Show ar se don D on a A arm ah S tie th 0 brown 2 h amm V L 4 ml 4 X 1 jp t or V my q 7 VA 34 off icv by absye by ELMO SCOTT WATSON IIRI STOPHER COLUMBUS is one ot of the few names in our school book christopher histories which every am american e rican remembers along with that name lie he remembers the date 1401 and the fact that in that year tills this man discovered america from the tile ill information tor mation gleaned in those school histories too lie he tins lias a somewhat hazy impression that columbus 4 w was as a romantic adventurer who braved the terrors of the unknown before his it Is time had bad kept lesser men from venturing vent wring tar far out in the atlantic ocean and who finally achieved the success due such a claunt dauntless legs soul but how many americans really know anything about columbus the man or what the sum total of his bis career actually waslof was As tire day approaches for our celebration of his discovery of america ameria october 12 it Is worthy of note that a new biographer has discovered columbus for us at least this biographer presents tile the famous navigator in a new light ile he is a german jacob Wis Wasser serman raan and the result of nf ills his 20 years study of the career of christopher columbus Is a book published recently by little brown and company under the title of columbus don quixote of the seas if as one reviewer has declared lie he probably has come as near the real columbus as Is possible with the material available then the school book idea of this hero in american history needs to be revised instead of being the romantic adventurer such as we have thought him columbus stands out in this study as an impractical dreamer with tittle little sense of reality and except when inspired by his one big idea pitifully weak a man who frit away tits his opportunities by his continual search for gold and who failed ts live up to the promise shown by his single greab great achievement for which he is remembered in short he was a man who figuratively tilted with windmills throughout his life hence the characterization of don quixote of the seas A certain mystery almost suspicion hovers bovers around the figure of columbus from tile very beginning gays says iun in tile first chapter of his book everything Is ie disputed lils his character his achievement his fits development the events of his life and his origin seven towns in genoese territory contend forthe fort lie honor of having housed his cradle corsica and france have also made similar claims it may be assumed with tolerable certainty that his father wits was a poor weaver although he himself tried to suppress this fact such humble origin seemed to him a handicap for la in the days of ills his glory he used to tall talk of if his noble ancestors 1 I am ral not the first of my family he be would assert who has sailed balled the seas as an admiral on tills this account some of ills his enemies called him a liar those ulm do so have little imagination and a sorry notion of tills deep almost unfathomable nature the course of lili ills life bears much resemblance to a me medieval dieal legend over a period of 20 years wl oneth th certain intervals I 1 have been engaged on the alie study of ills his lit history story and every time I 1 took it up again I 1 liar bad to ask myself Is this authentic Is not this merely legend are not such and such events phat phal and these others no more than probable pro balile ile he rose from nothing a vagabond italian adventurer to become grand admiral of spain and viceroy of a mighty empire he paid for seen years of glory and power by sudden ruin and such humiliation as few men have ha ve known and after a feeble afterglow of tame fame he lied died a lonely death almost forgotten it is as Was sennan says truly a strange destiny and considering all the mystery that shrouds this man it Is not remarkable perhaps per hups that we should have many mistaken ideas about him one mistake lies iles in tile the fact that we to do not even spell nor pronounce ills his name naine correctly for the man whom we know us as christopher columbus was in reality cristobal colon we do not know when he was horn burn it was some time between 1430 and 1416 1446 14 16 and although he be seems to have gone to sea nt at about the age of fourteen virtually nothing Is known of his early history there Is evidence to indicate that lie wandered in many places suffered many hardships and endured great poverty which made him prematurely old for it is recorded that in ills his comparatively younger years he was already gray haired if we know lery ery little about tits ills early life it la Is mainly ills own fault for some reason he never revealed much about those years and declares that whenever lie he makes any statement about his past it Is always with the pur t va sa pose of creating a liero hero myth lie ile never knew who he was he only knew who lie wanted to be but it is in developing the cheltie of columbus as a don quixote that wassermann Was study of the great navigator Is most interesting lie ile does it in part in these words what gives the figure of columbus its don quixotic outline is not the central error that made him passionately deny until thedac of tits his death that he had discovered a new continent and a new world it is putting the matter broadly the orientation and constitution of 0 ills his inner self with all its shifts and pleadings its prejudices self defenses stipulations and extravagances so much so that I 1 cannot rid myself of tile the impression that cervantes Cervant ps must hae been influenced in Ms his conception of ills his immortal knight by tills actual prototype it Is not to be bell believed eved that so distinguished a genius created ills his world famous figure in what may be described as a private literary caprice the people of the nation have no less a part in such a magnificent vision than the immediate creator who brinn brings it to the H light ht of day the centuries labor at it in silence until the chosen brain gives it valid form ills his most remarkable trait and the one most suggesting don quixote Is his its pride even arrogance in liis ills destiny undeniably a force but it a very isolating force the most fatal effect of which is to make its possessor misunderstood and to set him apart from life who could love a don quixote except as a figure of romance who could understand him except three hundred years after his death I 1 could not hae passed a day with him I 1 should have anve found his fits observations intolerable and everything lie he did repugnant and yet what an abiding prototype of humanity of human folly delusion and greatness here his pride in his destiny or what he thought to be his destiny Is based ultimately on oil a profound of stern spanish catholic dogmatism through which the character us its the lie essence of the national entity appends greatly sublimated and softened and rich in cross lights Was sennan also points out the fact that it Is a strange paradox that this mati of uncommonly narrow mind wits was the man who as destined dest ineil to enlarge tile intellectual boundaries of his age and to revolutionize its world of ideis columbus had one big idea to which lie lie bield soui something ething which we usually regard us its tile alie characteristic act of a great man mail yet hie file german blog biographer says lie he li opil to every force from without listened to every whisper and fell a victim to every fraud another paradox in fit the case of columbus is the fact that although lie was practical astute and t in making his plans he phoned elioney himself amateurish shortsighted short sighted and capricious in out considering the lie which lie hi underwent in ills his bouth and the disappointments which lie he suffered in ili filter years it Is not strange perl that lie he should he be according to anserman Wn serman morose as a monk crafty its is it pea without a glimmer of humor n character by a single ray of cheerfulness A mail of sighs und arid lamentations misery an mid gloom but for till nil of that ills capacity for and liis lifs patience in the hearing bearing of it ere i and are strangely touching like from the life fire of a saint ue lie learnt utmost almost nothing and knew everything that might inight tene sene hk lii mils lie was its sickly and bore flip most incredible hardships with iron endurance lie sprang front the lie lowest level of society and hail had the manners of as grandee and the stile stale of a ile he knew no enjo anent of life it i home meant givant nothing to liim blin ills his wants avants ere as few us its those of a dervish yet lie died of 0 worry because lie he could not get the forty thousand pesos apesos owed liim him by the colonial administration it was tills this characteristic 0 of utter confidence in himself of unbending will pure stubbornness some might call it hach which made it difficult for him to obtain aid for ills great venture but it was as tills characteristic albo which finally won for jilin him and enabled him film to talk the monarchs of spain into outfitting outwitting out fitting him tor for ills his voyage they began by chasing him away calling liim him a rascal and a fool says then when aheu vj 1 zat ma R 1 f e A i 1 re I 1 K it 4 t Z iv q tae I 1 ass lie he did not budge they grew uneasy and gaie gae way point by point until at last they yielded everything he asked and liis ills demands certainly exactly modest but they were nere what might be expected from such a character ns as columbus consider this list the position of viceroy and governor general over nil all the islands and continents that lie might discover and occupy for spain appointment as admiral of the world sea a tenth part of all treasures pearls diamonds gold silver spices fruits arid and properties of all kinds that might be found in the lands esc lusie ownership of one eighth of the lands to be discovered including all revenues accruing and finally the inheritance of all these rights titles and dignities by ills fits successors from froin alist horn born to first born just ns as the legends which have accumulated around columbus over a period of four centuries have invested him with an aura of romance so has there grown up tip a popular idea that the lie men who went with him were it a hordy hand bund of adventurers only slightly less daring than the lender leader himself the fact Is however that funny of them went sent on this voyage is as a lc leaser cr of two evils when columbus tried to recruit it a crew for ills his enterprise lie found how flow strona was vilis the superstitious terror of the dark atlantic arming tile sallon sailors and other seafaring sen firing full folk it finally took look a royal proclamation stating staling tint thit all criminal proceedings ce would he suspended suspend od ngi agana int anyone who was willing to take sen ice on M the ships ship of the cristobal colon to get tile the number of men I 1 it seems unnecessary to say that men were round found in plenty writes the most infamous company of if ruf ruffians flans presented themselves highwaymen pirates escaped prisoners gallows birds murderers col colkers coiners co iners ners branded convicts comitts from the whole Ung kingdom dorn columbus had no choice cli olce lie he enrolled them an ridd odd reminder i of the tragic comic scene in which don quixote knocks tile the fetters off the galley slaves talks to them like lahe a knight errant and Is laughed at for liis ills pains 1 with suella such a choice set of as these and in three frail little judged by modern standards the genoese captain set forth upon ills fits quixotic journey the story of ills voyage Is a fa familiar millar one arid and depend depending ln as have biographers upon tile writings of columbus hirn himself self gives give much tilt the saine account as they have ghen gian what what tits ills subsequent career after the discovery and th alie return retain to spain was tins has already luen been lu en d to A don quixote lie he ili lived and at a don quixote he lied died according to who writes when lie he felt his last hour was near lie he sent for a notary and witnesses intending to cancel the will of as 1498 as and dri draw up another tt it begins with the dori don dictum As I 1 am ain making a free gift of india king and queen ile he continues in tile the same style it Is the same the same pompous grandiosity the same extravagance with which he had in former das clams duni dumfound founded cd tile the prior of la lin bida lie ile was now addressing posterity tin and posterity did tile best tiling thing it could do in tile the circumstances it burled buried liis ills words in silence and only kept his name and his deed in remembrance on hay alay 19 lie he gave ills his lust last instructions and on may 20 the eie of ascension day lie he died tc c by western Neus newspaper 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