Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 04 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters by Elbert Hubbard
page 61 of 267 (22%)
page 61 of 267 (22%)
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But Jan Rubens had a bad habit of thinking for himself. The habit grew
upon him until the whisper was passed from this one to that, that he was becoming decidedly atheistic. Spain held a strong hand upon Antwerp, and the policy of Philip the Second was to crush opposition in the bud. Jan Rubens had criticized Spanish rule, and given it as his opinion that the Latin race would not always push its domination upon the people of the North. At this time Spain was so strong that she deemed herself omnipotent, and was looking with lustful eyes towards England. Drake and Frobisher and Walter Raleigh were learning their lessons in seafaring; Elizabeth was Queen; while up at Warwickshire a barefoot boy named William Shakespeare was playing in the meadows, and romping in the lanes and alleys of Stratford. All this was taking place at the time when Jan Rubens was doing a little thinking on his own account. On reading the history of Europe, Flanders seems to one to have been a battle-ground from the dawn of history up to the night of June Eighteenth, Eighteen Hundred Fifteen, with a few incidental skirmishes since, for it is difficult to stop short. And it surely was meet that Napoleon should have gone up there to receive his Waterloo, and charge his cavalry into a sunken roadway, making a bridge across with a mingled mass of men and horses; upon which site now is a huge mound thrown up by the English, surmounted by a gigantic bronze lion cast from the captured cannon of the French. Napoleon belonged to the Latin race: he pushed his rule north into Flanders, and there his prowess ended--there at the same place where Spanish rule had been throttled and turned back upon itself. "Thus far, |
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