THE IDIOSYNCRASY OF THE DUTCH.

Otago Witness, Issue 2303, 21 April 1898, Page 50

THE IDIOSYNCRASY OF THE DUTCH.

The conceit of. the Dutchman is excessive. He regards the reputation of his ancestors as his own. Ha revels in the thought that his is the land of William of Orange and De Witt, of Tromp and Dj Buyter, of Bra&mus and Gfotius, of Kimbrandt and Paul Potter. With such forbears be cannot fail to be, so he coneideis, a very tremendous fellow. Without taste for art or sculpture or music, he stands to-day on a pinnacle of bis own construction, lcokipg down upon his neighbours with K-'2'Xi£.i;souß superiority. J'y suis, j'y rests" has become his motto. He neither knows nor cares what the outside world is doiug. 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 Dachnian cannot endure. A. youug diplomat who had spent several years at The Hague warned me 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 tbe 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, ifc is remarkably pleasant, and doubtless healthy."

I laughed, for I thought he was joking.

" It's r«o laughing matter," he continued, "as I found for myself. When I first came to The Hague I w&a careless. Now I know batter. For instance, one eight at the Karhaus 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 citizsn 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 aek 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 soldier ; 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 cfi to the management and demanded my expulsion from the Kurhaus ! They soothed him down somehow ; but it was a lesson I never forgot."

But I roust gi^e 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 Carlyla tells us, dwell the shining spirits of the dawn, he lias 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 amaaement.. In this respect he resembles the majority of our nation. At a carnival, for instance, be walks stolidly abont, trying to appear jovial, but, looking and feeling ridiculous. Even in the midst of the season al The Hague the round of social functions can never be described as a " 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 subfiaattai diccers, rifles or drives ia ttie weodj

— that- is all. It would be difficult for the most dashing- young Dnfcbmar* to become dissipated, even were be so i»clined. Club life is almost as popular as in England, and club life invariably deals a death-blow to merry little family outicgs and snppers at cafes, such as you see in France or Germany. The proprieties are more rigidly respected oven than in England. An elopement would cause as much horror and consternation as the bursting of the local dyke. Scheveniugen, the fashionable watering place, is but two miles from the oapital, 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. — From " Capitals at Play : The Hague," in Cafgell's Magazine.