Mr. Ariens, Lit.D., 'Rector of the Gymnasium (equivalent to Head-master of a Grammar School), is the most remarkable type even in this very remarkable set of men. He is highly unconventional, and his boys adore him, while his old boys admire him, and the parents are his perennial debtors in gratitude. He is unconventional in everything, in his dress, in his way of living, in his opinions and judgments, but he parades none of these, reducing them to neither a whim nor a hobby. He passed some years in the Dutch Indies, travelled all over Europe, knows more of Greek, Latin, and antiquities than anybody else, and is as thoroughly scientific as any University professer. But the Government will never give him a vacant chair, for his pedagogical powers surpass even his scientific abilities, and they cannot spare such men in such places. To some aristocratic people his noble simple-mindedness is downright appalling; but when he goes about in dull, cold, wintry weather and visits the poor wretches in the slums, where nature and natural emotions and forms of speech are quite unconventional, he is duly appreciated. For he is not only a splendid 'gymnasii rector,' he is also a very charitable man, though he likes only one form of charity, that by which the rich man first educates himself into being the poor man's friend, and then only offers his sympathy and help, the charity which the one can give and the other take without either of them feeling degraded by the act. He is not a public-body man, our 'Rector,' but his friends appreciate his keen, just judgment. They may disagree with him on some points, but a discussion with him is always interesting on account of his original, fresh method of thought, and instructive by reason of his very superior and universal knowledge.
His best friend is Mr. Jacobs, a civil engineer. Dutch civil engineers are educated at Delft, at the Polytechnic School, after having passed their final examination at a 'Higher Burgher School.' Boys of sixteen or seventeen are not fit to digest sciences by the dozen, and, however pleasant and convenient it may be to become a walking cyclopedia, a cyclopedia is not a living book, but a dead accumulation of dead knowledge, which may inform though it does not educate. Happily, the majority of Dutch engineers are saved by the Polytechnic School, where they have about the same liberty as undergraduates at the Universities to go their own way. Educationally they are not so well equipped, attention only being paid to mental instruction, for the Director of a 'Higher Burgher School' is a different man from the Rector of a Gymnasium, while the System over which he presides is more or less incoherent so far as educational considerations go.
But if a civil engineer is a success he is generally a big one. So is Mr. Jacobs. He is thoroughly well read, though his reading may be somewhat desultory. His splendid memory, assisted by a remarkably quick wit, allows him to feel interested in nearly everything--sociology, literature, art, music, theatre, sport, charity, municipal enterprise. If he is superficial, nobody notices it, for he is much too smart to show it. His general level-headedness makes him an inexhaustible source of admiration to Dr. Ariens, whose peer he is in kindness of heart. His manner is irreproachable; he never loses his temper in discussion, and treats his opponents in such a quiet, courteous way that they are obviously sorry to disagree with him. His business capacities are of the first rank; he makes as much money as he likes, and however crowded his life may be, he always finds time for more work. He is a member of the Town Council and a staunch supporter of Walraven's progressive plans. Walraven has certain misgivings about Jacobs' thoroughness, but he fully realizes his friend's quick grasp of things. He may build bridges, irrigate whole districts, and drain marshes in Holland, open up mines in Spain, build docks in America, or hunt for petroleum in Russia; he is always sure to succeed, and a fair profit for himself, at any rate, is the invariable result of his exertions. He travels a great deal, knows everybody everywhere, and always turns up again in the old haunts, bristling with interesting information, visibly enjoying his busy, full life, and not without a certain vanity, arising from the feeling that his fellow-citizens are rather proud of him.
The last to come is Mr. Smits, President of the Court of Justice, a man of philosophical turn of mind, an ardent student of social problems, a fine lawyer, a first-rate speaker, a shrewd judge of men, and a tolerant and mild critic of their weaknesses. He also is a member of the Town Council, and, like Jacobs, a member of a municipal committee of which Walraven is the chairman. Their duties are the supervision and general management of the communal trade and industry, such as tramways, gas-works, water-supply, slaughter-houses, electrical supply, corn exchange, public parks and public gardens, hothouses and plantations, etc. Smits is also the chairman of two debating societies, one for workmen and the other for the better educated classes; but social problems are the chief topics discussed at both. These societies, he says, keep him well in touch with the general drift of the popular mind; as a fact, by his encouraging ways, he draws from the people what is in their thoughts and hearts, and very often succeeds in correcting wrong impressions and conceptions. He is also the Worshipful Master of the local Masonic lodge, 'The Three Rings,' so called after the famous parable of religions tolerance in Lessing's noble drama, Nathan der Weise. Dutch Freemasonry is not churchy as in England; it is charitable, teaches ethics as distinct from, but not opposed to, religion, admits men of all creeds and of no creed whatever, and preaches tolerance all round; but it fights indifferentism, apathy, or carelessness on all matters affecting the material, intellectual, and psychical well-being of mankind.
Smits feels very strongly on all these matters, and his enthusiasm is of a staying kind; but the ancient device 'Suaviter in modo' has quite as much charm for him as its counterpart, 'Fortiter in re.' The consequence is that superficial people take him for a Socialist because he neither prosecutes nor persecutes Socialists for the opinions they hold. Himself an agnostic, and lacking religions sentiment, he realises so well the supreme influence of religion on numberless people and the comfort they derive from it, that many consider him not nearly firm enough in his intercourse with Roman Catholics or 'orthodox' Protestants, with whom, in fact, he frequently arranges political 'deals.' For Smits is, if not the chairman, the most influential and active member of the Liberal caucus; and, being in favour of proportional representation, he insists that the other political parties shall have their fair number of Town Councillors.
Such are the men who come together in this elegant and yet homely sitting-room; each of them a leader in his profession, each of them coming in daily and close contact with all sorts and conditions of men and women in the town, and enabled by their wide and unbiassed views of humanity and human affairaffairsntrol them and to divert the common energies in wise paths. The 'Heptarchy' has, of course, no legal standing as such, but from their conversations one understands the influence which its members wield by their intellectual and moral superiority. They conspire in no way to attain certain ends, but discuss things as intimately as only brothers or man and wife can discuss them, in the genial intimacy of their unselfish friendship. They generally agree on the lines to be taken in certain matters, but even if they fail to agree, this does not prevent them from acting according to their own rights, still respecting each other's convictions and preferences. And not only local topics are discussed in the meetings of the 'Heptarchy,' for politics, art, trade, and science, foreign and Dutch, come within their scope; for their intellectual outlook, like their sympathies, is universal.
Towards eleven o'clock we take leave of each other. Walraven, Hendriks, and ourselves go to the ball at the house of the 'Commissaris der Koningin' (Queen's Commissioner), the Lord-Lieutenant of the county, Baron Alma van Strae. Baron and Baroness Alma live in a palatial mansion, and we find the huge reception and drawing rooms full of a gay crowd of young folk. The rooms are beautifully decorated, there is a profusion of flowers and palms in the halls and on the stairs; and a host of footmen in bright-buttoned, buff-coloured livery coats, short trousers, and white stockings, move quietly about, betraying the well-trained instincts of hereditary lackeydom. There are county councillors, judges, officers of army and navy, bankers, merchants, manufacturers, town councillors, the mayor and town clerk, the president and some members of the Chamber of Commerce, and committee-men of orphanages and homes for old people. All have brought their wives, daughters, and sons to do the dancing, for though they occasionally join themselves, they prefer to indulge in a quiet game of whist or to settle down in Baron Alma's smoking and billiard room for a cigar.
These social fonctions, however, are much the same in Holland as in other countries. Etiquette may differ in small details, but on the whole the world of society lives the same life, cultivates the same interests, and amuses or bores itself in much the same fashion. It is tout comme chez nous in this as in nearly everything else.
On the whole, this elegant crowd shows a somewhat greater amount of deference towards professionals than towards officials. Doctors, lawyers, and parsons are clearly highly esteemed; it is the victory of intellect in a fair field of encounter. In The Hague the officials beat them, but not so much on account of their office as in consrquence of the fact that so many are titled persons, highly connected and frequently well off. But after the great Revolution and the Napoleonic times officialdom lost its influence and social importance in Holland in consequence of the demolition of the oligarchic, patrician Republic; and clause five of the Netherlands constitution, which declares that 'Every Netherlander may be appointed to every public office,' is a very real and true description of the actual, visible facts of social life.