e, their greatest poet, says, one of their strongest
characteristics is that of wishing to learn and to do rather than to
enjoy. The Germans love truth and they do not stop short in their
imaginings when they wish to drive it home. So in German art, the
toiling man or woman is often accompanied by angels and demons, the
equal of which were never pictured by any other people. The greatest
extremes of beauty and ugliness have these people given in their art.
In either extreme, however, thoughts on the deepest questions of human
life are at the foundation.

[Illustration: DOORWAY IN ST. SEBALD'S CHURCH, NUREMBERG
And above cathedral doorways saints and bishops carved in stone,
By a former age commissioned as apostles to our own.--_Longfellow_]

On a summer's day in 1455, there wandered into the far-famed city of
Nuremberg a young goldsmith from Hungary. The ramparts of the city
with their towers and gateways, the splendid buildings enclosed, were
like miracles to the youth. It was a fete day in celebration of the
marriage of the son of a prominent citizen, Pirkheimer by name.
Albrecht Durer, for that was the youth's name, long studied the gay
throng, little thinking how in the future the name of his son and that
of the bridegroom there would together be known to fame, the one as
the greatest artist, the other as the most learned man of Nuremberg.
The wandering youth was the father of our artist and the bridegroom
was the father of Wilibald Pirkheimer, Durer's life long friend and
companion.

The young goldsmith loved the city at once and, encouraged by the
business activity of the place, he made it his permanent abode. He
found employment with Hieronymus Holper, and soon married his master's
comely daughter, Barbara. They resided in a little house which was a
sort of appendage to the great house of Pirkheimer. A few months after
a much longed for son came to bless the Pirkheimers, a little boy was
born in the goldsmith's house whom they named, for his father,
Albrecht Durer. As the years went by, seventeen other children came to
the Durer home. Three only of all these children grew to maturity.

With such a family to support we can easily imagine that the father's
life was a hard one. He was a pious and industrious man whom his
illustrious son never tires of praising. In one place he says of him,
"He had a great reputation with many who knew him, for he led an
honorable Christian life, was a patient man, gent