palace near the Binnenhof, and there it was that I made my observations
upon the Dutch character.
The library, the dining-room, and the card-room, the large drawing-room
for conversation, and the reading-room were as full as they could be from
four o'clock in the afternoon until midnight. Here one met artists,
professors, merchants, deputies, clerks, and officers. The greater number
come to drink a small glass of gin before dinner, and return later to take
another comforting sip of their favorite liquor. Nearly all converse, and
yet one hears only a light murmur, so that if one's eyes were shut one
would say that about half of the actual number was present. One can go
round the rooms many times without seeing a gesture of excitement or
hearing a loud voice: at a distance of ten steps from the groups one would
not know that any one was speaking, except by the movement of his lips.
One sees many corpulent gentlemen with broad, clean-shaven faces and
bearded throats, who talk without raising their eyes from the table or
lifting their hands from their glasses. It is very rare to see among these
heavy faces a lively, piquant physiognomy like that of Erasmus, which many
consider the true Dutch type, though I am not of their opinion.
The friend who opened the door of the club to me presented me to several
of its habitues. The difference between the Dutch and the Italian
character is especially evident in introductions. On one occasion I
noticed that the person to whom I was introduced scarcely bowed his head,
and then remained silent some moments. I thought my reverend face had not
pleased him, and felt an echo of cordial dislike in my heart. In a little
while the person who had introduced me went away, leaving me tete-a-tete
with my enemy. "Now," thought I, "I will burst before I will speak, a word
to him." But my neighbor, after some minutes of silence, said to me with
the greatest gravity, "I hope, if you have no other engagement to-day, you
will do me the honor of dining with me." I fell from the clouds. We then
dined together, and my Amphytrion placidly filled the table with bottles
of Bordeaux and champagne, and did not let me depart until I had promised
to dine with him again. Others, when I would ask information about various
things, would hardly answer me, as if they were trying to show me that I
was troublesome, so that I would say to myself, "How contemptible they
are!" But the next day they would send me all the details neatly and
clearly written out, and minute in a higher degree than I desired. One
evening I asked a gentleman to point out to me something in that ocean of
figures that goes by the name of _Guide to European Railways_. For some
moments he did not answer, and I felt mortified. Then he took the book,
put on his spectacles, turned over the leaves, read, took notes; added and
subtracted for half an hour, and when he had finished he gave me the
written answer, putting his spectacles back into their case without
speaking a word.
Many of those with whom I passed the evening used to go home at ten
o'clock to work, and to return to the club at half-past eleven, after
which they would remain until one o'clock. When they had said, "I must
go," there was no possibility of changing their minds. As the clock
struck ten they left the door; at half-past eleven they stepped over
the threshold. It is not surprising that with this chronometrical
precision they find time to do so many things, without doing anything
in haste; even those who do not depend on their studies for their
livelihood have read entire libraries. There is no English, German, or
French book, however unimportant, with which they are unacquainted.
French literature especially they have at their fingers' ends. And
what is said of literature can be said with more reason of politics.
Holland is one of the European countries in which the greatest number
of foreign papers are to be found, particularly those that deal
principally with national affairs. The country is small and peaceful,
and the news of the day is soon exhausted; consequently it frequently
happens that after ten minutes the conversation has passed beyond the
Rhine and deals with Europe. I remember the astonishment with which I
heard the fall of the ministry of Scialoia and other Italian matters
discussed as if they were domestic affairs.
One of my first cares was to sound the religious sentiment of the people,
and here I found, to my surprise, great confusion. As a learned Dutchman
most justly wrote a short time ago, "Ideas subversive of every religious
dogma have made much way in this land." It is quite a mistake, however, to
believe that where faith decreases indifference enters. Such men as
appeared to Pascal monstrous creatures--men who live without giving any
thought to religion, of whom there are numbers in our country--do not
exist in Holland. The religious question, which in Italy is merely a
question, in Holland is a battle in which all brandish their arms. In
every class of society, men and women, young and old, occupy themselves
with theology and read or listen to the disputes of the doctors, besides
devouring a prodigious number of polemical writings on religion. This
tendency of the country is shown even in Parliament, where the deputies
often confute their opponents with biblical quotations read in Hebrew, or
translated and commentated, the discussion degenerating into very
disquisitions on theology. All these conflicts, however, take place in the
mind rather than in the heart; they are devoid of passion, and one proof
of this is that Holland, which of all the countries in Europe is divided
into most sects, is also the country in which these sects live in the
greatest harmony and where there is the greatest degree of tolerance. If
this were not the case, the Catholic party would not have made such
strides as it has made, protected from the first by the Liberals against
the only intolerant party in the country, the orthodox Calvinists.
I did not make the acquaintance of any Calvinists, and I was sorry on
that account. I never believed all that is recounted of their extreme
rigour; for example, that there are among them certain ladies who hide
the legs of the tables with covers, for fear that they might suggest
to the minds of visitors the legs of the mistress of the house. But
there is no doubt that they live with extreme austerity. Many of them
never enter a theatre, a ball-room, or a concert-hall. There are
families who on the Sabbath content themselves with eating a little
cold meat, so that the cook may rest on that day. Every morning in
many houses the master reads from the Bible in the presence of the
family and servants, and they all pray together. But, nevertheless,
this sect of orthodox Calvinists, whose followers are almost all
amongst the aristocracy and the peasantry, does not exert a great
influence in the country. This is proved by the fact that in
Parliament the Calvinists are inferior in numbers to the Catholic
party and can do nothing without them.
I have mentioned the theatre. At the Hague, as in the other large
Dutch cities, there are no large theatres nor great performances. They
generally produce German operas sung by foreign singers, and French
comedies and operettas. Concerts are the great attraction. In this
Holland is faithful to its traditions, for, as is well known, Dutch
musicians were sought after in all the Christian courts as early as
the sixteenth century. It has also been said that the Dutch have great
ability in singing in chorus. In fact, the pleasure of singing
together must be great if it is in proportion to the aversion they
have to singing alone, for I do not ever remember hearing any one sing
a tune at any hour or in any part of a Dutch town, excepting street
urchins, who were singing in derision at drunken men, and drunkards
are seldom seen excepting on public holidays.
I have spoken of the French operettas and comedies. At the Hague not only
the plays are French, but public life as well. Rotterdam has an English
imprint, Amsterdam is German, and the Hague Parisian. So it may truthfully
be said that the citizens of the large Dutch towns unite and temper the
good qualities and the defects of the three great neighboring nations. At
the Hague in many families of the best society they speak French
altogether; in others they affect French expressions, as is done in some
of the northern towns of Italy. Addresses on letters are generally written
in French, and there is a small branch of society, as is frequently the
case in small countries, that professes a certain contempt for the
national language, literature, and art, and courts an adopted country
beyond the Meuse and the Rhine. The sympathies, however, are divided. The
elegant class inclines toward France, the learned class toward Germany,
and the mercantile class toward England. The zeal for France grew cold
after the Commune. Against Germany a secret animosity has arisen,
generated by the fear that in her acquisitive tastes she might turn toward
Holland. This feeling still ferments, though it is tempered by community
of interest against clerical Catholicism.
When it is said that the Hague is partly a French city, it must be
understood that this relates to its appearance only; at bottom the
Dutch characteristics predominate. Although it is a rich, elegant, and
gay city, it is not a city of riot and dissipation, full of duels and
scandals. The life is more varied and lively than that found in other
Dutch towns, but not less peaceful. The duels that take place in the
Hague in ten years may be counted on the five fingers of one's hand,
and the aggressor in the few that take place is usually an officer.
Notwithstanding, to show how powerful in Holland is this "ferocious
prejudice that honor dwells on the point of the sword," I recall a
discussion between several Dutchmen which was raised by a question of
mine. When I asked whether public opinion in Holland was hostile to
duels, they answered all together, "Exceedingly hostile." But when I
wanted to know whether a young man in good society who did not accept
a challenge would be universally praised, and would still be treated
and respected as before--whether, in short, he would be supported by
public opinion so that he would not repent his conduct--then they all
began discussing. Some weakly answered, "Yes;" others resolutely,
"No." But the general opinion was on the negative side. Hence I
concluded that although there are few duels in Holland, this does not
arise, as I thought, from a universal and absolute contempt for the
"ferocious prejudice," but rather from the rarity of the cases in
which two citizens allow themselves to be carried by passion to the
point of having recourse to arms; which is a result of nature rather
than of education. In public controversies and private discussions,
however violent, personal insults are very rare, and in parliamentary
battles, which are sometimes very vigorous, the deputies are often
exceedingly impertinent, but they always speak calmly and without
clamor. But this impertinence consists in the fact rather than in the
word, and wounds in silence.