at Leeuwarden, and in his leisure from school carefully trained to the office duties of his father's profession. But the art spirit woke in him early, and asserted itself against all parental objections and restraints. He practiced drawing secretly. He made experiments in color. He pored over the engravings and the old missals in the college and the public library. He was particularly fascinated at the college lectures by those which related to the Greek and Roman antiquity, and while his father believed that he was acquiring the knowledge necessary for a provincal lawyer, he was laying the foundations for a knowledge which was to render him a greater and wealthier man than his plodding parent ever dreamed of being. At last his pentup love for art broke forth with irresistible force. He was sixteen years of age. It was time for him to go to work in the notary's office. He refused. His father yielded to his supplications, and sent

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Chapter 5 Text

Sir Laurens Alma Tadema