In winter, however, the Dutch are completely transformed. No sooner
does the ice bear than the whole people begin to glide, and swirl,
and live their lives to the poetry of motion. The canals then
become the real streets of Amsterdam. A Dutch lady--a mother and
a grandmother--threw up her hands as she told me about the skating
parties to the Zuyder Zee. The skate, it seems, is as much the enemy
of the chaperon as the bicycle, although its reign is briefer. Upon
this subject I am personally ignorant, but I take that gesture of
alarm as final.
And yet M. Havard, who had a Frenchman's eye and therefore knew,
says that if Etna in full eruption were taken to Holland, at the end
of the week it would have ceased even to smoke, so destructive to
enthusiasm is the well-disciplined nature of the Dutch woman.
M. Havard referred rather to the women of the open country than the
dwellers in the town. I can understand the rural coolness, for Holland
is a land without mystery. Everything is plain and bare: a man in a
balloon would know the amours of the whole populace. What chance has
Cupid when there are no groves? But let Holland be afforested and her
daughters would keep Etna burning warmly enough; for I am persuaded
that it is not that they are cold but that the physical development
of the country is against them.
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