. While employed
in this capacity, he earned his first "quarter" in New York by carrying
a trunk for one of the passengers from the boat to a hotel on Broad
Street.

But his boyish ambition was to be a journalist, and, after a year of
seafaring life, he found his niche in the office of a small weekly
newspaper, the Lynx, published at Onondaga Hollow, New York.

So, at fourteen, owing to his indomitable will and perseverance, which
conquered the most formidable obstacles, Thurlow Weed started on the
career in which, despite the rugged road he still had to travel, he
built up a noble character and won international fame.

THE MAN WITH AN IDEA

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 ha