round him, influenced by, and, in a sense, living upon them,
and surely might well complain, though to Pliny's so infinite surprise,
on being made a Roman citizen.

And certainly Sebastian van Storck did not felicitate his people on the
luck which, in the words of another old writer, "hath disposed them to
so thriving a genius." Their restless ingenuity in making and
maintaining dry land where nature had willed the sea, was even more
like the industry of animals than had been that life of their
forefathers. Away with that tetchy, feverish, unworthy agitation! with
this and that, all too importunate, motive of interest! And then, "My
son!" said his father, "be stimulated to action!" he, too, thinking of
that heroic industry which had triumphed over nature precisely where
the contest had been most difficult.

[96] Yet, in truth, Sebastian was forcibly taken by the simplicity of a
great affection, as set forth in an incident of real life of which he
heard just then. 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