"Well," said the mother, "if he will not do anything but draw pictures, I
think we'd better let him draw pictures."

* * * * *

At that early age I do not think Rembrandt was ambitious to be a painter.
Good healthy boys of fourteen are not hampered and harassed by
ambition--ambition, like love, camps hot upon our trail later. Ambition
is the concomitant of rivalry, and sex is its chief 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?