Dutch Life in Town and Country | Page 9

two friends; he may be less
dogged, less tenacious than they; yet his fertile brain, his quick
intelligence, and his serious character have won for him a unique
position, and his public influence is very great. Both doctor and parson
meet and mix in the best society of the town, but the slums of the poor
are also equally well known to them; neither is a member of the Town
Council, but the same institutions have their common support. Livings
in Holland are not over-luxurious; and the consequence is that many
'Dominees' go out lecturing, or make an additional income by
translating or writing books. Some of Holland's best and most
successful authors and poets are, or were, clergymen, such as Allard
Pierson, P. A. de Génestet, Nicolaas Beets (Hildebrand), Coenraad
Busken Huet, J. J. L. ten Kate, Dr. Jan ten Brink, Bernard ter Haar, etc.
Dominee Barendsen is likewise well known in Dutch literary circles.
General Hendriks is the next to be announced. Dutch officers do not
like to go about in their uniform, but the gallant general is also
expected at the ball, and so he has donned his military garments. He is
a 'Genist,' a Royal Engineer, and had his education at the Royal

Military Academy at Breda. This means that he is no swashbuckler, but
a genial, well-mannered, open-minded and well-read gentleman, with a
somewhat scientific turn of mind and a rare freedom from military
prejudice. Hollanders are not a military people in the German sense,
and fire-eaters and military fanatics are rare, but they are rarest
amongst the officers of the General Staff, the Royal Engineers, and the
Artillery.
General Hendriks married a lady of title with a large fortune, so his
position is a very pleasant one. His friendship for the other
'Heptarchists' is necessarily of recent date, for he has been abroad a
great deal, and was five years in the Dutch East Indies fighting in the
endless war against Atchin. His stay there has widened his views still
more, and when he tells of his experiences he is at once interesting and
attractive, for he is well-informed and a charming raconteur. His rank
causes Society to impose on him duties which he is inclined to consider
as annoying, but he fulfils them graciously enough. He is a popular
president-director of the "Groote Societeit" (the Great Club), and of
Caecilia, the most prominent society for vocal and instrumental music;
and whenever races, competitions, exhibitions, bazaars, and similar
social functions, to which the Dutch are greatly addicted, take place,
General Hendriks is sure to be one of the honorary presidents, or at
least a member of the working board, and his urbanity and affability are
certain to ensure success. He has been a member of the States-General,
and is said to be a probable future Minister of War. But the weak spot
in his heart is for poetry and for literature generally; the number of
poems he knows by heart is marvellous, and at the meetings of the
Heptarchy he freely indulges his love of quotations, a pleasure he
strictly denies himself in other surroundings, for fear of boring people.
But everybody has a dim presumption that the general knows a good
deal more than most people are aware of, and this dim presumption is
strengthened by the very firm conviction that he is an exceedingly
genial man and a 'jolly good fellow.'
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