Monumental Java

If this book needs an apology, it is one to myself for taking the public at large into the confidence of cherished recollections. The writing was a diversion from studies in a quite different direction and letting my pen go, while living again the happy hours I spent, between arduous duties, with the beautiful monuments of Java’s past, I did nothing but seek my own pleasure. Should it turn out that my personal impressions, given in black and white, please others too--so much the better. In any case they must be taken for what they are: a beguilement of lone moments of leisure.

Whoever find them readable, they will not satisfy, I hope, a certain class of critics; those, I mean, who extend the paltry rule of mutual admiration, nul n’aura de l’esprit que nous et nos amis, to any field they claim their own and “of whom to be dispraised were no small praise.” Desirous, I must confess, to stimulate their flattering disapproval, I hasten to admit in advance my many shortcomings, a full list of which they will doubtless oblige me with in due process of censorious comment. My work sets up no pretence to completeness: there is no full enumeration of all the Hindu and Buddhist temples known by their remains; there are no measurements, no technical details, no statistics--a great recommendation to my mind, as Dutch East Indian statistics go. I am not guilty of an ambitious attempt to enrich the world with an exhaustive treatise on ancient Javanese architecture and sculpture--far be it from me to harbour such an audacious design! I disclaim even the presumption to aspire at being classed as a useful companion on a visit to the island; I deny most emphatically that I intend to swell the disquieting number of tourists’ vade-mecums already up for sale, clamouring for recognition, and, horribile dictu, scores more coming! Be they sufficient or insufficient, qualitatively speaking, I am not going to increase their quantity.

So much for what this book is not. What it is, I could not help making it, choosing from the material stored in my memory; reliving, as fancy dictated in long northern winter evenings, the sunny spells between 1874 and 1903 when I might call Java my home; resuming my walks in the charming island pleasance of the East, fain to leave the congested main roads and disport myself along by-paths and unfrequented lanes where solace and repose await the weary wanderer. The undertaking, somewhat too confidently indicated by the title, tempted to excursions off the beaten historical, geographical and archaeological tracks, which perhaps will contribute to a better understanding of the monuments described in their proper setting, their relations to natural scenery and native civilisation, but certainly do not tend to conformity with the regulation style of compositions of the kind. Invoking the aid of Ganesa, the sagacious guide, countenancer of poor mortals in creative throes--for, thank Heaven! the fever of production is indissolubly one with the anguish that heightens its delights,--I never hesitated in letting the idea of self-gratification prevail, even when the question of illustration arose after the plan had ripened of inviting indulgent readers to partake. In this respect too I struggled free from anxious deliberation: Wer gar zu viel bedenkt, wird wenig leisten. And, Ganesa aiding, the following kaleidoscopic view of the land I love so well, was the result of my delicious travail.