I gave him a handful of copper coins
which I thought made up a peseta, but his eyes were keener, and a sorrow
gloomed his brow which projected its shadow so darkly over us when we
went into the cathedral for one of our daily looks that we hastened to
return and make up the full peseta with another heap of coppers; a whole
sunburst of smiles illumined his face, and a rainbow of the brightest
colors arched our sky and still arches it whenever we think of that
custodian and his rehabilitated trust in man.
This seems the crevice where I can crowd in the fact that bits of family
wash hung from the rail of the old pulpit in the Court of Oranges beside
the cathedral, and a pumpkin vine lavishly decorated an arcade near a
doorway which perhaps gave into the dwelling of that very custodian. At
the same time I must not fail to urge the reader's seeing the Columbian
Museum, which is richly interesting and chiefly for those Latin and
Italian authors annotated by the immortal admiral's own hand. These give
the American a sense of him as the discoverer of our hemisphere which
nothing else could, and insurpassably render the New World credible. At
the same time they somehow bring a lump of pity and piety into the
throat at the thought of the things he did and suffered.
Pages:
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359