As it is with the natural so it is with the political horizon. This latter
embraces for the average Dutchman the people of a country whose interests
seem to him bound up for the most part in the twelve thousand square miles
of lowland pressed into a corner of Europe; for, extensive as the Dutch
colonies are, they are not 'taken in' by the average Dutchman as are the
colonies of some other nations. There are one or two towns, such as The
Hague and Arnhem, where an Indo-Dutch Society may be found, consisting of
retired colonial civil servants, who very often have married Indian women,
and have either returned home to live on well-earned pensions or who
prefer to spend the money gained in India in the country which gave them
birth. But Holland has not yet begun to develop as far as she might the
great resources of Netherlands India, and therefore no very great amount
of interest is taken in the colonial possessions outside merely home,
official, or Indo Dutch society.

[Illustration: Zeeland Peasant--The Dark Type.]

With regard to the affairs of his country generally, the state of mind of
the average Dutchman has been well described as that of a man well on in
years, who has amassed a fair fortune, and now takes things easily, and
loves to talk over the somewhat wild doings of his youth. Nothing is more
common than to hear the remarks from both old and young, 'We _have_ been
great,' 'We have _had_ our time,' 'Every nation reaches a climax;' and
certainly Holland has been very great in statesmen, patriots, theologians,
artists, explorers, colonizers, soldiers, sailors, and martyrs. The names
of William the Silent, Barneveldt, Arminius, Rembrandt, Rubens, Hobbema,
Grotius, De Ruyter, Erasmus, Ruysdael, Daendels, Van Speijk, Tromp afford
proof of the pertinacity, courage, and devotion of Netherland's sons in
the great movements which have sprung from her soil.