8o I GO A -FISHING. 



period. Many a money-lender has found an artist's wife 

 much more careful to compel exact and honest dealing 

 than the free and careless artist, and has thence taken 

 deep offense. 



" We know so little of Diirer's private life, have such 

 very brief extracts from his journals and correspondence, 

 and possess so little on which to construct his home life, 

 that every one seems to have seized on Pirkheimer's let- 

 ter to Tcherte, and thereon founded the current theory 

 about Agnes, interpreting every possible suggestion by 

 this false light. 



"We know absolutely nothing about the family life in 

 the old Nuremberg house, save only that Diirer lived at 

 home and found his pleasures there. And from that old 

 home at length Diirer "emigravit," as saith the record 

 on his tomb went away to another and fairer country, 

 where many of his dreams became realities of glory. No 

 record is left us of the later hours of his life, in the gloom 

 that was settling in the artist's chamber. We may be- 

 lieve, if this miserable libeler, Pirkheimer, can be kept si- 

 lent while we imagine the scene, that those last hours 

 were full of tender and holy conversation, not unminglecl 

 with lockings forward to a reunion. It was doubtless 

 agreed that they two would rest together until the resur- 

 rection, for he was laid in her father's tomb. 



" Then she was left to the world and her memories of 

 the man who, more than all other men, had taught Ger- 

 many to love the beautiful, and filled it with that exceed- 

 ing splendor of light which to this day characterizes Ger- 

 man art. 



" As soon as they had laid the artist in the grave, Pirk- 

 heimer sought to possess himself of the treasures of art 

 with which he had been surrounded. Thev were manv 



