Columbus

“ Even a generation after his death, the companions of Cortes gave to the peninsula of California that name because it was the name given in romance to the farthest island of the eastern Indies.
Columbus met with many reverses, and died, one might almost say, a broken-hearted man. But history has been just to him, and has placed him in the foremost rank of the men who have set the world forward. And, outside of the technical study of history, those who like to trace the laws on which human progress advances have been proud and glad to see that here is a noble example of the triumph of faith. ”

“ Columbus was the typical modern man led by the invisible, the intangible; and on the great waters somewhere between Spain and New York, between the old and the new, Columbus discovered the Future Tense, the centrifugal tense, the tense that sweeps in the unknown, and gathers in, out of space, out of hope, out of faith, the lives of men. ”

“ I have told you that Columbus had a longing to do something great from the time when, as a little boy, he had hung around the wharves in Genoa and looked at the ships sailing east and west and talked with the sailors and wished that he could go to sea. Perhaps what he had learned at school—how some men said that the earth was round—and what he had heard on the wharves about the wonders of Cathay set him to thinking and to dreaming that it might be possible for a ship to sail around the world without falling off. ”

“ They are the brightest jewels in her crown. Columbus is a permanent orb in the progress of civilization. From the highest rung of the ladder of fame, he has stepped to the skies. America "still hangs blossoming in the garden of time, while her penetrating perfume floats all round the world, and intoxicates all other nations with the hope of liberty." If possible, these tributes would add somewhat to the luster of fame which already encircles the Nation and the Man. Many voices here speak for themselves.
Six hundred authors and more have written of Columbus or his great discovery. ”

“ On! there is an America on the other side to balance. Cheerless nights, sad days, nights dark with woe, days hideous with the form of death, weeks sobbing with pity; but in that heart is He whose name is written in the log-book. "Land ahead!" And Columbus has discovered a continent. Humanity has another world. Light from the four corners of heaven. Glory touching firmament and planet. It is morning! Triumphant, beautiful dawn! [Pg 151]
TENDENCY. ”

“ Columbus will help you make them Christian men. The Indies and Cathay are full of gold and jewels; Columbus will bring you home shiploads of treasures. Spain has conquered the Moors; Columbus will help you conquer Cathay.
In fact, they talked to Queen Isabella so strongly and so earnestly, that she, too, became excited over this chance for glory and riches that she had almost lost, Quick! send for Columbus. Call him back! she said. I agree to his terms. If King Ferdinand cannot or will not take the risk, I, the queen, will do it all. Quick! do not let the man get into France. ”

“ Age was rapidly making its advances upon Columbus when he undertook his fourth and last voyage of discovery. He had already numbered sixty-six years, and they were years filled with care and trouble, in which age outstrips the march of time. His constitution, originally vigorous in the extreme, had been impaired by hardships and exposures in every clime, and silently preyed upon by the sufferings of the mind. His frame, once powerful and commanding, and retaining a semblance of strength and majesty even in its decay, was yet crazed by infirmities and subject to paroxysms of excruciating pain. ”

“ Bartholomew Columbus, with his armed band, marched along the coast, as the two canoes sailed along the shore.
Waiting then for a clear day, Mendez struck northward, on the passage, which was long for such frail craft, to San Domingo. It was eight months before Columbus heard of them. Of those eight months, the history is of dismal waiting, mutiny and civil war. It is pathetic, indeed, that a little body of men, who had been, once and again, saved from death in the most remarkable way, could not live on a fertile island, in a beautiful climate, without quarrelling with each other. ”

“ We are apt to look upon Columbus as a person who knew that there existed a great undiscovered continent, and who made his way directly to the discovery of that continent—springing at one bound from the known to the unknown. Whereas, the dream of Columbus's life was to make his way by an unknown route to what was known, or to what he considered to be known. He wished to find out an easy pathway to the territories of Kublai Khan, or Prester-John. ”

“ During our annual observance of Columbus Day, we celebrate all that this master mariner has symbolized to our Nation. For generations, Christopher Columbus has embodied the spirit of exploration and discovery—and the beginning of America itself.
When Columbus began his first bold transatlantic voyage in 1492, he was pursuing both a theory and an opportunity. The journey promised as much risk as reward, and it required substantial courage, initiative, and resolve on the part of Columbus and his crew. These qualities have been shared by virtually every great pioneer. ”

“ Columbus was struggling manfully with difficulties that were already beginning to be too much for him. The Man from Genoa, with his guiding star of faith in some shore beyond the mist and radiance of the West—see into what strange places and to what strange occupations this star has led him! The blue visionary eyes, given to seeing things immediately beyond the present horizon, must fix themselves on accounts and requisitions, on the needs of idle, aristocratic, grumbling Spaniards ”

“ Columbus threw himself, kneeling, upon the ground. He wept for joy, and, kissing the earth, took possession of the land in the name of the king and queen of Spain. The sailors now fell upon their knees at Columbus's feet. They kissed his hands, and begged him to forgive them for their evil thoughts toward him.
At first the natives, whom Columbus called Indians because he thought he was in the East Indies, fled to the woods in fear of the Spaniards; but later they returned and worshipped the white men as beings from the sky. They thought the vessels were great birds and the sails wings. ”

“ Of all the wandering seamen who talked in the wayside taverns of Atlantic seaports, some must have had strange tales to tell; tales which sometimes may have been true, but were never believed. Vague rumours hung about those shores, like spray and mist about a headland, of lands seen and lost again in the unknown and uncharted ocean. Doubtless the lamp of faith, the inner light, burned in some of these storm-tossed men; but all they had was a glimpse here and there, seen for a moment and lost again; not the clear sight of faith by which Columbus steered his westward course. ”

“ We have mentioned that Columbus kept a diary on this voyage. He was, in fact, a prodigious writer, having left behind him when he died a vast quantity of memoirs, letters, and even good verse; and besides these, maps and charts in great numbers. No matter how trying the day had been, with fractious crews and boisterous ocean, no matter how little sleep the anxious commander had had the night before, no matter how much the ill-smelling swinging lamp in his cabin rocked about, he never failed to write in his journal. ”

“ Not one man escaped.
Thus ended Columbus's second trip westward across the Atlantic. What a landing! Blackened ruins, dead bodies, the enmity of the natives, and— no gold; all this where he had hoped to be greeted by happy, prosperous men. Here were the first fruits of his great discovery; here the first sample of Spanish ability at colonizing; here the first specimen of what the white man could do in a new and peaceful land; and our great Admiral, thinking of the mixed band he had brought out from Spain to colonize, dropped his head and covered his face with his hands. ”

“ We have been accustomed to admire all these things in Columbus when we considered him in the full vigor of his life; how much more are they entitled to our wonder as the achievements of a man whom the weight of years and infirmities was pressing into the grave. ”

“ The name of Columbus flashes a bright ray over the mental darkness of the period in which he lived, for the world was then but just awakening from the dull sleep of the Middle Ages. The discovery of printing heralded the new birth of the republic of letters, and maritime enterprise received a vigorous impulse. The shores of the Mediterranean, thoroughly explored and developed, had endowed the Italian states with extraordinary wealth, and built up a very respectable mercantile marine. ”

“ Christopher Columbus, a son of Italy whose bold enterprise was made possible by the Spanish crown, holds a special place in the hearts of Americans of Italian and Spanish heritage. But, as we prepare for our own voyage of discovery into the next millennium, all Americans can draw inspiration from the character and accomplishments of Columbus. With vision, courage, imagination, and optimism, we can create a future bright with promise and a new world where all of us can pursue our dreams. ”

“ In his endeavors to secure a patron for his enterprise, Columbus met at first with repeated repulse and disappointment. At last, however, he gained the ear of Queen Isabella of Spain; a little fleet was fitted out for the explorer,—and the New World was found.
Columbus never received a fitting reward for the great service he had rendered mankind. ”

“ Columbus, in imitation of the Portuguese navigators, who had been guided in several of their discoveries by the motion of birds, altered his course from due west towards that quarter whither they pointed their flight. But after holding on for several days in this new direction, without any better success than formerly, having seen no object during thirty days but the sea and the sky, the hopes of his companions subsided faster than they had risen; their fears revived with additional force; impatience, rage, and despair, appeared in every countenance. ”

“ There was nothing, therefore, in the proposition of Columbus that could be regarded as preposterous, considering the period and circumstances in which it was made, though it strongly illustrates his own enthusiastic and visionary character. It must be recollected that it was meditated in the courts of the Alhambra, among the splendid remains of Moorish grandeur, where, but a few years before, he had beheld the standard of the faith elevated in triumph above the symbols of infidelity. ”

“ Columbus preserved, amid so many material and minute cares, which freeze the soul and contract the character, a profound and poetic sentiment of the grandeur of nature. What characterizes Columbus is the penetration and extreme accuracy with which he seizes the phenomena of the external world. He is quite as remarkable as an observer of nature as he is an intrepid navigator. ”

“ Columbus alone, regarded merely as a brave and intelligent seaman and pilot, conceived the idea that the earth was spherical, and that the East Indies, the great El Dorado of the century, might be reached by circumnavigating the globe. If we picture to ourselves the mental condition of the age and the state of science, we shall find no difficulty in conceiving the scorn and incredulity with which the theory of Columbus was received. ”

“ The landing of Columbus in the New World must ever be a conspicuous fact in the annals of mankind, and it was celebrated by a ceremonial worthy of the occasion. On the ensuing morning, after the light had been observed from the ships, being a Friday, the 12th of October, 1492, Columbus, clad in complete armour, and carrying in his hand the royal banner of Spain, descended upon the level shores of the small island [San Salvador, one of the Bahamas] which had first greeted him, and which he found to be very fruitful—fresh and verdant, and "like a garden full of trees." ”

“ Columbus conducted himself with characteristic magnanimity under the injuries heaped upon him. There is a noble scorn which swells and supports the heart, and silences the tongue of the truly great, when enduring the insults of the unworthy. ”

“ But there can be little doubt that this raising the curtain of the unknown, this glimpse of new countries, gave a keen stimulus to the researches of geographers, and, in fact, set the fashion of discovery. Men's minds were drawn into this special channel; and it remained for Christopher Columbus first to form a sound theory out of the conflicting views of the cosmographers, and finally to carry out that theory with the boldness and resolution which have made his name one of those beacon-fires which carry on from period to period the tidings of the world's great history through successive ages. ”

“ Well would it have been for Spain had those who followed in the track of Columbus possessed his sound policy and liberal views. The New World, in such cases, would have been settled by pacific colonists, and civilized by enlightened legislators; instead of being overrun by desperate adventurers, and desolated by avaricious conquerors.
Columbus was a man of quick sensibility, liable to great excitement, to sudden and strong impressions, and powerful impulses. He was naturally irritable and impetuous, and keenly sensible to injury and injustice ”