So if you are permitted to look along the shelves of the public library,
you will have no concern with the great majority of the books you see
there; but here and there one will catch your eye which interests you,
and these are the ones for you to read. You have no idea how the habit
of right reading will grow upon you, and what a delightful and valuable
habit it will prove to be. Like any other good habit, it takes pains at
first to establish, an effort of will and self-control. But that very
effort helps in the forming of character, and the habit of right reading
is perhaps the best and most far-reaching in its effects that any boy or
girl can form. I hope that this little volume, and the other books which
I have mentioned, will help you to form it.
* * * * *
CHAPTER II
THE BEGINNERS
Nearly five hundred years ago, there lived, in the beautiful old Italian
city of Genoa, a poor wool-comber named Dominico Colombo, and about
1446, a son was born to him and to his wife, Susanna, and in due time
christened Christoforo.
The world into which the child was born was very different to the one in
which we live. Europe was known, and northern Africa, and western Asia;
but to the east stretched the fabulous country of the Grand Khan,
Cathay, Cipango, and farthest Ind; while to the west rolled the Sea of
Darkness, peopled with unimaginable terrors.
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