I
chanced at the moment to be standing between the lantern and the sea,
and I was asked to move with an earnestness of entreaty in which the
safety of a whole navy seemed to be involved. The light may be seen
forty-eight miles away. It is fine to think of all the eyes within
that extent of sea, invisible to us, caught almost simultaneously by
this point of flame.
I did not stay at Nieuwediep but at The Helder. Thirty years ago,
however, one could have done nothing so inartistic, for then,
according to M. Havard, the Hotel Ten Burg at Nieuwediep had for
its landlord a poet, and for its head waiter a baritone, and to stay
elsewhere would have been a crime. Here is M. Havard's description
of these virtuosi: "No one ever sees the landlord the first day he
arrives at the hotel. M.B.R. de Breuk is not accessible to ordinary
mortals. He lives up among the clouds, and when he condescends to come
down to earth he shuts himself up in his own room, where he indulges
in pleasant intercourse with the Muses.
"I have no objection to confessing that, although I am a brother in
the art, and have stayed several times at his hotel, I have never
once been allowed to catch a glimpse of his features. The head-waiter,
happily, is just the contrary.
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