The fishwives of Scheveningen, I am told, carry the art of petticoat
wearing to a higher point than any of their sisters. The appearance
of the homing fleet in the offing is a signal for as many as thirty
of these garments to be put on as a mark of welcome to a returning
husband.
Probably no shore anywhere in the world has been so often painted
as that of Scheveningen--ever since the painting of landscape seemed
a worthy pursuit. James Maris' pictures of Scheveningen's wet sand,
grey sea, and huge flat-bottomed ships must run into scores; Mesdag's
too. Perhaps it was the artists that prevailed on the fishermen to wear
crimson knickerbockers--the note of warm colour that the scene demands.
Here, although it is separated from Scheveningen by some miles of sand,
I should like to say something of Katwyk--which is Leyden's marine
resort. A steam-tram carries people thither many times a day. The
rail, when first I travelled upon it, in April, ran through tulips;
in August, when I was there again, the patches of scarlet and orange
had given way to acres of massive purple-green cabbages which, in
the evening light, were vastly more beautiful.
At Rynsburg, one of the villages on the way, dwelt in 1650-51 Benedict
Spinoza, the philosopher, and there he wrote his abridgement of the
Meditations of Descartes, his master in philosophy, who had for a
while lived close by at Endegeest.
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