[CONTINUATION OF STERN’S COMPOSITION.]
Reader, I would give anything to know exactly how long I could let a
heroine float in the air, while I described a castle, without
exhausting your patience, and causing you to look wearily aside, before
the poor creature reached the earth? If my tale demanded such a caper,
I should prudently choose a first storey for my point de départ, and a
castle of which but little could be said. Once for all, however, I will
make you easy on that head:—Havelaar’s house had no storeys at all, and
the heroine of my book,—the lovely, faithful, ansprüchlose Tine, a
heroine!—never jumped out of the window.
When I ended the foregoing chapter, with a reference to some variation
in the next, it was rather a rhetorical artifice, and to make a good
ending, than because I meant that the next chapter should only be
valuable as a change. A writer is vain as a——man. Slander his mother,
or ridicule the colour of his hair, say that he has an Amsterdam
accent, such as no Amsterdammer ever had,—perhaps he will forgive you
these things; but never say anything against him as an author——for this
he will not forgive. If you don’t think my book a good one, and you
happen to meet me, just act as if we were strangers to each other.
No, even such a chapter “for a change” appears to me, through the
magnifying-glass of my vanity as an author, to be most important and
indispensable; and if you do not read it, and afterwards feel
disappointed with my book, I shall not hesitate to tell you that your
not reading it was the cause of your inability to appreciate my book,
for the chapter you omitted was just the most essential of all——I
therefore—for I am a man and an author—should hold every chapter to be
essential which you had passed over with unpardonable readerlike
levity. I imagine that your wife asks, “What do you think of that
book?” And you say, for instance—[horribile auditu to me]—with the pomp
of diction peculiar to married men—
“Humph! so-so.—I don’t know yet.”
Well then, barbarian! read on: what is most important is about to
commence. And with trembling lips I look at you, and measure the
thickness of the turned leaves——and I look on your face for the
reflection of that chapter “that is so important.”——“No,” I say, “he
has not yet jumped up——embraced somebody in ecstasy——his wife
perhaps——” But you read on. It appears to me that he has already had
“the important chapter”——you have not jumped up at all, and have
embraced nothing——
And fewer and fewer grow the leaves under your right thumb, and my hope
for that embrace becomes fainter and fainter:
“Yes, truly, I reckoned on a tear!”
And you have finished the novel to “where they have met each other,”
and you say, yawning—[“that is another expression of true eloquence”]—
“Not much——it is such a book as is often written now-a-days!”
But don’t you know, monster, tiger, European reader! don’t you know
that you spent an hour in biting my soul as a tooth-pick; in gnawing
and chewing the flesh and bone of your species? Man-eater! my soul was
in that which you have ruminated on as once eaten grass. That was my
heart that you swallowed there as a dainty bit, for I put my heart and
my soul into that book: and so many tears fell on that manuscript, and
my blood went back from the veins to the heart, as I wrote on, and I
gave you all this; and you bought this for a few pence—and you say
“Humph!”
The reader understands that I do not speak here about my book.
So that I will only say, that I quote the words of Abraham Blankaart
[61]——
“Who is that Abraham Blankaart?” asked Louise Rosemeyer, and Fred told
her, which gave me much pleasure; for this gave me an opportunity to
get up and make an end of the reading—for this evening at least. You
know that I am a coffee-broker—[No. 37 Laurier Canal]—and that I live
for my profession; you will therefore be able to judge how little
pleased I was with the work of Stern. I had hoped it would be about
coffee, and he gave us——yes, Heaven knows what! He has already had our
attention during three parties, and, what is worse, the Rosemeyers like
it. I make a remark, he appeals to Louise. Her approbation, he says, is
dearer to him than all the coffee in the world, and moreover, when my
heart burns, etc.—[look at that tirade, page so-and-so, or rather don’t
look for it at all.] There I am, and don’t know what to do! That parcel
of Shawlman’s is a true Trojan horse; even Fred is corrupted by it. He
helped Stern, as I perceive, for “Abraham Blankaart” is too Dutch for a
German. Both are so very self-sufficient that I am truly perplexed with
the matter. Worse still, I made an agreement with Gaafzuiger for the
publishing of a book about the Coffee-Auctions. All Holland is waiting
for it, and there Stern goes quite another way. Yesterday he said: “Be
at your ease; different roads lead to Rome: wait for the end of the
introduction”—[is all this only “introduction?”]—“I promise you that
all will come down to coffee,—coffee, coffee, and nothing but coffee.”
“Think of Horace,” he continued; “has he not said, ‘Omne tulit punctum
qui miscuit’——Coffee with something else? And do you not act in the
same way, when you put sugar and milk in your cup?” And then I am
forced to be silent; not because he is right, but because I and the
firm Last and Co., have to take care that old Mr. Stern does not fall
into the hands of Busselinck and Waterman, who would serve him very
badly, because they are bunglers.
With your permission, reader! I give vent to my feelings, and in order
that you, after reading what Stern has written—[have you really read
it?]—should not pour out your wrath on an innocent head,—for what man
will employ a broker who scolds him for a man-eater?—I take it for
granted that you are convinced of my innocence. I cannot exclude young
Stern from a share in my book, now that matters have gone so far.
Louise Rosemeyer when she comes out of church—[the boys appear to wait
for her]—asks if he will come early in the evening to read a good deal
about Max Havelaar and Tine.
But as you bought or borrowed the book trusting in the respectable
title, which promises something worth reading, I acknowledge your
claims to something that is worth your money, and, therefore, I once
more write a couple of chapters. You, reader, do not go to the parties
of the Rosemeyers; and therefore you are more fortunate than I am, who
have to hear all! You are at liberty to pass over the chapters that
have a flavour of German excitement, and to read only what has been
written by me, who am a respectable man and a coffee-broker.
With surprise I learnt from Stern’s scribbling and Shawlman’s parcel
the fact that no coffee is planted in the district of Lebak. That is a
great mistake, and I shall consider my pains largely rewarded, if the
Government through my book perceives this fault.
From Shawlman’s papers it would appear that the soil in these regions
is not fit for coffee-culture; but that is no excuse; and I maintain
that it is an unpardonable neglect of the interests of Holland
generally, and of the coffee-brokers in particular; yes, of the
Javanese, neither to make the ground fit for coffee—[the Javanese have
nothing else to do]—or, if they think this impossible, to send the men
who live there to other places where the ground is good for coffee.
I never say anything that I have not well considered, and I dare affirm
that I here speak with a knowledge of business, because I have maturely
considered this matter more than once since I heard Dominé [62]
Wawelaar’s sermon on the Fast-day [63] for the Conversion of the
Heathen.
That was on Wednesday evening. You must know that I punctually fulfil
my obligations as a father, and that I take the moral education of my
children very much to heart. As Fred has during the last few days
assumed something in tone and manner which displeases me—[that
confounded parcel is the cause of it all]—I have given him a good
lecture, and said, “Fred, I am not satisfied with you: I always set you
a good example, and you forsake the right path; you are conceited and
troublesome; you make verses, and you have kissed Betsy Rosemeyer. The
fear of the Lord is the source of all wisdom: therefore you must not
kiss the Rosemeyers, and you must not be so conceited. Immorality leads
to destruction: read the Scriptures, and mark that Shawlman. He left
the ways of the Lord: now he is poor, and dwells in a little garret;
that is the consequence of immorality and bad conduct; he wrote
improper articles in the Indépendance and let the ‘Aglaja’ fall: such
are the consequences of being wise in one’s own eyes. He does not now
know what o’clock it is, and his little boy wears knee-breeches. Think
that your body is a temple of God, and that your father has always had
to work very hard for his bread—[it is the truth]. Raise your eyes
upwards, and endeavour to become a respectable broker when I go to
Driebergen. [64] And consider all those men, who will not listen to
good counsel, who trample upon religion and morality, and see yourself
in these men. Do not think yourself equal to Stern, whose father is so
rich, and who will always have money enough, even if he does not like
to become a broker. Only think that wickedness is always punished: look
again at that Shawlman, who has no winter overcoat, and who looks like
a clown. Pay attention when you are at church, and you must not fidget
so much on your bench, as if you were annoyed; and do not wait for
girls when the service is over, for that destroys all chance of
edification. Do not make Mary laugh when I am reading the Bible at
breakfast; all this should not be in a respectable household.
“You have also drawn caricatures on Bastianus’ desk when he was not at
the office on account of the gout, which continually plagues him,—this
keeps them in the office away from their work; and you may read in the
Word of God that such follies end in ruin. This Shawlman did the same
when he was young: when a child he beat a Greek on the Wester Market;
now he is idle, conceited, and sickly. Do not always make fun with
Stern; his father is rich; and do as if you did not see it, when he
makes wry faces to the bookkeeper, and when he is busy with verses
outside the office. Tell him that he had better write to his father
that he likes our Company very much, and that he is so contented here,
and that Mary has embroidered slippers for him. Ask him, if he thinks
that his father will go to Busselinck and Waterman, and tell him that
they are low fellows. Do you see that you will in this way bring him
into the right path? you owe this to your fellow-creatures, and all
that verse-making is nonsense. Be just and obedient, Fred, and do not
pull the maid-servant’s dress when she brings tea into the office; and
do not make me ashamed that she spills it; and St. Paul says, that a
son must never vex his father. These twenty years I have frequented the
Exchange, and I may say, that I am esteemed there at my stall.
Therefore listen to my exhortations, Fred; fetch your hat, put on your
coat, and go with me to the prayer-meeting: that will do you all the
good in the world.”
So I have spoken, and I am convinced that I made some impression, above
all because Dominé Wawelaar had for his subject:—The love of God
evident in His wrath against unbelievers.—(Samuel’s reproof of Saul: 1
Sam. xv. 33.)
I continually thought, while listening to his sermon, how great is the
difference between human wisdom and divine. I have already told you,
that in Shawlman’s parcel, there is, amongst much rubbish, a great deal
of what appeared to be sound common sense; but of how little
significance is this, when compared with such language as that of
Parson Wawelaar. And not from his own strength,—for I know Wawelaar,
and consider him to be a man of middling capacity—his eloquence is
given him by the power that comes from above. This difference was still
more obvious, because he hinted at many things, about which Shawlman
himself had written; for you have seen, that in his parcel, he speaks
much about Javanese and other Pagans—[Fred says that the Javanese are
no Pagans; but I call every one who has a wrong faith a Pagan]. From
the Dominé’s sermon I got my idea of the unlawful revocation of the
coffee-culture at Lebak, about which I shall say more by and by; and
because, being an honest man, I am not willing that the reader should
receive nothing for his money, I will here communicate some extracts
from the sermon, which I consider particularly touching. He had proved
in a few words from the above-named text the love of God, and very soon
went on to the point in question, viz., the conversion of Javanese,
Malay, and other Pagan races, whatever may be their names.
“Such, my beloved! was the vocation of Israel”—[he meant the
destruction of the inhabitants of Canaan]—“and such is the vocation of
Holland! No, it shall not be said that the light which beams upon us
has been put aside under a bushel, nor that we grudgingly communicate
the bread of life. Glance at the islands of the Indian Ocean, inhabited
by millions and millions of children of the accursed son—and of the
rightly accursed son—of the noble, God-serving Noah. There they creep
in the disgusting snake-holes of Pagan ignorance, there they bow the
black woolly head under the yoke of selfish priests. There they worship
God, invoking a false prophet that is an abomination in the eyes of the
Lord; and, beloved! as if it were not enough to obey a false prophet,
there are even those among them who worship another God, or rather
other gods; yes, gods of wood and stone, which they themselves have
made in their own image—black, abominable, with flat noses, and
devilish. Yes, beloved! tears almost arrest me; for deeper still is the
depravity of the race of Ham. There are amongst them, that know no God
under any name whatever; who think it sufficient to obey the laws of
society; who consider a harvest-song, wherein they express their joy on
the success of their labour, as a sufficient thanksgiving to the
Supreme Being who made the harvest ripen.
“There are ignorant men, my beloved, who think that it is sufficient to
love wife and child, and not to take from their fellow-beings what does
not belong to them, and that they may then calmly lay down their heads
and sleep! Do you not shiver with horror at this picture? does not your
heart shrink when you think of what will be the fate of all those fools
as soon as the trumpet shall sound which will summon the dead and
separate the faithful from the unfaithful? Do you not hear? Yes, you do
hear; for from the text you have perceived that your God is a mighty
God, and a God who will inflict vengeance—yes, you hear the breaking
bones, and the crackling of the flames in the eternal Gehenna, where
there is weeping and gnashing of teeth:—there, there they burn and
perish not, for the punishment is eternal:—there the flame licks with a
never-satisfied tongue the screaming victims of unbelief:—there the
worm dies not that gnaws their hearts through and through without
destroying them, that there may always remain a heart to gnaw in the
breast of the God-forsaken. Look how they strip off the black skin of
that unbaptized child, that, scarcely born, was slung away from the
breast of its mother into the abyss of eternal damnation——” [65]
[Now, at this moment a woman fainted away.]
“But, beloved,” continued Dominé W., “God is a God of love. It is not
His will that the sinner should perish, but that he should be saved by
His mercy in Christ, through faith! And therefore Holland has been
selected to save as many as can be saved of these miserable creatures.
Therefore He has given power to a country small in extent, but great
and strong by the knowledge of God,—power over the inhabitants of those
regions, that they may be saved from the torments of hell by the holy,
never sufficiently to be praised Gospel. The ships of Holland navigate
the great waters, and bring civilisation, religion, Christianity, to
the erring Javanese. No, our happy Holland does not desire salvation
for itself alone;—we wish to communicate it to the unfortunate
creatures on far-off strands, that there lie bound in the fetters of
unbelief, superstition, and immorality,—and the contemplation of the
duties that rest on us shall be the seventh head of my sermon.” For
what preceded was the sixth.
Amongst the obligations which we have to fulfil respecting these poor
Pagans were named—
“1. The giving of large sums in money to the Missionary Societies.
“2. The support of the Bible Societies, in order that they may be
able to distribute Bibles in Java.
“3. The erection of ‘places for religious purposes at Harderwijk’
for the use of the colonial recruiting depôt.
“4. The writing of sermons and religious songs proper to be read
and sung to the Javanese by the soldiers and sailors.
“5. The formation of an association of influential men, whose duty
it would be to supplicate our most worthy King——
“(a.) Only to appoint such governors, officers, and employés as
can be regarded as steadfast in the true religion.
“(b.) To allow the Javanese to visit the barracks, the ships of
war, and merchantmen, that by intercourse with Dutch
soldiers and sailors they may be instructed in the
kingdom of God.
“(c.) To prohibit the acceptance of Bibles or religious
treatises as payment in public-houses.
“(d.) To stipulate in the conditions of the opium license [66]
in Java, that in every opium-house a number of Bibles
must be provided, in proportion to the apparent number
of visitors of such a place; and that the farmer binds
himself not to sell any opium, unless the buyer takes
a religious treatise at the same time.
“(e.) To order that the Javanese be by labour educated to the
kingdom of God.
“6. The giving of large sums of money to the Missionary Societies.”
I know that I have given the last statement under No. 1; but he
repeated it, and such a superfluity seems to me to be very explicable
in the enthusiasm of discourse.
But, reader, did you pay attention to No. 5 (e.)? Now then; that was
what put me so much in mind of the Coffee-Auctions and the pretended
sterility of the soil of Lebak, that you will not be surprised, on my
assuring you, that this matter has not been for a moment out of my
thoughts since Wednesday evening. Dominé W. read the reports of the
missionaries; nobody can dispute his thorough knowledge of the
business. Well then,—when he, with these reports in his hands, and his
eyes turned to God, asserts that much labour will be favourable to the
conquest of Javanese souls to the kingdom of God, then I may certainly
assume that I am not so far from the truth, when I say that Lebak will
do very well for coffee-culture; and more still, that the Supreme Being
perhaps made the ground unfit for coffee-culture, only in order that by
the labour that is necessary to construct another soil there, the
population of that province may be made fit for salvation.
I do hope that my book will fall under the King’s eye, and that it may
be very soon apparent in enlarged Auctions, how strong a relation there
is between the knowledge of God and the well-known interest of all
citizens. Look how the simple, humble Wawelaar, without wisdom of
men—[the fellow never set foot in the Exchange]—but enlightened by the
Gospel, which is a lamp to his path, suddenly gives me, a
coffee-broker, a hint which is not only important to all Holland, but
whereby I may be able to go perhaps five years earlier to Driebergen,
if Fred behaves well—[he was very quiet during the sermon]. Yes,
labour, labour, that is my maxim; labour for the Javanese, that is my
principle, and my principles are sacred to me.
Is not the Gospel the summum bonum? Is there anything better than
salvation? Is it not, therefore, our duty to make sure the salvation of
these men? And when labour is necessary for that——I myself have
frequented the Exchange for twenty years——can we then refuse labour to
the Javanese, when it is necessary for his soul, in order that it may
not be tormented hereafter? Selfishness! it would be abominable
selfishness if we did not employ all possible efforts to save those
poor erring men from the terrible future which Dominé Wawelaar so
eloquently described. A lady fainted when he spoke of that black child;
perhaps she has a little boy of dark features——such are women!
And should not I insist upon labour,—I, who think from morning till
evening only about business? Is not even that book, which Stern makes
me dislike so much, a proof how good my intentions are for the welfare
of the country, and how I like to sacrifice all for that? And when I
have to labour so hard, I who was baptized (in the Amstel Kirk), is it
not lawful to exact of the Javanese, who has still to earn his
salvation, that he should employ his hands?
When that Society—[I mean No. 5 (e.)]—is formed, I will join it, and
endeavour to engage the Rosemeyers to join it too, because the
sugar-refiners have also an interest in it, though I do not believe
that they are very particular in their ideas,—I mean the Rosemeyers,
for they have a Roman Catholic servant. In any case, I shall do my
duty. That I promised myself while returning home with Fred from the
prayer-meeting. In my house the Lord shall be served, I will take care
of that; and with the more zeal, the more I perceive how wisely all has
been settled, how good the ways are by which we are conducted to the
hand of God, how He wills to preserve us for eternal and temporal
life——for that ground at Lebak can be very well fitted for
coffee-culture.