bly describing Dutch society at the beginning
of this century, he had the unheard-of audacity to describe an
improper house at the Hague. All Holland was in an uproar. His book
was discussed, criticised, condemned, praised to the skies, and the
battle still continues. Other historical novels were written by a
certain Schimmel, a worthy rival of Van Lennep, and by a Madame
Rosboon Toussaint, an accomplished author of deep study and real
talent. Nevertheless, historical romance may be considered dead even
in Holland. The modern novels of social life and the story meet with
better fortune. Most prominent in this field is Beets, a Protestant
clergyman and a poet, the author of a celebrated book entitled "The
Dark Chamber." Koetsweldt is another of this class, and there are also
some young men of great gifts who have been prevented from rising to
any height by haste, the demon that persecutes the literature of
to-day.

Holland has still another kind of romance which is its own. It might
be called Indian romance, since it describes the habits and life of
the people of the colonies. Of late years several novels have been
published in this style, which have been received in the country with
great applause and have been translated into several languages. Among
these is the "Beau Monde of Batavia," by Professor Ten Brink, a
learned, and brilliant writer, of whom I should like to be able to
speak at length to attest in some degree my gratitude and admiration.
But _apropos_ of Indian romances, it is pleasant to notice how in
Holland at every step one hears and sees something that reminds one
of the colonies, as if a ray of the Indian sun penetrated the Dutch
winter and colored the life. The ships which bring a breath of wind
from those distant lands to the home ports, the birds, the flowers,
the countless objects, like sounds mingled with faint music, call up
in the mind images of another nature and another race. In the cities
of Holland, among the thousands of white faces, one often meets men
whose visages are bronzed by the sun, who have been born or have lived
for many years in the colonies--merchants who speak with unusual
vivacity of dark women, bananas, palm forests, and of lakes shaded by
vines and orchids; young men who are bold enough to risk their lives
amid the savages of the islands of Borneo and Sumatra; men of science
and men of letters; officers who speak of the tribes which worship
fish, of ambassadors who carry th