The eminent Grotius being condemned to perpetual
imprisonment, his wife determined to share his fate, alleviated only
by the reading of books sent by friends. The books, finished, were
returned in a great chest. In this chest the wife enclosed the
husband, and was able to reply to the objections of the soldiers who
carried it complaining of its weight, with a self-control, which she
maintained till the captive was in safety, herself remaining to face
the consequences; and there was a kind of absoluteness of affection
in that, which attracted Sebastian for a while to ponder on the
practical forces which shape men's lives. Had he turned, indeed, to
a practical career it would have been less in the direction of the
military or political life than of another form of enterprise popular
with his countrymen. In the eager, gallant life of that age, if the
sword fell for a moment into its sheath, they were for starting off
on perilous voyages to the regions of frost and snow in search after
that "North-Western passage," for the discovery of which the States-
General had offered large rewards. Sebastian, in effect, found a
charm in the thought of that still, drowsy, spellbound world of
perpetual ice, as in art and life he could always tolerate the sea.
Admiral-general of Holland, [97] as painted by Van der Helst, with a
marine background by Backhuizen:--at moments his father could fancy
him so.
There was still another very different sort of character to which
Sebastian would let his thoughts stray, without check, for a time.
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