The industries of Ghent
are prosperous. Throughout the Walloon country, from the busy forges
of Liege to the coal-mines round Mons, there is a hard-working and, on
the whole, successful people. Even fallen Bruges has lately been
struggling to rise again.
But, unfortunately, there is another side to the picture. You have
often heard it said that "as the twig is bent, the tree grows." It is
the same with mankind. The character and manners of grown-up people
depend on how they have been trained when young. If a child is
bullied, and passed from one master to another, ill-treated and
frightened, it is apt to grow up timid and untruthful. The same thing
may be seen in nations. To this day the lower classes in Belgium bear
traces of the long period of subjection, and the race has not
recovered from the time when the Spaniards turned so many famous towns
into dens of thieves and beggars. They are very often cunning, timid
though boastful, and full of the small tricks and servile ways which
are natural in a people which once had all manliness and courage
crushed out of it.
Another unlucky thing for the Belgians is that they quarrel dreadfully
among themselves about public questions.
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