The Alkahest | Page 4

Beethoven, and
Paganini. Far-seeing minds alone disapprove such excess, and respect
only the energy represented by a finished execution whose perfect quiet
charms superior men. The life of this essentially thrifty people amply
fulfils the conditions of happiness which the masses desire as the lot of
the average citizen.
A refined materialism is stamped on all the habits of Flemish life.
English comfort is harsh in tone and arid in color; whereas the old-
fashioned Flemish interiors rejoice the eye with their mellow tints, and
the feelings with their genuine heartiness. There, work implies no
weariness, and the pipe is a happy adaptation of Neapolitan "far-
niente." Thence comes the peaceful sentiment in Art (its most essential
condition), patience, and the element which renders its creations

durable, namely, conscience. Indeed, the Flemish character lies in the
two words, patience and conscience; words which seem at first to
exclude the richness of poetic light and shade, and to make the manners
and customs of the country as flat as its vast plains, as cold as its foggy
skies. And yet it is not so. Civilization has brought her power to bear,
and has modified all things, even the effects of climate. If we observe
attentively the productions of various parts of the globe, we are
surprised to find that the prevailing tints from the temperate zones are
gray or fawn, while the more brilliant colors belong to the products of
the hotter climates. The manners and customs of a country must
naturally conform to this law of nature.
Flanders, which in former times was essentially dun-colored and
monotonous in tint, learned the means of irradiating its smoky
atmosphere through its political vicissitudes, which brought it under the
successive dominion of Burgundy, Spain, and France, and threw it into
fraternal relations with Germany and Holland. From Spain it acquired
the luxury of scarlet dyes and shimmering satins, tapestries of vigorous
design, plumes, mandolins, and courtly bearing. In exchange for its
linen and its laces, it brought from Venice that fairy glass-ware in
which wine sparkles and seems the mellower. From Austria it learned
the ponderous diplomacy which, to use a popular saying, takes three
steps backward to one forward; while its trade with India poured into it
the grotesque designs of China and the marvels of Japan.
And yet, in spite of its patience in gathering such treasures, its tenacity
in parting with no possession once gained, its endurance of all things,
Flanders was considered nothing more than the general storehouse of
Europe, until the day when the discovery of tobacco brought into one
smoky outline the scattered features of its national physiognomy.
Thenceforth, and notwithstanding the parcelling out of their territory,
the Flemings became a people homogeneous through their pipes and
beer.[*]
[*] Flanders was parcelled into three divisions; of which Eastern
Flanders, capital Ghent, and Western Flanders, capital Bruges, are two
provinces of Belgium. French Flanders, capital Lille, is the

Departement du Nord of France. Douai, about twenty miles from Lille,
is the chief town of the arrondissement du Nord.
After assimilating, by constant sober regulation of conduct, the
products and the ideas of its masters and its neighbors, this country of
Flanders, by nature so tame and devoid of poetry, worked out for itself
an original existence, with characteristic manners and customs which
bear no signs of servile imitation. Art stripped off its ideality and
produced form alone. We may seek in vain for plastic grace, the swing
of comedy, dramatic action, musical genius, or the bold flight of ode
and epic. On the other hand, the people are fertile in discoveries, and
trained to scientific discussions which demand time and the midnight
oil. All things bear the ear-mark of temporal enjoyment. There men
look exclusively to the thing that is: their thoughts are so scrupulously
bent on supplying the wants of this life that they have never risen, in
any direction, above the level of this present earth. The sole idea they
have ever conceived of the future is that of a thrifty, prosaic statecraft:
their revolutionary vigor came from a domestic desire to live as they
liked, with their elbows on the table, and to take their ease under the
projecting roofs of their own porches.
The consciousness of well-being and the spirit of independence which
comes of prosperity begot in Flanders, sooner than elsewhere, that
craving for liberty which, later, permeated all Europe. Thus the
compactness of their ideas, and the tenacity which education grafted on
their nature made the Flemish people a formidable body of men in the
defence of their rights. Among them nothing is half-done,--neither
houses, furniture, dikes, husbandry, nor revolutions; and they hold a
monopoly of all that they undertake. The manufacture of linen, and that
of lace, a work of patient agriculture and