“And all is race. There is no other truth; because it includes all others. I admire the Dutch, madame; and I am lost in wonder when I consider Holland.”
“You may well be that, Professor,” cried Miss Alida, as she lifted daintily for him a Joseph-portion of the tempting salad, “for the sublime thing about Hollanders is that they have created a country for themselves. If you had ever stood on the town house of Leyden——”
“I have stood there.”
“And what did you see?”
“I saw streets, where there was once the open sea. I saw cornfields, where fish had once been caught. I saw an orchard, where there had once been an oyster-bed. I saw a fair province, covered with a web of silvery waters.”
“And yet they say that Dutchmen are prosaic and phlegmatic! Holland is in itself a poem!”
“Yes,” said Adriana, “for some poet must have seen beneath the salt waves the land flowing with milk and bristling with barley.”
“And then,” added Miss Alida, all aglow with enthusiasm—“and then came the heroes! and they dived into the turbid waters and brought the vision to the light of day.”
“Very good!” said the Professor; “but what I like about the Hollanders is their religion. Holland was nothing till all of a sudden the Gospel made it sublime. The Hollanders knew the worth of their souls. In their politics, they thought of eternity—a thing 130 statesmen do not usually take into account; and seeking first the kingdom of heaven, they struck such bold strokes for freedom as would make common heroes falter.”
“Yes,” answered Miss Alida, “the Dutch are a religious people, but they have always hated religious rituals. You could not get Antony and Adriana Van Hoosen, after all their American generations, to take an interest in church millinery and such trivialities.”