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 Columbus, who controlled the most important affairs of state, be made to comprehend that an unknown ocean, full of terrors, could be crossed by frail ships, and that even a successful voyage would open marts of inexhaustible wealth?  All was clear enough to this scientific and enterprising mariner; and the inward assurance that he was right in his calculation gave to his character a blended boldness, arrogance, and dignity which was offensive to men of exalted station, and ill became a stranger and adventurer with a thread-bare coat, and everything which indicated poverty, neglect, and hardship, and without any visible means of living but by the making and selling of charts.

Hence we cannot wonder at the seventeen years of poverty, neglect, ridicule, disappointment, and deferred hopes, such as make the heart sick, which elapsed after Columbus was persuaded of the truth of his theory, before he could find anybody enlightened enough to believe in him, or powerful enough to assist him.  Wrapped up in those glorious visions which come only to a man of superlative genius, and which make him insensible to heat and cold and scanty fare, even to reproach