class="tdl">Portrait of Hyeronymus Holzschuer

Frontispiece   From the Oil-painting in the Berlin Museum     Page II. Portrait of a Woman 14   From the Oil-painting in the Berlin Museum   III. Portrait of the Artist 24   From the Oil-painting in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich   IV. Portrait of the Painter's Father 34   From the Oil-painting in the National Gallery   V. Portrait of Oswalt Krel 40   From the Oil-painting in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich   VI. The Madonna with the Siskin 50   From the Oil-painting in the Berlin Museum   VII. SS. John and Peter 60   From the Oil-painting in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich   VIII. SS. Paul and Mark 70   From the Oil-painting in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich

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THIS is a wonderful world! And not the least wonderful thing is our ignorance of it.

I would chat with you, reader, for a while; would discuss Dürer, whom I have known and loved for many a year, and whom I want to make beloved by you also. Here I sit, pen in hand, and would begin.

Begin—where?

With the Beginnings?

The Beginnings? Where do things begin; when and why?

So our ignorance, like a many-headed monster, raises its fearsome heads and would bar the way.

By most subtle links are all things connected—cause and effect we call them; and if we but raise one or the other, fine ears will hear the clinking—and the monster rises.

There are so many things we shall never know, cries the poet of the unsaid, Maeterlinck.

Let us venture forth then and grope with clumsy fingers amongst the treasures stored; let us be content to pick up a jewel here and there, resting our minds in awe and admiration on its beauty, though we may not readily understand its use and meaning. Foolish men read books and dusty documents, catch a few dull words from the phrasing of long thoughts, and will tell you, these are facts!

Wise men read books—the books of Nature and the books of men—and say, facts are well enough, but oh for the right understanding!

For between sunrise and sunset, between the dusk of evening and the dusk of dawn, things happen that will never happen again; and the world of to-day is ever a world of yesterdays and to-morrows.

Reader, I lift my torch, and by its dim light I bid you follow me.

For it is a long journey we have to make through the night of the past. Many an encumbrance of four and a half centuries we shall have to lay aside ere we reach the treasure-house of Dürer's Art.

From the steps of Kaiser Wilhelm II.'s throne we must hasten through the ages to Kaiser Maximilian's city, Nuremberg—to the days when Wilhelm's ancestors were but Margraves of Brandenburg, scarcely much more than the Burggraves of Nuremberg they had originally been.

From the days of the Maxim gun and the Lee-Metford to the days of the howitzer and the blunderbuss. When York was farther away from London than New York is to-day.

When the receipt of a written letter was fact but few could boast of; and a secret billet-doux might cause the sender to be flung in gaol. When the morning's milk was unaccompanied by the morning news; for the printer's press was in its infancy.

When the stranding of a whale was an event of European interest, and the form of a rhinoceros the subject of wild conjecture and childish imagination.

When this patient earth of ours was to our ancestors merely a vast pancake toasted daily by a circling sun.

When the woods were full of hobgoblins, and scaly Beelzebubs were busily engaged in pitching the souls of the damned down a yawning hell-mouth, and the angels of the Lord in crimson and brocade carried the blessed heavenward. In those days scholars filled their books with a curious jumble of theology, philosophy, and old women's talk. Dr. Faustus practised black magic, and the besom-steeds carried witches from the Brocken far and wide into all lands.

Then no one ventured far from home unaccompanied, and the merchants were bold adventurers, and Kings of Scotland might envy Nuremberg burgesses—so Æneas Sylvius said.

And that a touch of humour be not lacking, I bid you remember that my lady dipped her dainty fingers into the stew, and, after, threw the bare bones to the dogs below the table; and I also bid you remember that satins and fine linen