Author: George Wharton Edwards

Publisher:

Published: 2015-07-06

Total Pages: 442

ISBN-13: 9781330817513

Excerpt from Holland of Today Perhaps in a book like this, dealing with the superficial and picturesque characteristics of the country as seen casually yet appreciatively by an observant traveler, one should not attempt to lift the veil that curtains it so charmingly. Yet the red blast of the great war now so happily ended for suffering humanity, has so shriveled the fabric that here and there one sees the bare bones of the skeleton hitherto so well concealed from view. The Dutch have always been thought "stein reich" (stone rich), as the saying is, and certainly there is little evidence of poverty in the country. The Dutch "boer" or farmer in his quaint costume is the vital strength of the country. He is phlegmatic, self-reliant, "rooted in the soil," to quote David S. Meldrum. One would not attribute to him any sort of emotion, yet emotional he is, and certainly to a great degree. From his class come the "Stadhouders," and the "Stadhouders" govern the country. The people during the great war were pro-Ally to the last man of them. Not for any love of the English or the French, be it said; on the contrary they have neither love nor sympathy for either. They were pro-Ally because of their fear and hatred of the Germans. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.