things. Viewing the past and glimpsing the future of American
history I cannot help feeling that Browning had us perhaps
unconsciously in mind when he wrote:

God's in his heaven: All's right with the world!



Chapter Two

CRISTOFER COLOMBO A Comedy of Discovery. In the Manner of James
Branch Cabell

In fourteen hundred ninety two In the city of Genoa.
--Old Song.

They of Genoa tell with a shrug how in the old days Cristofer
Colombo whom men called the Dreamer left Dame Colombo to go in
search of the land of his imagining.

And the tale tells how, on a twilight Thursday, Colombo walked
alone on the edge of a doubtful wood, and viewed many things not
salutary to notice. And there came to him one who was as
perversely tall as a certain unmentionable object and bearded in
a manner it is not convenient to describe.

But Colombo set about that which the stranger said was necessary
and when he had finished he drank the contents of the curious
skull as had been foretold on a certain All-Saints day. Then it
was that the stranger spoke.