Yes, in every country, through all time, there has always been some Columbus, walkin' with his feet on the ground amongst mortals, and his head in the Heavens amongst Gods.
He has oftenest been poor, and always misunderstood, and undervalued, by the grosser souls about him.
The discoverers, the inventors, whom God loves best, it must be, sence He confides in 'em, and tells 'em things He keeps hid from the World. Them who apprehend while yet they cannot comprehend.
And that is what we have got to do lots of times if we git along any in this World, if we calculate to git out of its Swamps and Morasses onto any considerable rise of ground.
You can't foller a ground-mice or a snail, if you lay out to elevate yourself; no, you must foller a Star.
You have got to keep your eyes up above the ground, or your feet will never take you up any mountain side.
And how them mariners tried to make Columbus turn back after he had at last, through all his tribulations, sot sail on the broad, treacherous Ocean—jest think of his tribulations before he started!
Troubles with poverty, and ignorance, and unbelief, and perils by foes, and perils by false friends, and perils by long delay.
How for years and years he carried round them strong beliefs of hisen, ofttimes in a hungry and faint body, and couldn't git nobody to believe in 'em—couldn't git nobody to even hear about 'em.
Year after year did he toil and endeavor to git somebody to listen to his plans, and glowin' hopes.
Year after year, while the lines deepened on his patient face, and the hopes that wuz glowin' and eager became deep and fervent, and a part of him.
How strange, how strange and sort o' pitiful, this one man out of a world full of men and wimmen, this one man with his tired feet on the dust and worn sand of the Old World, and his head and heart in the New World.
No one else of the world full of men and wimmen to believe as he did—no one else to be even willin' to hear him talk about his dreams, his hopes, and impassioned beliefs.
No; and I don't know but Columbus would have dropped right down in his tracts, and we wouldn't have been discovered to this day, if a woman hadn't stepped in, and gin the seal of her earnest trust to the ideal of the ambitious man.
He a-willin' to plough the new path into the ontried fields, she a-bein' willin' to hold the plough, as you may say, or, at all events, to help him in every way in her power—with all her womanly faith, and all her ear-rings, and breast-pins, etc., etc.
She, a female woman, out of all that world full of folks, she it wuz alone that stood out boldly the friend of Columbus and Discovery.
"Male and female created He them." Another deep instance of that great truth in life and in nature, and in all matters relatin' to the good of the world. "Male and female created He them."
The world will find it out after awhile, and so will Dr. Buckley.
Ferdinand wuz a good creeter—or that is, middlin' good; but his eye-sight wuzn't such as would see down clear through the truth of Columbuses theory.
And if folks set out to blame Ferdinand too much, let 'em pause and think what the World would say and do if a man should appear in our streets to-day, and say that he believed that he had proof that there wuz a vast, beautiful country a-layin' in the skies to the west of us beyend the clouds of the sunset, and he wanted to git money to build a air-ship to sail out to it.
How much money would he git? How much stock would he sell in that enterprise? How many men would he git to sail out with him on that voyage of Discovery? What would Vanderbilt and Russell Sage say to it?
Why, they would say that the man wuz a fool, and that the only way to travel wuz on iron rails or steamships. They would say that there wuzn't any such land as he depictered. That it existed only in his crazy brain.
Wall, it wuz jest about as wild a idee that Ferdinand had to listen to; I d'no that he wuz any more to blame than they would be for not hearin' to it.
But Isabelle, she wuz built different. There wuz some divine atmosphere of Truth and Reality about this idee that reached her heart and mind. Her soul and mind bein' made in jest the right way to be touched by it.
She, too, wuz built on jest the right plan so she could apprehend what she could not yet comprehend. So she gin him her cordial sympathy, and also, as I said, her ear-rings, etc.
But after the years and years that he toiled and labored for the means to carry out his idees—after these long years of effort and hardship, and disappointments and delays—after his first vain efforts—after he did at last git launched out on the Ocean a-sailin' out on the broad, empty waste in search of sunthin' that he see only in his mind's eye—
How the storms beat on him—how the winds and waves buffeted him, and tried to drive him back—but—"No, no, he wuz bound for the New Land! he wuz bound for the West!"
How the sailors riz up and plead with him and begged him to turn back—but "No," sez he, "I go to the New Land!"
Then they would tell him that there wuzn't any such Land, and stick to it right up and down, and jeer at him.
Did it turn him round—"No! I sail onward," sez he, "I go to the West!"
Then the principalities and powers of the onseen World seemed to take it in hand and tried to drive him back. There wuz signs and omens seen that wuz reckoned disastrous, and threatened destruction.
Mebby the souls of them who had passed over from the New Land, mebby them disembodied faithful shades wuz a-tryin' to save their free sunny huntin' grounds from the hands of the invader, and their race from the fate that threatened 'em—mebby they hurled onseen tommyhawks, and shrieked down at 'em, tryin' to turn 'em back—
Mebby they did, and then agin mebby they didn't.
But anyway, there wuz lurid lightin' flashes that looked like flights of fiery arrows aimed at the heads of the Spanish seamen, and shriekin's of the tempest amidst the sails overhead that sounded like cries of anger, and distress, and warnin'.
Did Columbus heed them fearful warnin's and turn back? No; dauntless and brave, a-facin' dangers onseen, as well as seen, he sez—
"I sail onward!"
And so he did, and he sailed, and he sailed—and mebby his own brave heart grew sick and faint with lookin' on the trackless waste of waters round him, and no shore in sight for days, and for days, and for days.
But if it did, he give no signs of it—"I sail onward!" he sez.
And finally the lookout way up on the dizzy mast see a light way off on the horizon, and then the night came down dark, and when the sun wuz riz up—lo! right before 'em lay the shores of the New World. And the Man's and the Woman's belief wuz proved true—and the gainsayin' World wuz proved wrong.