With that curious kind of provincialism it sometimes displays in such matters—though less now than formerly—the British newspaper press seems to have passed over in silence the recent reception into the Catholic Church of one of the most distinguished of living Dutch writers, Frederik van Eeden. His submission took place on February 19th last at the Benedictine Abbey of Oosterhout, and was accepted by the Primate of the Netherlands, the Most Reverend H. van Wetering. The event naturally called forth a great deal of comment in the Dutch Press; continental newspapers generally also reported it, and American papers have not been lacking in notes on the conversion and its probable influence. So far, however, there has been in English no appreciation of the writing which preceded the conversion, and the moment seems to be opportune for an attempt to give a general sketch of Frederik van Eeden’s work and philosophy, the more so as, by one work at least, to be described shortly, he is probably the contemporary Dutch writer best known to the English public after the novelist, Louis Couperus, and as his relations with England and English literature are unusually close.

Frederik van Eeden was born at Haarlem in 1860. Like most of the Dutch writers of his generation whose work is likely to survive, he was early identified with that literary movement of the ‘eighties which revolved round the review, De Nienwe Gids, established in 1885 in opposition to the more academic Gids.