a map-maker, marrying the daughter of one of the captains of Prince
Henry the Navigator, from whom he secured a great variety of maps,
charts and memoranda. His business kept him in close touch with both
mariners and astronomers, so that he was acquainted with every
development of both discovery and theory. In more than one mind the
conviction was growing up that the eastern shore of Asia could be
reached by sailing westward from Europe--a conviction springing
naturally enough from the belief that the earth was round, which was
steadily gaining wider and wider acceptance. In fact, a Florentine
astronomer named Toscanelli furnished Columbus with a map showing how
this voyage could be accomplished, and Columbus afterwards used this map
in determining his route.

That the idea was not original with Columbus takes nothing from his
fame; his greatness lies in being the first fully to grasp its meaning,
fully to believe it, fully to devote his life to it. For the last
measure of a man's devotion to an idea is his willingness to stake his
life upon it, as Columbus staked his. The idea possessed him; there was
room in him only for a dogged determination to realize it, to trample
down such obstacles as might arise to keep him from his goal. And
obstacles enough there were, for many years of waiting and
disappointment lay before him--years during which, a shabby and
melancholy figure, laughed at and scorned, mocked by the very children
in the streets, he "begged his way from court to court, to offer to
princes the discovery of a world." And here again was his true
greatness--that he did not despair, that his spirit remained unbroken
and his high heart still capable of hope.

Yet let us not idealize him too much. The eagerness to reach the Indies
was wholly because of the riches which they possessed. The spice trade