There was a tradition to be maintained; the sword by
no means resting in its sheath. The age was still fitted to evoke a
generous ambition; and this son, from whose natural gifts there was
so much to hope for, might play his part, at least as a diplomatist,
if the present quiet continued. Had not the learned man said that
his natural disposition would lead him out always upon practice?
And in truth, the memory of that Silent hero had its fascination for
the youth. When, about this time, Peter de Keyser, Thomas's brother,
unveiled at last his tomb of wrought bronze and marble in the Nieuwe
Kerk at Delft, the young Sebastian was one of a small company [86]
present, and relished much the cold and abstract simplicity of the
monument, so conformable to the great, abstract, and unuttered force
of the hero who slept beneath.
In complete contrast to all that is abstract or cold in art, the home
of Sebastian, the family mansion of the Storcks--a house, the front
of which still survives in one of those patient architectural pieces
by Jan van der Heyde--was, in its minute and busy wellbeing, like an
epitome of Holland itself with all the good-fortune of its "thriving
genius" reflected, quite spontaneously, in the national taste. The
nation had learned to content itself with a religion which told
little, or not at all, on the outsides of things. But we rnay fancy
that something of the religious spirit had gone, according to the law
of the transmutation of forces, into the scrupulous care for
cleanliness, into the grave, old-world, conservative beauty of Dutch
houses, which meant that the life people maintained in them was
normally affectionate and pure.
Pages:
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86