After the death of Saskia it seems that the only thought of the master was to work without rest, and in this way to drown the remembrance of his sorrow. There is little material for a story of his life--it is told in his pictures. The house in which Saskia lived was very fine, and Rembrandt was so fond of collecting all sorts of curious and beautiful objects that he finally made himself poor, and his collection was sold. He never travelled, and some writers have said that he was ignorant of classic art; but the list of his collections proves that he had busts of Homer and Socrates and copies of ancient sculptures, such as the "Laocoon," a "Cupid," and so on. He also had pictures of some of the best Italian masters. After the sale of his home and all his rare objects he hired a house on the Rosengracht near the West Church. This house still stands, and has a shield dated 1652, though the artist did not live there until 1658. His life here was not lonely or desolate. He had many friends in Amsterdam who did not forget him. He was near the bastions of the city, and had not far to go to sketch, as he loved to do, and he was busy with his brush until 1662, when he did nothing of which we know. In 1666 he executed four pictures. Among his works of 1667 there is a portrait of himself which is of great interest. In October, 1668, Rembrandt died after a short illness. He was buried in the West Church, and his funeral was so simple that its cost was registered as only fifteen florins. Rembrandt's pictures are so numerous and so varied in their subjects that no adequate list or account of them can be given here. And his numerous engravings are as interesting as his pictures, so that a volume would scarcely suffice to do him justice; but I will try to tell something of his style. His management of light was his most striking characteristic. He generally threw a strong, vivid light upon the central or important object, whether it was a single figure or a group, and the rest of the picture was in shadow. This is true of all his works, almost without exception--portraits, pictures both large and small, and etchings. Rembrandt loved to paint unusual things. We are apt to think that an unusual thing is not natural; but if we closely observe nature, especially the effect of light and shade, we shall find that no imagination could make pictures more wonderful than the reality we see. Rembrandt had that keen observation that helped him to seize upon the sharp features--the strong points in a scene or a person--and then he had the skill to reproduce these things on his canvas with great truth.