in their greatness; succeeding in what they undertake by dint of tenacity and a thoughtful and orderly activity; more wise than heroic; more conservative than creative; giving no great architects to the edifice of modern thought, but the ablest of workmen, a legion of patient and laborious artisans.  And by virtue of these qualities of prudence, phlegmatic activity, and the spirit of conservatism, they are ever advancing, though by slow degrees; they acquire gradually, but never lose what they have gained; holding stubbornly to their ancient customs; preserving almost intact, and despite the neighborhood of three great nations, their own originality; preserving it through every form of government, through foreign invasions, through political and religious wars, and in spite of the immense concourse of strangers from every country that are always coming among them; and remaining, in short, of all the northern races, that one which, though ever advancing in the path of civilization, has kept its antique stamp most clearly.

It is enough also to remember its form in order to comprehend that this country of three millions and a half of inhabitants, although bound in so compact a political union, although recognizable among all the other northern peoples by certain traits peculiar to the population of all its provinces, must present a great variety.  And so it is in fact.  Between Zealand and Holland proper, between Holland and Friesland, between Friesland and Gueldres, between Groningen and Brabant, in spite of vicinity and so many common tics, there is no less difference than between the more distant provinces of Italy and France; difference of language, costume, and character; difference of race and of religion.  The communal regime has impressed an indelible mark upon this people, because in no other country does it so conform to the nature of things.  The country is divided into various groups of interests organized in the same manner as the hydraulic system.  Whence, association and mutual help against the common enemy, the sea; but liberty for local institutions and forces.  Monarchy has not extinguished the ancient municipal spirit, and this it is that renders impossible a complete fusion of the State, in all the great States that have made the attempt.  The great rivers and gulfs are at the same time commercial roads serving as national bonds between the different provinces, and barriers which defend old traditions and old customs in each.

THE DUTCH MASTERS

From ‘Holland and Its People’

The Dutch school of painting has one quality which renders it particularly attractive to us Italians; it is above all others the most different from our own, the very antithesis or the opposite pole of art.  The Dutch and Italian schools are the most original, or, as has been said, the only two to which the title rigorously belongs; the others being only daughters or younger sisters, more or less resembling them.