masts of anchored
ships. The eye wandered over that vast plain with a sense of repose,
and for the first time I experienced that indefinable feeling which
the Dutch landscape inspires. It is a feeling neither of sadness, of
pleasure, nor of weariness, yet it embraces them all, and holds one
for a long time motionless, without knowing at first what one is
looking at or of what one is thinking. I was suddenly aroused by
strange music; at first I could not tell whence it came. Bells were
ringing a lively chime with silvery notes, now breaking slowly on the
ear, as if they could scarcely detach themselves from each other; now
blending in groups, in strange flourishes; now trilling, and swelling
sonorously. The music was merry and fantastic, although of a somewhat
primitive character, it is true, like the many-colored town over which
it poured its notes like a flight of birds; indeed, it seemed to
harmonize so well with the character of the city that it appeared to
be its natural voice, an echo of the quaint life of the people,
reminding me of the sea, the solitude, and the cottages, and at the
same time it amused me and touched my heart. All at once the music
stopped and the hour struck. At the same moment other steeples flung
on the air other chimes, of which only the highest notes reached me,
and when their chimes were ended they likewise struck the hour. This
aerial concert, as I was told when its mechanism was explained to me,
is repeated at every hour in the day and night by all the steeples of
Holland, and the chimes are national airs, psalms, Italian and German
melodies. Thus in Holland the hour sings, as though to draw the mind
from contemplating the flight of time, and it sings of country, of
religion, and of love, with a harmony surpassing all the sounds of
earth.

Now, to continue in order my story of what I saw and did, I must
conduct my readers to a coffee-house and beg them to sit beside me at
my first Dutch dinner.

The Dutch are great eaters. Their greatest pleasure, as Cardinal
Bentivoglio has said, is to be at a feast or at some repast. But they
are not epicures; they are voracious: they prefer quantity to quality.
Even in ancient times they were famous among their neighbors, not only
for the roughness of their habits, but for the simplicity of their
diet. They were called eaters of milk and cheese. They usually eat
five times a day. When they rise they take tea, coffee, milk, bread,
cheese, butter; sh