XIV
Hudson has no cause to quarrel with the rating that has been fixed for him in the eternal balances. All that he lost (or seemed to lose) in life has been more than made good to him in the flowing of the years since he fought out with Fate his last losing round.
In his River and Strait and Bay he has such monuments set up before the whole world as have been awarded to only one other navigator. And they are his justly. Before his time, those great waterways, and that great inland sea, were mere hazy geographical concepts. After his time they were clearly defined geographical facts. He did—and those who had seen them before him did not—make them effectively known. Here, in this city of New York—which owes to him its being—he has a monument of a different and of a nobler sort. Here, assuredly, down through the coming ages his memory will be honored actively, his name will be in men’s mouths ceaselessly, so long as the city shall endure.
And I hold that Hudson’s fame, as a most brave explorer and as a great discoverer, is not dimmed by the fact that up to a certain point he followed in other men’s footsteps; nor do I think that his glory is lessened by his seeming predestination to go on fixed lines to a fixed end. On the contrary, I think that his fame is brightened by his willingness to follow, that he might—as he did—surpass his predecessors; and that his glory is increased by the resolute firmness with which he played up to his destiny. Holding fast to his great purpose to find a passage to the East by the North, he compelled every one of Fate’s deals against him—until that last deal—to turn in his favor; and even in that last deal he won a death so heroically woful that exalted pity for him, almost as much as admiration for his great achievements, has kept his fame through the centuries very splendidly alive.