Voices mysterious far and near,
Sound of the wind and sound of the sea,
Are calling and whispering in his ear,
"Simon Danz! Why stayest thou here?
Come forth and follow me!"

So he thinks he shall take to the sea again,
For one more cruise with his buccaneers;
To singe the beard of the King of Spain,
And capture another Dean of Jaen
And sell him in Algiers.


One thought leads to another. It is impossible also to remain long
in the great Hals' room of the Museum without meditating a little
upon the difference between these arquebusiers and the Dutch of the
present day. Passing among these people, once so mighty and ambitious,
so great in government and colonisation, in seamanship and painting,
and seeing them now so material and self-centred, so bound within
their own small limits, so careless of literature and art, so intent
upon the profits of the day and the pleasures of next Sunday, one has
a vision of what perhaps may be our own lot. For the Dutch are very
near us in kin, and once were nigh as great as we have been. Are we,
in our day of decadence, to shrivel thus? "There but for the grace
of God goes England"--is that a reasonable utterance?

One sees the difference concretely as one passes from these many
Corporation and Regent pieces in the galleries of Holland to the
living Dutchmen of the streets. I saw it particularly at Haarlem
on a streaming wet day, after hurrying from the Museum to the