THE IDIOSYNCRASY OF THE DUTCH.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 10023, 29 April 1898, Page 7

THE IDIOSYNCRASY OF THE DUTCH.

From "Capitals at Play: The Hague,"

in Cassell's Magazine.

The conceit of the Dutchman is excessive. He regards the reputation of his ancestors as his own. He revels in the thought that hiß is the land of William of Orange and De Witt, of Tromp aud De Ruyter, of Erasmus and Grotius, of Rembrandt and Paul Potter. With such forbear 3he cannot fail to be, so he considers, a very tremendous fellow. Without taste for art, or sculpture, or music, he stands to-day on a pinnacle of his construction, looking down upon his neighbours with a conscious superiority. "J'y suis, j'y resle "" has become his motto. He neither knows nor cares what the outside world is doing. Salisbury is nothing but a name. Of President Faure rumours alone have reached him. Even that European firework, the German Emperor, fails to command more than a passing notice. Criticism the Dutchman cannot endure. A young diplomat who had spent several years at the Hague warned mc of this trait in the national character. I had remarked that the canals smelt dreadfully. "That is true enough," he said, " but you must never mention the fact in the Hague; or, if you insist on choosing it as a subject for conversation, you must say that, though an odour certainly exists, it is remarkably pleasant and doubtless healthy."

I laughed, for I thought he was joking. "It's no laughing matter," be continued, " as I found for myself. When I first came to the Hague I was careless. Now I know better. For instance, one night at the Kurhaus at Scheveningen, which is little more than two miles from the capital, I was laughing with a friend over a patriotic newspaper that had been defying the German Empire. Suddenly a round little citizen rose from a neighbouring table and strutted up, fairly bristling with anger, to where I sat. ' I could not help overhearing your remarks, mynheer,' he said, in rumbling Dutch, 'and I must ask you to retract statements which infer that the soldiers of Holland are not in every way superior to those of Germany.' You may not know the Dutch aoldier. I do. It was so ridiculous that I am afraid I could not resist a smile. And before I realised what he was about, he had dashed off to the management and demanded my expulsion from the Kurhaus ! They soothed him down somehow ; but it was a losson I never forgot." But I must give the Dutchman his due. He may be stolid and unemotional, but he is a kindly soul. Though he may never reach those mountain tops where, as Carlyle tells us, dwell the shining spirits of the dawn, he as many of the domestic virtues. One may forgive much to a good father and a faithful husband. His tastes are simple, and he pursues his colourless existence with much quiet satisfaction to himself. His surroundings are scrupulously clean ; he washes everything but himself. The Dutchman has little faculty for organising amusement. In this respect he resembles the majority of our nation. At a carnival, for instance, he walks stolidly about, trying to appear jovial, but looking and feeling ridiculous. Even in the midst of the season at tho Hague the round of social functions can never be described as a <4 vortex " or a " whirl" of gaiety ; it is merely a dignified promenade. Dutch amusements are simplicity itself: occasional balls and concerts, a goodly number of substantial dinners, rides or drives in tha woods-*-that is all. It would bo

difficult for the most dashing young Dutchman to become dissipated, even were he so inclined. Club life is almost as popular as in England, and club lite invariably deals a death-blow to merry little family outings and suppers at cafes, such as you see in France or Germany. The proprieties are more rigidly respected even then in England. An elopement would cause as much horror and consternation as the bursting of the local dyke. Scheveningen, the fashionable watering place, is but two miles from the capital, and there, indeed, there is plenty of jollity to be found. Otherwise the stranger, without -introductions, could obtain as much amusement in a small provincial town in England as at the Hague.