Even in early childhood the genius of the young girl displayed its bent. At three years of age she began to read, and at seven could speak Latin. Her mother tried to keep her at the needle, but she loved to amuse herself by cutting out paper pictures; she also painted flowers and birds--untaught. A few years later, her taste for poetry and learning languages developed itself. Learning was her passion; the arts her recreation. Being allowed to be present at her brothers’ Latin lessons, she soon gained surprising proficiency in that tongue. When she was ten years old, she translated passages from Seneca into French and Flemish. Her love of study soon led to the acquisition of the Greek. To the classics she added, before long, a knowledge of the Oriental languages. She spoke and wrote the Hebrew, Samaritan, Arabic, Chaldaic, Syriac, Ethiopian, Turkish, and Persian; besides being perfectly well acquainted with the Italian, Spanish, French, English, and German, and speaking every European tongue with elegance. At the age of eleven this Flemish lassie had read the Bible, Seneca, Virgil, Homer, and Æschylus in the original tongues; at fourteen she composed a Latin ode to the famous Dutch poet Jacob Cats, who became afterward an unsuccessful suitor for her hand. She wrote verses, indeed, in many languages. The knowledge of different tongues greatly aided her theological studies, in which she took the deepest interest from early life. It is said that it was by reading the History of the Martyrs she became imbued with the tendency to religious enthusiasm that so strongly influenced her through life, and led to so strange a career in her latter years. The astonishing learning of this remarkable woman and her mastery in the languages, caused her opinions to be often consulted by the most erudite scholars of her time. Her judgment was always received with respect; an honorable place was reserved for her in the lecture-rooms of the University at Utrecht; and not unfrequently she took part openly in the learned discussions there carried on. The professors of the University of Leyden had a tribune made, where she could hear without mixing with the audience. With this wonderful erudition Anna Maria combined a rare degree of cultivation in art. The genius that had shown itself in paper-cutting still gave evidence of strong and resolute activity. She was skilled both in drawing and painting, had a “happy taste in sculpture,” and exercised her talents in carving in wood and ivory, as well as in modeling in wax. She carved the busts of her mother and brothers in wood. The painter Honthorst valued a single portrait executed by her, at a thousand Dutch florins. In addition, she has left evidence of her no slight accomplishments in copper-engraving; and she engraved with the diamond on crystal. Taste in music, and skill in playing on several instruments, fill up the list of the amazing variety of endowments bestowed on one of the most gifted of her sex.