It was here that Sebastian could yield himself, with the only sort of
love he had ever felt, to the supremacy of his difficult [90]
thoughts.--A kind of empty place! Here, you felt, all had been
mentally put to rights by the working-out of a long equation, which
had zero is equal to zero for its result. Here one did, and perhaps
felt, nothing; one only thought. Of living creatures only birds came
there freely, the sea-birds especially, to attract and detain which
there were all sorts of ingenious contrivances about the windows,
such as one may see in the cottage sceneries of Jan Steen and others.
There was something, doubtless, of his passion for distance in this
welcoming of the creatures of the air. An extreme simplicity in
their manner of life was, indeed, characteristic of many a
distinguished Hollander--William the Silent, Baruch de Spinosa, the
brothers de Witt. But the simplicity of Sebastian van Storck was
something different from that, and certainly nothing democratic. His
mother thought him like one disembarrassing himself carefully, and
little by little, of all impediments, habituating himself gradually
to make shift with as little as possible, in preparation for a long
journey.
The Burgomaster van Storck entertained a party of friends, consisting
chiefly of his favourite artists, one summer evening. The guests
were seen arriving on foot in the fine weather, some of them
accompanied by their wives and daughters, against the light of the
low sun, falling red on the old trees of the avenue and the [91]
faces of those who advanced along it:--Willem van Aelst, expecting to
find hints for a flower-portrait in the exotics which would decorate
the banqueting-room; Gerard Dow, to feed his eye, amid all that
glittering luxury, on the combat between candle-light and the last
rays of the departing sun; Thomas de Keyser, to catch by stealth the
likeness of Sebastian the younger.
Pages:
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90