Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/155



Do you not feel that he could not have written the last two lines if he had not really heard God’s thunder, dictating to him im reverberating crashes along the mountain sides?

But he did not like to write poetry; it was, as he said, “like putting on a stiff corset,” and when he was induced to read anything of what he had written, he took pleasure in abusing his own work, either by reading in a ridiculous tone, or by stopping short at a most solemn place, and throwing in a pun which shocked his hearers. This was nothing more than a satire upon the disproportion between his soul and the corset which confined it.

Havelaar had ordered by a sign the customary tea and sweetmeats; but few of the chiefs partook of the refreshments. It appears that he had paused with premeditation at the end of his speech; and there was a reason for it. What must the chiefs have thought of his knowing already that so many had left Lebak with bitterness in their hearts? of his knowing already how many families had emigrated to neighbouring countries to avoid the poverty that reigned here? and of his knowing the fact that there are so many Bantammers amongst the bands in revolt against the Dutch Government? What