Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/182

 Goodrich.” There being at that time no railroads in that part of the State which I was to visit, Judge Goodrich and I rode in a buggy from place to place, to small country towns and sparsely populated settlements. He was a middle-aged man of slim stature, a clean-shaven, somewhat haggard face, and lively dark eyes. I soon discovered in him one of those “originals” who at that time seemed to abound in the new country. I do not know from what part of the Union he had come. He had received more than an ordinary school education. His conversation was, indeed, rather liberally interspersed with those over-emphatic terms of affirmation which are much in use on the frontier, so that it seemed the Judge liked to appear as one of the people. But sometimes he made keen observations touching a variety of subjects—political, historical, philosophical, even theological—which betrayed an uncommonly active and independent mind and extensive reading. As we became better acquainted he began to confide to me the favorite trend of his studies. It was the discovery and unmasking of sham characters in history. He had, upon close investigation, found that some men whom conventional history called very good and great, had not been good and great at all, and did not deserve the credit which for centuries had, by common consent, been bestowed upon them, but that, in fact, that credit and praise belonged to others. His pet aversion was Christopher Columbus. His researches and studies had convinced him that Christopher Columbus had made his voyage of discovery according to the log-book of a shipwrecked seaman who had sought shelter with him, whom he had treacherously murdered, and whose belongings he had made his own. Judge Goodrich told me long stories of the misdeeds of Christopher Columbus which he had found out in their true character. He spoke of the so-called “Great Discoverer of the New World” with intense