very picture of
note that had been done in Venice. The great churches of Holland are
replicas of the churches of Venice. And the Cathedral at Antwerp, where
the sweet bells have chimed each quarter of an hour for three centuries,
through peace and plenty, through lurid war and sudden death--there
where hangs Rubens' masterpiece--that Cathedral is but an enlarged
"Santa Maria de' Frari," where for two hundred years hung "The
Assumption," by Titian.

In these churches of Holland were placed splendid organs, and the
priests formed choirs, and offered prizes for the best singing and the
best compositions. Music and painting developed hand in hand; for at the
last, all of the arts are one--each being but a division of labor.

The world owes a great debt to the Dutch. It was Holland taught England
how to paint and how to print, and England taught us: so our knowledge
of printing and painting came to us by way of the apostolic succession
of the Dutch.

The march of civilization follows a simple trail, well defined beyond
dispute. Viewed in retrospect it begins in a hazy thread stretching from
Assyria into Egypt, from Egypt into Greece, from Greece to
Rome--widening throughout Italy and Spain, then centering in Venice, and
tracing clear and deep to Amsterdam--widening again into Germany and
across to England, thence carried in "Mayflowers" to America.

That remark of Charles Dudley Warner, once near neighbor to Mark Twain,
that there is no culture west of Buffalo, was indelicate if not unkind;
and residents of Omaha aver that it is open to argument. But the fact
stands beyond cavil that what art we possess is traceable to our
masters, the Dutch.

It must be admitted that the art of printing was first practised at
Mayence on the Rhine, leaving the Chinese out of the equation; but it
had to travel around down through Italy before it reached perfection.
And its universality and usefulness were not fully developed until it
had swung around to Holland and was given by the Dutch back to Germany
and the world. And as with printing, so with music. Germany has
specialized on music. She has succeeded, but it is because Holland gave
her lessons.

* * * * *

During the fore part of the Seventeenth Century, there lived in Antwerp,
Ludvig van Biethofen, grandfather of the genius known as Beethoven. A
life-size portrait of him can be seen in the Plantin Musee, and if you
did not know that the picture wa