Evening star., 1935-01-13
BY HENDRIX WILLEM VAN LOON.

BY HENDRIX WILLEM VAN LOON.
Author of An Elephant Up, a Tree"
Van Looms Geography Etc.
7 AM a citizen of no mean country.
I don't remember who said it.
and being nat on my back can't
i very we'll delve into my library for
the Book of Quotations" But I
am sure that somebody at one time or
another said something that sounded
very much like it. Il am a citizen of
no mean country"
That sentence has been running
through my mind ever since returned
from proving to myself that this world
Of ours is really round. And it has
greatly puzzled me. For most of my
life I have spent in cordial disagree
ment with the majority of my fellow
citizens. ! never had any fault to
find with the physical aspects of the
country in which I was born. The
landscape suited my tastes because it
left SO much to the Imagination. Even
now. by preference, I like to live in
those parts of America where I can
have view of the sea. where the sky
is without limit. where no hills inter-
fere and cut of the nearby horizon.
No, it was not the landscape that
forced me away from my own bound
aries and made me more or less of a
wanderer. But I did not seem able
to catch on to the required point Of
view. did not "fit."
Began in School Days.
It was that way when I went to
grammar school and it was that way
when I went to high school, don't
think that was a moody kid or
thought myself a little genius that had
failed to be understood by its papa
and mamma and its relatives and
schoolmasters. All children. at one
time or another. suffer from this delu-
sion, for children have a strong streak
OF self-torture in them and they love
to pretend that they are being mis-
understood. And it most certainly was
not on account Of any precocious out
bursts of brilliancy. for my marks at
school ranged from failure to mediocre,
with the exception of history and the
Dutch language, in which I invariably
reached A-plus.
Well, you know how it is. When you
are young you don't worry about the
world into which you happen to have
been born. If children could not ac-
cept their surroundings as they accept
warm bed and three meals a day and
a bit of pocket money -four American
cents each week. rain or shine), they
would hardly live through the first 10
years of their lives. And so I accepted
whatever was my fate, and I don't
think that my doubts and my mis-
givings ever made me particularly in
Prospective.
But I realized that I was out Of
step, and at an early age I had been
told the story Of the woman who said
that she had seen her sons regiment
pass by and that everybody was out
of step except her own dear boy. I had
no desire to be conspicuous. and so.
as soon as I could, quietly sailed
away from my beloved North Sea mud
fats and came to a land where I
found myself among infinitely more
congenial surroundings than I had
ever known during the previous 20
years of my life.
Exists as Escape.
Since then I have often been back.
I still own house in the flattest and
most remote part of the low coun-
tries. 1t was built in the year 1872.
have spent fairly comfortable years
there working on my Rembrandt" !"
But 1t was make-believe existence
1t was deliberate form of escape. for
during the three years Of the actual
writing lived peacefully in the sew
enteenth century. And. behold! was
completely happy and at ease when I
talked to the men and women of 800
years ago. All of this caused me to