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promoter--it is a secondary sex manifestation. The boy simply had a little intuitive skill in drawing, and the exercise of the talent was a gratification. It pleased him to see the semblance of face or form unfold before him. It was a kind of play, a working off of surplus energy. Had the lad's mind at that time been forcibly diverted to books or business, it is very probable that today the catalogs would be without the name of Rembrandt. But mothers have ambitions, even if boys have not--they wish to see their children do things that other women's children can not do. Among wild animals the mother kills, when she can, all offspring but her own. Darwin refers to mother-love as, "that instinct in the mind of the female which causes her to exaggerate the importance of her offspring--often protecting them to the death." Through this instinct of protection is the species preserved. In human beings mother-love is well flavored with pride, prejudice, jealousy and ambition. This is because the mother is a woman. And this is well--God made it all, and did He not look upon His work and pronounce it good? The mother of Rembrandt knew that in Leyden there were men who painted beautiful pictures. She had seen these pictures at the University, and in the Town Hall and in the churches; and she had overheard men discussing and criticizing the work. She herself was poor and uneducated, her husband was only a miller, with no recreation beyond the beer-garden and a clicking reluctantly off to church in his wooden shoes on Sunday. They had no influential friends, no learned patrons--the men at the University never so much as nodded to millers. Her lot was lowly, mean, obscure, and filled with drudgery and pettiness. And now some one was saying her boy Rembrandt was lazy; he would neither work nor study. The taunt stung her mother-pride--"He will do nothing but make pictures!" Ah! a great throb came to her heart. Her face flushed, she saw it all--all in prophetic vision stood out like an etching on the blankness of the future. "He will do nothing but draw pictures? Very well then, he shall draw pictures! He will draw so well that they shall adorn the churches of Leyden, and the Town Hall, and yes! even the churches of Amsterdam. Holland shall be proud of my boy! He will teach other men to draw, his pictures will command fabulous prices, and his name shall be honored everywhere! Yes, my boy shall draw pictures! This day will I ta
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