Once upon a time there was a wealthy gentle man who lived in the suburbs of Rotterdam. His name was Van Klaës, but he was nicknamed Papa Big Pipe, for he was a fat old fellow and a great smoker. He was a man of simple habits and kindly heart, who, as the story runs, had made a great fortune in India by honest trade. On his return from India he built himself a beautiful mansion near Rotterdam, and in this home he collected and arranged in order every imaginable kind of pipe. There were pipes of every country and of every period, from those used by ancient barbarians to smoke hemp, to the splendid meerschaum and amber pipes ornamented with carved figures and bands of gold like those seen in the finest stores of Paris. The museum was open to visitors, to each of whom, after he had aired his knowledge on the subject of pipe-collecting, Mr Van Klaës gave a pouch filled with tobacco and cigars, and a catalogue of the museum in a velvet cover.
Every day Mr Van Klaës smoked a hundred and fifty grammes of tobacco, and he died at the ripe old age of ninety-eight years; consequently, if we assume that he began to smoke when he was eighteen years old, he consumed in the course of his life four thousand three hundred and eighty-three kilogrammes. If this quantity of tobacco could be laid down in a continuous black line, it would extend twenty French leagues. But, in spite of all this, Mr Van Klaës showed that in death he was a far greater smoker than he had been in life. Tradition has preserved all the particulars of his end. He was approaching his ninety-eighth birthday when it was suddenly borne in upon him that the end of his life was at hand. He summoned his notary, who was also a notable smoker, and, "Notary," said he with no unnecessary words, "fill my pipe and yours; I am going to die." The notary filled and lighted the pipes, and Mr Van Klaës dictated that will which has become celebrated all over Holland.
After he had bequeathed the greater part of his fortune to relatives, friends, and charities, he added the following clauses:
"I wish every smoker in the kingdom to be invited to my funeral in every way possible, by letter, circular, and advertisement. Every smoker who takes advantage of the invitation shall receive as a present ten pounds of tobacco, and two pipes on which shall be engraved my name, my crest, and the date of my death. The poor of the neighborhood who accompany my bier shall receive every year on the anniversary of my death a large package of tobacco. I make the condition that all those who assist at my funeral, if they wish to partake of the benefits of my will, must smoke without interruption during the entire ceremony. My body shall be placed in a coffin lined throughout with the wood of my old Havana cigar-boxes. At the foot of the coffin shall be placed a box of the French tobacco called caporal and a package of our old Dutch tobacco. At my side place my favorite pipe and a box of matches, ... for one never knows what may happen. When the bier rests in the vault, all the persons in the funeral procession are requested to cast upon it the ashes of their pipes as they pass it on their departure from the grounds."
The last wishes of Mr Van Klaës were faithfully fulfilled; the funeral went off splendidly, veiled in a thick cloud of smoke. The cook of the deceased, Gertrude by name, to whom in a codicil her master had left a considerable fortune on condition that she should overcome her aversion to tobacco, walked in the funeral procession with a cigarette in her mouth. The poor blessed the memory of the charitable gentleman, and all the country resounded with his praises as it now rings with his fame.
As I walked along one of the canals I saw under different conditions one of those sudden changes in the weather such as I had witnessed on the previous day. In a moment the sun disappeared, the infinite variety of cheerful colors was obscured, and a chilling wind began to blow. Then the subdued gayety which existed a few moments before gave place everywhere to a strange trepidation. The leaves of the trees rustled, the flags on the ships fluttered, the boats moored to the palisades tossed to and fro; the waters were troubled, a thousand articles suspended from the houses dangled about,—the arms of the windmills spun rapidly around; it seemed as though a shiver of winter passed through everything, and that the city was apprehensive of a mysterious danger. In a few moments the sun shone out, and with it returned color, peace, and cheerfulness. This scene made me reflect that Holland is not really as sombre a country as many believe; it is rather very sombre one moment, and very cheerful the next, according to the weather. In everything it is a country of contrasts. Beneath a most capricious sky lives the least capricious people in the world, and yet this orderly and methodical nation possesses the tipsiest, most disordered architecture that eye can see.
Before entering the museum at Rotterdam, I think it will be opportune to make some observations on Dutch painting, naturally not for those "who know," understand, but for those who have forgotten.
Dutch art possesses one quality that renders it particularly attractive to us Italians: it is that branch of the world's art which differs most from the Italian school,—it is the antithesis, or, to use a phrase that enraged Leopardi, "the opposite pole in art." The Italian and the Dutch are the two most original schools of painting, or, as some say, the only two schools that can honestly lay claim to originality. The others are only daughters or younger sisters, which bear a certain resemblance to their elders. So Holland even in its art offers us that which we most desire in travel and description—novelty.