A Wanderer in Holland Part 19

Arnheim presents after dinner the usual scene of contented movement. The people throng the princ.i.p.al streets, and every one seems happy and placid. The great concert hall, Musis Sacrum, had not yet begun its season when I was there, and the only spectacle which the town could muster was an exhibition of strength by two oversized boys, which I avoided.

At Arnheim, I should relate, an odd thing happened to my companion. When she was there last, in 1894, she had need to obtain linseed for a poultice, and visited a chemist for the purpose. He was an old man, and she found him sitting in the window studying his English grammar. How long his study had lasted I have no notion, but he knew less of our tongue than she of his, and to get the linseed was no easy matter. Ten years pa.s.sed and recollection of the Arnheim chemist had clean evaporated; but chancing to look up as we walked through the town, the sight of the old chemist seated in his shop-window poring over a book brought the whole incident back to her. We stepped to the window and stole a glance at the volume: it was an English Grammar. He had been studying it ever since the night of the linseed poultice.

It was, we felt, an object-lesson to us, who during the same interval had taken advantage of every opportunity of neglecting the Dutch tongue.

That tongue, however, is not attractive. Even those who have spoken it to most purpose do not always admire it. I find that Kasper van Baerle wrote: "What then do we Netherlanders speak? Words from a foreign tongue: we are but a collected crowd, of feline origin, driven by a strange fatality to these mouths of the Rhine. Why, since the mighty descendants of Romulus here pitched their tents, choose we not rather the holy language of the Romans!"

We may consider Dutch a harsh tongue, and prefer that all foreigners should learn English; but our dislike of Dutch is as nothing compared with Dutch dislike of French as expressed in some verses by Bilderdyk when the tyranny of Napoleon threatened them:--

Begone, thou b.a.s.t.a.r.d-tongue! so base--so broken-- By human jackals and hyenas spoken; Formed of a race of infidels, and fit To laugh at truth--and scepticise in wit; What stammering, snivelling sounds, which scarcely dare, Bravely through nasal channel meet the ear-- Yet helped by apes' grimaces--and the devil, Have ruled the world, and ruled the world for evil!

But French is now the second language that is taught in Dutch schools. German comes first and English third.

The Dutch language often resembles English very closely; sometimes so closely as to be ridiculous. For example, to an English traveller who has been manoeuvring in vain for some time in the effort to get at the value of an article, it comes as a shock comparable only to being run over by a donkey cart to discover that the Dutch for "What is the price?" is "Wat is de prijs?"

The best old Dutch phrase-book is _The English Schole-Master_, the copy of which that lies before me was printed at Amsterdam by John Houman in the year 1658. I have already quoted a short pa.s.sage from it, in Chapter II. This is the full t.i.tle:--

The English Schole-Master; or Certaine rules and helpes, whereby the natives of the Netherlandes, may bee, in a short time, taught to read, understand, and speake the English tongue.

By the helpe whereof the English also may be better instructed in the knowledge of the Dutch tongue, than by any vocabulars, or other Dutch and English books, which hitherto they have had, for that purpose.

There is internal evidence that the book was the work of a Dutchman rather than an Englishman; for the Dutch is better than the English. I quote (omitting the Dutch) part of one of the long dialogues between a master and scholar of which the manual is largely composed. Much of its interest lies in the continual imminence of the rod and the skill of the child in saving the situation:--

M. In the meane time let me aske you one thing more. Have you not in to-day at the holy sermon?

S. I was there.

M. Who are your witnesses?

S. Many of the schoole-fellowes who saw me can witnes it.

M. But some must be produced.

S. I shall produce them when you commaund it.

M. Who did preach?

S. Master N.

M. At what time began he?

S. At seven a clock.

M. Whence did he take his text?

S. Out of the epistle of Paul to the Romanes.

M. In what chapter?

S. In the eighth.

M. Hitherto you have answered well: let us now see what follows. Have you remembred anything?

S. Nothing that I can repeat.

M. Nothing at al? Bethink (your self) a little, and take heed that you bee not disturbed, but bee of good courage.

S. Truly master I can remember nothing.

M. What, not one word?

S. None at all.

M. I am ready to strike you: what profit have you then gotten?

S. I know not, otherwise than that perhaps I have in the mean time abstained from evill.

M. That is some what indeed, if it could but so be that you have kept your self wholy from evill.

S. I have abstained so much as I was able.

M. Graunt that it bee so, yet you have not pleased G.o.d, seeing it is written, depart from evill and doe good, but tell mee (I pray thee) for what cause princ.i.p.ally did you goe thither?

S. That I might learne something.

M. Why have you not done so?

S. I could not.

M. Could you not, knave? yea you would not, or truly you have not addicted your self to it.

S. I am compelled to confesse it.

M. What compelleth you?

S. My Conscience, which accuseth me before G.o.d.

M. You say well: oh that it were from the heart.

S. Truly I speak it from myne heart.

M. It may bee so: but goe to, what was the cause that you have remembred nothing?

S. My negligence: for I attended not diligently.

M. What did you then?