STRANGE AND COLOSSAL MAN.
From an introduction to "The Story of Columbus," in the New York Herald, 1892.
What manner of man was this Columbus, this admiral of the seas and lord of the Indies, who gave to Castille and Leon a new world?
Was he the ill-tempered and crack-brained adventurer of the skeptic biographer, who weighed all men by the sum of ages and not by the age in which they lived, or the religious hero who carried a flaming cross into the darkness of the unknown West, as his reverential historians have painted him?
There have been over six hundred biographers of this strange and colossal man, advancing all degrees of criticism, from filial affection to religious and fanatical hate, yet those who dwell in the lands he discovered know him only by his achievements, caring nothing about the trivial weaknesses of his private life.
One of his fairest critics has said he was the conspicuous developer of a great world movement, the embodiment of the ripened aspirations of his time.
His life is enveloped in an almost impenetrable veil of obscurity; in fact, the date and the place of his birth are in dispute. There are no authentic portraits of him, though hundreds have been printed.
There are in existence many documents written by Columbus about his discoveries. When he set sail on his first voyage he endeavored to keep a log similar to the commentaries of Cæsar. It is from this log that much of our present knowledge has been obtained, but it is a lamentable fact that, while Columbus was an extraordinary executive officer, his administrative ability was particularly poor, and in all matters of detail he was so careless as to be untrustworthy. Therefore, there are many statements in the log open to violent controversy.