“I have a present for you from Lodowijk Willem Bilderdijk, a very nice good
boy, who is of the age of your sister Isabel. It is a book of Dutch verses, which you and I will read
together when I come home. When he was a little boy and was learning to write,
his father, who is very much such a father as I am, made little verses for him
to write in his
| Ætat. 51. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 221 |
“I must tell you about his stork. You should know that
there are a great many storks in this country, and that it is thought a very
wicked thing to hurt them. They make their nests, which are as large as a great
clothes basket, upon the houses and churches, and frequently when a house or
church is built, a wooden frame is made on the top for the storks to build in.
Out of one of these nests a young stork had fallen, and somebody wishing to
keep him in a garden, cut one of his wings. The stork tried to fly but fell in
Mr. Bilderdijk’s garden, and
was found there one morning almost dead; his legs and his bill had lost their
colour, and were grown pale, and he would soon have died if Mrs. Bilderdijk, who is kind to everybody and
everything, had not taken care of him, as we do of the dumbeldores when they
have been in the house all night. She gave him food and he recovered. The first
night they put him into a sort of summer-house in the garden, which I cannot
describe to you because I have not yet been there; the second night he walked
to the door himself that it might be opened for him. He was very fond of
Lodowijk and
Lodowijk was as fond of his oyevaar, which is the name for stork in
| 222 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 51. |
“The very day I came to their house the stork flew away. His wings were grown, and most likely he thought it time to get a wife and settle in life. Lodowijk saw him rise up in the air and fly away. Lodowijk was very sorry, not only because he loved the oyevaar, but because he was afraid the oyevaar would not be able to get his own living, and therefore would be starved. On the second evening, however, the stork came again and pitched upon a wall near. It was in the twilight, and storks cannot see at all when it is dusk, but whenever Lodowijk called Oye! oye! (which was the way he used to call him) the oyevaar turned his head toward the sound. He did not come into the garden. Some fish was placed there for him, but in the morning he was gone, and had not eaten it; so we suppose that he is married and living very happily with his mate, and that now and then he will come and visit the old friends who were so good to him.
| Ætat. 51. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 223 |
“It is very happy for me that I am in so comfortable a house, and with such excellently kind and good people . . . . . where I learn more of the literature, present and past state, and domestic manners of the country, than it would have been possible for me to do in any other manner.
“Yesterday Mr. Bilderdijk received a letter from Algernon Thelwall, who is at Amsterdam, saying he had heard that I was here, and expressing a great desire to see me. Both Mr. and Mrs. Bilderdijk speak very highly of him. This news is for your mamma. I shall have a great deal to tell her on my return.
“I hope you have been a good boy and done every thing that you ought to do, while I am away. When I come home you shall begin to read Jacob Cats with me. My love to your sisters and to every body else. I hope Rumpelstilzchen has recovered his health, and that Miss Cat is well, and I should like to know whether Miss Fitzrumpel has been given away, and if there is another kitten. The Dutch cats do not speak exactly the same language as the English ones. I will tell you how they talk when I come home.
“God bless you, my dear Cuthbert!
