I would bet my fortune against
this boy's dreams that he is already an old scholar. Plague take those
parents who fill their children's heads with learning ere they have made
men of them! who neglect all care to form a character, and think only how
to bring forward the understanding!--Vanity kills right feeling!"
Mumbling thus to himself, the little man went up to John, and began to
question him. The dreamer started as if a thunderbolt had fallen close
to his elbow.
"Young man, how far is it from the earth to the sun?"
"Thirty-three millions of leagues," replied John, without the least
hesitation.
"As if I did not know that he would know," said the little man to
himself, with a smile.
"And how long would it take a humming-bird who could fly a league in a
minute to get there!"
"Twenty-eight years, sir," was Durer's answer.
"When one calculates so well, and so rapidly, no wonder one is
melancholy," said the little man to himself. Then going on--"Who was the
greatest man of antiquity?" asked he.
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