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