Of this book I ought perhaps to say more, for I am greatly indebted to it.  Most of the larger towns of Holland have guides, and for the most part they are written in good English, albeit of Dutch extraction; but Through Noord-Holland is an agreeable exception in that it covers all the ground between Amsterdam and the Helder, and is constructed in a peculiar sport of Babel.  In Dutch it is I have no doubt an ordinary guide-book; in English it is something far more precious.  The following extract from the preface to the second edition ought to be quoted before I borrow further from its pages:—­

Being completed with the necessary alterations and corrections I send it into the world for the second time.  As it will be published besides in Dutch also in French and English, the aim of the edition will surely be favoured, and our poor misappreciated country that so often is regarded with contempt by our countrymen as well as by foreigners will soon be an attraction for tourists.  For were not it those large extensive quiet heatheries those rustling green woods and those quiet low meadows which inspired our great painters to bring their fascinating landscapes on the cloth?  Had not that bloomy sky and that sunny mysterious light, those soft green meadows with their multi-coloured flowers, through which the river is streaming as a silver band, had not all this a quieting influence to the agitated mind of many of us, did not it give the quiet rest and did not it whisper to you; here ... here is it good?  And for this our country we want to be a reliable guide by the directions of which we can savely start.

With Zaandvoort we may associate Dirck van Santvoort who painted the portrait of the curious girl—­No. 2133 at the Ryks Museum—­reproduced opposite page 236.  Of the painter very little is known.  He belongs to the great period, flourishing in the middle of the seventeenth century—­and that is all.  But he had a very cunning hand and an interesting mind, as the few pictures to his name attest.  In the same room at the Ryks Museum where the portrait hangs is a large group of ladies and gentlemen, all wearing some of the lace which he dearly loved to paint.  And in one of the recesses of the Gallery of Honour is a quaint little lady from his delicate brush—­No. 2131—­well worth study.

Haarlem’s great church, which is dedicated to St. Bavo, is one of the finest in Holland.  All that is needed to make it perfect is an infusion of that warmth and colour which once it possessed but of which so few traces have been allowed to remain.  The Dutch Protestants, as I remarked at Utrecht, have shown singular efficiency in denuding religion of its external graces and charm.  There is no church so beautiful but they would reduce it to bleak and arid cheerlessness.  Place even the cathedral of Chartres in a Dutch market-place, and it would be a whitewashed desert in a week, while little shops and houses would be built against its sacred walls.  There is hardly a great church in Holland but has some secular domicile clinging like a barnacle to its sides.