A Summer in a Dutch Country - House. By Mrs. Arthur Traherne.
(Kegan Paul.)—The attractive title-page of this volume is followed by a preface, in which the reader learns that to the holiest principles should be added the sense of daily duties, and how "of one thing all may be assured, that usefulness is invaluable." These profound remarks, which the author prints in italics, are illustrated by an uncalled-for eulogy of the Queen and the Royal family. Mrs. Traherne undertakes to give a sketch of the domestic life of one of the highest Dutch families, but how much truth there may be mingled with her fiction it is impossible to say. As a fiction, the book is of slight value, and the love-making and adventures recorded will have little charm for a novel-reader. The Dutch country-house belongs to a wealthy nobleman blessed with a good wife and three charming daughters. Plain living is understood in the family, and in some measure high thinking also. The half- English cousin who tells the story describes her first dinner- at the Count's as consisting of soup " very maigre," beef- steaks raw and tough, good vegetables, and a mould of rice. Breakfast consisted of coffee, with three slices of bread on each plate, white, brown, and black. The young ladies of the house, we are told, ate no butter, in order that they might give what the butter cost to the poor, and instead of coffee they drank water. At luncheon, if such it may be called, bread and water only were provided. These half-starved girls, however, were highly accomplished. They spoke English, French, and German fluently, studied Italian, played admirably, and wore stockings which they had knitted, and cotton frocks of their own making. Mrs. Traherne writes as if she were well acquainted with Holland, and it is a pity that her knowledge of Dutch life should be dis- played in the form of a romance.
Previous page
