The Professional Classes
The professional classes of Holland show their characteristics best in the
social circle in which they move and find their most congenial
companionships. Imagine, then, that we are the guests of the charming wife
of a successful counsel ('advocaat en procureur')--Mr. Walraven, let us
call him--settled in a large and prosperous provincial town. She is a
typical Dutch lady, with bright complexion, kind, clear blue eyes, rather
dark eyebrows, which give a piquant air to the white and pink of the face,
and a mass of fair golden hair, simply but tastefully arranged, leaving
the ears free, and adorning but not hiding the comely shape of the head.
She wears a dark-brown silk dress, covered with fine Brussels lace around
the neck, at the wrists, along the bodice, and here and there on the
skirt. A few rings glitter on her fingers, and her hands are constantly
busy with a piece of point lace embroidery; for many Dutch ladies cannot
stand an evening without the companionship of a 'handwerkje,' as
fancy-needlework is called. It does not in the least interfere with their
conversational duties. She is rather tall. Dutch men and women seem to
have all sizes equally distributed amongst them; it cannot be said that
they are a short people, like the French and the Belgians, nor can the
indication of middle size be so rightly applied to them as to their
German neighbours, whereas the taller Anglo-Saxons can frequently find
their match in the Netherlands.
The room in which we are seated is furnished in so-called 'old Dutch
style.' My friend and his wife have collected fine old wainscots,
sideboards and cupboards of richly carved oak in Friesland and in the
Flemish parts of Belgium. Their tables and chairs are all of the same
material and artistically cut. A very dark, greenish-grey paper covers the
walls; the curtains, the carpet, and the doors are in the same slightly
sombre shades. Venetian mirrors, Delft, Chinese and Rouen china plates,
arranged along the walls, over the carved oak bench, and on the
over-mantel, make delightful patches of bright colour in the room, and the
easy-chairs are as stylish as they are comfortable.
Our visit has fallen in the late autumn, and the gas burns bnghtly in the
bronze chandelier, while the fire in the old-fashioned circulating stove,
a rare specimen of ancient Flemish design, makes the room look cosy and
hospitable. For the moment our friend the lawyer is absent. He has been
called away to his study, for a client has come to see him on urgent
business, and we are left in the gracious society of his wife in the
comfortable sitting-room. On the table the Japan tray, with its silver
teapot, sugar-basin, milk-jug and spoon-box of mother-of-pearl and
crystal, and its dark-blue real China cups and saucers, enjoys the company
of two silver boxes, on silver trays, full of all sorts of 'koekjes'
(sweet biscuits). Many Dutch families like to take a 'koekje' with their
tea, tea-time falling in Holland between 7 and 8 o'clock, half-way between
dinner at 5 or 6 p.m. and supper at 10 or 11 p.m. A cigar-stand is not
wanting, nor yet dainty ash-trays; while by the side of our hostess is an
old-fashioned brass 'komfoor,' or chafer,[Footnote: _Komfoor_ (or
_kaffoor_) and _chafer_ are etymologically the same word, derived from the
Latin _califacere_. The French member of the family is _chauffoir_.] on a
high foot, so that within easy reach of the lady's hand is the handle of
the brass kettle, in which the 'theewater' is boiling.
Conversation turns from politics and literature to the ball to which my
hostess, her husband, and we as their guests have been invited at a
friend's house. She intends to go earlier; he and we are to follow later
in the evening, for that evening his 'Krans' is to meet at his house, and
it will keep us till eleven o'clock. A 'Krans' is simply a small company
of very good friends who meet, as a rule, once a month, at the house of
one of them, and at such meetings converse about things in general. The
English word for 'Krans' is 'wreath,' and the name indicates the intimate
and thoroughly friendly relations existing between the composing members.
They are twisted and twined together not merely by affectionate feeling,
but also by equality of social position, education, and intelligence.
Our friend's little circle numbers seven, and as every one of them happens
to be the leading man in his profession in that town, and in consequence
wields a powerful influence, their 'Krans' is generally nicknamed the
'Heptarchy.' Our friend the lawyer is not only a popular legal adviser,
but as 'Wethouder' (alderman) for finance and public works he is the
much-admired originator of the rejuvenated town. The place had been
fortified in former days, but after the home defence of Holland was
re-organized and a System of defence on a coherent and logically
conceived basis accepted, all fortified towns disappeared and became open
cities, of which this was one. The public-spirited lawyer grasped the
situation at once, and, spurred by his influence and enthusiasm, the Town
Council adopted a large scheme of streets, roads, parks, and squares, so
that when all was completed the inhabitants of the old city scarcely knew
where they were. Besides this, he is legal adviser of the local branch of
the Netherlands Bank, a director on the boards of various limited
companies, and the president-director of a prosperous Savings Bank.
Nevertheless, he finds time in his crowded life to read a great deal, to
see his friends occasionally, and to keep up an incessant courtship of his
handsome wife, who in return asseverates that he is the most sociable
husband in the world.
After Walraven has returned to the tea table, his admiring consort leaves
us, and shortly afterwards his best friend, within and without the
'Krans,' Dr. Klaassen, appears on the scene. He and Dr. Klaassen were
students at the same University, and nothing is better fitted to form
lifelong friendship than the freedom of Holland's University life and
University education. Dr. Klaassen is one of the most attractive types of
the Dutch medical man. His University examinations did not tie him too
tightly to his special science. Like ail Dutch students, he mixed freely
with future lawyers, clergymen, philosophers, and philologists, and it is
often said that while the University teaches young men chiefly sound
methods of work, students in Holland acquire quite as much instruction
from each other as from their professors. Doctor Klaassen left the
University as fresh as when he entered it, and ready to take a
healthvariousest in all departments of human affairs. He is a man to whom
the Homeric phrase might well be applied--'A physician is a man knowing
more than many others.'
His non-professional work takes him to the boards and comrmttees of
societies promoting charity, ethics, religion, literature, and the fine
arts. The local branch of the famous 'Maatschappÿ tot Nut van 't Algemeen'
(the 'Society for promoting the Common-weal') and its various
institutions, schools, libraries, etc., find in him one of their most
energetic and faithful directors; a local hospital admitting people of all
religions denominations has grown up by his untiring energy; and he
prepared the basis upon which younger men afterwards built what is now a
model institution in Holland; nor does he forget the poor and the orphans,
to whom he gives quite half his time, though how much of his money he
gives them nobody knows, least of all he himself.
The Reverend Mr. Barendsen, the third arrival, is a very different person.
His sermons are eloquent; he is a fluent speaker--too fluent, some say,
for words and phrases come so easily to him that the lack of thought is
not always felt by this preacher, although noticed by his flock. Now, a
sermon for Dutch Protestants is a difficult thing; it has to be long
enough to fill nearly a whole service of about two hours; and it is
listened to by educated and uneducated people, who all expect to be
edified. Dominee Barendsen, like so many of his colleagues, tries to meet
this difficulty by giving light nourishment in an attractive form. But if
his sermons do not succeed as well as his kind intentions deserve, his
influence is firmly established by his sympathetic personality. He may be
much more superficial than his two friends; he may be less dogged, less
tenacious than they; yet his fertile brain, his quick intelligence, and
his serious character have won for him a unique position, and his public
influence is very great. Both doctor and parson meet and mix in the best
society of the town, but the slums of the poor are also equally well known
to them; neither is a member of the Town Council, but the same
institutions have their common support. Livings in Holland are not
over-luxurious; and the consequence is that many 'Dominees' go out
lecturing, or make an additional income by translating or writing books.
Some of Holland's best and most successful authors and poets are, or were,
clergymen, such as Allard Pierson, P. A. de Génestet, Nicolaas Beets
(Hildebrand), Coenraad Busken Huet, J. J. L. ten Kate, Dr. Jan ten Brink,
Bernard ter Haar, etc. Dominee Barendsen is likewise well known in Dutch
literary circles.
General Hendriks is the next to be announced. Dutch officers do not like
to go about in their uniform, but the gallant general is also expected at
the ball, and so he has donned his military garments. He is a 'Genist,' a
Royal Engineer, and had his education at the Royal Military Academy at
Breda. This means that he is no swashbuckler, but a genial, well-mannered,
open-minded and well-read gentleman, with a somewhat scientific turn of
mind and a rare freedom from military prejudice. Hollanders are not a
military people in the German sense, and fire-eaters and military fanatics
are rare, but they are rarest amongst the officers of the General Staff,
the Royal Engineers, and the Artillery.
General Hendriks married a lady of title with a large fortune, so his
position is a very pleasant one. His friendship for the other
'Heptarchists' is necessarily of recent date, for he has been abroad a
great deal, and was five years in the Dutch East Indies fighting in the
endless war against Atchin. His stay there has widened his views still
more, and when he tells of his experiences he is at once interesting and
attractive, for he is well-informed and a charming _raconteur_. His rank
causes Society to impose on him duties which he is inclined to consider as
annoying, but he fulfils them graciously enough. He is a popular
president-director of the "Groote Societeit" (the Great Club), and of
Caecilia, the most prominent society for vocal and instrumental music; and
whenever races, competitions, exhibitions, bazaars, and similar social
functions, to which the Dutch are greatly addicted, take place, General
Hendriks is sure to be one of the honorary presidents, or at least a
member of the working board, and his urbanity and affability are certain
to ensure success. He has been a member of the States-General, and is said
to be a probable future Minister of War. But the weak spot in his heart is
for poetry and for literature generally; the number of poems he knows by
heart is marvellous, and at the meetings of the Heptarchy he freely
indulges his love of quotations, a pleasure he strictly denies himself in
other surroundings, for fear of boring people. But everybody has a dim
presumption that the general knows a good deal more than most people are
aware of, and this dim presumption is strengthened by the very firm
conviction that he is an exceedingly genial man and a 'jolly good fellow.'
Mr. Ariens, Lit.D., 'Rector of the Gymnasium (equivalent to Head-master of
a Grammar School), is the most remarkable type even in this very
remarkable set of men. He is highly unconventional, and his boys adore
him, while his old boys admire him, and the parents are his perennial
debtors in gratitude. He is unconventional in everything, in his dress, in
his way of living, in his opinions and judgments, but he parades none of
these, reducing them to neither a whim nor a hobby. He passed some years
in the Dutch Indies, travelled all over Europe, knows more of Greek,
Latin, and antiquities than anybody else, and is as thoroughly scientific
as any University professer. But the Government will never give him a
vacant chair, for his pedagogical powers surpass even his scientific
abilities, and they cannot spare such men in such places. To some
aristocratic people his noble simple-mindedness is downright appalling;
but when he goes about in dull, cold, wintry weather and visits the poor
wretches in the slums, where nature and natural emotions and forms of
speech are quite unconventional, he is duly appreciated. For he is not
only a splendid 'gymnasii rector,' he is also a very charitable man,
though he likes only one form of charity, that by which the rich man first
educates himself into being the poor man's friend, and then only offers
his sympathy and help, the charity which the one can give and the other
take without either of them feeling degraded by the act. He is not a
public-body man, our 'Rector,' but his friends appreciate his keen, just
judgment. They may disagree with him on some points, but a discussion with
him is always interesting on account of his original, fresh method of
thought, and instructive by reason of his very superior and universal
knowledge.
His best friend is Mr. Jacobs, a civil engineer. Dutch civil engineers are
educated at Delft, at the Polytechnic School, after having passed their
final examination at a 'Higher Burgher School.' Boys of sixteen or
seventeen are not fit to digest sciences by the dozen, and, however
pleasant and convenient it may be to become a walking cyclopedia, a
cyclopedia is not a living book, but a dead accumulation of dead
knowledge, which may inform though it does not educate. Happily, the
majority of Dutch engineers are saved by the Polytechnic School, where
they have about the same liberty as undergraduates at the Universities to
go their own way. Educationally they are not so well equipped, attention
only being paid to mental instruction, for the Director of a 'Higher
Burgher School' is a different man from the Rector of a Gymnasium, while
the System over which he presides is more or less incoherent so far as
educational considerations go.
But if a civil engineer is a success he is generally a big one. So is Mr.
Jacobs. He is thoroughly well read, though his reading may be somewhat
desultory. His splendid memory, assisted by a remarkably quick wit, allows
him to feel interested in nearly everything--sociology, literature, art,
music, theatre, sport, charity, municipal enterprise. If he is
superficial, nobody notices it, for he is much too smart to show it. His
general level-headedness makes him an inexhaustible source of admiration
to Dr. Ariens, whose peer he is in kindness of heart. His manner is
irreproachable; he never loses his temper in discussion, and treats his
opponents in such a quiet, courteous way that they are obviously sorry to
disagree with him. His business capacities are of the first rank; he makes
as much money as he likes, and however crowded his life may be, he always
finds time for more work. He is a member of the Town Council and a staunch
supporter of Walraven's progressive plans. Walraven has certain misgivings
about Jacobs' thoroughness, but he fully realizes his friend's quick grasp
of things. He may build bridges, irrigate whole districts, and drain
marshes in Holland, open up mines in Spain, build docks in America, or
hunt for petroleum in Russia; he is always sure to succeed, and a fair
profit for himself, at any rate, is the invariable result of his
exertions. He travels a great deal, knows everybody everywhere, and always
turns up again in the old haunts, bristling with interesting information,
visibly enjoying his busy, full life, and not without a certain vanity,
arising from the feeling that his fellow-citizens are rather proud of him.
The last to come is Mr. Smits, President of the Court of Justice, a man of
philosophical turn of mind, an ardent student of social problems, a fine
lawyer, a first-rate speaker, a shrewd judge of men, and a tolerant and
mild critic of their weaknesses. He also is a member of the Town Council,
and, like Jacobs, a member of a municipal committee of which Walraven is
the chairman. Their duties are the supervision and general management of
the communal trade and industry, such as tramways, gas-works,
water-supply, slaughter-houses, electrical supply, corn exchange, public
parks and public gardens, hothouses and plantations, etc. Smits is also
the chairman of two debating societies, one for workmen and the other for
the better educated classes; but social problems are the chief topics
discussed at both. These societies, he says, keep him well in touch with
the general drift of the popular mind; as a fact, by his encouraging ways,
he draws from the people what is in their thoughts and hearts, and very
often succeeds in correcting wrong impressions and conceptions. He is also
the Worshipful Master of the local Masonic lodge, 'The Three Rings,' so
called after the famous parable of religions tolerance in Lessing's noble
drama, _Nathan der Weise_. Dutch Freemasonry is not churchy as in England;
it is charitable, teaches ethics as distinct from, but not opposed to,
religion, admits men of all creeds and of no creed whatever, and preaches
tolerance all round; but it fights indifferentism, apathy, or carelessness
on all matters affecting the material, intellectual, and psychical
well-being of mankind.
Smits feels very strongly on all these matters, and his enthusiasm is of
a staying kind; but the ancient device 'Suaviter in modo' has quite as
much charm for him as its counterpart, 'Fortiter in re.' The consequence
is that superficial people take him for a Socialist because he neither
prosecutes nor persecutes Socialists for the opinions they hold. Himself
an agnostic, and lacking religions sentiment, he realises so well the
supreme influence of religion on numberless people and the comfort they
derive from it, that many consider him not nearly firm enough in his
intercourse with Roman Catholics or 'orthodox' Protestants, with whom, in
fact, he frequently arranges political 'deals.' For Smits is, if not the
chairman, the most influential and active member of the Liberal caucus;
and, being in favour of proportional representation, he insists that the
other political parties shall have their fair number of Town Councillors.
Such are the men who come together in this elegant and yet homely
sitting-room; each of them a leader in his profession, each of them coming
in daily and close contact with all sorts and conditions of men and women
in the town, and enabled by their wide and unbiassed views of humanity and
human affairaffairsntrol them and to divert the common energies in wise
paths. The 'Heptarchy' has, of course, no legal standing as such, but from
their conversations one understands the influence which its members wield
by their intellectual and moral superiority. They conspire in no way to
attain certain ends, but discuss things as intimately as only brothers or
man and wife can discuss them, in the genial intimacy of their unselfish
friendship. They generally agree on the lines to be taken in certain
matters, but even if they fail to agree, this does not prevent them from
acting according to their own rights, still respecting each other's
convictions and preferences. And not only local topics are discussed in
the meetings of the 'Heptarchy,' for politics, art, trade, and science,
foreign and Dutch, come within their scope; for their intellectual
outlook, like their sympathies, is universal.
Towards eleven o'clock we take leave of each other. Walraven, Hendriks,
and ourselves go to the ball at the house of the 'Commissaris der
Koningin' (Queen's Commissioner), the Lord-Lieutenant of the county, Baron
Alma van Strae. Baron and Baroness Alma live in a palatial mansion, and we
find the huge reception and drawing rooms full of a gay crowd of young
folk. The rooms are beautifully decorated, there is a profusion of flowers
and palms in the halls and on the stairs; and a host of footmen in
bright-buttoned, buff-coloured livery coats, short trousers, and white
stockings, move quietly about, betraying the well-trained instincts of
hereditary lackeydom. There are county councillors, judges, officers of
army and navy, bankers, merchants, manufacturers, town councillors, the
mayor and town clerk, the president and some members of the Chamber of
Commerce, and committee-men of orphanages and homes for old people. All
have brought their wives, daughters, and sons to do the dancing, for
though they occasionally join themselves, they prefer to indulge in a
quiet game of whist or to settle down in Baron Alma's smoking and billiard
room for a cigar.
These social fonctions, however, are much the same in Holland as in other
countries. Etiquette may differ in small details, but on the whole the
world of society lives the same life, cultivates the same interests, and
amuses or bores itself in much the same fashion. It is _tout comme chez
nous_ in this as in nearly everything else.
On the whole, this elegant crowd shows a somewhat greater amount of
deference towards professionals than towards officials. Doctors, lawyers,
and parsons are clearly highly esteemed; it is the victory of intellect in
a fair field of encounter. In The Hague the officials beat them, but not
so much on account of their office as in consrquence of the fact that so
many are titled persons, highly connected and frequently well off. But
after the great Revolution and the Napoleonic times officialdom lost its
influence and social importance in Holland in consequence of the
demolition of the oligarchic, patrician Republic; and clause five of the
Netherlands constitution, which declares that 'Every Netherlander may be
appointed to every public office,' is a very real and true description of
the actual, visible facts of social life.