Is It Too Much To Hope That This
Devil's Work Of A Million Madmen At Dixmude Or Nieuport May Prove
Equally Incomplete?
In the imperfect sketch that follows I write of the aspect of
Belgium - of its cities, that were formerly
The most picturesque in
Europe; of its landscapes, that range from the level fens of
Flanders to the wooded limestone wolds of the Ardennes - as I knew
these, and loved them, in former years, before hell was let loose
in Europe. And perhaps, the picture here presented will in time be
not altogether misrepresentative of the regenerated Belgium that
will certainly some day arise.
II.
It is not merely in its quality of unredeemed and absolute
flatness that the great fen country of Flanders is so strongly
reminiscent of the great fen country of the Holland parts of
Lincolnshire. Each of these vast levels is equally distinguished
by the splendour and conspicuousness of its ancient churches.
Travelling by railway between Nieuport and Dixmude, you have on
every side of you, if the day be clear, a prospect of innumerable
towers and spires, just as you have if you travel by railway
between Spalding and Sleaford, or between Spalding and King's
Lynn. The difference, perhaps, is that the Lincolnshire churches
present finer architectural feature, and are built of stone,
floated down in barges, by dyke or fen, from the famous inland
quarries of Barnack, in Northamptonshire; whilst most of those in
Flanders are built of local brick, though the drums of the piers
and the arches are often of blue limestone.
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