rich and famous.

This was not an absurd speculation to a man of the intellect and
knowledge of Columbus. To his mind there were but few physical
difficulties if he only had the ships, and the men bold enough to
embark with him, and the patronage which was necessary for so novel
and daring an enterprise. The difficulties to be surmounted were
not so much physical as moral. It was the surmounting of moral
difficulties which gives to Columbus his true greatness as a man of
genius and resources. These moral obstacles were so vast as to be
all but insurmountable, since he had to contend with all the
established ideas of his age,--the superstitions of sailors, the
prejudices of learned men, and general geographical ignorance. He
himself had neither money, nor ships, nor powerful friends. Nobody
believed in him; all ridiculed him; some insulted him. Who would
furnish money to a man who was supposed to be half crazy,--
certainly visionary and wild; a rash adventurer who would not only
absorb money but imperil life? Learned men would not listen to
him, and powerful people derided him, and princes were too absorbed
in wars and pleasure to give him a helping hand. Aid could come
only from some great state or wealthy prince; but both states and
princes were deaf and dumb to him. It was a most extraordinary
inspiration of genius in the fifteenth century which created, not
an opinion, but a conviction that Asia could be reached by sailing
west; and how were common minds to comprehend such a novel idea?
If a century later, with all the blaze of reviving art and science
and learning, the most learned people ridiculed the idea that the
earth revolved around the sun, even when it was proved by all the
certitudes of mathematical demonstration and unerring observations,
how could the prejudiced and narrow-minded priests of the time of