essed in so supreme a degree of painting just what his eyes
saw, exemplified by this portrait of _An Old Lady_, aged 83, and by the
portrait of _Elizabeth Bas_ at Amsterdam, but that it also included the
great gift of creative imagination, exemplified by the _Christ at Emmaus_,
and _The Good Samaritan_ of the Louvre, and in a way by the _Portrait of a
Slav Prince_ at the Hermitage, where a man in the alembic of Rembrandt's
imagination has become a type. Also in _The Reconciliation of David and
Absalom_ at the Hermitage, where behind the sham trappings of the figures
shine the eternal motives of reconciliation and forgiveness.

When the child was much older he saw the _Christ at Emmaus_, and _The Good
Samaritan_ in the little room at the Louvre, hanging side by side, and he
never forget the hour that he spent with them. He had seen, year by year,
many of the world's pictures; but at the sight of these two works, his
childish predilection for Rembrandt became a deep-rooted reverence and
admiration, which was never to pass from him.

Here was Rembrandt the seer, the man who had suffered. Saskia was dead,
his popularity gone; but the effect of these things was but to fill his
heart with a world sympathy, with pity for all who sorrow. Again and again
he treated the _Christ at Emmaus_, _The Good Samaritan_, and _The Prodigal
Son_ themes. "Some strange presentment of his own fate," says M. Michel,
"seems to have haunted the artist, making him keenly susceptible to the
story of _The Good Samaritan_. He too was destined to be stripped and
wounded by Life's wayside, while many passed him by unheeding."

The _Christ at Emmaus_ is a small picture, and small the figures appear in
that vast, dimly lighted chamber where the three are seated at table. The
spiritual significance of Christ is suggested by most simple means. Light,
and intensity of emotion, are the only aids. Rembrandt disdains all other
effects. Intense feeling pervades the picture, even in the bare feet of
Christ, even in the astonished hand of the disciple resting upon the chair;
even in the back of the other disciple who gazes, with clasped hands,
transfixed with amazement and love at the face of his Master, who has just
broken bread and thus revealed Himself.

[Illustration: RECONCILIATION BETWEEN DAVID AND ABSALOM

1642. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.]

Of all Rembrandt's pictures, this was the one that made the profoundest
impression upon the child when he had