href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@42405@[email protected]#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">[9] And since the Philistines, who do not appreciate the beauties of a building they cannot comprehend, expect something in exchange for their contribution to the upkeep, visible tokens of their really having been there, we shall soon hear of photographers established in the temple to perpetuate the memory of spoony couples, giggling and offensive, magnesium flashed at the feet of the Most Venerable, or of the Boro Budoor in a blaze of Bengal fire to please mediocrity, which wants barbarous stimulants. And apart from such concessions to the exigencies of inane modern travel, how distressing the plain tokens of neglect and spoliation! As Psyche began to mourn Love after she had come to grasp his excellence, so the discerning one, advancing to the apprehension of eternal truth there enshrined in beauty, a call to heaven in stone, laments less what is gone of material substance by the ravages of time, than what is taken from the spiritual essence by willful mutilation; by methods of repair embodied in iron scrapers to remove moss and weeds, incidentally spoiling the delicate lines of reliefs and decoration; by filling gaps with any rubbish lying about, mending and patching à la grosse morbleu; by additions for the convenience of sightseers, like the unsightly staircase askew near one of the original, dilapidated approaches. It is devoutly to be hoped that the overhauling now in progress will, at least, remove such incongruities and avoid new horrors of so-called restoration.[10]

Dr. Brandes, whose learning and good sense led the Archaeological Commission in a track of sound activity, died, unfortunately, in 1905. Though the theft of antiquities has been discontinued on paper, impudent souvenir hunting is still winked at by authorities fawning on distinguished guests. Untitled and unofficial collectors will have some trouble perhaps, at any rate incur a good deal more expense than formerly, in filling their private art galleries, but for officials of the type of Nicolaus Engelhard[11] no difficulties seem to exist and even the Boro Budoor was very recently despoiled to please a royal personage. So much for Java; as to the exterior possessions, the Minahassa was plundered, even more recently, for the benefit of foreign explorers of name and fame. Since the respective Government edicts[12] multiplied, fixing responsibility at random, cases of strange disappearance multiplied too, on the principle, it seems, of making hay while the sun shines; the pen-driving departments, issuing circulars on everything, for everything, against everything, about everything, effect absolutely nothing unless their insistence be taken, often rightly by him who reads between the lines, for a covert invitation to do precisely the contrary, considering friendships, family relations, party obligations, etc. etc., of powers and dominions. The force of regulations and rescripts in the Dutch East Indies is notoriously short-lived in the best of circumstances, and we have it on the authority of Hans Sachs, Je mehr Hürten, je übler Hut. The very scrupulous and wise, moreover, drag off whatever is loose or can be detached, separating details of ornament, reliefs and statues from their surroundings, which are indispensable to their proper understanding, to hide and forget them in cellars and lofts of museums until, the stars being favourable, accidentally rediscovered after years and years, and ticketed and huddled together with other ticketed objects in long, dreary rows of forbidding, bewildering aspect. That is, if they are rescued and classified and ticketed tant bien que mal: the colonial section in the Museum of Antiquities at Leyden, a byword among the lovers of Dutch East Indian architecture, shows clearly the obstruction caused by hopeless negligence in the past and lack of backbone in the present zeal, energy, ardour, nay, frenzy of investigation. Everything in Dutch colonial affairs goes by fits and starts with long blanks of indifference between. To give but one instance: the Corpus Inscriptionum Javanarum, planned with flourish of trumpets in 1843, still awaits the preliminaries of a beginning of execution. Concerning the fever of restoration which has broken out, one feels inclined, in support of Ruskin’s opinion quoted above, to sound the note of warning engraved on the signet ring of Prosper Mérimée, Inspector of the Historical Monuments of France almost a century ago: μέμνασ' ἀπιστεῖν, lest the last state become worse than the first, and excess of zeal deface what time and the hand of man, even the Department of Public Works itself, quarrying its material for bridges, dams, embankments and the shapeless Government buildings of which it possesses the monopoly, have left standing. Without, however, insisting on the dark aspect of the situation, let us trust that a sense of shame, if not of duty, will sustain the interest in the old monuments of Java now in vogue, and may then the faddish, pompous display, turned into channels of quiet, responsible, persistent endeavour, herald a brighter day!