more
kindly to the stranger, whom the greatness of his mission inspired with
eloquence. Like the saint of the convent, she, and she alone of her
splendid court, divined that there was something to be heeded in the
words of Columbus, and gave her womanly and royal encouragement,
although too much engrossed with the conquest of Grenada and the cares
of her kingdom to pay that immediate attention which Columbus entreated.

I may not dwell on the vexatious delays and the protracted
discouragements of Columbus after the Queen had given her ear to his
enthusiastic prophecies of the future glories of the kingdom. To the
court and to the universities and to the great ecclesiastics he was
still a visionary and a needy adventurer; and they quoted, in refutation
of his theory, those Scripture texts which were hurled in greater wrath
against Galileo when he announced his brilliant discoveries. There are,
from some unfathomed reason, always texts found in the sacred writings
which seem to conflict with both science and a profound theology; and
the pedants, as well as the hypocrites and usurpers, have always
shielded themselves behind these in their opposition to new opinions. I
will not be hard upon them, for often they are good men, simply unable
to throw off the shackles of ages of ignorance and tyranny. People
should not be subjected to lasting reproach because they cannot
emancipate themselves from prevailing ideas. If those prejudiced
courtiers and scholastics who ridiculed Columbus could only have seen
with his clearer insight, they might have loaded him with favors. But
they were blinded and selfish and envious. Nor was it until Columbus
convinced his sovereigns that the risk was small for so great a promised
gain, that he was finally commissioned to undertake his voyage. The
promised boon was the riches of Oriental countries, boundless and
magnificent,--countries not to be discovered, but already known, only
hard and perhaps impossible to reach. And Columbus himself was so
firmly persuaded of the existence of these riches, and of his ability to
secure them, and they were so exaggerated by his imagination, that his
own demands were extravagant and preposterous, as must have seemed to an
incredulous court,--that he, a stranger, an adventurer, almost a beggar
even, should in case of success be made viceroy and admiral over the
unexplored realm, and with a tenth of all the riches he should collect
or seize; and that these high o