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[Illustration: The Delft Gate at Rotterdam.]
Dutch Life in Town and Country
By
P. M. Hough, B.A.
With Thirty-Two Illustrations
Contents
I. National Characteristics
II. Court and Society
III. The Professional Classes
IV. The Position of Women
V. The Workman of the Towns
VI. The Canals and Their Population
VII. A Dutch Village
VIII. The Peasant at Home
IX. Rural Customs
X. Kermis and St. Nicholas
XI. National Amusements
XII. Music and the Theatre
XIII. Schools and School Life
XIV. The Universities
XV. Art and Letters
XVI. The Dutch as Readers
XVII. Political Life and Thought
XVIII. The Administration of Justice
XIX. Religious Life and Thought
XX. The Army and Navy
XXI. Holland Over Sea
Index
List of Illustrations
The Delft Gate at Rotterdam
Types of Zeeland Women
Zeeland Peasant--The Dark Type
A Zeeland Woman--The Dark Type
Dutch Fisher Girls
A Bridal Pair Driving Home
A Dutch Street Scene
A Sea-Going Canal
A Village in Dyke-Land
A Canal in Dordrecht
An Overyssel Farmhouse
An Overyssel Farmhouse
Approach to an Overyssel Farm
Zeeland Costume
Zeeland Costumes
An Itinerant Linen-Weaver
Farmhouse Interior, Showing the Linen-Press
Type of an Overyssel Farmhouse
A Farmhouse Interior, Showing the Door into the Stable
Farmhouse Interior, the Open Fire on the Floor
Palm Paschen--Begging for Eggs
Rommel Pot
A Hindeloopen Lady in National Costume
Rural Costume--Cap with Ruche of Fur
An Overyssel Peasant Woman
Zeeland Children in State
Kermis 'Hossen-Hossen--Hi-Ha!'
St. Nicholas Going His Rounds on December 5th
Skating to Church
Parliament House at the Hague--View From the Great Lake
Interior of Delftshaven Church (Where the Pilgrim Fathers Worshipped
Before Leaving for New England)
Utrect Cathedral
Dutch Life in Town and Country
Chapter I
National Characteristics
There is in human affairs a reason for everything we see, although not
always reason in everything. It is the part of the historian to seek in
the archives of a nation the reasons for the facts of common experience
and observation, it is the part of the philosopher to moralize upon
antecedent causes and present results. Neither of these positions is taken
up by the author of this little book. He merely, as a rule, gives the
picture of Dutch life now to be seen in the Netherlands, and in all things
tries to be scrupulously fair to a people renowned for their kindness and
courtesy to the stranger in their midst.
And this strikes one first about Holland--that everything, except the old
Parish Churches, the Town Halls, the dykes and the trees, is in
miniature. The cities are not populous, the houses are not large, the
canals are not wide, and one can go from the most northern point in the
country to the most southern, or from the extreme east to the extreme
west, in a single day, and, if it be a summer's day, in _day-light_,
while from the top of the tower of the Cathedral at Utrecht one can look
over a large part of the land.
[Illustration: Types of Zeeland Women.]
As it is with the natural so it is with the political horizon. This latter
embraces for the average Dutchman the people of a country whose interests
seem to him bound up for the most part in the twelve thousand square miles
of lowland pressed into a corner of Europe; for, extensive as the Dutch
colonies are, they are not 'taken in' by the average Dutchman as are the
colonies of some other nations. There are one or two towns, such as The
Hague and Arnhem, where an Indo-Dutch Society may be found, consisting of
retired colonial civil servants, who very often have married Indian women,
and have either returned home to live on well-earned pensions or who
prefer to spend the money gained in India in the country which gave them
birth. But Holland has not yet begun to develop as far as she might the
great resources of Netherlands India, and therefore no very great amount
of interest is taken in the colonial possessions outside merely home,
official, or Indo Dutch society.
[Illustration: Zeeland Peasant--The Dark Type.]
With regard to the affairs of his country generally, the state of mind of
the average Dutchman has been well described as that of a man well on in
years, who has amassed a fair fortune, and now takes things easily, and
loves to talk over the somewhat wild doings of his youth. Nothing is more
common than to hear the remarks from both old and young, 'We _have_ been
great,' 'We have _had_ our time,' 'Every nation reaches a climax;' and
certainly Holland has been very great in statesmen, patriots, theologians,
artists, explorers, colonizers, soldiers, sailors, and martyrs. The names
of William the Silent, Barneveldt, Arminius, Rembrandt, Rubens, Hobbema,
Grotius, De Ruyter, Erasmus, Ruysdael, Daendels, Van Speijk, Tromp afford
proof of the pertinacity, courage, and devotion of Netherland's sons in
the great movements which have sprung from her soil.
To have successfully resisted the might of a Philip of Spain and the
strategy and cruelties of an Alva is alone a title-deed to imperishable
fame and honour. Dutch men and women fought and died at the dykes, and
suffered awful agonies on the rack and at the stake. 'They sang songs of
triumph,' so the record runs, 'while the grave diggers were shovelling
earth over their living faces.' It is not, therefore, to be wondered at
that a legacy of true and deep feeling has been bequeathed to their
descendants, and the very suspicion of injustice or infringement of what
they consider liberty sets the Dutchman's heart aflame with patriotic
devotion or private resentment. Phlegmatic, even comal, and most difficult
to move in most things, yet any 'interference' wakes up the dormant spirit
which that Prince of Orange so forcibly expressed when he said, in
response to a prudent soldier's ear of consequences if resistance were
persisted in, 'We can at least die in the last ditch.'
Until one understands this tenacity in the Dutch character one cannot
reconcile the old world methods seen all over the country with the
advanced ideas expressed in conversation, books, and newspapers. The
Dutchman hates to be interfered with, and resents the advice of candid
friends, and cannot stand any 'chaff.' He has his kind of humour, which is
slow in expression and material in conception, but he does not understand
'banter.' He is liberal in theories, but intensely conservative in
practice. He will _agree_ with a new theory, but often _do_ as his
grandfather did, and so in Holland there may be seen very primitive
methods side by side with _fin de siècle_ thought. In a _salon_ in any
principal town there will be thought the most advanced, and manner of life
the most luxurious; but a stone's-throw off, in a cottage or in a
farmhouse just outside the town, may be witnessed the life of the
seventeenth century. Some of the reasons for this may be gathered from the
following pages as they describe the social life and usages of the people.
In the seven provinces which comprise the Netherlands there are
considerable differences in scenery, race, dialect, pronunciation, and
religion, and therefore in the features and character of the people.
United provinces in the course of time effect a certain homogeneity of
purpose and interest, yet there are certain fundamental differences in
character. The Frisian differs from the Zeelander: one is fair and the
other dark, and both differ from the Hollander. And not only do the
provincials differ in character, dialect, and pronunciation from one
another, but also the inhabitants of some cities differ in these respects
from those of other cities. An educated Dutchman can tell at once if a man
comes from Amsterdam, Rotterdam, or The Hague. The 'cockney' of these
places differs, and of such pronunciations 'Hague Dutch' is considered the
worst, although--true to the analogy of London--the best Dutch is heard in
The Hague. This difference in 'civic' pronunciation is certainly very
remarkable when one remembers that The Hague and Rotterdam are only
sixteen miles apart, and The Hague and Amsterdam only forty miles. Arnhem
and The Hague are the two most cosmopolitan cities in the kingdom, and one
meets in their streets all sorts and conditions of the Netherlander.
[Illustration: A Zeeland Woman--The Dark Type.]
All other towns are provincial in character and akin to the county-town
type. Even Amsterdam, the capital of the country, is only a commercial
capital. The Court is only there for a few days in each year; Parliament
does not meet there; the public offices are not situated there; and
diplomatic representatives are not accredited to the Court at Amsterdam
but to the Court at The Hague; and so Amsterdam is 'the city,' and no more
and no less. This Venice of the North looks coldly on the pleasure seeking
and loving Hague, and jealously on the thriving and rapidly increasing
port of Rotterdam, and its merchant princes build their villas in the
neighbouring and pleasant woods of Bussum and Hilversum, and near the
brilliantly-coloured bulb-gardens of Haarlem, living in these suburban
places during the summer months, while in winter they return to the fine
old houses in the Heerengracht and the many other 'grachten' through which
the waters of the canals move slowly to the river. But to The Hague the
city magnates seldom come, and the young men consider their contemporaries
of the Court capital wanting in energy and initiative, and very proud, and
so there is little communication between the two towns--between the City
and Belgravia. One knows, as one walks in the streets of Amsterdam, The
Hague, Rotterdam, or Utrecht, that each place is a microcosm devoted to
its own particular and narrow interests, and in these respects they are
survivals of the Italian cities of the Middle Ages. There is, indeed,
great similarity in the style of buildings, and, with the exception of
Maestricht, in the south of the country, which is mediæval and Flemish,
one always feels that one is in Holland. The neatness of the houses, the
straight trees fringing the roads, the canals and their smell, the
steam-trams, the sound of the conductor's horn and the bells of the
horse-trams, the type of policeman, and above and beyond all the universal
cigar--all these things are of a pattern, and that pattern is seen
everywhere, and it is not until one has lived in the country for some time
that one recognizes that there are differences in the mode of life in the
larger towns which are more real than apparent, and that this practical
isolation is not realized by the stranger.
The country life of the peasant, however, is much more uniform in
character, in spite of the many differences in costume and in dialect. The
methods of agriculture are all equally old-fashioned, and the peasants
equally behind the times in thought. Their thrifty habits and devotion to
the soil of their country ensure them a living which is thrown away by the
country folk of other lands, who at the first opportunity flock into the
towns. But the Dutch peasant _is_ a peasant, and does not mix, or want to
mix, with the townsman except in the way of business. He brings his garden
and farm produce for sale, and as soon as that is effected--generally very
much to his own advantage, for he is wonderfully 'slim'--he rattles back,
drawn by his dogs or little pony, to the farmhouse, and relates how he has
come safely back, his stock of produce diminished, but his stock of
inventions and subtleties improved and increased by contact with
housewives and shopkeepers, who do their best to drive a hard bargain. In
dealing with the 'boer' the townspeople's ingenuity is taxed to the utmost
in endeavouring to get the better of one whose nature is heavy but
cunning, and families who have dealt with the same 'boer' vendor for years
have to be as careful as if they were transacting business with an entire
stranger. The 'boer's' argument is simplicity itself: 'They try to get the
better of me, and I try to get the better of them'--and he _does_ it!
If, however, there are these differences between city and city and class
and class, there is one common characteristic of the Dutchman which, like
the mist which envelops meadow and street alike in Holland after a warm
day, pertains to the whole race, viz. his deliberation, that slowness of
thought, speech, and action which has given rise to such proverbs as 'You
will see such and such a thing done "in a Dutch month."' The Netherlander
is most difficult to move, but once roused he is far more difficult to
pacify. Many reasons are given for this 'phlegm,' and most people
attribute it to the climate, which is very much abused, especially by
Dutch people themselves, because of its sunlessness during the winter
months; though as a matter of fact the climate is not so very different
from that in the greater part of England. The temperature on an average is
a little higher in summer and a little lower in winter than in the eastern
part of England; but certainly there is in the southern part of the
country a softness in the air which is enervating, and in such places as
Flushing snow is seldom seen, and does not lie long. But the same thing is
seen in Cornwall. Hence this climatic influence is not a sufficient reason
in itself to account for the undeniable and general 'slowness' of the
Dutchman. It is to be found rather in the history of the country, which
has taught the Netherlander to attempt to prove by other people's
experience the value of new ideas, and only when he has done so will he
adopt them. This saps all initiative.
There is a great lack of faith in everything, in secular as well as
religious matters, the Dutchman will risk nothing, for four cents' outlay
he must be quite certain of six cents in return. As long as he is in this
mood the country will 'mark time,' but not advance much. The Dutchman
believes so thoroughly in being comfortable, and, given a modest income
which he has inherited or gained, he will not only not go a penny beyond
it in his expenditure, but often he will live very much below it. He would
never think of 'living up to' his income; his idea is to leave his
children something very tangible in the shape of guldens. A small income
and little or no work is a far more agreeable prospect than a really busy
life allied to a large income. All the cautiousness of the Scotchman the
Dutchman has, but not the enterprise and industry. With his
cosmopolitanism, which he has gained by having to learn and converse in so
many languages, in order to transact the large transfer business of such a
country as the Netherlands, he has acquired all the various views of life
which cosmopolitanism opens to a man's mind. The Dutchman can talk upon
politics extremely well, but his interest is largely academic and not
personal; he is as a man who looks on and loves _desipere in loco_.
The Dutchman is therefore a philosopher and a delightful _raconteur_, but
at present he is not doing any very great things in the international
battle of life, though when great necessity arises there is no man who can
do more or do better.