Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 237, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 October 1915 — Page 3

DUTCH TOWERS

By MARTIN CONWAY

■’"W OLLAND in its quaint way is a land of romance, but of a burgherlsh /TSBA solid sort, the very antipodes of // the Romance of the sunny East. Dutch romance is the child of industry, enterprise, dogged courage, I fogs and waterways, and its great \<Hl* days fell within the limits of the seventeenth century. Then ships of Holland sailed all the seven seas and brought home wealth and tales of adventure. Then its sailors hammered at the arctic ice-pack • and pushed their trade among tropical spice islands. Then it was that De Ruyter sailed up the Thames with a broom at his masthead; then, too, that Rembrandt painted and Vondel rhymed. That also for Holland was a great building age, when prosperity caused cities to grow, canals to ,be dug, ports to be built, and the multiplex activity of Dutchmen to manifest itself in all- kinds of makings and shapings upon the surface of their amphibious land —half earth, half water. Thus it is the Holland of Rembrandt’s day and thereabout that remains most interesting to the traveler, and it is the buildings then erected that are most worthy of study and presentation within her towns. Amsterdam, when Rembrandt went to settle there about 1631, was passing architecturally through a period of transition. The small core of the city, where everything was on a small scale, still retained many remnants of the medieval age. The canals in it were narrow, the accommodation for ships was exiguous. A growing population and expanding trade were finding themselves horribly cramped. Amsterdam grew like an onion, by layers surrounding layers about a center. From time to time new rings of canals were added, with radial connections, and then more rings outside them. Of course fortified walls were erected round the whole at different dates, but they never lasted for long and had to be replaced by new circuits as the city expanded. The moat of each new circuit became a canal within the next. Those who were responsible for the Important changes made at the beginning of the seventeenth century had the good sense not to destroy every memorial of medieval days. In particular they spared some of the old fortification towers, applying them to a new purpose and refitting them accordingly. Thus the tower called Montelbaanstoren, which still stands by the old Schans, one of the largest basins of the earlier canal system, was a part of the medieval fortifications. They turned it into a picturesque bell tower by the addition of a superstructure set up in the year 1606. Though this was done before Rembrandt’s day, he omitted the steeple in an admirable drawing he made of it, thus giving one among countless instances that might be cited, of his attachment rather to the past than to the coming taste of the people of tils day. The only other high tower at Amsterdam drawn by him was the Westertoren or tower of the Westerkerk on the Prinsengracht, which unfortunately, we cannot produce in this place. That tower was a favorite with the folk of Amsterdam, and I have more .than once found it referred to, in narratives of Dutch exploration, as a measure of height, as, for instance, when a glacier cliff is said to have stood' out of the sea about as high as the Westertoren. It is a storied tower, composed of four retreating rectangular stages, each with columns at the angles, not unlike some of Wren’s towers in the city of London. The Westertoren, however, carries us down rather too late, when Palladian ideas were affecting Dutch architects. This was a feature of the change of taste, which made the art of Rembrandt old fashioned and terminated his prosperity. The Mint tower of 1640, and the others shown in our illustrations, are examples of Amsterdam steeple architecture of Rembrandt’s own generation. If they must be called fantastic they are certainly picturesque, and. admirably suited to enliven a canal vista or to poke up out of a foreground of crow-stepped gables. These are the typically Dutch towers, these buildings of the great days of Dutch romance. Earlier towers we can find in Holland, but they are Gothic, and re-echo the style elaborated in France. France also set the key of architectural style in the eighteenth century. In the seventeenth century Holland stood on her own feet, and other folk imitated the work of-her artists. The Dutch style affected England; it was imitated in the remarkable buildings erected in Denmark for Christian TV. It penetrated to the ends of the earth. It went with Dutch adventurers to New York, to Ceylon, to the Cape of Good Hope, where examples of it may'still be hunted out by patient searching. Our illustrations Include a few of the earlier towers of Holland, about which a word or two must be said. Here, for instance, are the Cathedral and one of the medieval gates of Maastricht, neither pf them tn any sense characteristically Dutch, for the Holland that the world admires was created in the fire of the Reformation wars. The cathedral church of St. Servatius at Maastricht is of early Christian foundation, and it is even claimed that portions of the existing walls date back to the sixth century. The building as we see it, however, is a great romanesque church of Rhenish style, with restored eleventh century towers at the angles of its apse and a later Gothic bell tower adjacent to a side aisle. Utrecht and Delft have bell towers of a like kind, the upper story being many-sided and manygabled. Another such tower is in Paradise itself, if we are to believe Hubert Van Eyck’s picture of that delectable land, the famous altarpiece still at Ghent, unless the Germans have carried it off. ' Medieval Maastricht was not a large place. The Cathedral was in the center of it; not more than five hundred yards away are the remains of the city walls of 1290. The exigencies of war make the military architecture pf a given date everywhere much the same. Thus the towerflanked south gate of Maastricht is not different in design from many another that can be found in the aid cities of Europe. But though it had

little individuality to start with, the adventures and patchings of time have endued it with a picturesqueness of its own. The builders gave it practically no decoration, but such solid works receive all they need from the hand of time, which adds detail with unerring taste. The plainer an edifice may have peen to start with, the better time adorns it, provided it has been built with sound materials, good workmanship and in good proportions. Most of England’s noblest castles must have looked gaunt and even (to contemporary eyes) ugly. To the Saxon citizens of London the White (doubtless whitewashed) tower can hardly have conveyed esthetic pleasure. But time has even decorated Norman castles, so that not the baldest modern sky-scraper need despair of future admiration if it can hold itself end up long enough. Amersfoort tower is anything rather than plain. On the contrary, it is in the Gothic style tending towards .flamboyant, while its general design is of the type of the tower at Utrecht, which, indeed, being only fourteen miles away, doubtless suggested it. That was built during the middle half of the fourteenth century; Amersfoort at the very end of the fifteenth. Both have the open octagonal top story already described. Utrecht is 338 feet high, Amersfoort 312 feet. The latter is considered to be the finest Gothic tower in Holland. I suppose it to have been surmounted or intended to be surmounted by a plain spire, but the. present bulbous top and open-work crown were put on in 1655. Where did Holland get its taste for these bulbs? She did not have a monopoly of them, for they are numerous enough in Germany and even in Switzerland. An oriental original probably suggested them. The Amersfoort church was built in the fourteenth century, and the tower may well have been projected from the first. An explosion damaged the building, but the damage was made good and the tower fortunately escaped. Few tourists stop at Amersfoort, but plenty of them can see the tower from the train on their way eastward from Amsterdam, The summit of it looks northward far away over the Zuyder Zee, and in every other direction over a country as flat as water. There was some fun in building high towers in Holland, they could be seen from so far away. Amersfoort can hail Utrecht, on any clear day, and both of them Rhenen (I imagine), which' Rembrandt sketched. Anyone who has landed at Flushing, and proceeded thence anywhither by train, has been carried for the first few miles over the amphibious region of the island of Walcheren. He has passed Middelburg and presently, if he looked away off to the left, he will have seen, at a distance of two or three miles, the z little town of Veere. Both are old towns and highly picturesque. So indeed Durer recorded them to be when he visited them in the cold December of 1520. “Middelburg,” he said, “is a good town, a fine place, for sketching. It has a beautiful town hall with a fine tower. There is much art shown in all things here.** All he has to say about Veere is that “it is a fine little town where lie ships from all lands.” The object of Durer’s unfortunate winter journey to the islanddtof Zeeland was not, however, to see towers and town halls, but to satisfy his- insatiable curiosity about natural history. He wanted to make a drawing of a whale that bad been stranded in those parts. Such curiosity in the case of men like Durer and Leonardo is ths first indication we possess of the approach of the age of science. The whale had been washed away before Durer’s

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER. IND.

arrival, so the drawing was never made, but a chill that he caught on this journey laid the foundations of the illness which eventually carried him off. The town hall of Middelburg and its fine tower were new buildings when he saw them. The town hall and tower of Veere were some forty years older, having been built about 1470 by A. Keldermans the elder, though the statues on the facade were not added till after Durer’s visit. Unfortunately the surviving pages of his sketch-book contain no drawings’ of these places. There is, indeed, on one page the complicated top of some tower, unnamed, the highest member of which is like that of Veere, but the rest is different. Durer was evidently entertained by these fantastic steeples and several of them appear in his sketches. In the nature of things, however, such light wooden structures as crowned the towers of the low countries were not so durable as the stone substructures. Some have perished by fire, others have lost their openwork decorations, others have had to be repaired in various degrees, and repair has generally meant simplification. The tower of Veere, however, was apparently never very elaborate, and probably remains much as it was originally built. Four-square and plain below, the stone portion is completed with a clock chamber, strengthened at the corners. Then comes a balustraded bell chamber, with a bulbed spire for roof to it. of unsually slender and graceful proportions. Little imitation dormer windows were a common decorative detail on these bulbs, but on Veere spire they are reduced to the roofs of them only. These and the Gothic crochets higher qp are the only medieval elements surviving in this tower. The town hall below contains a treasure certainly worth seeing, for lovers of fine goldsmith's work worth going to see —an admirable classification of “sights” which we owe to the common sense of Doctor Johnson. How useful a guidebook to Europe, confined to the things “worth going to see,” would be when peace returns, though a real peace in. a once more friendly world is hardly to be looked for in the days of any but the young. The treasure at Veere is a magnificent goblet, richly enameled and chased, which the townsfolk caused to be made for, and presented to, the Emperor Maximilian. How they managed to have both the prestige of giving it and the solid satisfaction of keeping it is not recorded in any books to which I have access. At all events, there it remains—a very handsome example of a fine period of art In the low countries. Veere also possesses a fourteenth century church, once in ruins but now repaired; also some remarkable old houses, a fountain of 1551 and other agreeable remains. On the whole a traveler on landing in Holland might well spend a night at Middelburg, where he can hire cycle or motor and make in a single day a circuit of entertaining little places, which preserve the charms of old Holland more completely than the larger and more famous cities wherein modern life has compelled much external modernization

ELABORATE EVASION.

.“Are the fish biting now?” asked the stranger. “Yes,” replied the boy. “But you ain’t allowed to catch ’em.” “Do you mean to say you don’t fish?* “t don't exaetiy fish. Put if a fish comes along sad bites at me I do my-best to defend myself.**

WITH CROCHET NEEDLE

FOREIGN IDEA EXTREMELY EASY TO COPY. Directions Given Should Be Followed Absolutely, as Any Deviation From the Plan Laid Down Will Result in Disaster. This puss Is looking up in the air at something we do not see. It la a foreign design. Chain 86 makes two rows of 27 spaces each. Each row adds 27. Third row—l 7 sp, 4 bk, 6 sp. Fourth row —4 sp, 2 bk, 3 sp, 2 bk, 16 sp. Fifth row—ls sp, 2 bk, 5 sp, 2 bk, 3 sp. Sixth row—2 sp, 2 bk, 7 sp, 2 bk, 14 sp. Seventh row—l 4 sp, 1 bk, 9 sp, 1 bk, 2 sp. Eighth row—2 sp, 1 bk, 6 sp, 1 bk, 1 sp, 2 bk, 14 sp. Ninth row —15 sp, 2 bk, 7 sp, 2 bk, 1 sp. Tenth row —1 sp, 2 bk, 24 sp. Eleventh row—l 9 sp, 4 bk, 1 sp, 2 bk, 1 sp. Twelfth row—l sp, 9 bk, 17 sp. Thirteenth row—ls sp, 11 bk, 1 sp. Fourteenth row—l sp, 14 bk, 12 sp. Fifteenth row—ll sp, 15 bk, 1 sp. Sixteenth row—l sp, 1 bk, 1 sp, 14 bk, 10 sp. Seventeenth row—9 sp, 14 bk, 2 sp, 1 bk, 1 sp. Eighteenth row —1 sp, 1 bk, 3 sp, 21 bk, 1 sp. Nineteenth row—2 sp, 15 bk, 1 sp, 2 bk, 5 sp, 1 bk, 1 sp. Twentieth row—l sp, 1 bk, 11 sp, 10 bk, 1 sp, 2 bk, 1 sp. Twenty-first row —1 sp, 20 bk, 6 sp.

Twenty-second row—l sp, 25 bk, 1 sp. - . Twenty-third row—l sp, 3 bk, 4 sp, 6 bk, 11 sp, 1 bk, 1 sp. Twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth rows —27 sp each.

TO MAKE SCENT AT HOME

Woman Who Has Successfully Accomplished It Has Made Her Method Public —Really Simple. A woman who has been trying a very simple way of capturing the natural fragrance of blossoms recently gives this advice to readers: About the only thing which it is necessary to purchase is a glass funnel with the narrow end drawn to a fine point instead of the usual opening.' This can be obtained from any druggist supplying apparatus for experiments. Some kind of support will be necessary for the funnel, and this might be made out of twisted wire, or a retort stand can be purchased at the same time as the funnel. You then need a small quantity of ice, and this is broken up into fragments and then placed in the funnel. On the surface a quantity of salt is sprinkled. The fragrant flowers —

TOWELS FOR THE DISHES

Crinkled Crepe Makes the Ideal Material That Can Be Employed in This Respect. The best dish towels for polishing glasses are not of checked linen toweling, as most people take for granted, but of ordinary thin seersucker, or crinkled crepe, as it is called in the shops. This material makes ideal glass towels, for it will not shed lint and absorbs moisture rapidly. New and perfectly clean cross-barred linen toweling is fairly satisfactory, but the moment such a towel is past its first youth, or if it has been used more than once before laundering, glasses begin to show the annoying specks of lint that are fatal to a brilliant polish. Dish towels should be rinsed after each use, and once a week they should be boiled ten minutes in water softened with sal soda or some good washing powder. It is not necessary to rob them—after the boiling, rinse in several waters and hang up to dry in the sun. Just before they are quite dry fold them, pressing smoothly with the hands, and hang up the folded towels again to dry thoroughly before putting away. They will not require ironing if thus treated. v The woman who hesitates at using washing p~wder or sal soda to wash her dish towels should consider whether it is easier to scrub out grease by main strength in order to make dish towels last a little longer or to relieve herself of unpleasant labor, and, if need be, hem half a dozen new towels a little oftener. There are articles which pay for dainty and careful laundering in order to preserve fine

NEW AFTERNOON GOWN

A new afternoon gown of black chiffon with yellow satin and silver cloth trimmings. This is one of the latest Parisian models.

roses, carnations or whatever kind may be selected —are placed near to the funnel. A small bottle is put under the pointed end, winch, it is remembered, is closed right up. After an Interval it will be seen that moisture from the atmosphere is condensing on the outside of the funnel. The fragrance given out by the flowers combines with this moisture, which finally trickles down into the bottle. This liquid will be found good quality perfume. To keep it In good condition It is needful to mix with about an equal quantity of spirits of wine.

On the Dressing Table.

When your powder pads become soiled and impossible to use any more in their present condition, do not throw them away, for you can easily wash them. Soak them in very hot water with plenty of good soft soap dissolved in it. Then wash in fresh hot water, using plenty of soap and rubbing the pads well. If you have more than one to wash at once, rub them together, one against the other, as this helps to loosen the dirt. If you are accustomed to using cold cream before you put on the powder, you may have to put a few drops of household ammonia in the water in which the pads are soaked.

White Voile Athletic Costume.

i One dress which has been especially designed for an athletic maiden is of white voile. The top of the skirt is laid in plaits. The bottom is finished with a wide band of blue linen. The bodice fits snugly, and yet is made so that the arms can .move freely, as it is fastened by means of a blue lacer which is run through embroidered eyelets., A small blue sailor collar, bearing emblems of white braid, is the only thing which stamps the frock as a sports garment.

fabric and costly handiwork —but dish towels cannot be included under this head.

New Yellow Frocks.

One of the most charming of the new frocks in cotton voile is a soft yellow tone dotted in black and white and decorated with a black and white checked silk sash. This was worn the other day by a fair haired young girl, and a hat of white chip, wreathed with white and yellow daisies, completed the costume. Another yellow frock in the wardrobe of the same girl is a maize tinted crepe de chine, the Leghorn hat that is generally worn with it being covered with silk roses toning from maize to scarlet.

Fruit-Trimmed Ruffs.

Neck ruffs of tulle and ribbon are much worn and they are especially becoming with the frocks of the season. They are made in brown. dark blue, black and sometimes white. And some of the smartest and newest have a line of tiny flowers, in different gay colors, or small fruits, cherries or apples, placed at regular intervals all around the neck. Some of these ruffs are made to flare out and up and down only at the back. A band of velvet ribbon clasps the throat in front and holds them in position.

Worth Knowing.

A handy laundry bag is made by leaving the bottom open and sewing on a narrow strip on the under side. Bring this strip over and have it button to the top side. To leave the laundry out just unbutton it and that laundry will come out through the opening.