coverer of the land of
his imagining, and as he stood on the deck Colombo mused.
"Now this is a sorrowful jest and a very unfair jest that is happening,"
said he. "For I who have dreamed a beautiful dream of the land of my
imagining will quite probably henceforth be known only as the discoverer
of what will turn out to be merely one more hideous and stupid country."
And tears came to the eyes of Colombo, for on the waves behind him
floated the torn and scattered pages of the poem which sang the imagined
vision of Beauty of him whom men long and long ago called the Dreamer.
Thus it was in the old days.
ANALYSIS AND SUMMARY OF THE FOREGOING ARTICLE In the Manner of Dr. Frank
Crane
There is a lesson for us all in this beautiful story of how Columbus
realized his ambition to be a great discoverer.
Men called Columbus a Dreamer--but that is just what folks once said
about Thomas A. Edison and Henry Ford.
The world has a place for Dreamers--if they are Practical Dreamers.
Columbus was ambitious. Ambition is a great thing if it is unselfish
ambition. By unselfish I mean for the greatest good of the greatest
number. Shakespeare, the great teacher, shows us in "Macbeth" what
happens to the selfishly ambitious man.
Columbus got ahead by paying attention to small details. Whatever he
did, he did to the best of his ability. Even when engaged in teaching
geography to the Queen, Columbus was the best geography teacher he knew
how to be. And before long he was made Royal Geographer.
In our daily lives let us all resolve to be good teachers of geography.
We may not all become Royal Geographers--but there will be to us the
lasting satisfaction of having done our best. And that, as a greater
than I has said, is "more precious than rubies--yea, than much fine
gold".
Chapter Three
MAIN STREET: Plymouth, Mass.
In the Manner of Sinclair Lewis
I
1620.
Late autumn.
The sour liver-colored shores of America.
Breaking waves dashing too high on a stern and rockbound coast.
Woods tossing giant branches planlessly against a stormy sky.
Cape Cod Bay--wet and full of codfish. The codfish--wet and full of
bones.
Standing on the deck of the anchored "Mayflower", gazing reflectively at
the shores of the new world, is Priscilla Kennicott.
A youthful bride on a ship full of pilgrims; a lily floating in a dish
of prunes; a cloissone vase in a cargo of oil cans.
Her husband joins her. Together they go
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