ery little wall below the second floor. The
houses seem to rest on glass, and in the distance the windows become
blended into two long flaming stripes like gleaming hedges, flooding
the streets with light, so that one could find a pin in them.

As one walks along the streets of Rotterdam in the evening, one sees
that it is a city overflowing with life and in the process of
expansion--a city, so to speak, in the flush of youth, in the time of
growth, which, from year to year, outgrows its streets and houses, as
a boy outgrows his clothes. Its one hundred and fourteen thousand
inhabitants will be two hundred thousand at no distant time. The
smaller streets swarm with children; indeed, they are filled to
overflowing with them, so that it gladdens one's eyes and heart. An
air of happiness breathes through the streets of Rotterdam. The white
and ruddy faces of the servants, whose spotless caps are popping out
everywhere, the serene faces of the tradespeople, who slowly sip their
great mugs of beer, the peasants with their large golden earrings,
the cleanliness, the flowers in the windows, the quiet hard-working
crowd,--all give to Rotterdam an appearance of health and peaceful
content which brings the _Te beata_ to our lips, not with a cry of
enthusiasm, but with a smile of sympathy.

Re-entering the hotel, I saw an entire French family in a corridor
gazing in admiration at the nails on a door which shone like so many
silver buttons.

In the morning, as soon as I arose, I went to my window, which was on
the second floor, and on looking at the roofs of the opposite houses,
I confessed with surprise that Bismarck was excusable for believing he
saw phantoms on the roofs at Rotterdam. Out of the chimney-pots of all
the ancient houses rise curved or straight tubes, one above the other,
crossing and recrossing like open arms, or forks, or immense horns, in
such impossible positions that it seems as though they must understand
each other and be speaking a mysterious language from house to house,
and that at night they must move about with some purpose.

I walked down Hoog-Straat. It was Sunday and few shops were open. The
Dutch told me that some years ago even those few would have been
closed: the observance of the Sabbath, which used to be very strict,
is becoming slack. I saw the signs of holiday chiefly in the people's
clothes, in the dress of the men particularly. The men, especially
those of the lower classes (and this I o