Page:The life of Christopher Columbus.djvu/88

64 putting off until to-morrow what should be done to-day. He knew the value of time. He was never seen acting at random, or outside of the dictates of duty or of good sense. In nothing did he stop at the good, if he expected to be able to arrive at the better.

Affectionate to his relations and friends, affable to those about him, showing his inferiors the kindness of superiority, graced with an urbanity which is not learned on shipboard, his ease of elocution, the graphic turn of his images, his expressions, often hardy, but always happy, rendered his conversation attractive.

Notwithstanding this habitual suavity, Columbus was by nature impatient, and inclined to anger. But this first impulse never injured anybody but himself. Reflection, not less sudden than the transport, mastered the latter, and effectually repressed its sallies. It would appear that this extreme irritability was given him as a test, an occasion, to strive against himself; to subdue his natural inclination; to overcome this internal obstacle before surmounting exterior ones. Trials calculated to produce the greatest impatience were the lot of him who was to be a model of patience itself, in order to accomplish his ever-enduring work.

Remembering his father's example, and his mother's pious recommendations, Christopher preserved on shipboard the Christian habits of his childhood. We know, from his own testimony, how much the sea was an inexhaustible source of his aspirations towards God. From his arrival in Lisbon, he went regularly every morning to mass in the church of All Saints, adjoining a convent of nuns. His air of distinction, and the piety of his demeanor, were remarked through the grating of the cloister. A noble young lady who was there among the boarders, took the most lively interest in him. Wishing absolutely to become acquainted with him, her tender curiosity invented a means of doing so.

Her name was Doña Felippa Perestrello. She was a daughter of Bartholomew Mognis de Perestrello, an Italian