His mother, of Spanish descent and
Catholic, had given a richness of tone and form to the healthy
freshness of the Dutch physiognomy, apt to preserve its youthfulness
of aspect far beyond the period of life usual with other peoples.
This mixed expression charmed the eye of Isaac van Ostade, who had
painted his portrait from a sketch taken at one of those skating
parties, with his plume of squirrel's tail and fur muff, in all the
modest pleasantness of boyhood. When he returned home lately from
his studies at a place far inland, at the proposal of his tutor, to
recover, as the tutor suggested, a certain loss of robustness,
something more than that cheerful indifference of early youth had
passed away. The learned man, who held, as was alleged, the
doctrines of a surprising new philosophy, reluctant to disturb too
early the fine intelligence of the pupil entrusted to him, had found
it, perhaps, a matter of honesty to send back to his parents one
likely enough to catch from others any sort of theoretic light; for
the letter he wrote dwelt much on the lad's intellectual
fearlessness. "At present," he had written, "he is influenced more
by curiosity than by a care for truth, according to the character of
the [83] young. Certainly, he differs strikingly from his equals in
age, by his passion for a vigorous intellectual gymnastic, such as
the supine character of their minds renders distasteful to most young
men, but in which he shows a fearlessness that at times makes me
fancy that his ultimate destination may be the military life; for
indeed the rigidly logical tendency of his mind always leads him out
upon the practical.
Pages:
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83