The World's Great Classics (Volume 33); History of English Literature, by H.A. Taine (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1899. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... BOOK I.--THE SOURCE CHAPTER FIRST THE SAXONS Section I--The Coast of the North Sea S you coast the North Sea from the Scheldt to Jutland, you will mark in the first place that the characteristic feature is the want of slope; marsh, waste, shoal; the rivers hardly drag themselves along, swollen and sluggish, with long, black-looking waves; the flooding stream oozes over the banks, and appears further on in stagnant pools. In Holland the soil is but a sediment of mud; here and there only does the earth cover it with a crust, shallow and brittle, the mere alluvium of the river, which the river seems ever about to destroy. Thick clouds hover above, being fed by ceaseless exhalations. They lazily turn their violet flanks, grow black, suddenly descend in heavy showers; the vapor, like a furnacesmoke, crawls forever on the horizon. Thus watered, plants multiply; in the angle between Jutland and the continent, in a fat muddy soil, " the verdure is as fresh as that of England." 1 Immense forests covered the land even after the eleventh century. The sap of this humid country, thick and potent, circulates in man as in the plants; man's respiration, nutrition, sensations and habits affect also his faculties and his frame. The land produced after this fashion has one enemy, to wit, the sea. Holland maintains its existence only by virtue of its dykes. In 1654 those in Jutland burst, and fifteen thousand of 1 Malte-Brun, iv. 398. Not counting The dialect of Jutland bears still a great bays, gulfs, and canals, the sixteenth resemblance to English, part of the country is covered by water. the inhabitants were swallowed up. One need only see the blast of the North swirl down upon the low level of the soil, wan and ominous:2 the vast yellow sea dashes against the narrow belt of fl...