The story of the great Genoese possesses a more thrilling interest than any narrative which the imagination of poet or romancer has ever conceived. The tales of the Arabian Nights, with all their wealth of fancy, are insipid and insignificant compared with the authentic narrative of the adventures of the Italian mariner and his sublime discovery. Familiar as we are with it from childhood, from the greatness of the empire he gave to Christendom, the tale has still a fascination, however often repeated, while the visible memorials of his greatness and his trials revive all our veneration for his intellect and all our interest in the story of his career. His name flashes a bright ray over the mental darkness of the period in which he lived, for men generally were then but just awakening from the dark 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, considering the period. The Portuguese mariners were venturing farther and farther from the peninsula ports, and traded with different stations on the coast of Africa.
But to the _west_ lay what men supposed to be an illimitable ocean, full of mystery, peril and death. A vague conception that islands, hitherto unknown, might be met with afar off on that strange wilderness of waters, like oases in a desert, was entertained by some minds, but no one thought of venturing in quest of them. 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. We shall not wonder that he was regarded as a madman or as a fool; we are not surprised to remember that he encountered repulse upon repulse, as he journeyed wearily from court to court, and pleaded in vain for aid to the sovereigns of Europe and wise men of the cloister. But the marvel is that when gate after gate was closed against him, when all ears were deaf to his patient importunities, when day by day the opposition to his views increased, when, weary and foot-sore, he was forced to beg a morsel of bread and a cup of water for his fainting and famished boy, at the door of a Spanish convent, his reason did not give way, and his great heart did not break beneath its weight of disappointment.