to my ruin; for, in my delight at finding the daily journal of a German
housewife of the beginning of the fifteenth century my heart overflowed;
forgetting all prudence I laughed aloud, exclaiming "splendid,"
"wonderful," "what a treasure!" But it would have been beyond all human
power to stand speechless, for, as I read on, I found things which far
exceeded my fondest expectations. The writer of these pages had not been
content, like the other chroniclers of her time and of her native town-
such as Ulman Stromer, Andres Tucher and their fellows--to register
notable facts without any connection, the family affairs, items of
expenditure and mercantile measures of her day; she had plainly and
candidly recorded everything that had happened to her from her childhood
to the close of her life. This Margery had inherited some of her
father's artistic gifts; he is mentioned in Ulman Stromer's famous
chronicle, where he is spoken of as "the Singer." It was to her mother,
however, that she owed her bold spirit, for she was a Behaim, cousin to
the famous traveller Behaim of Schwarzbach, whose mother is known to have
been one of the Schopper family, daughter to Herdegen Schopper.

In the course of a week I had not merely read the manuscript, but had
copied a great deal of what seemed to me best worth preservation,
including the verses. I subsequently had good reason to be glad that I
had taken so much pains, though travelling about at the time; for a cruel
disaster befel the trunk in which the manuscript was packed, with other
books and a few treasures, and which I had sent home by sea. The ship
conveying them was stranded at the mouth of the Elbe and my precious
manuscript perished miserably in the wreck.

The nine stitched sheets, of which the last was written by the hand of
Margery Schopper's younger brother, had found their way to Venice--as was
recorded on the last page--in the possession of Margery's great-grandson,