Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1910-09-21

is wholly in tune with the surround
ings and is, SO to speak, essential
to the life Of the nation as whole.
Trains may be this last, but they de-
stroy the calm instead of emphasizing
1T. Motorcars are both discordant
and inessential Even the pleasure
boats on river lend a suggestion of
artificiality. A team on the plough
lands, a shepherd folding his sheep, a
field of haymakers or reapers, only in
these do we find the life that is in
exact accord with the scene, and these
we can only find at intervals. In
Holland on the other hand, in places
the most remote from cities and the
sound of markets and commerce, we
lind always the feeling of seclusion
and restfulness heightened and
touched to a sense of vitality by the
canals and their full-sailed barges,
These canals triumphantly redeem
the physical characteristics of the
country from the charge of duIlness.
Holland in it's general features is I'M
deniably quaint, but quaintness has a
charm which is not enduring. After
while we begin to tire of the square.
ness and orderliness, and to look upon
what appeared to be individuality at
first as eccentricity. We grow a little
uncomfortable in the land of Lilliput,
and fret for change and some patch
OF wildness. But Of the canals we
never weary, for in them we see the
expression of a nations character
nodded through centuries of stirring
and honorable history We remember
the Dutch proverb: God made the
sea, we made the shore" and we feel
that these waterways are not only
beautiful and charged with color and
atmosphere, but symbolical of a peo-
pies greatness.
The Dutch painters, through whom
the national genius has found it's most
forcible and enduring expression, have
realized very completely this strange
blend of calm and strength. To look
at one of their portrait groups of, say,
a body of hospital governors, is to
understand at once that these men
conducted their business thoroughly
and well, but scornful of unidentified
haste, and for untroubled repose Van
der Meers picture of Delft in the gal.
lery at The Hague could not we'll be
surpassed. In the great Dutch paint
ings we do not find the tranquility of
the open places and luxuriant haunts
of nature, but the deep calm of strong
life, sober and not highly imaginative
but entirely satisfying in it's degree.
The rise and fall of nations is
phenomenon still unaccounted for and
constantly recurring We know thai
Rome step by step rose to a splendo1
the glory of which is immortal, but
we cannot grasp the secret of this
splendor's decay or of the decline OF
the other great civilizations of the
world. We can but accept the fact
and wonder at the ruined and vet
noble monuments of their greatness
that still stand as at once a mer-orv
and an inspiration. When the time
comes that the peoples of western
Europe have also passed into the
shadow Of dead glories, we too shah
leave something of our works to bear
witness to a greatness that has gone.
But Holland will be but a recorded
history to the new nations of far-of4
ages. The sea will have prevailed
and the great canals, which are as
truly the essential expression of a res.
olute and heroic people as are the
palaces of Venice or the Acropolis OF
the Greeks, will have persisted and
will bear no testimony.
JOHN DRlNKWATER.
Japanese Garden.
One of the famous garden de-
signers of old Japan, Soami, once
said that the ideal garden should
express the sweet solitude of
landscape clouded by moonlight
with a half gloom between the
trees" Riklu, another old-timer and
authority on gardening, wanted his
garden to be to him the lonely pre-.
cincts OF a secluded mountain shrine
with the red leaves of autumn scat.
tered around" The Japanese garden
can reach perfection on any scale,
even the smallest. This is shown in a
tiny garden laid out in minute perfec.
ton with sand, pebbles, moss and
twi0S in SANGER