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Lucas, E. V. (Edward Verrall), 1868-1938

"A Wanderer in Holland"

Never was a Japanese screen so realised as by these
birds against the pearl grey sea and yellow sand.
Katwyk is more cheery than Noordwyk; but Noordwyk has a prettier
street--indeed, in its old part there is no prettier street in Holland
in the light of sunset. As Hastings is to Eastbourne, so is Katwyk to
Noordwyk; Scheveningen is Brighton, Yarmouth, and Blackpool in one. A
very pretty lace cap is worn at Noordwyk by villagers and visitors
alike, to hold the hair against the west wind.
From Noordwyk we walked to Noordwyk-Binnen, the real town, parent
of the seaside resort; and there, at a table at the side of the main
street, by an avenue so leafy as to exclude even glints of the sky,
we sipped something Dutch whose name I could not assimilate, and
waited for the tram for Leyden. It was the greenest tunnel I ever saw.

Chapter VII
Leyden
Steam-trams--Holland for the people--Quiet Leyden--The
Meermansburg--Leyden's museums--The call of the
open--Oliver Goldsmith--A view of the Dutch--"Polite
Learning"--"The Traveller"--James Howell--John Evelyn and the
Burgundian Jew--_Colloquia Peripatetica_--St. Peter's and
St. Pancras's--The Kermis--Drinking in Holland--Poffertjes
and Wafelen--America's master.


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