The Project Gutenberg EBook of 1492, by Mary Johnston

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Title: 1492

Author: Mary Johnston

Posting Date: September 26, 2008 [EBook #1692]
Release Date: March, 1999

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1492 ***

Produced by Charles Keller, and Martin Robb

1492

By Mary Johnson

1492

CHAPTER I

THE morning was gray and I sat by the sea near Palos in a gray mood. I
was Jayme de Marchena, and that was a good, _old Christian_ name. But
my grandmother was Jewess, and in corners they said that she never truly
recanted, and I had been much with her as a child. She was dead, but
still they talked of her. Jayme de Marchena, looking back from the
hillside of forty-six, saw some service done for the Queen and the folk.
This thing and that thing. Not demanding trumpets, but serviceable. It
would be neither counted nor weighed beside and against that which Don
Pedro and the Dominican found to say. What they found to say they made,
not found. They took clay of misrepresentation, and in the field
of falsehood sat them down, and consulting the parchment of malice,
proceeded to create. But false as was all they set up, the time would
cry it true.

It was reasonable that I should find the day gray.

Study and study and study, year on year, and at last image a great
thing, just under the rim of the mind's ocean, sending up for those who
will look streamers above horizon, streamers of colored and wonderful
light! Study and reason and with awe and delight take light from above.
Dream of good news for one and all, of life given depth and brought into
music, dream of giving the given, never holding it back, which would be
avarice and betraying! Write, and give men and women to read what you
have written, and believe--poor Deluded!--that they also feel inner
warmth and light and rejoice.

Oh, gray the sea and gray the shore!

But some did feel it.

The Dominican, when it fell into his hands, called it perdition.
A Jewess for grandmother, and Don Pedro for enemy. And now the
Dominican--the Dominicans!

The Queen and the King made edict against the Jews, and there sat the
Inquisition.

I was--