House Garden 
DUTCH HOUSES AND GARDENS. 
15V J. G. VELDHEER AND FREDERICA HULSWIT 
T HERE has been a time when Holland 
was regarded, and not without reason, as 
a great museum of antiquities. Many peo¬ 
ple incline to the same view even now ; and 
not only where articles of virtu are con¬ 
cerned, tor the Hollander himself is rather 
generally be¬ 
lieved to be a 
couple of hun¬ 
dred years be¬ 
hind his time in 
everyway. Such 
views being fre- 
quentamong the 
art-loving stran¬ 
gers who visit 
these lowlands, 
one is forced to 
sympathize with 
them in the cruel 
disillusioning 
which awaits 
them, a first 
glance being 
amply sufficient 
to arouse a sense 
ot disappoint¬ 
ment, for taken 
as a whole, the 
larger cities and 
more prominent 
places have lost 
so much of their 
former glory 
that only a 
shadow remains 
of all their old- 
time interest and 
beauty. 
Still some traces of the Holland of centu¬ 
ries ago remain even down to the present; 
but to find them, one must leave the high¬ 
ways with their great centers of trade and 
population and turn one’s steps to the com¬ 
paratively remote and so-called dead cities 
and villages, formerly examples of life and 
traffic, now slumbering behind their ancient 
walls and historic gates, dreaming of their 
day of power and prosperity. Preeminent 
THE TOWN WEIGH I 
among these are the old seaports and cities 
of the Zuyder Zee and Zeeland, which 
retain even yet much of their earlier pictur¬ 
esque and peculiar beauty. 
H ere one finds a faint reflection of the 
olden days. Along the still canals, buried 
under the shade 
ot time-worn 
trees and bend- 
i n g forward a 
little as if with 
the burden of 
years, rows of 
ancient houses 
mirror them¬ 
selves in the 
placid water. 
P h e compara- 
tive simplicity 
ot their facades, 
the rich brick¬ 
work and great 
shutters joined 
to the stair-like 
ascent of their 
gables — always 
in old Dutch 
architecture 
facing the street 
—give to the 
whole an aspect 
quietly dignified 
yet cheerful, a 
reminder of a 
greater day. 
And when the 
sun finds a way 
through the 
NG-HOUSE, ALKMAAR , r r 
dense foliage 
overhead with dancing lines and trembling 
spaces of soft green light which laugh and 
play over the quiet street, the moss-grown 
tree-trunks and the red roofs, then these 
rows of old houses make a most beautiful 
and joyous picture. 
Dutch houses of the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries were, as a rule, built of 
dark red brick, the frieze and arches of doors 
and windows ornamented with white sand- 
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