to domineer over the rest. He seemed to be devoured with ambition: at
all events he carried off every prize at school. By the time he was
fifteen he was the admiration, he was the pride, of all his masters. But
John was not loved by his schoolmates; he displayed a vanity which
repelled them, which sometimes provoked them. He made few friendships,
spoke freely with few, and looked haughtily down on such of his little
companions as were less happily gifted than he was. His words were
short, his look was cold, and the pride in which he shut himself up on
purpose, made him unapproachable. He lived by himself.

One evening this young Durer, feeling, even more than usually, the
necessity of solitude and meditation, went out into the country,
dreaming, no doubt, of the grandeur to which his pride aspired, and which
he was hopeless of ever reaching; for his face was sad, and he walked
with a slow step, as does some discouraged traveler on a road without
end, toward something in the distance that perpetually escapes him. At
last he stopped in a hollow, called the Valley of Bushes, on account of
the gigantic white-thorn trees that grew there. He sat down in their
shadow: a small bird was fluttering about, and singing blithely overhead;
but he did not hear her.

When the storm is loud, all natural sounds are silenced. Thus it was
with Durer; the throbbing of ambition in every vein with him absorbed all
the sweeter melodies which should charm the heart and fancy of youth.

He was dreaming of fame and fortune. How to rise was his sole thought;
and it was not probable, except by some very rare circumstance and
chance, that his dream should be realized; for in those days of the
world, at least, it was thought that a shepherd's son should have a
shepherd's tastes. The young man did not see a single path open in which