AMSTERDAM I should certainly include among my cities of light and charm, a place to live in. Not that it has, in my judgment¹, any of that capital significance of Paris or Rome or Venice. Though greater by a hundred thousand in population than Frankfort, it has not even the forceful commercial texture² of that place. The spirit of the city seemed so much more unbusinesslike,—so much slower and easier-going. Before I sent forth³ a single letter of introduction I spent an entire day idling about its so often semicircular streets, following the canals which thread their centers like made pools, rejoicing in the cool brick walks which line the sides, looking at the reflection of houses and buildings in the ever-present water.
 
Holland is obviously a land of canals and windmills, but much more than that it is a land of atmosphere. I have often speculated as to just what it is that the sea does to its children that marks them so definitely for its own. And here in Amsterdam the thought came to me again. It is this: Your waterside idler, whether he traverses the wide stretches of the ocean or remains⁴ at home near the sea, has a seeming vacuity⁵ or dreaminess of soul that no rush of ordinary life can disturb. I have noted⁶ it of every port of the sea, that the eager intensity⁷ of men so often melts away at the water’s edge. Boats are not loaded with the hard realism that marks the lading of trains. A sense of the idle-devil-may-care indifference⁸ of water seems to play about the affairs of these people, of those who have to do with them—the495 unhastening indifference of the sea. Perhaps the suggestion of the soundless, timeless, heartless deep that is in every channel, inlet, sluice⁹, and dock-basin is the element that is at the base of their lagging motions. Your sailor and seafaring man will not hurry. His eyes are wide with a strange suspicion of the deep. He knows by contact what the subtlety¹⁰ and the fury of the waters are. The word of the sea is to be indifferent. “Never you mind, dearie. As it was in the beginning, so it ever shall be.”
 
I think the peace and sweetness of Amsterdam bear some relationship to this wonderful, soporific spirit of the endless deep. As I walked along these “grachts” and “kades” and through these “pleins”—seemingly enameled¹¹ worlds in which water and trees and red brick houses swam in a soft light, exactly the light and atmosphere you find in Dutch art—I felt as though I had come out of a hard modern existence such as one finds in Germany and back into something kindly¹², rural, intellectual, philosophic¹³. Spinoza was, I believe, Holland’s contribution to philosophy,—and a worthy¹⁴ Dutch philosopher he was—and Erasmus its great scholar. Both Rembrandt and Frans Hals have indicated in their lives the spirit of their country. I think, if you could look into the spirits and homes of thousands of simple Hollanders, you would find that same kindly, cleanly realism which you admire in their paintings. It is so placid¹⁵. It was so here in Amsterdam. One gathered it from the very air. I had a feeling of peaceful, meditative¹⁶ delight in life and the simplicities¹⁷ of living all the time I was in Holland, which I take to be significant. All the while I was there I was wishing that I might remain throughout the spring and summer, and dream. In Germany I was haunted by the necessity of effort.
 
It was while I was in Amsterdam this first morning496 that the realization¹⁸ that my travels were fast drawing to a close dawned upon me. I had been having such a good time! That fresh, interested feeling of something new to look forward to with each morning was still enduring; but now I saw that my splendid world of adventure was all but ended. Thoreau has proved, as I recalled now with some satisfaction, that life can be lived, with great intellectual and spiritual distinction in a meager¹⁹ way and in small compass, but oh, the wonder of the world’s highways—the going to and fro amid the things of eminence²⁰ and memory, seeing how, thus far, this wordly house of ours has been furnished by man and by nature.
 
All those wonderful lands and objects that I had looked forward to with such keen interest a few months before were now in their way things of the past. England, France, Italy, Germany, London, Paris, Rome, Berlin, Canterbury, Amiens, St. Peter’s, Pisa—I could not look on those any more with fresh and wondering eyes. How brief life is, I thought! How taciturn in its mood! It gives us a brief sip²¹, some of us, once and then takes the cup away. It seemed to me, as I sat here looking out on the fresh and sweet canals of Holland, that I could idle thus forever jotting²² down foolish impressions, exclaiming over fleeting²³ phases of beauty, wiping my eyes at the hails and farewells that are so precious and so sad. Holland was before me, and Belgium, and one more sip of Paris, and a few days in England, perhaps, and then I should go back to New York to write. I could see it—New York with its high buildings, its clanging cars, its rough incivility. Oh, why might I not idle abroad indefinitely?
 
The second morning of my arrival I received a telephone message from a sister of Madame A., Madame J., the wife of an eminent²⁴ Dutch jurist who had something497 to do with the International Peace Court. Would I come to lunch this day? Her husband would be a little late, but I would not mind. Her sister had written her. She would be so glad to see me. I promptly²⁵ accepted.
 
The house was near the Ryks Museum, with a charming view of water from the windows. I can see it now—this very pleasant Holland interior. The rooms into which I was introduced were bluish-gray in tone, the contents spare and in good taste. Flowers in abundance. Much brass²⁶ and old copper²⁷. Madame J. was herself a study in steel blue and silver gray, a reserved yet temperamental woman. A better linguist²⁸ than Madame A., she spoke²⁹ English perfectly³⁰. She had read my book, the latest one, and had liked it, she told me. Then she folded her hands in her lap, leaned forward and looked at me. “I have been so curious to see what you looked like.”
 
“Well,” I replied smilingly, “take a long look. I am not as wild as early rumors³¹ would in............