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The room was one of two which formed the house; the walls were of log; the lights the cheery yellow flare of great pine-knots flung one after the other upon the embers. "I am glad I thought of North Carolina," Rebecca Noble said to herself. "There is a strong hint of Rembrandt in this, the bright yellow light, the uncouth figures. Ah! who is that?"
It is not because I have seen too often the bride Saskia and her young husband Rembrandt, in Dresden, that in their presence a tinge of sadness colours my thoughts. I have endeavoured to analyse this feeling. Why melancholy? Is great art always slightly morbid? Is it because of their isolation in the stone jails we call museums?
To give an example: he one evening took for his subject a cap, and with pen and ink showed us how Rembrandt would have etched, and Albert Dürer engraved it. This at once explained to us the different ideas and methods of the two masters.
The modern nervous intensity, missing absolutely in Hals and his substantial humans, is present in Rembrandt. We say "modern" as a sop to our vanity, but we are the "ancients," and there is no mode of thought, no mood that has not been experienced and expressed by our ancestors.
All the same, you can imagine what an enormous weight it was off my mind, and how comparatively cheerful I was as I crossed over to the hotel of Lord Littimer after breakfast. I found him literally beside himself with passion. Some thief had got into his room in the night and stolen his Rembrandt. The frame was intact, but the engraving had been rolled up and taken away."
Botticelli and Rembrandt kept step in their history, both receiving instant recognition in early life and becoming rich. Then fashion and society turned against them the tide of popularity began to ebb. One reinforced his genius with strong drink, and the other became intoxicated with religious enthusiasm.
On looking at these pictures one would say that Holland is inhabited by the most deformed and ill-mannered nation in the world. Some painters permit themselves even greater license. Steen, Potter, Brouwer, and the great Rembrandt himself often pandered to a low and depraved taste, and Torrentius sent forth such shameless pictures that the provinces of Holland collect and burn them.
From a pocket-book he produced a newspaper clipping, which he handed silently to his uncle. It contained an account of the robbery. Sir Lucius read to the end. Then his cheeks swelled out, and turned from red to purple; his eyes blazed with a hot anger. "Good God!" he exclaimed, "was ever a man so cruelly imposed upon? It is a d nable shame! You are right, Victor. This is the stolen Rembrandt!"
Rembrandt painted this same woman, wearing no clothes to speak of, lolling on a couch; and evidently considering the subject a little risky, thought to give it dignity by a Biblical title: "Potiphar's Wife." One good look at this picture, and the precipitate flight of Joseph is fully understood. We feel like following his example.
Have I not seen you dash off dungeon in the Castle of Udolpho with all the vigour of Rembrandt, roll it forward on the stage with the strength of Hercules, and then murder the turnkey in it with the power and elegance of Thurtell?
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