82 ; Hans Brinker

Hilda saw on her father’s face the rapt expression he always
wore when he spoke of Jacob Cats; so she put her armful of
books upon the table, and resigned herself to listen. ]

“© Old Father Cats, my child, was a great poet, not a writer
of plays, like the Englishman Shakspeare, who lived in his time.
I have read them in the German; and very good they are, —
very, very good, — but not like Father Cats’s. Cats sees no
daggers in the air; he has no white women falling in love with
dusky Moors, no young fools sighing to be a lady’s glove, no
crazy princes mistaking respectable old gentlemen for rats.
No, no! He writes only sense. It is great wisdom in little
bundles, —a bundle for every day of your life. You can guide
a state with Cats’s poems; and you can put a little baby to
sleep with his pretty songs. He was one of the greatest men
of Holland. When I take you to the Hague, I will show you
the Kloosterkerk where he lies buried. There was a man for

you to study, my sons! He was good through and through.
What did he say ? —

*©¢O Lord! let me obtain this from thee,
To live with patience, and to die with pleasure.’ }

“Did patience mean folding his hands? No, he was a
lawyer, statesman, ambassador, farmer, philosopher, historian
and poet. He was keeper of the Great Seal of Holland. He
was a— _ Bah! there is too much noise here; I cannot talk.”
And mynheer, looking with astonishment into the bowl of his
meerschaum (for it had “ gone out”), nodded to his vrevw, and
left the apartment in great haste.

The fact is, his discourse had been accompanied throughout

1 © Heere ! laat my dat van uwen hand verwerven,
Te leven met gedult, en met vermaak te sterven.