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Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 04 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters by Elbert Hubbard
page 29 of 267 (10%)

The eyes and the mouth are the supremely significant features of
the human face. In Rembrandt's portraits the eye is the center
wherein life, in its infinity of aspect, is most manifest. Not
only was his fidelity absolute, but there is a certain mysterious
limpidity of gaze that reveals the soul of the sitter. A
"Rembrandt" does not give up its beauties to the casual
observer--it takes time to know it, but once known, it is yours
forever.

--_Emile Michel_

[Illustration: REMBRANDT]


Swimming uneasily in my ink-bottle is a small preachment concerning
names, and the way they have been evolved, and lost, or added to. Some
day I will fish this effusion out and give it to a waiting world. Those
of us whose ancestors landed at Plymouth or Jamestown are very proud of
our family names, and even if we trace quite easily to Castle Garden we
do not always discard the patronymic.

Harmen Gerritsz was a young man who lived in the city of Leyden, Holland,
in the latter part of the Sixteenth Century. The letters "sz" at the end
of his name stood for "szoon" and signified that he was the szoon of
Mynheer Gerrit.

Now Harmen Gerritsz duly served an apprenticeship with a miller, and when
his time expired, being of an ambitious nature, he rented a mill on the
city wall, and started business for himself. Shortly after he very
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