, without doing anything
in haste; even those who do not depend on their studies for their
livelihood have read entire libraries. There is no English, German, or
French book, however unimportant, with which they are unacquainted.
French literature especially they have at their fingers' ends. And
what is said of literature can be said with more reason of politics.
Holland is one of the European countries in which the greatest number
of foreign papers are to be found, particularly those that deal
principally with national affairs. The country is small and peaceful,
and the news of the day is soon exhausted; consequently it frequently
happens that after ten minutes the conversation has passed beyond the
Rhine and deals with Europe. I remember the astonishment with which I
heard the fall of the ministry of Scialoia and other Italian matters
discussed as if they were domestic affairs.

One of my first cares was to sound the religious sentiment of the people,
and here I found, to my surprise, great confusion. As a learned Dutchman
most justly wrote a short time ago, "Ideas subversive of every religious
dogma have made much way in this land." It is quite a mistake, however, to
believe that where faith decreases indifference enters. Such men as
appeared to Pascal monstrous creatures--men who live without giving any
thought to religion, of whom there are numbers in our country--do not
exist in Holland. The religious question, which in Italy is merely a
question, in Holland is a battle in which all brandish their arms. In
every class of society, men and women, young and old, occupy themselves
with theology and read or listen to the disputes of the doctors, besides
devouring a prodigious number of polemical writings on religion. This
tendency of the country is shown even in Parliament, where the deputies
often confute their opponents with biblical quotations read in Hebrew, or
translated and commentated, the discussion degenerating into very
disquisitions on theology. All these conflicts, however, take place in the
mind rather than in the heart; they are devoid of passion, and one proof
of this is that Holland, which of all the countries in Europe is divided
into most sects, is also the country in which these sects live in the
greatest harmony and where there is the greatest degree of tolerance. If
this were not the case, the Catholic party would not have made such
strides as it has made, protected from the first by the Liberals ag