The Hague

Dutch precision—­Shaping hands—­Nature under control—­Willow v.  Neptune—­The lost star—­S’Gravenhage—­The Mauritshuis—­Rembrandt—­The “School of Anatomy”—­Jan Vermeer of Delft—­The frontispiece—­Other pictures—­The Municipal Museum—­Baron Steengracht’s collection—­The Mesdag treasures—­French romantics at The Hague—­The Binnenhof—­John van Olden Barneveldt—­Man’s cruelty to man—­The churches—­The fish market and first taste of Scheveningen—­A crowded street—­Holland’s reading—­The Bosch—­The club—­The House in the Wood—­Mr.  “Secretary” Prior—­Old marvels—­Howell the receptive and Coryate the credulous.

Although often akin to the English, the Dutch character differs from it very noticeably in the matter of precision.  The Englishman has little precision; the Dutchman has too much.  He bends everything to it.  He has at its dictates divided his whole country into parellelograms.  Even the rushes in his swamps are governed by the same law.  The carelessness of nature is offensive to him; he moulds and trains on every hand, as one may see on the railway journey to The Hague.  Trees he endures only so long as they are obedient and equidistant:  he likes them in avenues or straight lines; if they grow otherwise they must be pollarded.  It is true that he has not touched the Bosch, at The Hague; but since his hands perforce have been kept off its trees, he has run scores of formal straight well-gravelled paths beneath their branches.

This passion for interference grew perhaps from exultation upon successful dealings with the sea.  A man who by his own efforts can live in security below sea-level, and graze cattle luxuriantly where sand and pebbles and salt once made a desert, has perhaps the right to feel that everything in nature would be the better for a little manipulation.  Eyes accustomed to the careless profusion that one may see even on a short railway journey in England are shocked to find nature so tractable both in land and water.

The Dutchman’s pruning, however, is not done solely for the satisfaction of exerting control.  These millions of pollarded willows which one sees from the line have a deeper significance than might ever be guessed at:  it is they that are keeping out Holland’s ancient enemy, the sea.  In other words, a great part of the basis of the strength of the dykes is imparted by interwoven willow boughs, which are constantly being renewed under the vigilant eyes of the dyke inspectors.  For the rest, the inveterate trimming of trees must be a comparatively modern custom, for many of the old landscapes depict careless foliage—­Koninck’s particularly.  And look, for instance, at that wonderful picture—­perhaps the finest landscape in Dutch art—­Rembrandt’s etching “The Three Trees”.  There is nothing in North Holland to-day as unstudied as that.  I doubt if you could now find three trees of such individuality and courage.