To have successfully resisted the might of a Philip of Spain and the
strategy and cruelties of an Alva is alone a title-deed to imperishable
fame and honour. Dutch men and women fought and died at the dykes, and
suffered awful agonies on the rack and at the stake. 'They sang songs of
triumph,' so the record runs, 'while the grave diggers were shovelling
earth over their living faces.' It is not, therefore, to be wondered at
that a legacy of true and deep feeling has been bequeathed to their
descendants, and the very suspicion of injustice or infringement of what
they consider liberty sets the Dutchman's heart aflame with patriotic
devotion or private resentment. Phlegmatic, even comal, and most difficult
to move in most things, yet any 'interference' wakes up the dormant spirit
which that Prince of Orange so forcibly expressed when he said, in
response to a prudent soldier's ear of consequences if resistance were
persisted in, 'We can at least die in the last ditch.'

Until one understands this tenacity in the Dutch character one cannot
reconcile the old world methods seen all over the country with the
advanced ideas expressed in conversation, books, and newspapers. The
Dutchman hates to be interfered with, and resents the advice of candid
friends, and cannot stand any 'chaff.' He has his kind of humour, which is
slow in expression and material in conception, but he does not understand
'banter.' He is liberal in theories, but intensely conservative in
practice. He will _agree_ with a new theory, but often _do_ as his
grandfather did, and so in Holland there may be seen very primitive
methods side by side with _fin de siecle_ thought. In a _salon_ in any
principal town there will be thought the most advanced, and manner of life
the most luxurious; but a stone's-throw off, in a cottage or in a
farmhouse just outside the town, may be witnessed the life of the
seventeenth century. Some of the reasons for this may be gathered from the
following pages as they describe the social life and usages of the people.