Cornelius in the town.

In the same degree as Cornelius de Witt had excited the
hatred of the people by sowing those evil seeds which are
called political passions, Van Baerle had gained the
affections of his fellow citizens by completely shunning the
pursuit of politics, absorbed as he was in the peaceful
pursuit of cultivating tulips.

Van Baerle was truly beloved by his servants and labourers;
nor had he any conception that there was in this world a man
who wished ill to another.

And yet it must be said, to the disgrace of mankind, that
Cornelius van Baerle, without being aware of the fact, had a
much more ferocious, fierce, and implacable enemy than the
Grand Pensionary and his brother had among the Orange party,
who were most hostile to the devoted brothers, who had never
been sundered by the least misunderstanding during their
lives, and by their mutual devotion in the face of death
made sure the existence of their brotherly affection beyond
the grave.

At the time when Cornelius van Baerle began to devote
himself to tulip-growing, expending on this hobby his yearly
revenue and the guilders of his father, there was at Dort,
living next door to him, a citizen of the name of Isaac
Boxtel who from the age when he was able to think for
himself had indulged the same fancy, and who was in
ecstasies at the mere mention of the word "tulban," which