It is February, 1492. A poor man, with gray hair, disheartened and
dejected, is going out of the gate from the beautiful Alhambra, in
Granada, on a mule. Ever since he was a boy, he has been haunted with
the idea that the earth is round. He has believed that the pieces of
carved wood, picked up four hundred miles at sea, and the bodies of two
men, unlike any other human beings known, found on the shores of
Portugal, have drifted from unknown lands in the west. But his last
hope of obtaining aid for a voyage of discovery has failed. King John
of Portugal, under pretense of helping him, has secretly sent out an
expedition of his own. His friends have abandoned him; he has begged
bread; has drawn maps to keep him from starving, and lost his wife; his
friends have called him crazy, and have forsaken him. The council of
wise men, called by Ferdinand and Isabella, ridicule his theory of
reaching the east by sailing west. "But the sun and moon are round,"
replies Columbus, "why not the earth?" "If the earth is a ball, what
holds it up?" the wise men ask. "What holds the sun and moon up?"
Columbus replies.
A learned doctor asks, "How can men walk with their heads hanging down,
and their feet up, like flies on a ceiling?" "How can trees grow with
their roots in the air?" "The water would run out of the ponds, and we
should fall off," says another. "The doctrine is contrary to the Bible,
which says, 'The heavens are stretched out like a tent.'" "Of course it
is flat; it is rank heresy to say it is round."
He has waited seven long years. He has had his last interview, hoping
to get assistance from Ferdinand and Isabella after they drive the
Moors out of Spain. Isabella was almost persuaded, but finally refused.
He is now old, his last hope has fled; the ambition of his life has
failed. He hears a voice calling him. He looks back and sees an old
friend pursuing him on a horse, and beckoning him to come back. He saw
Columbus turn away from the Alhambra, disheartened, and he hastens to
the queen and tells her what a great thing it would be, at a trifling
expense, if what the sailor believes should prove true. "It shall be
done," Isabella replies. "I will pledge my jewels to raise the money;
call him back." Columbus turns back, and with him turns the world.
Three frail vessels, little larger than fishing boats, the Santa Maria,
the Pinta, and the Nina, set sail from Palos, August 3, 1492, for an
unknown land, upon untried seas; the sailors would not volunteer, but
were forced to go by the king. Friends ridiculed them for following a
crazy man to certain destruction, for they believed the sea beyond the
Canaries was boiling hot. "What if the earth is round?" they said, "and
you sail down the other side, how can you get back again? Can ships
sail up hill?"
Only three days out, the Pinto's signal of distress is flying; she has
broken her rudder. September 8 they discover a broken mast covered with
seaweed floating in the sea. Terror seizes the sailors, but Columbus
calms their fears with pictures of gold and precious stones of India.
September 13, two hundred miles west of the Canaries, Columbus is
horrified to find that the compass, his only guide, is failing him, and
no longer points to the north star. No one had yet dreamed that the
earth turns on its axis. The sailors are ready for mutiny, but Columbus
tells them the north star is not exactly in the north. October 1 they
are two thousand three hundred miles from land, though Columbus tells
the sailors one thousand seven hundred. Columbus discovers a bush in
the sea, with berries on it, and soon they see birds and a piece of
carved wood. At sunset, the crew kneel upon the deck and chant the
vesper hymn. It is sixty-seven days since they left Palos, and they
have sailed nearly three thousand miles, only changing their course
once. At ten o'clock at night they see a light ahead, but it vanishes.
Two o'clock in the morning, October 12, Roderigo de Friana, on watch at
the masthead of the Pinta, shouts, "Land! land! land!" The sailors are
wild with joy, and throw themselves on their knees before Columbus, and
ask forgiveness. They reach the shore, and the hero of the world's
greatest expedition unfolds the flag of Spain and takes possession of
the new world. Perhaps no greater honor was ever paid man than Columbus
received on his return to Ferdinand and Isabella. Yet, after his second
visit to the land he discovered, he was taken back to Spain in chains,
and finally died in poverty and neglect; while a pickle dealer of
Seville, who had never risen above second mate, on a fishing vessel,
Amerigo Vespucci, gave his name to the new world. Amerigo's name was
put on an old chart or sketch to indicate the point of land where he
landed, five years after Columbus discovered the country, and this
crept into print by accident.
"BERNARD OF THE TUILERIES"
Opposite the entrance to the Sevres Museum in the old town of Sevres,
in France, stands a handsome bronze statue of Bernard Palissy, the
potter. Within the museum are some exquisite pieces of pottery known as
"Palissy ware." They are specimens of the art of Palissy, who spent the
best years of his life toiling to discover the mode of making white
enamel.
The story of his trials and sufferings in seeking to learn the secret,
and of his final triumph over all difficulties, is an inspiring one.
Born in the south of France, as far back as the year 1509, Bernard
Palissy did not differ much from an intelligent, high-spirited American
boy of the twentieth century. His parents were poor, and he had few of
the advantages within the reach of the humblest child in the United
States to-day. In spite of poverty, he was cheerful, light hearted, and
happy in his great love for nature, which distinguished him all through
life. The forest was his playground, his companions the birds, insects,
and other living things that made their home there.
From the first, Nature was his chief teacher. It was from her, and her
alone, he learned the lessons that in after years made him famous both
as a potter and a scientist. The habit of observation seemed natural to
him, for without suggestions from books or older heads, his eyes and
ears noticed all that the nature student of our day is drilled into
observing.
The free, outdoor life of the forest helped to give the boy the
strength of mind and body which afterward enabled him, in spite of the
most discouraging conditions, to pursue his ideal. He was taught how to
read and write, and from his father learned how to paint on glass. From
him he also learned the names and some of the properties of the
minerals employed in painting glass. All the knowledge that in after
years made him an artist, a scientist, and a writer, was the result of
his unaided study of nature. To books he was indebted for only the
smallest part of what he knew.
Happy and hopeful, sunshiny of face and disposition, Bernard grew from
childhood to youth. Then, when he was about eighteen, there came into
his heart a longing to try his fortune in the great world which lay
beyond his forest home. Like most country-bred boys of his age, he felt
that he had grown too large for the parent nest and must try his wings
elsewhere. In his case there was, indeed, little to induce an ambitious
boy to stay at home. The trade of glass painting, which in previous
years had been a profitable one, had at that time fallen somewhat out
of favor, and there was not enough work to keep father and son busy.
When he shouldered his scanty wallet and bade farewell to father and
mother, and the few friends and neighbors he knew in the straggling
forest hamlet, Bernard Palissy closed the first chapter of his life.
The second was a long period of travel and self-education.
He wandered through the forest of Ardennes, making observations and
collecting specimens of minerals, plants, reptiles, and insects. He
spent some years in the upper Pyrenees, at Tarbes. From Antwerp in the
east he bent his steps to Brest, in the most westerly part of Brittany,
and from Montpellier to Nismes he traveled across France. During his
wanderings he supported himself by painting on glass, portrait painting
(which he practiced after a fashion), surveying, and planning sites for
houses and gardens. In copying or inventing patterns for painted
windows, he had acquired a knowledge of geometry and considerable skill
in the use of a rule and compass. His love of knowledge for its own
sake made him follow up the study of geometry, as far as he could
pursue it, and hence his skill as a surveyor.
At this time young Palissy had no other object in life than to learn.
His eager, inquiring mind was ever on the alert. Wherever his travels
led him, he sought information of men and nature, always finding the
latter his chief instructor. He painted and planned that he might live
to probe her secrets. But the time was fast approaching when a new
interest should come into his life and overshadow all others.
After ten or twelve years of travel, he married and settled in Saintes
where he pursued, as his services were required, the work of glass
painter and surveyor. Before long he grew dissatisfied with the dull
routine of his daily life. He felt that he ought to do more than make a
living for his wife and children. There were two babies now to be cared
for as well as his wife, and he could not shoulder his wallet, as in
the careless days of his boyhood, and wander away in search of
knowledge or fortune.
About this time an event happened which changed his whole life. He was
shown a beautiful cup of Italian manufacture. I give in his own words a
description of the cup, and the effect the sight of it had on him. "An
earthen cup," he says, "turned and enameled with so much beauty, that
from that time I entered into controversy with my own thoughts,
recalling to mind several suggestions that some people had made to me
in fun, when I was painting portraits. Then, seeing that these were
falling out of request in the country where I dwelt, and that glass
painting was also little patronized, I began to think that if I should
discover how to make enamels, I could make earthen vessels and other
things very prettily, because God has gifted me with some knowledge of
drawing."
His ambition was fired at once. A definite purpose formed itself in his
mind. He knew nothing whatever of pottery. No man in France knew the
secret of enameling, which made the Italian cup so beautiful, and
Palissy had not the means to go to Italy, where he probably could have
learned it. He resolved to study the nature and properties of clays,
and not to rest until he had discovered the secret of the white enamel.
Delightful visions filled his imagination. He thought within himself
that he would become the prince of potters, and would provide his wife
and children with all the luxuries that money could buy. "Thereafter,"
he wrote, "regardless of the fact that I had no knowledge of clays, I
began to seek for the enamels as a man gropes in the dark."
Palissy was a young man when he began his search for the enamel; he was
past middle life when his labors were finally rewarded. Groping like a
man in the dark, as he himself said, he experimented for years with
clays and chemicals, but with small success. He built with his own
hands a furnace at the back of his little cottage in which to carry on
his experiments. At first his enthusiasm inspired his wife and
neighbors with the belief that he would succeed in his efforts. But
time went on, and as one experiment after another failed or was only
partially successful, one and all lost faith in him. He had no friend
or helper to buoy him up under his many disappointments. Even his wife
reproached him for neglecting his regular work and reducing herself and
her children to poverty and want, while he wasted his time and strength
in chasing a dream. His neighbors jeered at him as a madman, one who
put his plain duty aside for the gratification of what seemed to their
dull minds merely a whim. His poor wife could hardly be blamed for
reproaching him. She could neither understand nor sympathize with his
hopes and fears, while she knew that if he followed his trade, he could
at least save his family from want. It was a trying time for both of
them. But who ever heard tell of an artist, inventor, discoverer, or
genius of any kind being deterred by poverty, abuse, ridicule, or
obstacles of any kind from the pursuit of an ideal!
After many painful efforts, the poor glass painter had succeeded in
producing a substance which he believed to be white enamel. He spread
it on a number of earthenware pots which he had made, and placed them
in his furnace. The extremities to which he was reduced to supply heat
to the furnace are set forth in his own words: "Having," he says,
"covered the new pieces with the said enamel, I put them into the
furnace, still keeping the fire at its height; but thereupon occurred
to me a new misfortune which caused great mortification, namely, that
the wood having failed me, I was forced to burn the palings which
maintained the boundaries of my garden; which being burnt also, I was
forced to burn the tables and the flooring of my house, to cause the
melting of the second composition. I suffered an anguish that I cannot
speak, for I was quite exhausted and dried up by the heat of the
furnace. Further, to console me, I was the object of mockery; and even
those from whom solace was due ran crying through the town that I was
burning my floors, and in this way my credit was taken from me, and I
was regarded as a madman.
"Others said that I was laboring to make false money, which was a
scandal under which I pined away, and slipped with bowed head through
the streets like a man put to shame. No one gave me consolation, but,
on the contrary, men jested at me, saying, 'It was right for him to die
of hunger, seeing that he had left off following his trade!' All these
things assailed my ears when I passed through the street; but for all
that, there still remained some hope which encouraged and sustained me,
inasmuch as the last trials had turned out tolerably well; and
thereafter I thought that I knew enough to get my own living, although
I was far enough from that (as you shall hear afterward)."
This latest experiment filled him with joy, for he had at last
discovered the secret of the enamel. But there was yet much to be
learned, and several years more of extreme poverty and suffering had to
be endured before his labors were rewarded with complete success. But
it came at last in overflowing measure, as it almost invariably does to
those who are willing to work and suffer privation and persevere to the
end.
His work as a potter brought Palissy fame and riches. At the invitation
of Catherine de' Medici, wife of King Henry II of France, he removed to
Paris. He established a workshop in the vicinity of the royal Palace of
the Tuileries, and was thereafter known as "Bernard of the Tuileries."
He was employed by the king and queen and some of the greatest nobles
of France to embellish their palaces and gardens with the products of
his beautiful art.
Notwithstanding his lack of schooling, Bernard Palissy was one of the
most learned men of his day. He founded a Museum of Natural History,
wrote valuable books on natural science, and for several years
delivered lectures on the same subject. His lectures were attended by
the most advanced scholars of Paris, who were astonished at the extent
and accuracy of his knowledge of nature. But he was as modest as he was
wise and good, and when people wondered at his learning, he would reply
with the most unaffected simplicity, "I have had no other book than the
sky and the earth, known to all."
No more touching story of success, in spite of great difficulties, than
Bernard Palissy's has been written. It is bad to think that after the
terrible trials which he endured for the sake of his art, his last
years also should have been clouded by misfortune. During the civil war
which raged in France between the Huguenots and the Catholics, he was,
on account of his religious views, imprisoned in the Bastile, where he
died in 1589, at the age of eighty.