The school of Düsseldorf—if such it can be called—has turned out some great artists, e.g., Kaulbach and Cornelius; but the place has never been itself since it lost its magnificent collection of pictures, which now grace the Pinacothek at Munich.
As I sipped a cup of coffee in the evening, I read a most grandiloquent account of the prospects of the Düsseldorf Theatre for the ensuing winter. The first lover was perfection, while the tragedy queen was “unübertrefflich” (not to be surpassed). The part of tender mother and matron was also about to be taken by a lady of no mean theatrical pretensions. This self-complacency of the inhabitants of the smaller cities is quite delightful.
On board the steamer to Emmerich was a family of French Jews, busily engaged, not in looking about them, but in calculating their expenses, though dressed in the pink of fashion.
Here I am at Amsterdam. In the Grand Place is a monument in memory of Dutch bravery and obstinacy evinced in the fight with Belgium. This has only just been erected, with great fêtes and rejoicings. Well, to be sure! this reminds me of the Munich obelisk, in memory of those luckless thirty thousand Bavarians who swelled Napoleon’s expedition to Russia, and died in the cause of his insatiable ambition. “Auch sie starben für das Vaterland” is the motto.
V. Ruyter and V. Speke are both monumented in the adjoining church. The former, who died at Syracuse from a wound, is described in the inscription as “Immensi tremor Oceani,” and owing all to God, “et virtuti suæ.”
The warlike spirit of Young Amsterdam seems to be effectually excited just now. As I passed through the Exchange at a quarter to five P.M., the merchants were gone, and in their room was an obstreperous crowd of gamins, armed “with sword and pistol,” like Billy Taylor’s true love (only they were sham), and thumping their drums, and the drums thumping the roof, and the roof and the drum together reverberating against the drum of my ear till I was fairly stunned. “Where are the police?” thought I, escaping from the hubbub with feelings akin to what must have been those of Hogarth’s enraged musician, or of a modern London householder, fond of quiet, with the Italian organ-grinders rending the air of his street. Dutch is German in the Somersetshire dialect; so I managed to comprehend, without much difficulty, the short instructions of the passers-by as to my route to various objects of interest. By-the-bye, here is the house of Admiral de Ruyter, next to the Norwegian Consulate. Over the door I see there is his bust in stone.
As I pass along the canals, it puzzles me to think how the Dutchman can live by, nay, revel in the proximity of these seething tanks of beastliness and corruption. That notion about the pernicious effects of inhaling sewage effluvia must be a myth, after all, and the sanitary commission a regular job. Indeed, I always thought so, after a conversation I once had with a fellow in London, the very picture of rude health, who told me he got his living by mudlarking and catching rats in the sewers, for which there was always a brisk demand at Oxford and Cambridge, in term time. Look at these jolly Amsterdamers. I verily believe it would be the death of them if you separated them from their stinking canals, or transported them to some airy situation, with a turbulent river hurrying past. Custom is second nature, and that has doubtless much to do with it: but the nature of the liquids poured down the inner man perhaps fortifies Mynheer against the evil effects of the semi-solid liquid of the canals. Just after breakfast I went into the shop of the celebrated Wijnand Fockink, the Justerini and Brooks of Amsterdam, to purchase a case of liqueurs, when I heard a squabby-shaped Dutchman ask for a glass of half-and-half. It is astonishing, I thought with myself, how English tastes and habits are gaining ground everywhere. Of course he means porter and ale mixed. The attendant supplied him with the article he wanted, and it was bolted at a gulp.
Dutch half-and-half, reader, is a dram of raw gin and curaçoa, in equal portions.