WOUTER VAN TWILLER
by Washington Irving
It was in the year of our Lord 1629 that Mynheer Wouter Van Twiller
was appointed governor of the province of Nieuw Nederlandts, under
the commission and control of their High Mightinesses the Lords
States General of the United Netherlands, and the privileged West
India Company.
This renowned old gentleman arrived at New Amsterdam in the merry
month of June, the sweetest month in all the year; when dan Apollo
seems to dance up the transparent firmament,--when the robin, the
thrush, and a thousand other wanton songsters make the woods to
resound with amorous ditties, and the luxurious little bob-lincoln
revels among the clover-blossoms of the meadows,--all which happy
coincidence persuaded the old dames of New Amsterdam, who were
skilled in the art of foretelling events, that this was to be a
happy and prosperous administration.
The renowned Wouter (or Walter) Van Twiller was descended from a
long line of Dutch burgomasters, who had successively dozed away
their lives and grown fat upon the bench of magistracy in Rotterdam;
and who had comported themselves with such singular wisdom and
propriety, that they were never either heard or talked of--which,
next to being universally applauded, should be the object of
ambition of all magistrates and rulers. There are two opposite
ways by which some men make a figure in the world; one, by talking
faster than they think, and the other, by holding their tongues
and not thinking at all. By the first, many a smatterer acquires
the reputation of a man of quick parts; by the other, many a
dunderpate, like the owl, the stupidest of birds, comes to be
considered the very type of wisdom. This, by the way, is a casual
remark, which I would not, for the universe, have it thought I apply
to Governor Van Twiller. It is true he was a man shut up within
himself, like an oyster, and rarely spoke, except in monosyllables;
but then it was allowed he seldom said a foolish thing. So invincible
was his gravity that he was never known to laugh or even to smile
through the whole course of a long and prosperous life. Nay, if a
joke were uttered in his presence, that set light-minded hearers in
a roar, it was observed to throw him into a state of perplexity.
Sometimes he would deign to inquire into the matter, and when,
after much explanation, the joke was made as plain as a pike-staff,
he would continue to smoke his pipe in silence, and at length,
knocking out the ashes, would exclaim, "Well, I see nothing in
all that to laugh about."
With all his reflective habits, he never made up his mind on a subject.
His adherents accounted for this by the astonishing magnitude of his
ideas. He conceived every subject on so grand a scale that he had not
room in his head to turn it over and examine both sides of it. Certain
it is, that if any matter were propounded to him on which ordinary
mortals would rashly determine at first glance, he would put on a vague,
mysterious look, shake his capacious head, smoke some time in profound
silence, and at length observe, that "he had his doubts about the
matter"; which gained him the reputation of a man slow of belief and
not easily imposed upon. What is more, it gained him a lasting name;
for to this habit of the mind has been attributed his surname of
Twiller; which is said to be a corruption of the original Twijfler,
or, in plain English, Doubter.
The person of this illustrious old gentleman was formed and proportioned
as though it had been moulded by the hands of some cunning Dutch
statuary, as a model of majesty and lordly grandeur. He was exactly five
feet six inches in height, and six feet five inches in circumference.
His head was a perfect sphere, and of such stupendous dimensions, that
Dame Nature, with all her sex's ingenuity, would have been puzzled to
construct a neck capable of supporting it; wherefore she wisely declined
the attempt, and settled it firmly on the top of his backbone, just
between the shoulders. His body was oblong, and particularly capacious
at bottom; which was wisely ordered by Providence, seeing that he was a
man of sedentary habits, and very averse to the idle labor of walking.
His legs were short, but sturdy in proportion to the weight they had to
sustain; so that when erect he had not a little the appearance of a beer
barrel on skids. His face, that infallible index of the mind, presented
a vast expanse, unfurrowed by those lines and angles which disfigure the
human countenance with what is termed expression. Two small gray eyes
twinkled feebly in the midst, like two stars of lesser magnitude in a
hazy firmament, and his full-fed cheeks, which seemed to have taken toll
of everything that went into his mouth, were curiously mottled and
streaked with dusty red, like a spitzenberg apple.
His habits were as regular as his person. He daily took his four stated
meals, appropriating exactly an hour to each; he smoked and doubted
eight hours, and he slept the remaining twelve of the four-and-twenty.
Such was the renowned Wouter Van Twiller,--a true philosopher, for his
mind was either elevated above, or tranquilly settled below, the cares
and perplexities of this world. He had lived in it for years, without
feeling the least curiosity to know whether the sun revolved round it,
or it round the sun; and he had watched, for at least half a century,
the smoke curling from his pipe to the ceiling, without once troubling
his head with any of those numerous theories by which a philosopher
would have perplexed his brain, in accounting for its rising above the
surrounding atmosphere.
In his council he presided with great state and solemnity. He sat in
a huge chair of solid oak, hewn in the celebrated forest of the Hague,
fabricated by an experienced timmerman of Amsterdam, and curiously
carved about the arms and feet into exact imitations of gigantic eagle's
claws. Instead of a scepter, he swayed a long Turkish pipe, wrought with
jasmin and amber, which had been presented to a stadtholder of Holland
at the conclusion of a treaty with one of the petty Barbary powers. In
this stately chair would he sit, and this magnificent pipe would he
smoke, shaking his right knee with a constant motion, and fixing his
eye for hours together upon a little print of Amsterdam, which hung in
a black frame against the opposite wall of the council-chamber. Nay, it
has even been said, that when any deliberation of extraordinary length
and intricacy was on the carpet, the renowned Wouter would shut his eyes
for full two hours at a time, that he might not be disturbed by external
objects; and at such times the internal commotion of his mind was
evinced by certain regular guttural sounds, which his admirers declared
were merely the noise of conflict, made by his contending doubts and
opinions.
It is with infinite difficulty I have been enabled to collect these
biographical anecdotes of the great man under consideration. The facts
respecting him were so scattered and vague, and divers of them so
questionable in point of authenticity, that I have had to give up
the search after many, and decline the admission of still more, which
would have tended to heighten the coloring of his portrait.
I have been the more anxious to delineate fully the person and habits
of Wouter Van Twiller, from the consideration that he was not only the
first, but also the best governor that ever presided over this ancient
and respectable province; and so tranquil and benevolent was his reign,
that I do not find throughout the whole of it a single instance of any
offender being brought to punishment,--a most indubitable sign of a
merciful governor, and a case unparalleled, excepting in the reign of
the illustrious King Log, from whom, it is hinted, the renowned Van
Twiller was a lineal descendant.
The very outset of the career of this excellent magistrate was
distinguished by an example of legal acumen, that gave flattering
presage of a wise and equitable administration. The morning after
he had been installed in office, and at the moment that he was making
his breakfast from a prodigious earthen dish, filled with milk and
Indian pudding, he was interrupted by the appearance of Wandle
Schoonhoven, a very important old burgher of New Amsterdam, who
complained bitterly of one Barent Bleecker, inasmuch as he refused
to come to a settlement of accounts, seeing that there was a heavy
balance in favor of the said Wandle. Governor Van Twiller, as I have
already observed, was a man of few words; he was likewise a mortal
enemy to multiplying writings--or being disturbed at his breakfast.
Having listened attentively to the statement of Wandle Schoonhoven,
giving an occasional grunt, as he shoveled a spoonful of Indian
pudding into his mouth,--either as a sign that he relished the dish,
or comprehended the story,--he called unto him his constable, and
pulling out of his breeches-pocket a huge jack-knife, dispatched
it after the defendant as a summons, accompanied by his tobacco-box
as a warrant.
This summary process was as effectual in those simple days as was
the seal-ring of the great Haroun Alraschid among the true believers.
The two parties being confronted before him, each produced a book of
accounts, written in a language and character that would have puzzled
any but a High-Dutch commentator, or a learned decipherer of Egyptian
obelisks. The sage Wouter took them one after the other, and having
poised them in his hands, and attentively counted over the number of
leaves, fell straightway into a very great doubt, and smoked for half
an hour without saying a word; at length, laying his finger beside his
nose, and shutting his eyes for a moment, with the air of a man who has
just caught a subtle idea by the tail, he slowly took his pipe from
his mouth, puffed forth a column of tobacco-smoke, and with marvelous
gravity and solemnity pronounced, that, having carefully counted over
the leaves and weighed the books, it was found, that one was just as
thick and as heavy as the other: therefore, it was the final opinion
of the court that the accounts were equally balanced: therefore, Wandle
should give Barent a receipt, and Barent should give Wandle a receipt,
and the constable should pay the costs.
This decision, being straightway made known, diffused general joy
throughout New Amsterdam, for the people immediately perceived that
they had a very wise and equitable magistrate to rule over them.
But its happiest effect was, that not another lawsuit took place
throughout the whole of his administration; and the office of
constable fell into such decay, that there was not one of those
losel scouts known in the province for many years. I am the more
particular in dwelling on this transaction, not only because I
deem it one of the most sage and righteous judgments on record,
and well worthy the attention of modern magistrates, but because
it was a miraculous event in the history of the renowned
Wouter--being the only time he was ever known to come to a
decision in the whole course of his life.
~~~~~~~ THE END ~~~~~~~
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