Finally, there are still two important excellences to be recorded of this school of painting—­its variety, and its importance as the expression, the mirror, so to speak, of the country.  If we except Rembrandt with his group of followers and imitators, almost all the other artists differ very much from one another; no other school presents so great a number of original masters.  The realism of the Dutch painters is born of their common love of nature; but each one has shown in his work a kind of love peculiarly his own; each one has rendered a different impression which he has received from nature and all, starting from the same point, which was the worship of material truth, have arrived at separate and distinct goals.

THE TULIPS OF HOLLAND[A]

[Footnote A:  From “Holland and Its People.”  Translated by Caroline Tilton.  By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, G.P.  Putnam’s Sons.  Copyright, 1880.]

BY EDMONDO DE AMICIS

The word “tulip” recalls one of the strangest popular follies that has ever been seen in the world, which showed itself in Holland toward the middle of the seventeenth century.  The country at that time had reached the height of prosperity; antique parsimony had given place to luxury; the houses of the wealthy, very modest at the beginning of the century, were transformed into little palaces; velvet, silk, and pearls replaced the patriarchal simplicity of the ancient costume; Holland had become vain, ambitious, and prodigal.

After having filled their houses with pictures, hangings, porcelain, and precious objects from all the countries of Europe and Asia, the rich merchants of the large Dutch cities began to spend considerable sums in ornamenting their gardens with tulips—­the flower which answers best to that innate avidity for vivid colors which the Dutch people manifest in so many ways.  This taste for tulips promoted their rapid cultivation; everywhere gardens were laid out, studies promoted, new varieties of the favorite flower sought for.  In a short time the fever became general; on every side there swarmed unknown tulips, of strange forms, and wonderful shades or combinations of colors, full of contrasts, caprices, and surprises.  Prices rose in a marvelous way; a new variegation, a new form, obtained in those blest leaves was an event, a fortune.  Thousands of persons gave themselves up to the study with the fury of insanity; all over the country nothing was talked of but petals; bulbs, colors, vases, seeds.