58 THE GARDEN OF A 



patient, sluggish way, and would have preferred, 

 father thought, to have remained there all his days, 

 army service and all. 



There are many ways of loving one's country, it 

 seems, as in other loves, the mental and the physical, 

 and his was love of the absolute ground, and had no 

 mental pride or consciousness. He had not the 

 faintest conception of the Netherlands' rise and 

 history ; the Spanish wars were as foreign to him as 

 the deluge ; his pride was not of the country's power 

 in commerce or art. He might have heard mention 

 of the names Rembrandt, van Dyck, Frans Hals, 

 Plantin, but they meant nothing, though he had 

 lived within a few hours' walk of Amsterdam and its 

 wonderful Rix Museum. His plodding mind waded 

 in the rich black soil that the plough turned over, 

 never rising above the bearded barley that grew 

 from it. He found greater beauty in the straight, 

 sluggish canals than in all the rushing, forest-banked 

 rivers in the world. He could not think quickly or 

 hurry, and the soil, was it not always there, at once 

 tangible and immovable, the one thing in which he 

 seemed to have full confidence ? In short, he was 

 peasant to the core, intelligently and contentedly 

 so. What a pity that he should be dragged away 

 and awakened, for of such is the strength of the 



