LETTER XIII.
Hotel Vieux Doelen,
The Hague, Holland, August 6th, 1888.
In coming from Amsterdam here we saw water-lilies—sheets of them—on rivers and dikes! Yes, just like our own New England blossoms. How I did want the cars to stop, so that I could get a breath of their fragrance—a breath of Cape Cod—a breath of Plymouth ponds—a breath of East Taunton’s sweetest offerings! We saw storks too, tall and stately, carrying with them good luck, and bearing good omens. Our hotel here is a noted one; it is several centuries old, and has been always the stopping place for members of noble families, travelling from all over the world. It has been several times restored, and is very comfortable. Peter the Great and his suite, King Don Ferdinand of Portugal, and a list, as long as your arm, of kings, princes, and dukes, have been registered as guests in this historic old mansion. On our arrival the house was crowded, and to F. and myself was given the state guest chamber, in which these crowned heads have rested. The furniture of the large room, which is on the first floor, is massive, made of mahogany, ebony and gilt, with light-blue silk coverings, and puffs of light-blue silk to throw over our tired bodies. So much elegance for us, while E. is tucked up under the roof somewhere, so full is the house.
After arranging our luggage in our room, and resting a wee bit, off we started for Scheveningen. It took but a short time to reach this celebrated watering-place by steam-cars, which we took to save time. As we stepped out of our car at the station a strange picture greeted us. There before us was the North Sea, throwing its big waves toward the beach—the first glimpse of sea that we had had for many a day, and its roar was music to us. The broad beach was smooth, hard, and white, and at this point was covered, as were also the dunes in back of it, with the peasantry, Dutch women and children, old grandmothers, and mothers with their little ones of all ages, playing in the beautiful white sand. We spread our wraps on the beach, and sat down amongst them and we are evidently as strange a sight to them, as they are to us. The wee urchins gradually approach us in a shy manner, but E. coaxes them nearer by distributing bits of coin amongst them, and speaking words which they understand; and a close look at their sweet, fresh faces is worth the price. These little ones are fair, rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed tots, with long, flaxen tresses, surmounted by little, close, white caps. They are dressed alike, in dark-blue dresses, with little handkerchiefs crossed on their chests, and all wear wooden shoes. The costumes of old and young vary but little, and all look fresh and clean. The women were knitting, and chatting with each other, and occasionally one would go toward the water, hold her hands over her eyes, and peer far out to sea. They were straining their sight to catch glimpses of the boats that carried the men most dear to them. These wives and mothers come mornings with their fishermen, push them out on the water in their boats with a ‘God speed you,’ and then stay on the beach, with their children and their knitting, until the men sail in again. They then help drag the boats on shore, unload, and carry the freshly caught fish to market. The lucky fellow who has caught the greatest number of fish as his day’s work is entitled to kiss the maid he thinks the prettiest in the crowd, and the rest look on and clap their hands, and there seems to be no jealousy amongst them. The Dutch fishing boats, with their brown sails, are queer-looking craft, and have been painted by many of our own artists. The beach from here extends for about forty miles, I am told, in a straight line, washed by the cold North Sea waves—without rocks or inlets.
We next proceeded to the fashionable end of the beach; a division rope separates the portion allotted to the fisherwomen from this. What will divide the poor from the rich in heaven, I wonder? Will it not be Father Abraham’s voice only, when he says the words, ‘Remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things’? How different this scene! Here is a fashionable watering-place, with huge hotels, restaurants, stores, and crowds of stylish people. This is more like Old Point, Narragansett, or Newport than anything we have before seen. But the beach is superior to any of these, and the bathing-wagons on wheels, in which the bathers are carried to the water, and back to the hotels after their baths, were quite new to us. They contain all toilet utensils, an abundance of towels, and are most certainly a great improvement over the way bathers at our own sea-side resorts come out of the water, with dripping costumes clinging to the skin, to face a crowd of lookers-on. Here, too, a space for those who bathe is roped off, and others are not allowed to go within that enclosure. The bath-chairs were also a great delight to me. Here were hundreds of them, basket-work, with covers and without, and footstools added, in which we could sit and look upon the sea, protected from the sun and the wind. Some were for one, and in others two or three could sit together. The sense of rest was most delightful in these chairs, with the broad, blue expanse of water and sky before us. Gay, merry children were riding about on ponies and donkeys, and the road between the hotels and the beach was filled with carriages and people on horseback.
But the hours flew rapidly amidst such scenes as these, and the sun was going to rest; so, reluctantly, we turned our steps toward the big hotel on the crest. The piazzas were crowded with people in full dress, but, with our travelling gowns on, we mixed in, and went to dinner. In the house was a beautiful hall or concert room, and after dinner the Philharmonic Orchestra of Berlin gave a choice concert there. The music was superb, and nowhere in Europe had we seen so fine-looking an assemblage; many of the ladies were remarkably handsome, and all were dressed in excellent taste.
Hotel Vieux Doelen, The Hague, August 7th.—You would have laughed had you been with us in our fine room this morning. Our commode looks like a sideboard, and is so high that I had to stand on a chair to take my morning splash; and as I began to fill my bowl with water, something jumped, and so did I. ‘The shade of Peter the Great!’ said F., but it was only a little, harmless toad, which had probably come in at the window, which I had left open. The arrangements for bathing and washing in houses in this land are very meagre and inconvenient.
The Hague seems a very elegant, sleepy, quiet city. The streets are broad, many of them bordered with handsome limes, and the residences are large and square. Canals are here, also, but do not seem to be used much, if any, and the water looks stagnant. In one street, the odor from the canal was very offensive, although the streets on its borders were beautiful ones, and this is the residence of the Court; in fact, the place has really the appearance of an exclusive little royal city dropped in the centre of a grand old forest. It has pretty parks and gardens, and a pleasant promenade around a lake, called the Vijver, or fish pond, from the water of which the old palace seems to be rising. In the square is the statue of William the Silent, who did so much to effect the liberty of Holland, and who was a father to its people. This brave man’s faith never failed him, nor did he ever swerve from what seemed to him his duty, through political storms or discouraging defeats; freedom for all, and the right to worship God in accordance with the dictates of one’s own conscience he fought for as long as he lived. In Delft, a little town near by, he was struck down by an assassin.
The best stores here have very little appearance, from the outside, of being stores at all. Perhaps, as a sign, there is one elegant vase, or a choice piece of drapery in the window; but upon stepping within, room after room filled with exquisite goods surprises you—rare laces, china, furniture, antiques, and everything else beautiful to tempt one to buy.
I very much wished to go into the palace where the King of Holland and his family live. We have seen many palaces where royalty has resided, but few occupied by kings and queens at the present time. We succeeded in gaining permission to do so, not expecting to see more than the state apartments. As we neared the palace entrance we saw the royal carriage stop at the door and the King and Queen and their little daughter the Princess Wilhelmine, with a maid, enter it. The carriage was a heavy, lumbering-looking affair with two horses only. We might have been much nearer them, but our escort said no, as an introduction might then be necessary, and it was no compliment to American ladies to be presented to the present King of Holland, but I looked with all my eyes and this is what I saw: A man, over seventy years old surely, feeble-appearing in his gait, and, although not bad looking, with a certain tell-tale appearance of having led a somewhat profligate life. The young Queen Emma looks about twenty-eight, has a full face, bright complexion, and pleasant expression, and was dressed in a gray costume. She is, you know, his second wife, and a daughter of the Prince of Waldeck-Pyrmont, one of the poor, insignificant sovereigns of Germany, and she is sister to the Duchess of Albany, the daughter-in-law of Queen Victoria. It is said there was much feeling on the part of the Dutch against this young woman at first, for it was thought her great ambition was to be Queen of the Netherlands; but she has made her way into the hearts of the people, and has proved also a good wife and mother. The King’s first wife was the Princess Sophia of Wurtemburg, and was a remarkably talented, gracious woman, a fine linguist, musical, a charming conversationalist, unaffected, affable in manner, and dearly beloved by her people. She died about ten years ago. She had two sons, both now dead. So the little Wilhelmine, whom we saw, will be, after her father’s death, which cannot be far off, the Queen of Holland. She is a pretty child, and looked in dress and movements no different from hundreds of our own little eight-year-old girls. The people here seem to be much attached to their king, and say he has been a benefactor to them, and that his public life has been beyond reproach, whatever his faults in private life may have been.
As they drove away we entered the palace through the same door at which they came out, and were most kindly shown through it. Their breakfast-table remained just as the family had left it after taking their morning meal. Probably servants do not hurry ‘to clear off the table’ in royal households, any more than they do in our own homes when we go out for a morning jaunt. Everything in the dining-room was rich and elegant, and the gold breakfast-service worth looking at. The drawing-rooms, reception-rooms, libraries, and other apartments were in truth palatial, and altogether it was by far the finest palace we have seen.
They have another palace about three miles away, called ‘Huis-ten-Bosch,’ or House in the Wood, to which a little later we were driven; and it was a drive, the memory of which will always seem restful. The day was lovely, and as we rolled along over the splendid road in the woods, which is really an immense, woody park, retaining all its natural beauties, it was so quiet that we could hear a leaf fall. The birds only broke the stillness with their occasional trills, and we met no life on our way excepting a party of ladies on horseback with their groom. After so much bustle the restful, shadowy stillness was delightful to us. This summer palace is a plain building surrounded by beech trees, is very richly furnished, and contains valuable pictures and rare, costly ornaments, superb draperies, and curiosities. Queen Sophia dearly loved this ‘Huis-ten-Bosch,’ and spent much of her time within it. Here she cordially welcomed her friends, without ceremony, forgetful of station and self, ever keenly alive to the happiness and needs of all who came into her presence. She once remarked ‘that God seemed nearer to her here than elsewhere.’ The present Queen seldom comes here.
We next went into the Holland Exposition, now open. O dear! the days are not half long enough to see all we wish to. You will be glad, I know, when I tell you that we do not get very tired. We ride instead of walking much, so as to save our strength for interiors where we must walk and stand; and we eat often, for E. says ‘machinery so constantly run must be often oiled.’ How I wish I could run in to ‘144’ to-day and have one of their delicious home dinners,—roast chickens, all kind of vegetables, prepared just right, jellies and pickles, and all at hand when wanted, and, not the least of the sweets, the always sweet welcome, thrown in! We do get so tired of these table d’hôte dinners,—every dish served without any seasoning, and only one at a time, and the waits between courses long enough for one’s hair to grow gray. And yet what creatures of habit we are. E. likes it, because he has lived over here so much of his life that he has become accustomed to it. It is a perverted taste, and most surely a great waste of precious time. Our bill of fare for dinner has been just about the same every day since we left the Schweizerhoff at Schaffhausen, where it was most acceptably varied.
To show that we can be wrongly educated in our appreciation of food and in the way we eat it, I will venture to tell you a true story of a little boy we know, who had lived in France and Germany the greater part of his life of ten years. He was taken to New York a year or so ago, and there studied English with his governess. One fine day his aunt took him to her home in the country to spend the day. When he returned at night he said he was hungry. ‘Why, did you not have any dinner?’ he was asked. ‘I did not eat any.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘I did not want it.’ ‘Why not?’ was again asked, curiosity becoming excited. At last the little fellow, so closely questioned, cried out in despair, in his broken English, ‘Because Auntie had “swill” for dinner.’ Upon investigation it was ascertained that the dinner was the old-fashioned, substantial one of corned beef and its satellites of various vegetables served at the same time. The boy, the day before, had been reading a story about pigs, in which the word ‘swill’ was used. He asked his teacher what that word meant,—an inelegant one at best,—and she told him, a little hastily perhaps, that it meant bits of meat, potato, turnip, or other particles of food all thrown together; and he thought, in his day’s visit, that he had an ocular and tangible demonstration of the definition.
The Hague, Wednesday, August 8th.—The memorables of to-day: First, the Royal Picture Gallery, where are many costly and valuable treasures. I have anticipated much pleasure in seeing the collection here, knowing well of many of the paintings, and I have not been disappointed. Rembrandt’s ‘Lecture on Anatomy,’ known of the world over, is a wonderful study, and a grand representation of death and life on canvas. The old learned doctor Nicholas Tulp, with a dead body before him, is explaining to seven other surgeons the dissecting of the subject. These faces are all real portraits of physicians, and the expressions of interest and attention given in them to the lecturer’s words and movements are grandly and wonderfully portrayed. Nor is there the slightest thing repulsive in the picture; on the contrary, it has the effect of making one desirous of sitting down to listen to the lesson also. Here too is Rembrandt’s ‘Presentation,’ a perfect gem: Joseph and Mary are presenting the ‘Holy Child’ for a blessing. Paul Potter’s famous ‘Bull’ is here, which Napoleon once stole and took to Paris, and it was then rated as the fourth picture in the Louvre, but after Napoleon’s star of power had set the Dutch reclaimed it. This picture represents a bull, looking as if really alive, standing under the branches of a tree; a cow, and a lamb with its parents, are also near by resting, and a pleasant-faced old farmer, standing with his arm on the trunk of the tree, is looking on well satisfied. These figures are life size, and are full of vigor. Although the collection here does not please me as much as the one in Amsterdam, it contains many gems of the Dutch and Flemish schools. Here are Berghems, Van Der Helsts, and Ruysdaels—mellow landscapes and restful pastoral scenes, helpful to look upon. But oh, I wish you could see all the grand paintings that are in this country! It pains me, dear mother, to enjoy so much and you not with me; but we shall not forget all we see, and will tell you more about it sometime.
Storks are kept in the city at the public expense, as they are the arms of The Hague, the same as bears are of the city of Berne. And now, good-by to this aristocratic town, and on to Rotterdam, our last Holland city.
Rotterdam is something like Amsterdam, although not nearly as attractive, nor anywhere nearly as clean. It is a large place, and its shipping interests considerable; its canals and wharves are crowded. Here, as in Amsterdam, the houses are, many of them, built on piles, and the land is kept land by keeping the water in the canals, locks, and basins. It requires much money, good systems, and much energy to do this, but the Dutch have proved themselves equal to it. We hear here such names as the ‘Hoogstraat’ (one of the streets), the ‘Schiedamsche dyke,’ etc., regular jaw-breakers. In fact, I think if Americans can understand or be understood in Holland, they need have no fears of not being able to travel in other parts of the globe, so far as ‘language’ is concerned.
We took a drive through the new portion of the city, where are many elegant residences. We went into two churches; saw a fine statue of Erasmus the scholar, also one of Spinoza. We then went into many of the old, crooked, narrow streets of the older part of the city, called Binnenstad, and here everything looked very ‘Dutch’ like; and it is the queer aspect of these foreign cities that I particularly enjoy,—the markets on market-day especially. The peasants at their stalls, in the funny gowns and funnier head-dresses, are perfectly fascinating. We bought delicious cherries and strawberries of them to-day. Some of the women had caps on that had long capes, others with caps close to the head, and others with inside frills, but one and all had the gold, gilt, or silver band across the forehead, and the wire rosettes and pendants at the temples.
We talked up our little stock of Dutch history here, remembering that it was in this town that the Puritans of England, when persecuted, fled for refuge; and here ‘John Robinson [one of our own ancestors] fired them with longings for liberty, and they set sail to go across two seas to find a new home where they would have freedom to worship God.’ What an amount of studying we will do next winter, and Motley’s ‘Rise of the Dutch Republic’ we are looking forward to reading with much pleasure.
Our admiration of the Dutch, always great, is much increased by this trip through their country. When one sees the obstacles they had to contend against in making their land habitable—old ocean itself for one,—and the victory they have achieved, it seems more wonderful even than their conquering the tyranny of Spain. They are an industrious, persevering, and honest people.