"Nowhere had resentment against 'perfide Albion' penetrated
national feeling more deeply than in the Netherlands. Between the
Dutch and English characters there is absolute incompatibility."

As a rule, I attach little faith to such generalities; in this case, I
am sure, rightly. Forgetting his dictum of "absolute incompatibility"
(p. 449), Dr. Kuyper, at p. 520, shows that, as far as he is concerned,
it is only relative; for in speaking of England, he goes on to say:--

"Were I not a Dutchman, I should prefer to be one of her sons. Her
habitual veracity is above suspicion; the sense of duty and justice
is innate in her. Her constitutional institutions are universally
imitated. Nowhere else do we find the sense of self-respect more
largely developed."

Dr. Kuyper further admits that the "incompatibility" is relative as far
as Afrikanders are concerned, it is only "absolute" as applied to the
Boers. After giving us this example of the consistency of his views, Dr.
Kuyper speaks of the English as being "unobservant." A reproach somewhat
unexpected, when directed against the countrymen of Darwin. As a proof,
he presents us with this metaphor, equally unexpected from the pen of a
Dutchman--a dweller of the plains:--

"Because, in winter, the English had only seen in these
insignificant river beds a harmless thread of frozen water, they
took no thought of the formidable torrent which the thawing of the
snow, in spring, would send rushing down to inundate their banks."

"The torrent" is of course the war now going on. Lord Roberts seems to