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And lastly, in order to bring us back to our main subject, let us quote from a stray leaf of a lost MS. Book of Dürer's, which contains the description of his father's death.

… desired. So the old wife helped him up, and the night-cap

on his head had suddenly become wet with drops of sweat. Then

he asked to drink, so she gave him a little Reinfell wine. He

took a very little of it, and then desired to get into bed

again and thanked her. And when he had got into bed he fell

at once into his last agony. The old wife quickly kindled the

candle for him and repeated to him S. Bernard's verses, and

ere she had said the third he was gone. God be merciful to

him! And the young maid, when she saw the change, ran quickly

to my chamber and woke me, but before I came down he was

gone. I saw the dead with great sorrow, because I had not

been worthy to be with him at his end.

And thus in the night before S. Matthew's eve my father

passed away, in the year above mentioned (Sept. 20, 1502)

--the merciful God help me also to a happy end--and he left

my mother an afflicted widow behind him. He was ever wont to

praise her highly to me, saying what a good wife she was,

wherefore I intend never to forsake her. I pray you for God's

sake, all ye my friends, when you read of the death of my

father, to remember his soul with an "Our Father" and an "Ave

Maria"; and also for your own sake, that we may so serve God

as to attain a happy life and the blessing of a good end. For

it is not possible for one who has lived well to depart ill

from this world, for God is full of compassion. Through which

may He grant us, after this pitiful life, the joy of

everlasting salvation--in the name of the Father, the Son,

and the Holy Ghost, at the beginning and at the end, one

Eternal Governor. Amen.

The last sentences of this may seem to share in the character of the vain repetitions of words with which professed believers are only too apt to weary and disgust others. They are in any case commonplaces: the image has taken the place of the object; the Father in heaven is not considered so much as the paternal governor of the inner life as the ruler of a future life and of this world. The use of such phrases is as much idolatry as the worship of statue and picture, or as little, if the words are repeated, as I think in this case they were, out of a feeling of awe and reverence for preceding mental impressions and experiences, and not because their repetition in itself was counted for righteousness. Their use, if this was so, is no more to be found fault with than the contemplation of pictures or statues of holy personages in order to help the mind to attend to their ensample, or the reading of a poem, to fill the mind with ennobling emotions. Idolatry is natural and right in children and other simple souls among primitive peoples or elsewhere. It is a stage in mental development. Lovers pass through the idolatrous stage of their passion just as children cut their teeth. It is a pity to see individuals or nations remain childish in this respect just as much as in any other, or to see them return to it in their decrepitude. But a temper, a spirit, an influence cannot easily be apprehended apart from examples and images; and perhaps the clearest reason is only the exercise of an infinitely elastic idolatry, which with sprightly efficiency finds and worships good in everything, just as the devout, in Dürer's youth, found sermons in stones, carved stones representing saint, bishop, or Virgin. And Dürer all his life long continued to produce pictures and engravings which were intended to preach such sermons.

Goethe admirably remarks:

"Superstition is the poetry of life; the poet therefore suffers no harm from being superstitious." (Aberglaube.)

Superstition and idolatry are an expenditure of emotion of a kind and degree which the true facts would not warrant; poetry when least superstitious is a like exercise of the emotions in order to raise and enhance them; superstition when most poetical unconsciously effects the same thing.

This glimpse he gives of the way in which death visited his home, and how the visitation impressed him, is coloured and glows with that temper of docility which made Colet school himself so severely, and was the source of Michael Angelo's so fervent outpourings. And all through the accounts which remain of his life, we may trace the same spirit ever anew setting him to school, and renewing his resolution to learn both from his feelings and from his senses.