ened with broken health. To this period, however, belong some of
his most wonderful and characteristic works. The very year of his
return he engraved that marvellous "_Head of an Old Man_," now in
Vienna. Never were the striking qualities of age more beautifully put
together than in this head.

[Illustration: MELANCHOLY _Durer_]

With about the same time we associate "_The Praying Hands_," now also
in Vienna. How an artist can make hands express the inmost wish of the
soul as these do will always remain a mystery even to the most acute.
We have the story that they were the clasped hands of Durer's boyhood
friend who toiled for years to equal or rival his friend in their
chosen work. When, in a test agreed upon, to Durer was given the
prize, then Hans, for that was the friend's name, prayed fervently to
be resigned to a second place. Durer caught sight of the clasped
hands and drew them so well that wherever the name and fame of
Albrecht goes there also must go the praying hands of his friend.
Whether the story be true we cannot say, but in the hands we have a
master work to love.

At this time the new religious doctrine formed the subject of thought
everywhere. There was the most minute searching for truth that the
world has ever known. Durer, deeply moved by the thought of the time,
put its very essence into his works. He was a philosopher and a
student of men. He saw how the varied temperaments of men led them to
think differently on the great questions of the time. Feeling this
keenly, he set to work to represent these various temperaments in
pictured forms, a most difficult thing to do as we can easily imagine.
Perhaps his own diseased condition led him to select as the first of
these "_Melancholy_," that great brooding shadow that hovers
constantly above man, waiting only for the moment when discouragement
comes to fall upon and destroy its victim.

How does Durer represent this insidious and fatal enemy? A powerful
winged woman sits in despair in the midst of the useless implements of
the art of Science. The compass in her nerveless fingers can no longer
measure, nor even time in his ceaseless flow explain, the mysteries
which crowd upon this well-nigh distraught woman, who it seems must
stand for human reason. The sun itself is darkened by the uncanny bat
which possibly may stand for doubt and unbelief. Perhaps no one can
explain accurately the meaning of this great engraving and therein
lies the grea