From the Lakes of Killarney to the Golden Horn

by Henry M. Field

Antwerp, where we ended our first day's journey, is a city that has had a great history; that three hundred years ago was one of the first commercial cities of Europe, the Venice of the North, and received in its waters ships from all parts of the earth. It has had recently a partial revival of its former commercial greatness. The forest of masts now lying in the Scheldt tells of its renewed prosperity.

But strangers do not go to Antwerp to see fleets of ships, such as they might see at London or Liverpool, but to see that which is old and historic. Antwerp has one of the notable Cathedrals of the Continent, which impresses travellers most if they come directly from America. But coming from Cologne, it suffers by comparison, as it has nothing of the architectural magnificence, the heaven-soaring columns and arches, of the great Minster of Cologne. And then its condition is dilapidated and positively shabby. It is not finished, and there is no attempt to finish it. One of the towers is complete, but the other is only half way up, where it has been capped over, and so remained for centuries, and perhaps will remain forever. And its surroundings are of the meanest description. Instead of standing in an open square, with ample space around it to show its full proportions, it is hedged in by shops, which are backed up against its very walls. Thus the architectural effect is half destroyed. It is a shame that it should be left in such a state—that, while Prussia, a Protestant country, is spending millions to restore the Cathedral of Cologne, Belgium, a Catholic country, and a rich one too (with no war on hand to drain its resources), should not devote a little of its wealth to keeping in proper order and respect this venerable monument of the past.

And yet not all the littleness of its present surroundings can wholly rob the old Cathedral of its majesty. There it stands, as it has stood from generation to generation, and out from all this meanness and dirt it lifts its head towards heaven. Though only one tower is finished, that is very lofty (as any one will find who climbs the hundreds of stone steps to the top, from which the eye ranges over almost the whole of Belgium, a vast plain, dotted with cities and villages), and being wrought in open arches, it has the appearance of fretted work, so that Napoleon said "it looked as if made of Mechlin lace." And there, high in the air, hangs a chime of bells, that every quarter of an hour rings out some soft aërial melody. It has a strange effect, in walking across the Place St. Antoine, to hear this delicious rain dropping down as it were out of the clouds. We almost wonder that the market people can go about their business, while there is such heavenly music in the upper air.

But the glory of the Cathedral of Antwerp is within—not in the church itself, but in the great paintings which it enshrines. The interior is cold and naked, owing to the entire absence of color to give it warmth. The walls are glaring white. We even saw them whitewashing the columns and arches. Could any means be found more effectual for belittling the impression of one of the great churches of the Middle Ages? If taste were the only thing to be considered in this world, I could wish Belgium might be annexed, for awhile at least, to Germany, that that Government might take this venerable Cathedral in hand, and, by clearing away the rubbish around it, and proper toning of the walls within, restore it to its former majesty and beauty.

But no surroundings, however poor and cold, can destroy the immortal paintings with which it is illumined and glorified. Until I saw these, I could not feel much enthusiasm for the works of Rubens, although those who worship the old masters would consider it rank heresy to say so. Many of his pictures seem to me artistic monstrosities, they are on such a colossal scale. The men are all giants, and the women all amazons, and even his holy children, his seraphs and cupids, are fat Dutch babies. It seems as if his object, in every painting of the human figure, were to display his knowledge of anatomy; and the bodies are often twisted and contorted as if to show the enormous development of muscle in the giant limbs. This is very well if one is painting a Hercules or a gladiator. But to paint common men and women in this colossal style is not pleasing. The series of pictures in the Louvre, in which Marie de Medicis is introduced in all sorts of dramatic attitudes, never stirred my admiration, as I have said more than once, when standing before those huge canvases, although one for whose opinions in such matters I had infinite respect, used to reply archly, that I "could hardly claim to be an authority in painting." I admit it; but that is my opinion nevertheless, which I adhere to with all the proverbial tenacity of the "free and independent American citizen."

But ah, I do repent me now, as I come into the presence of paintings whose treatment, like their subject, is divine. There are two such in the Cathedral of Antwerp—the Elevation of the Cross, and the Descent from the Cross. The latter is generally regarded as the masterpiece of Rubens; but they are worthy of each other.

In the Elevation of the Cross our Saviour has been nailed to the fatal tree, which the Roman soldiers are raising to plant it in the earth. The form is that of a living man. The hands and feet are streaming with blood, and the body droops as it hangs with all its weight on the nails. But the look is one of life, and not of death. The countenance has an expression of suffering, yet not of mere physical pain; the agony is more than human; as the eyes are turned upward, there is more than mortal majesty in the look—there is divinity as well as humanity—it is the dying God. Long we sat before this picture, to take in the wondrous scene which it presents. He must be wanting in artistic taste, or religious feeling, who can look upon it without the deepest emotion.

In the Descent from the Cross the struggle is over: there is Death in every feature, in the face, pale and bloodless, in the limbs that hang motionless, in the whole body as it sinks into the arms of the faithful attendants. If Rubens had never painted but these two pictures, he would deserve to be ranked as one of the world's great masters. I am content to look on these, and let more enthusiastic worshippers admire the rest.

Leaving the tall spire of Antwerp in the distance, the swift fire-horse skims like a swallow over the plains of Belgium, and soon we are in Holland. One disadvantage of these small States (to compensate for the positive good of independence, and of greater commercial freedom) is, that every time we cross a frontier we have to undergo a new inspection by the custom-house authorities. To be sure, it does not amount to much. The train is detained half an hour, the trunks are all taken into a large room, and placed on counters; the passengers come along with the keys in their hands, and open them; the officials give an inquiring look, sometimes turn over one or two layers of clothing, and see that it is all right; the trunks are locked up, the porters replace them in the baggage-car, and the train starts on again. We are amused at the farce, the only annoyance of which is the delay. Within two days after we left Cologne, we had crossed two frontiers, and had our baggage examined twice: first, in going into Belgium, and, second, in coming into Holland; we had heard three languages—nay, four—German on the Rhine; then French at Antwerp (how good it seemed to hear the familiar accents once more!); and the Flemish, which is a dialect unlike either; and now we have this horrible Dutch (which is "neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring," but a sort of jaw-breaking gutturals, that seem not to be spoken with lips or tongue, but to be coughed up from some unfathomable depth in the Dutch breast); and we have had three kinds of money—marks and francs, and florins or guilders—submitting to a shave every time we change from one into the other. Such are the petty vexations of travel. But never mind, let us take them good-naturedly, leaping over them gayly, as we do over this dike—and here we are in Holland.

Switzerland and Holland! Was there ever a greater contrast than between the two countries? What a change for us in these three weeks, to be up in the clouds, and now down, actually below the level of the sea; for Holland is properly, and in its normal state, under water, only the water is drained off, and is kept off by constant watchfulness. The whole land has been obtained by robbery—robbery from the ocean, which is its rightful possessor, and is kept out of his dominions by a system of earthworks, such as never were drawn around any fortification. Holland may be described in one word as an enormous Dutch platter, flat and even hollow in the middle, and turned up at the edges. Standing in the centre, you can see the rim in the long lines of circumvallation which meet the eye as it sweeps round the horizon. This immense platitude is intersected by innumerable canals, which cross and recross it in every direction; and as if to drive away the evil spirits from the country, enormous windmills, like huge birds, keep a constant flapping in the air. To relieve the dull monotony, these plains are covered with cattle, which with their masses of black and white and red on the green pastures, give a pretty bit of color to the landscape. The raising of cattle is one of the chief industries of Holland. They are exported in great numbers from Rotterdam to London, so that "the roast beef of old England" is often Dutch beef, after all. With her plains thus bedecked with countless herds, all sleek and well fed, the whole land has an aspect of comfort and abundance; it looks to be, as it is, a land of peace and plenty, of fat cattle and fat men. As moreover it has not much to do in the way of making war, except on the other side of the globe, it has no need of a large standing army; and the military element is not so unpleasantly conspicuous as in France and Germany.