a glimpse of holland in contemplating a trip through holland ghosts of long ago come unbidden before the mind flitting by one sees young oliver gold smith knowing nothing of dutch but bent on teaching the dutch english returning from his fruitless efforts penniless with a flute as his capital and but little more as his baggage close behind is sir joshua reynolds astonishing the netherlanders with his ear trumpet and writing home delighted to burke the face of the country is unlike anything else the strength and straightness of the artificial roads often with double rows of trees which furnish in a point the perse verance of their industry and labor to form the dikes and preserve them in such perfect repair are ideals which occur to every mind as truly sublime next comes john quincy adams a youth who at thirteen was a student at the university of leyden at fourteen was secretary of the legation at st petersburg just behind him comes washington irving with his quick eye and polished pen noting his tales of a traveler thackeray delighted with the country said i feel a dutchman is a man and a brother there is an injunction against building on the sand but in holland every house has to be built on it a whole coast line is held together by ropes of sand cemented together by the roots of unpretentious reed grass by means of wind-mills the air is made to pay toll and by its powers the sleeping water is pumped from where it is not wanted into running channels the trees grow and the rivers flow just as they are wanted air earth and water are under control and the result is holland at one time it was a mixture of land and water but by combating nature a noble people has created the fertile and productive home of a compact and prosperous commonwealth during the sixteenth cen tury she built dikes and contested with the sea for supremacy in her struggle with spain she preferred to treat with the sea ather than with the duke of alva and when no longer able to cope with his superior forces they cut the dikes and flooded the provinces preferring to be drowned herself with the land of her creation than to live upon soil outraged by the feet of foreign foes it cost the inhabitants