If we examine his life in detail we find this alternating principle of conduct revealed throughout it.  He was by nature clever, kind-hearted, rather large-souled, affectionate, and not very honest; all the acts prompted by his nature bear the stamp of these qualities.  To them his early years had probably added little except piety, sharp practice, and that uncomfortable sense, often bred amid narrow and poor surroundings, that one must keep a sharp look-out for oneself if one is to get a share of the world’s good things.  Something in his blood, moreover, craved for dignity and the splendour of high-sounding titles; craved for power also, and the fulfilment of an arrogant pride.  All these things were in his Ligurian blood, and he breathed them in with the very air of Genoa.  His mind was of the receptive rather than of the constructive kind, and it was probably through those long years spent between sea voyages and brief sojourns with his family in Genoa or Savona that he conceived that vague Idea which, as I have tried to show, formed the impulse of his life during its brief initiative period.  Having once received this Idea of discovery and like all other great ideas, it was in the air at the time and was bound to take shape in some human brain—­he had all his native and personal qualities to bring to its support.  The patience to await its course he had learned from his humble and subordinate life.  The ambition to work for great rewards was in his blood and race; and to belief in himself, his curious vein of mystical piety was able to add the support of a ready belief in divine selection.  This very time of waiting and endurance of disappointments also helped to cultivate in his character two separate qualities—­an endurance or ability to withstand infinite hardship and disappointment; and also a greedy pride that promised itself great rewards for whatever should be endured.

In all active matters Columbus was what we call a lucky man.  It was luck that brought him to Guanahani; and throughout his life this element of good luck continually helped him.  He was lucky, that is to say, in his relation with inanimate things; but in his relations with men he was almost as consistently unlucky.  First of all he was probably a bad judge of men.  His humble origin and his lack of education naturally made him distrustful.  He trusted people whom he should have regarded with suspicion, and he was suspicious of those whom he ought to have known he could trust.  If people pleased him, he elevated them with absurd rapidity to stations far beyond their power to fill, and then wondered that they sometimes turned upon him; if they committed crimes against him, he either sought to regain their favour by forgiving them, or else dogged them with a nagging, sulky resentment, and expected every one else to punish them also.  He could manage men if he were in the midst of them; there was something winning as well as commanding about