AGNES DURER. 8 I 



and valuable. The incident of the stag's horns is but 

 one. There were other beautiful things, as we know, 

 and as Pirkheimer says to Tcherte, and Agnes did not 

 let him have them. Why should she? He had always 

 been her traducer, had long sought in vain to sow dis- 

 cord between her and her husband, and she had good 

 right to have done with him thenceforth forever. Doubt- 

 less she very plainly gave him so to understand, and dis- 

 tributed the memorials of the artist among those who 

 could share with her the memories of an affection that 

 had always been offensive to the man who had so much 

 and so long vilified her. Then the ire of the fat patri- 

 cian arose, and he went storming around Nuremberg, 

 telling all men that if Diirer had only drank more wine, 

 and eaten more suppers, and lived a gayer life with him, 

 he would have lived longer. And this being his promi- 

 nent sensation at the time, he can not resist the tempta- 

 tion to put it in a letter to Tcherte, a stranger to whom 

 he had occasion to write ; and the letter survives to dark- 

 en the memory of Agnes. Thus the evil that this man 

 did lives after him." 



F 



