Among
them are _De Ouderdom_, Old Age; _Buyten Leven_, Out-of-Doors Life;
_Hofgedachten_, Garden Thoughts; _Gedachten op Slapelooze Nachten_,
Thoughts of Sleepless Nights; _Trouwring_, Marriage Ring; _Zelfstrijt_,
Self-struggle, etc. Never was a poet so essentially the poet of the
people. He is always intelligible--always sensible--and, as was well
said of him by Kruijff,
Smiling he teaches truth, and sporting wins to virtue."
When President Kruger died last year the memoirs of him agreed in
fixing upon the Bible as his only reading. But I am certain he knew
Vader Cats by heart too. If ever a master had a faithful pupil, Vader
Cats had one in Oom Paul. The vivid yet homely metaphors and allegories
in which Oom Paul conveyed so many of his thoughts were drawn from the
same source as the emblems of Vader Cats. Both had the AEsopian gift.
We have no one English writer with whom to compare Cats; but a
syndicate formed of Fuller and Burton, Cobbett and Quarles might
produce something akin.
Scheveningen is half squalid town, half monstrous pleasure resort. Upon
its sea ramparts are a series of gigantic buildings, greatest of which
is the Curhaus, where the best music in Holland is to be heard. Its
pier and its promenade are not at the first glimpse unlike Brighton's;
but the vast buildings have no counterpart with us, except perhaps at
Blackpool.
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