THE COFFEE-HOUSE.~”

CHAPTER VIII

THE DUTCH AT HOME AND ABROAD

  

=4| HE story of Dutch patriotism could be written
{| out in symbols, or pictures, more eloquently
than that of any other nation. There would
be shields, arrows and spears, and battleships
and fortresses, and all the paraphernalia of
war, ancient and modern. But beside these, and having
a sterner significance, would be the tools and implements
of artisans ; the windmills, the dikes, the canals ; the sluice-
gates, the locks; the piles that hold up their cities. How
much could be told by the great, white-sailed merchantmen
bound for every sea; by the mammoth docks, and by the
wonderful cargoes coming and going! How the great
buildings would loom up, each telling its-story— the fac-
tories, warehouses, schools, colleges, museums, legislative

halls, the hospitals, asylums, and churches !
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