“During the voyage Columbus remained continually on deck.  Sleeping at the prow, his face towards the new world, he saw already in his dreams the accomplishment of his hopes.”

On goes the picture.  Christopher in the prow of the caravel (in the movies a prow is made by putting two little board fences together and propping up a bowsprit lengthwise over them).  Columbus sits up, peers intently into the darkness, his hand to his brow—­registers a look.  Do I see America?  No.  Lies down, shuts his eyes and falls into an instantaneous movie sleep.  His face fades out slowly to music, which means that he is going to dream.  Then on the screen the announcement is shown: 

Spirit of America...  Miss E. Dickenson

and here we have Miss Dickenson floating in the air above Columbus.  She wears nothing except mosquito netting, but she has got on enough of it to get past the censor of the State of New York.  Just enough, apparently.

Miss E. Dickenson is joined by a whole troop of Miss Dickensons all in white mosquito netting.  They go through a series of beautiful evolutions, floating over the sleeping figure of Columbus.  The dance they do is meant to typify, or rather to signify,—­as a matter of fact we needn’t worry much about what it signified.  It is an allegory, done in white mosquito netting.  That is generally held to be quite enough.  Let us go back to the book—­

“After a storm-tossed voyage of three months...”

Wait a bit.  Turn on the picture again and toss the caravels up and down.

“...during which the food supply threatened to fail...”

Put that on the screen, please.  Columbus surrounded by ten sailors, dividing up a potato.

“...the caravels arrived in safety at the beautiful island of San Salvador.  Columbus, bearing the banner of Spain, stepped first ashore.  Surrounded by a wondering crowd of savages he prostrated himself upon the beach and kissed the soil of the New World that he had discovered.”

All this is so easy that it’s too easy.  It runs into pictures of itself.  Anybody, accustomed to the movies, can see Columbus with his banner and the movie savages hopping up and down around him.  Movie savages are gay, gladsome creatures anyway, and hopping up and down is their chief mode of expressing themselves.  Add to them a sandy beach, with palm trees waving visibly in the wind (it is always windy in the movies) and the thing is done.

Just one further picture is needed to complete the film.

“Columbus who returned to Europe to lay at the feet of the Spanish sovereigns the world he had discovered, fell presently under the disfavour of the court, and died in poverty and obscurity, a victim of the ingratitude of princes.”

Last picture.  Columbus dying under the poignant circumstances known only in the movies—­a garret room—­ceiling lower than ever—­a truckle bed, narrow enough to kill him if all else failed—­Teresa Colombo his aged mother alone at his bedside—­she offers him medicine in a long spoon—­(this shows, if nothing else would, that the man is ill)—­he shakes his head—­puts out his hand and rests it on the little globe—­reaches feebly for his compasses—­can’t manage it—­rolls up his eyes and fades.