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He was in no wise taken aback and soothed her with adroitness born of practice. When she was calm again he sat with his arm round her talking of indifferent things till a clock somewhere near struck three. "They should be here directly," he said, but made no effort to rise. "Would Aymer really mind being met?" she questioned. "He'd rather be left to Vespasian and Tollens."
But, in this way, an hypothesis can never be established as a demonstrated truth. The modus tollens of reasoning from known inferences to the unknown proposition, is not only a rigorous, but a very easy mode of proof. For, if it can be shown that but one inference from a proposition is false, then the proposition must itself be false.
Before 1840 no very brilliant writers came to the front, though the period was not without notable names, such as Willem Bilderdijk, Hendrik C. Tollens, and Isaac da Costa, all of whom possessed a considerable vogue.
It had been reassuring to find Vespasian awaiting them at the door with the old butler to whom he was formally introduced as Mr. Aymer's ward. Then having inquired of Tollens of the family's whereabouts, Mr. Aston bore off Christopher for further introductions.
Bilderdijk's chief claim to fame is the fact that he wrote over 300,000 lines of verse, and regarded himself as the superior of Shakespeare; Tollens had a name for rare patriotism, and wrote many fine historical poems and ballads; while Da Costa, who was a converted Jew, had to the last, in spite of a considerable popularity as a poet, to contend with the oftentimes fatal shafts of ridicule.
In a little park that extends to the right of the town on the bank of the Meuse there is a marble statue raised by the inhabitants of Rotterdam to honor the poet Tollens, who was born at the end of last century and died a few years ago.
Tollens was the old butler. "Won't he ever get used to it?" "He is afraid of becoming an invalid if he gets hardened to it." "But he is, isn't he?" "Not a bit of it. He has perfectly wonderful health. He has massage and all sorts of things to keep him up to the mark. Aymer's as vain as a girl." "I don't call it vanity. I call it pluck." Nevil groaned, "Oh, you women, old and young!
Vondel, for instance, was a hatmaker; Hooft was the governor of Muyden; Van Lennep was a fiscal lawyer; Gravenswaert was a state counsellor; Bogaers, an advocate; Beets, a shepherd; so Tollens also, besides being a man of letters, was an apothecary at Rotterdam, and passed every day, even in his old age, in his drug-store.
But, for all this, Tollens is not considered in Holland as a first-class poet, many do not even rank him in the second class, while not a few disdainfully refuse to give him the sacred laurels.
A half-sentimental, sickly style, consisting only of praises, of self-abnegation, of pious ejaculations, prevails. It is the worst of reactions; the country, after its first outburst, had sunk into quietude, the lethargy of inaction. Holland, on the other hand, is active and doing. Its poets and historians are at work, the precursors of Bilderdyk and Tollens, the poet of the people.
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