Dutch Life in Town and Country

Chapter I. National Characteristics

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.

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.

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.

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!

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