es and dukes, and intermarried with the proudest
families of Spain; and it is also said that Ferdinand himself, after the
death of the great navigator, caused a monument to be erected to his
memory with this inscription: "To Castile and Leon Columbus gave a new
world." But no man of that century needed less than Columbus a monument
to perpetuate his immortal fame.

I think that historians belittle Columbus when they would excite our
pity for his misfortunes. They insult the dignity of all struggling
souls, and make utilitarians of all benefactors, and give false views of
success. Few benefactors, on the whole, were ever more richly rewarded
than he. He died Admiral of the Seas, a grandee of Spain,--having
bishops for his eulogists and princes for his mourners,--the founder of
an illustrious house, whose name and memory gave glory even to the
Spanish throne. And even if he had not been rewarded with material
gains, it was enough to feel that he had conferred a benefit on the
world which could scarcely be appreciated in his lifetime,--a benefit so
transcendent that its results could be seen only by future generations.
Who could adequately pay him for his services; who could estimate the
value of his gift? What though they load him to-day with honors, or cast
him tomorrow into chains?--that is the fate of all immortal benefactors
since our world began. His great soul should have soared beyond vulgar
rewards. In the loftiness of his self-consciousness he should have
accepted, without a murmur, whatever fortune awaited him. Had he merely
given to civilization a new style of buttons, or an improved envelope,
or a punch for a railway conductor, or a spring for a carriage, or a
mining tool, or a screw, or revolver, or reaper, the inventors of which
have "seen millions in them," and been cheated out of his gains, he
might have whimpered over his wrongs. How few benefactors have received
even as much as he; for he won dignities, admiration, and undying fame.
We scarcely know the names of many who have made grand bequests. Who
invented the mariner's compass? Who gave the lyre to primeval ages, or
the blacksmith's forge, or the letters of the alphabet, or the arch in
architecture, or glass for windows? Who solved the first problem of
geometry? Who first sang the odes which Homer incorporated with the
Iliad? Who first turned up the earth with a plough? Who first used the
weaver's shuttle? Who devised the cathedrals of the Middle Ages