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Huizinga I was a notable figure in the Dutch, and even in the wider Western, life of his time. None of our Dutch historians has been so much read and so much admired. At the same time he irritated many and was sharply attacked. His fascination is by no means spent. Even now one can surrender with delight to the pictures he creates, one can both learn from and enjoy the sparkling of his intellect; then again one feels repelled by his prejudice or wonders how it could dominate this subtle mind to that extent. An uncommon and an important personality he remains. I say this at the outset so emphatically because I am going to approach him from the side that rouses me to opposition. Those charges against our time in which he indulged especially in the years of crisis before and during the Second World War, and which procured him an entirely novel reputation with the public at large, seemed to me at the time already to be missing their mark, inspired as they were by personal feelings of unease, historically and politically unwarranted. A thorough reo reading has confirmed me in this opinion, and it will be the starting point of this paper. Next I shall ask myself how these prejudices and these personal sentiments are to be explained. In looking back on his earlier work we shall find that they were present in his mind from the beginning; in which peculiarities, in which general attitude towards life and society did they have their roots? A further analysis of his general outlook at first more particularly in connection with the severe criticisms levelled against him from three sides in 1930 will then occupy the two concluding sections.
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