Howells opens his account of a late-season stay in Scheveningen with a complaint about the cold, but the real subject is the peculiar social and physical landscape of a Dutch seaside resort in decline. The wind, he notes, blows with 'a Dutch tenacity of purpose,' and the hotel's few guests 'rustle through its chilly halls and corridors like so many autumn leaves.' This is not a travelogue of monuments but a close study of atmosphere and routine.

Bathers and Barrels

Howells devotes a long passage to the daily sea-bathing, which continues despite the cold. He observes the bathers from a distance, unable to tell 'whether these bold bathers were mermen or mermaids' because the sea costume of both sexes lacks skirts. One morning he mistakes a lady rolling in the surf for a barrel, and after that he never dares 'carry my researches so far.' The passage is characteristic: Howells uses a small, slightly absurd observation to reflect on propriety and perception. He notes the presence of bath-men and bath-women who wade in to assist, contrasting this with the solitary lifeguard on Long Island. The detail is precise and the tone wry, but he never overstates the significance.

The Queens and the Season

The arrival of the Queen Regent and her daughter, the future queen, provides the hotel's 'supreme emotion.' Howells describes the scene at the concert: the young princess sits on a gilt throne with 'a very uncomfortable carved Gothic back,' and he finds himself wishing her well 'out of a position so essentially and irreparably false as a hereditary sovereign's.' The observation is political but understated, and he quickly returns to the sensory details—the two national anthems, the crowds. After the royals depart, the season 'faintly pulses and respires.' Howells notes that the Dutch call both women 'the Queens,' though the mother is regent and the daughter not yet crowned. He accepts this usage because he likes Holland so much he would 'hate to differ with the Dutch in anything.'

Last Day Desolation

The final section describes the hotel's last day with a mix of melancholy and comedy. The corridor door-posts show 'not a single pair of trousers'; boots no longer flatter the doormats. In the dining room, chairs are inverted on tables 'with their legs in the air,' but 'decently, decorously'—unlike the 'reckless abandon' of chairs in a Long Island hotel. The service remains impeccable: coffee good, bread delicious, waiters' dress-coats polished. Howells calls the effect 'funereal' but admits this is 'purely subjective.' He also notes a dog that removes its muzzle by turning somersaults in the sand, a small comic detail that relieves the gloom. The piece ends not with a grand conclusion but with the mundane fact of departure.

Howells never pretends to offer a comprehensive guide to the Netherlands. His focus is narrow: a single hotel, a single week, the gradual emptying of a seaside resort. The essay rewards attention to its small, precise observations—the way a lady can resemble a barrel, the difference between Dutch and American chair-stacking, the dog's triumph over its muzzle. Readers will find not facts about Dutch history or art but a carefully observed, quietly comic portrait of a place in its off-season.